While they didn’t manage to stop the longest winning streak in the state Friday night, the Hawks did turn a corner offensively. After being stymied by Vista Ridge in zero week, Hendrickson’s offense and it’s shining star Kenny Williams, were in full bloom against the Cavaliers. The team ground out over 300 yards rushing and Williams put the ball in the end zone three times. Unfortunately they were unable to hang onto that same rock when they had a chance late in the game to drive the length of the field and take the lead with a touchdown. But, like I said, the showing was a strong one and I’m pretty sure the wins will start showing up this week.

Now, if you’d told me Connally would be 2-0 after two weeks of action I’m not sure what I’d have said to you. The Cougars were a mystery to me before the season started because they had new faces in a lot of places. Those new faces now seem to be carving out an identity for Connally as a tough squad that can win a close game. This week they are on the road against LBJ. The Jaguars are 0-2 and have scored 14 points in two games. Not to count any chickens, but it looks like the Cougars have a good chance to be 3-0 by the time this week is over.

While I love high school football as much as (or probably more than) the next guy and college football is fine to pass the time on Saturday afternoons, my heart is filled with joy over the kickoff of the NFL’s season tonight (and more specifically on Sunday). Mark my words loyal readers, this is the year the Texans finally do it. Not only am I predicting the team with the NFL’s most explosive offense will make the playoffs, I’m also counting on them to win the AFC South. And it all starts this Sunday when they host the Colts in a game they should be able to win.

I’ve stuck by Houston since the days when the team didn’t have players and their cool-looking uniforms were the only things they had going for them. I bid a fond farewell to the franchise’s first coach Dom Capers and welcomed Texas A&M great Gary Kubiak when he took the job. (Did I ever mention Kubiak sat in front of me in a Bryan movie theater when I was a kid watching the movie Firefox? Well if I didn’t, then yeah, he did.) Last year the team won nine games, this year I’m thinking more along the lines of 11 or 12. I’m not going to start predicting playoff victories because those are always tricky, but just reaching the tournament will be enough for me this year, then they can build on that experience for a Super Bowl run in 2011.

At this point you might be rolling your eyes, which is your right. Maybe I’m the worst kind of fanboy – the kind with his own print pulpit, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be right. And you know what, I’m chomping at the bit to find out.

Storm Woods certainly showed he’s back. The future Oregon State Beaver ran for three touchdowns and well over 100 yards to help the Panthers finally get past Bowie. It was a strong opening salvo from Woods who, along with his team, will take this week off before heading into battle with San Antonio Reagan next week. Woods appears poised to be the workhorse for George Herrmann’s squad and I’m excited to see what kind of numbers he can put up this year.

Across town, PISD’s other Division I running back Kenny Williams (Texas Tech) had a bit of a different night. Williams, ranked by scout.com as the 15th best high school running back in the country, was bottled up by Vista Ridge, gaining just 41 yards on 13 carries, with 21 of those yards coming on his final carry of the game. You can’t really put too much blame on Williams for his poor showing. The Rangers defense was keying on him all night long and the fact no other Hawk could mount much offense took its toll on their star back. Last week I pondered whether or not Damarion Jackson could provide the supporting cast Williams needs in order for him to shine. And after one game that question persists. Once Hendrickson finds that man the team, and their star running back, are sure to roll.

The Connally Cougars year got off to a good start as they traveled to Temple and returned home with a win. This is a great sign for the Cougars who last year lost a lot of games just like this one. Numerous times in the past few years Connally has matched up well with plenty of opponents for two or three or even three and a-half quarters before eventually succumbing and taking the loss. The fact they managed to prevail in hostile territory tells me things are looking up for Cougar coach Howard McMahan. Hopefully that momentum carries forward when they open up their home schedule this week against Del Valle.

