Michael Wilson
Sports Editor
mhwilson@valdosta.edu

The spring game started with the clattering of anticipating cleats on concrete and a little melody as the two Blazer scrimmage teams anxiously awaited the closest thing to a regular season game in the off-season.
The teams carried their excitement into the 48 minute spring practice culmination, and the product was a few answered questions and a lot more unaddressed concerns.
The energy of the young team proved to be contagious, and Head Coach David Dean sees it as a welcomed element to his team.
“I know they are going to excited when we tee up against Newberry, West Georgia, North Alabama and all those other teams. We know it is going to bring a little bit of excitement out of them,” Dean said. “It’s exciting and that’s part of having a young football team. You know it’s their first atmosphere to be in anything like this.”
The team is young, returning just 11 juniors for next year. The lack of experience has proven to be the toughest for the quarterback positions.
“We still need to solidify our quarterback position,” Dean said. “Right now we are going into the season with a guy that’s not had any game time experience at quarterback. Then our offensive line, we’ve got to do a better job of protecting the quarterback.”
Ronnye Nelson stepped in to take the reins in the game and lead the white team to a score in the first possession. His performance in the game gives the coaching staff a little hope for filling the position, but he is a true running back and he’s never had experience at the quarterback position in regular-season game.
However, the game did play host to a positive moment, the coming out of a potential new defensive star, Ryan Smith, who recorded two interceptions for the black squad.
Cedric Jones also showed some of his old flash and talent, going up over defenders to make two big catches in the game.
The game ended with the white squad shutting out the black squad 14-0, but the story of the game wasn’t the score. It was the excitement and competitive spirit of the team as a whole. Dean knows that he has more work to do, but he is also happy with the progress of the players so far.
“I feel good,” Dean said. “I’m not satisfied. We’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The one thing the players, coaches and fans all noticed was the gusto of the team as a whole. It was not hard to recognize as both squads danced out onto the field hopping with anticipation. One thing is for sure: the excitement caught the head coach’s attention.
“That is one thing; we’ve got a lot of enthusiasm on our football team,” Dean said.

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Who I am and what I do:I am Michael Wilson, the sports editor for the spectator, and I usually write the weekly column Open Mike. I have been an editor since the beginning of this semester and I have written for the Spectator since last fall.
Why this story is important: For true southern sports fans football is the most important of all the pastimes, so naturally a football scrimmage in the off-season is a welcomed sight for the many football starved people, especially in south Georgia. This game is also very important to everyone involved in the process of creating a winning team because it reveals who the new quality players are and how far along the team is with its off-season practices.

What I did to get this story: I attended the spring football scrimmage and took some pictures as well as conduct interviews with the head coach and some of the players. It really was an easy story to cover because the game is very relaxed and the coaches and players are in good spirits. The interviews are informal and free-flowing so most topics are okay to cover and the players will usually be willing to talk about anything going on with the team. It is a far cry from the hush-hush attitude that surrounds the regular season as the team tries to keep everything except the game play in house and away from any media outlets. At the spring game it is a lot more fun and not as much is at stake so the news coverage is a lot easier to come by.

Online links to the information used in this story: www.msnbc.com