CHRONICLING ECU & C-USA SPORTS
-----
|
View
from the 'ville
Thursday,
March 23, 2006
By Al Myatt |
 |
Vintage Logan provides the
fire in Rhein opener
©2006 Bonesville.net
East Carolina heads to Houston this weekend to
face No. 2 Rice in baseball while much of the nation's sports attention will
be focused on the ongoing NCAA basketball tournament.
But in one part of the wide world of sports,
it's football season. That's not spring football, mind you, but a real
season where games in huge stadiums count in the standings and players'
talents are honed for future Sundays stateside.
Yes, NFL Europe, which traces its origins to
the World League, which started in 1991, has kicked off for 2006.
Former East Carolina coach Steve Logan is
involved again overseas. After two noteworthy seasons as quarterbacks coach
of the Berlin Thunder, the man with the most football wins in Pirates
history has switched teams and expanded his responsibilities. Logan is now
offensive coordinator for the Rhein Fire.
The Fire is off to a 1-0 start, thanks to some
vintage Logan. Although Rhein managed just one score in a 10-6 win over
Frankfurt, the manner in which the game's only touchdown was scored clearly
had Logan's fingerprints on it. The Rhein-Frankfurt matchup, incidentally,
is something akin to the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry in NFL terms.
The lone touchdown came on a reverse hand-off
to wide receiver Chris Samp, who launched a 45-yard pass to a wide open Juan
Wong for the score.
Surprise was often an element of Logan's
teams, but Rhein's season-opening strike even surprised the TD recipient.
Wong said although the club had been
practicing the play all week, he didn’t expect them to run it on their
opening drive, according to an account at
www.nfleurope.com.
“In practice all the receivers taught me how
to run the route," Wong said. "In the game it was just a great throw and a
great block, so it ended up being a great catch. I was wide open and it felt
good for me to make my first touchdown in professional football.”
Wong's improbable route to NFL Europe began
when he impressed scouts at a tryout in Mexico.
Fire quarterback Drew Henson said that the
reverse put his team right where it needed to be for their opening game.
“That was a great way to start the season,”
said Henson. “We had the defense on their heels and the situation was good
to run the play, so we executed it.
"It never looked that good in practice, but it
worked when it counted.”
Rhein had been three years without a win
against Frankfurt. That span encompassed six straight losses, including a
World Bowl defeat.
Logan moved to Rhein with first-year Fire head
coach Jim Tomsula, the former defensive coordinator at Berlin. At 38,
Tomsula is the youngest head coach in NFL Europe history. Tomsula played
collegiately at Catawba.
With Berlin, Logan and Tomsula helped the
Thunder to the World Bowl the last two seasons, including the league
championship in 2004.
In each of his two seasons in Berlin, Logan
helped his quarterbacks top the NFL Europe ratings. Dave Ragone (97.5 rating
in 2005) and Rohan Davey (106.4 rating in 2004) earned All NFL Europe honors
and were named the league's offensive players of the year.
On Saturday, Logan and Tomsula will be back in
familiar surroundings as Rhein visits Berlin. The game is scheduled to be
shown on tape delay at 8 p.m. on the NFL network. The 10-week regular season
runs through May 20.
The Rhein roster features running back Jacque
Lewis, who escaped Logan's recruiting net at Elizabeth City Northeastern for
a career at North Carolina. Lewis had 17 carries for 56 yards in the season
opener.
Rhein's first free agent draft choice was
former ECU defensive tackle Ja'Warren Blair, who recorded 26 tackles and two
sacks last season for the Amsterdam Admirals. The Admirals won the World
Bowl — NFL Europe's equivalent of the Super Bowl — 27-21 over Berlin in
2005.
Blair had 87 tackles, including five for
losses as a senior at ECU in 2002. Interestingly, the NFL Europe roster also
expresses Blair's height in meters (1.99) and weight in kilograms (131). For
Wal-Mart shoppers, that's 6-feet-6 and 295 pounds.
The spring format of the NFL Europe season
allows Logan to work as a broadcast analyst during the traditional football
season in the states. The downside is that he's not able to see much of his
son Nate's junior season in the baseball program at Campbell.
VanSant left mark on preps, too
The coaching career of Dr. Henry VanSant,
a true Pirate who
passed from the
earthly realm at age 70 last week, included several stops on
the high school level in addition to the six decades he spanned as a player,
coach and administrator at ECU.
VanSant coached one year at Scotland High in
Laurinburg, guiding the Scots to a 7-3-1 record in 1970 and their first
state playoff berth in 23 years, according to the Fayetteville Observer.
His 1974 team at Fayetteville Seventy-First
was 4-6. The following season the Falcons were conference champions and
finished 9-2. Members of that 1975 Seventy-First team included quarterback
Harry Sydney, who went on to win two Super Bowl rings with the San Francisco
49ers, and tailback David Smith, now basketball coach at Methodist College.
"I played one year for him, but it was like a
lifetime," Sydney told the Fayetteville paper. "His memory was unbelievable.
He remembered plays ... situations. He made you feel important."
VanSant, a member of the ECU hall of fame,
also coached on the prep level at Greensboro Grimsley.
A memorial service for VanSant is scheduled
for today at 11 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church in Greenville.
Power boost for 1070 imminent
Henry Hinton, whose Talk of the Town radio
program is now heard mornings on WNCT-AM 1070 in Greenville, said the wheels
are in motion for the station's power increase to 50,000 watts.
"It appears testing of the new system,
including the new 5-tower arrangement, will begin the first week of April,"
Hinton said this week. "The power will be slowly increased at that point."
Hinton said a new transmitter has already
improved the station's signal. But Hinton also noted that some preliminary
problems with the power increase affecting area phone signals will have to
be ironed out.
"I may have to take a vacation that first
week," Hinton said.
WNCT-AM is owned by the Florida-based Beasley
Broadcast group but Hinton, who owns Cable 7, which telecasts Talk of the
Town, operates Talk 1070 and is the station's most visible and well-known
personality in eastern North Carolina.
Honors for incoming Pirates
John Fields of Fayetteville Jack Britt and
Hillary Haley of Washington, MD, Friendly High, who each signed basketball
letters of intent with ECU in November, have received notable honors.
Fields, who sustained a non-structural injury
late in the season that precluded him performing in the state playoffs, was
named player of the year by the Fayetteville Observer for the multi-county
Cape Fear region.
Haley has been selected to play for the
District of Columbia Stars in the upcoming Capital Classic, an annual
gathering of talent in which D.C. area players match up against a team of
top players from across the country.
C-USA baseball prowess
Conference USA had produced the third-best
non-conference baseball record for Division I leagues this season through
games of March 19. C-USA was 122-66, a .649 winning percentage. Only the SEC
(.736) and Big 12 (.720) had better winning percentages outside of their
league.
Send an e-mail message to Al Myatt.
Dig into Al Myatt's Bonesville
archives.
02/23/2007 12:30:03 AM
----- |