Of course you can’t be sure what this weekend holds, other than one very big fact – Hendrickson is going to have a tough time getting their first win of the year when they host Lake Travis. The Cavaliers have not lost a game in three years which is really a bit much in my opinion. I mean, come on, someone out there should be able to stop these guys – right? Well, the answer to that question appears to be no at this particular moment in time. That does not mean the Hawks don’t have a chance and if they play the game they are capable of playing they can hang with the Cavs. The question though, is will they play that game?

It’s been pretty easy for me to ignore this fact for the past few weeks. Even as I’ve covered volleyball game after volleyball game I still could put the kickoff of football season in the recesses of my mind. I was even able to kind of ignore all the e-mails that have filled up my inbox the past week or two concerning who’s covering what game and which team is playing where on any given Friday. After all, I’m the great procrastinator. But all that pretense is gone now. Friday night I will get in my car and make the short trip from my house to Hendrickson High School to watch the Hawks tangle with Vista Ridge and everything will be in full bloom. Not just football either. As I’ve already stated, volleyball is well underway as are cross country and tennis. Swimming and golf are right around the corner and before you know it, the local gymnasiums will echo with the sounds of bouncing basketballs. That’s right Chris, playtime is over. Now it’s time to get back to work.

Which, inevitably, leads me to this week’s topic, which is, my top three questions for the PISD football teams as they begin their 2010 seasons.

1. How good will Pflugerville be? During my interview with Panther coach George Herrmann for our Panther preview I told him this year’s team reminds me of the squad he had in 2007 and I’m sticking by that. That 2007 team, you remember, the one that was the state finalist, featured a load of senior running backs (Greg Nwoko, Zavier Gooden, Marcus Carruth) who had taken some lumps as juniors and then turned that experience into best football season the Panthers have had this century.

Three short years later you’ve got Storm Woods, Julian Ward and Sammy Flowers to tote the ball and Alex Dean to throw it. Alex Matlock leads a veteran defense and you already know the Panther coaches know how to make the right calls. Does this all add up to another run to the state championship game? Who knows, I certainly hope so, but getting that far has lot more to do with what happens in the next 11 weeks than it does with the way a team looks prior to the start of the year.

2. Can Damarian “T.J.” Jackson be the offensive force Hendrickson needs him to be? Kenny Williams is going to be good. Let’s get that out of the way first of all. How good he is will probably depend on the backs around him taking the bullseye off of his back. Last year, when Williams went down in Hendrickson’s first playoff game, Jackson was the guy who stepped up and dominated for the Hawks. He ran for 280 yards and six touchdowns in Hendrickson’s two playoff games and helped the Hawks to a bi-district title. Jackson is listed as Hendrickson’s quarterback but is listed as Hendricksons’ Hendrickson’s quarterback but he is truly a bruising running back in sheep’s clothing. If he can continue to run the way he did at the end of last season, the Hawks should be a legitimate threat for the district title as well as a deep playoff run.

3. Is this the year Connally’s program rebounds? Things have been tough for Cougar coach Howard McMahan in his four years at Connally. It seems like as soon as he walked in the door a whole lot of talent walked out and was not really replaced. Couple that with the fact the Cougars got moved up to 5A (and into a very tough district to boot) and you can see why Connally has not played in a playoff game since 2007. Things could change this year though. McMahan has his first group of seniors who have been in his system since they were freshman and hopefully that experience can pay off. The Cougars also are bouncing back down to 4A which should make the road back to the playoffs an easier one.

Of course these are just a few of the many questions that will pop up as the season progresses. The answers are out there, waiting for us to find them, but it will take time for them to come. And, like Homer said (more than likely in Greek) that journey is the thing. So let’s get started. I, for one, am ready to go.

Do you think volleyball players are really that excited by every point their team scores? I watched a lot of volleyball last week and that’s one thing that stuck with me. On almost every point they act like they just won the state title. I suppose the better question might be, just how excited would they be if they had just scored the final point to win the state title?

New York Giant Bobby Thomson died Monday. Thomson was a baseball great who will always be remembered by yours truly as the guy who took the time to actually write me a letter when I sent him an autograph request a few years ago. In the letter he told me he didn’t think his now famous “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” home run off Brooklyn Dodger Ralph Branca would be such a historic thing. I thought that was pretty cool and his passing seems to draw us farther away from baseball’s golden age and even further toward the me-first, money-driven world of sports we have today.

Do the mascots actually train? I know the marching bands train. In fact, I learned last year that some marching bands even do conditioning. Yes, that’s right, they actually run to get in shape for their marching. Honestly I had no idea. But that brings me back to the mascots. I wonder if the people in those furry suits do anything other than don said suits five minutes before the first football game and then go out and start waving? I suppose they should do some conditioning as well. It must be really hot inside one of those things, especially here in August. Is this something I need to investigate? Hmm.

If you only eat concession stand food on Friday nights, is it possible to get a good meal? I still yearn for the days of the Frito Pie at the Diboll High School football games when I was a kid. They were things of beauty with shredded cheese and homemade chili served from a dirty looking crock pot. Are there concessions like that around here? For the most part I either eat prior to the game or eat in the press box so I wonder if I’m missing out or has that super-secret, concession stand delicacy (you know, the one only you and your fellow fans know about) gone the way of the dodo?

And, in the biggest surprise of the day, Brett Favre is supposedly ready to start playing again. Yawn.

Whew! Well, it looks like I did it and with a little room to spare. Mascots, food, baseball legends and more Brett Favre news, all rolled into one nice little treat for your afternoon. I knew I could do it folks and with help from some of you, I actually did. Now I think it’s time for me to go take a nap and time to return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

But let me stop myself before I start bragging too much because I’ve come to a bit of a fantasy sports crossroads in my life. You see, I think fantasy sports are starting to ruin regular sports for me.

It’s not that I don’t watch regular sports any more. In fact, I probably watch them more than I ever did before. The problem is that now, instead of rooting for a particular team I tend to root for the individual players on my fantasy team, sometimes to the detriment of teams I’ve spent a lifetime rooting for.

Case in point, Monday I got home in time to catch the end of the Red Sox-Yankees game. As I turned the game on I saw the face of New York, Derek Jeter, stand in against Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon in a 2-1 game in the ninth inning. And I rooted for “Jetes” (as I affectionately call him) who is also the starting shortstop for my fantasy baseball team to get a hit. It’s not that I wanted the Yankees to win, it’s just that I wanted Jeter to generate points for my fantasy baseball team which is currently in the hunt for the playoffs. Eventually Jeter walked and stole second and Papelbon got Nick Swisher out to end the game and everyone was happy. But this brought to mind what is quickly becoming a flaw in my sports-fan character – as long as my fantasy team is winning, do I really care what happens to the actual teams I am supposedly a fan of?

Another great example comes during football season. Again, as you should know, I’m a huge Houston Texans fan. However, if the Texans are playing against a team with one of my fantasy players on it then you better believe I want that guy to score 10 touchdowns against the Texans’ sometimes pourous defense. Of course I still want Houston to win, just by a score of 77-70, instead of 24-0.

And so I ask you dear reader, where does it end? How can I ever again enjoy a game the way I used to? How can I simply root for the Red Sox or Texans or Bruins to simply win and not concern myself with the statistics that are being put up in the box score?

So I came up with the idea to end it all. To put a lock on my virtual trophy case, issue myself a cease and desist order and just sit back and enjoy a game for the sake of the game. The question now becomes, can I actually do it? After opening Pandora’s box and finding myself in love with what’s inside, can I close it? The answer, honestly, is I don’t know and I’m not really sure I even want to try. How do you give up that which you love the most, competing and (usually) winning?

If you have any idea you really should let me know, otherwise I’m certainly facing another season of football where the ultimate outcome of the game takes the backseat to the boxscore.

In just a few short days the actual volleyball season will tip off when Pflugerville squares off with former district nemesis Westlake on Monday. From there it only gets busier as the Panthers take on Hendrickson on Tuesday, then all three PISD teams jump into tournament play which will last for much of the month before they begin their actual district schedules.

Just a little over a week after the start of volleyball, the tennis teams start playing and I hear tell there’s a cross country meet Aug. 20 somewhere to the west of us (okay, I know exactly where it is, but for the time being I’m going to pretend like it’s still the first of July). In just over three weeks from the time you read this the first actual football game (not a scrimmage) will be played, as all three local squads kick off their seasons on Aug. 27. Like I said, it seems I’m going to be a pretty busy guy from here up until Christmas break.

This is the start of my seventh season covering the PISD schools and I’m expecting big things from all corners of the sports universe. I’ll be especially interested to see how the Pflugerville volleyball team looks in their game with Westlake. Most of the Panthers’ starters from last year graduated, but they are bringing back Nneka Enemkpali who sat out last year after injuring her knee in the 2009 state basketball tournament. Enemkpali is the type of talent who can make a coach quickly forget any player they have lost to graduation and I think that could very well be the case for Panther coach Jeff Coward who certainly will still miss the loss of the school’s all-time kill leader Haley Outon. Pflugerville also has one of the their top setters from last year returning in Lindsey Ernest so perhaps the Panthers will be able to finally beat a Westlake team that frustrated them for the past two years in the former District 14-5A.

As exciting as the volleyball teams should be I’m even more excited to see what our football teams (and a couple of D-I running backs in particular can do this year). Hendrickon’s Kenny Williams (Texas Tech) returns to lead the Hawks and has his sights set on 2,000 yards and at least 25 scores. That translates to close to 200 yards and two touchdowns a game if you’re bad at math.

Meanwhile the cupboard at Pflugerville High is completely stocked for Panther coach George Herrmann. Storm Woods returns from his an injury for one final romp through the Texas high school gridirons before heading to Oregon to play for Oregon State. He is joined by a mighty threesome in the Panther backfield including quarterback Alex Dean, running back Julian Ward and electric running back/wide receiver Sammy Flowers. And don’t forget tight end Jordan Moon who is a big play threat in his own right.

Of course there are plenty more story lines that will unfold as the year progresses which make waking up for the fall pretty bearable indeed.

In case you missed the story, new Dallas Cowboy wide receiver (and former Oklahoma State troublemaker) Dez Bryant refused to participate in a long-standing NFL training camp tradition. When Williams tried to get Bryant to tote his pads back into the locker room following the Cowboys’ first workout of the season, Bryant refused. He later said he’d come to the team to play football and not to carry pads.

Everyone knows Bryant came to the NFL to play football. I don’t think he really had to explain that to anyone. He also probably shouldn’t have had to tell anyone he hadn’t come to the NFL to alienate his teammates, but, after his actions perhaps that’s exactly what he’s going to have to do now. Carrying pads of the veteran players in a right of passage for rookies, kind of like singing your school’s fight song or paying for meals. It’s something everyone does and it has not been much of a big deal, up until now.

Bryant, I’m afraid is at the vanguard of a group of athletes who are coming our way who think they are special long before anyone else does (or should). Bryant is a rookie who has never played one down in the NFL who thinks he is somehow above the game and his fellow players.

And in the world of professional sports he is hardly alone. LeBron James’ name immediately springs to mind when I think of guys who have been anointed by the media before they ever deserved the accolades. In James’ case we were all told he was the best basketball player on the planet before he’d even graduated from high school. Now, seven years (and no championships) later he is surrounding himself with other superstars in an effort to prove just how good he is. I believe I said a couple weeks back that I’m sure this will work and again, I’m guessing it will, but it makes me wonder just how good James was in the first place if he has to go to such lengths to win a title.

For his part, Bryant is a wide receiver and, for some reason, diva wide receivers have kind of become the norm in the NFL. There will probably be consequences for what he did, although I doubt we will ever hear about them. The veteran players usually get their way in these situations. But, for whatever, reason, this does not ever seem to make this kind of behavior go away for good. It curtails it for a time, but then the next guy who thinks he’s God’s gift to his chosen sport comes along and the whole cycle starts again.

Later in the week Bryant tried to make it all better. He explained he had no idea carrying pads was a rookie tradition and said he would have carried all of Williams’ equipment if he had known it was. This all seems like too little too late to me. Either that, or they are the words of a guy who wants to escape training camp without getting duct-taped to a goalpost.

I briefly considered leaving you all with a greatest hits column. I think I won an award for this column once, maybe I could have dropped that on you again. I used to work with a guy who would do that. I always wondered what he was doing. I suppose he thought his writing was so good that people wouldn’t mind reading it more than once. Or maybe he just wasn’t very good at producing a weekly piece. Never fear dear reader, I certainly don’t have either one of those problems so I’ll go ahead and leave you with a little bit of treasure that will, hopefully, hold you over until next week with plenty of great stories to tell from the state that bills itself as a sportsman’s paradise (and really, that’s why I’m going on vacation there. I’m kind of a sportsman, at the very least, I’m a sports writer. Maybe I’ll come back with a new pair of gator boots!)

On paper I don’t see how the Miami Heat can’t win the NBA title next year (and probably for a few more years after that). LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh form a pretty formidable nucleus around which to build. That said, I’ll not be surprised one bit if they don’t win a title next year. Teams of all-stars put together for the sole purpose of winning a championship often fail. If you don’t believe me, think back to some of those New York Yankees teams of the 1980s.

Those teams, of course, were built by George Steinbrenner who passed away last week. Since I’m a Red Sox fan a lot of folks asked me what I thought of the passing of the Boss. I told them all that if I was a fan of any sports team I would want my team’s owner to be just like Steinbrenner. The man did everything in his power to make sure his teams won titles. Who could ask for anything more? There was no player he deemed too expensive for his club if he thought that player could help them win a World Series. And it worked. The Yankees of today are a much better ballclub than the one he purchased in the 1970s.

Finally, from the grumpy old superstar files, it seems Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley aren’t all that impressed by LeBron’s Miami move. Both of them seem to think that the supposed heir apparent to Jordan should have stayed in Cleveland and tried to beat the Heat (and everyone else) rather than teaming up with his super-friends Wade and Bosh. I hate to do it, but I have to disagree with His Airness and the Round Mound of Rebound on this one. Lebron was simply incapable on winning a title in Cleveland and, if that’s what he wanted to do, he had to leave. This may well speak to how good LeBron is or how good the team they put around him was, I’m not sure, but I think he made the right move and I’ll be interested to see how it all plays out.

I am happy to report that I liked what I saw from the Pflugerville High team at the state 7-on-7 tournament. The Panthers looked good. They showed me and everyone else who watched their games they can throw the ball and they also stirred up some excitement (at least in yours truly) for the quickly upcoming season.

It’s really hard to gauge how the Panthers stack up against their brand new (old) district. I did, however, get to watch a couple of their new district rivals, McNeil and Stony Point play and of the three schools I was most impressed by the way Pflugerville played. Alex Dean looks like a solid quarterback and he has two great targets in tight end Jordan Moon and speedster Sammy Flowers. It seems to me these three guys will give the Panthers plenty of chances to extend the field and open up plenty of running lanes for Storm Woods, Julian Ward and company.

All things considered I’m not even sure what this means. By the time district rolls around all kinds of things might have changed and don’t forget, these were games where no one was wearing pads, no lines were involved and there was no running at all, just passing. But, like I said, it gets me excited to see what this team can do once the season starts.

One final bit of business I must take care of and that’s my annual baseball predictions and my mid-season checkup. As you know, each year, prior to the start of the baseball season, I make some wild predictions here in my column about who’s going to win divisions, leagues and ultimately the World Series. And, every year, I check in at the all star break to see how I’m doing with said picks and, maybe make a second-guess pick if any of my earlier picks have turned out to be complete bunk.

Okay, here goes. It appears I picked the Yakees, White Sox and Mariners to win the AL divisions and for the Red Sox to take the wild card. At the break the Yankees and White Sox are indeed in first place while the Red Sox are three games back in the wild card. Sadly, the Mariners are in last place in the west and have just traded their top pitcher. Thus, I’m going to go ahead and jump on the Rangers bandwagon and have my choice follow Cliff Lee to Texas. I sure hope the Rangers can do something. They have a decent fan base and I really like the way Nolan Ryan is trying to run the organization. As for the wild card, I just don’t see how the Red Sox can win it if all their players keep getting hurt. Thus, I’ll go ahead and switch to Tampa Bay on that one.

In the National League I had the Phillies, Cardinals and Dodgers with the Cubs winning the wild card. The standings tell me the Braves, Reds and Padres are all in first place and the Dodgers and Giants are tied for the wild card. Looks like I really blew it on this one. I still think the Cardinals and Dodgers can win their divisions. The Braves, however, are probably going to take the NL East just because it’s Bobby Cox’s last year. As for the Cubs, well they are an absolute train wreck and don’t seem to be going anywhere. My mid-season picks will go like this, Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers with the Reds taking the wild card.

Of course this also screws up my World Series picks as I had the Yankees and the Phillies facing off again. So now I’ll go ahead and say the Yankees will play the Braves and Atlanta will win it all for Bobby Cox. Just like before, I have no reason for this and just like before, the odds of these picks coming true are very long indeed.

I saw a report Monday that the Boston Celtics were interested in signing Shaquille O’Neal and my immediate reaction was, hey, that’s great they can field a team of old guys who were in college at the same time I was. I then sadly realized, that I was not in college at the same time as Paul Pierce or Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett never went to college anyway. Shaq may well be the only college contemporary of mine still playing in the NBA. He was at LSU chasing Stanley Roberts away from the dinner buffet while I was skipping class at Santa Monica Junior College. After a bit more research I found that Lindsey Hunter is also still in the NBA (who knew?) and is one year older than Shaq which means he too was in college at the same time I was.

I enjoyed this little game so much that I decided to investigate further and see what guys might still be playing who’s baseball or football cards I collected when I was still a teenager. Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer was the first, and easiest, guy to put on my list. I believe Moyer was pitching when my dad was a teenager. At 47 years old he broke into the majors in 1986, which, for those you keeping track was the summer before my sophomore year of high school. I like Moyer a lot more now than I ever did before, mostly because he’s so damn old.

The rest of the baseball list is pretty short. I saw Ken Griffey Junior play in a minor league game in Oregon the summer I graduated from high school but Griffey retired so I had to strike him from the list. I was on the same eighth grade football team as journeyman catcher Jamie Burke (who may or may not be up with the Washington Nationals. My father keeps track of him. I don’t.) However, there are plenty of guys in MLB who are older than I am. I guess because baseball is less taxing on your body. However, I believe Omar Vizquel is the only guy who was actually playing in the majors during the time frame I’m looking for, so he’s the only one who’s going to get mentioned.

The NFL has a pretty long history of old guys who play, most notably George Blanda who was still kicking when he was 50. So I was not surprised to find John Carney and Jeff Feagles as sort-of active players who were playing over 20 years ago. There were even two non-kickers, Brett Favre and Junior Seau who are essentially college contemporaries of mine who donned the pads and played last year.

There are a few more guys who I’m not going to list, but, with each passing season this list gets shorter and soon I’ll have to make up a new list, guys playing professional sports who I covered when they were in high school. I suppose it’s just the way of things, but, while I’m not really fighting it, it doesn’t mean I have to like it.