Bleacher Report - Articles by L.D. Skarzinski

The 10 Best College Basketball Coaches

L.D. Skarzinski — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:35:04 -0400

Who ranks at the top of the NCAA coaching hot list. Is your school represented? If not, sell me on it and be short and sweet. No picks from the heart, you don't wager with it so it does not belong here. These are my picks and yours maybe the same, but I doubt it! Comments are always welcome, and debates will allow you to vent.

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Biggest Surprise Of The Mountaineer Spring

L.D. Skarzinski — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:26:48 -0400

As the Mountaineers battle toward the end of Spring Practice, who's name do you expect to hear more than any other? Jarrett Brown, Noel Devine, Reed Williams or Wes Lyons?

Well Brown is replacing a legend. Devine is the scariest home run threat in the NCAA, Williams' return to a loaded LB corp is nothing compared to the amount of ink that Lyons is getting.

The 6'8" 225 pound senior WR, has emerged as the receiving threat that he was recruited, from Woodland Hill High School in PA, to be. Labeled early on in his Mountaineer as being a bust, fighting thorough injury, growing pains, and numrious drops, Lyons' spring has been some of the most welcome news.

Maybe Lyons is a morning person? Mountaineer head Coach Bill Stewart has gone to "the early bird catches the worm" practice schedule to get the attention of his young team. Lyons has prospered, catching a number of scoring tosses from the Mountaineer QBs.

Lets hope this production will continue into the regular season. How tough will it be to cover a 6'8" guy on a fade route, or get a look at Devine or Rodgers from behind as they blow by you from a Lyons block?

Keep it going Wes! We can never have enough weapons in the Mountaineer offense. We will be pleasantly surprised at your senior year.

The Steelers: From a Lifelong Fan

L.D. Skarzinski — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:10:23 -0400

As a lifelong Steelers fan it is easy to be on the top of the world.

Why are they are successful? For many reasons.

They do not frequent the free agent market. They do not chase agents for deals. They always seem to push the right buttons when dealing with coaching changes. No cheerleaders, the same uniforms style as long as I can remember, strong ties to the community, and, need I remind everyone, they have six Lombardi trophies.

I can remember sitting on the couch in our house with my dad and brother, watching the Steelers and Browns from Three Rivers Stadium.

The broadcast was on NBC and listening to the announcers describe how the game developed, but it was nothing compared to listening to Jack Fleming and Myron Cope on the radio.

It was like you were there sitting on the 50 in the cold, and snow.

I can remember watching Jack Lambert sacking Brian Sipe, and Dave Logan complain to the officials about pass interference on Mel Blount. Both instances, were ingrained by the rivalry.

The Steelers have always been good, even in the lean years. It is still worth going to early mass, and getting home in time to watch the Oilers go down to defeat at the hands of the Steel Curtain.

Watching the Immaculate Reception and listening to it describe by Jack Fleming never gets old.

Knowing that Swann and Stallworth was going to beat single coverage and get open to catch a Bradshaw pass for a first down.

I hate to say it, but I could watch Jackie Smith drop that touchdown pass over and over. Not because of Jackie, but because he was a Cowboy and it was the Super Bowl!

The saga of Franco hanging on or the demolition of Three Rivers, the fans have been like the team supportive and knowing that the future is bright. Six trophies and again an off-season of drafting a offensive lineman for need.

It is the World Champion Steelers and it will always be like it was in the 70's—the image of the Chief, stoogie in place, and another piece of history!

Twitter: The New Recruiting Tool

L.D. Skarzinski — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:44:49 -0400

In the age of email, text messages, and electronic community pages, the newest and in my opinion the easiest, is Twitter!! What in the world is Twitter, you ask? Well if you can answer the question What are you doing? Then you can twitter. I stumbled upon Twitter by accident about a month ago and became hooked. Want to know how I found it, I was surfing the net and was reading an article on U of M coach Rich Rodriquez and noticed that he had been using Twitter. I had not a clue what Twitter was so I linked to it from the article and low and behold was a page with RichRod's latest quotes and "updates" I was amazed at the ease in which enrollment in the public page was.

As I began searching for other "Tweeds" I found Pete Carroll, to say the least Pete is a twitter fanatic, he posts on everything, then it hit me, being from the East coast, I have now got to see a side of Pete Carroll that you really do not see, unless you are in the Trojan program. He is right on top of the LA thing. No wonder recruits love this guy!

Which brings me to my point, if done right this thing will explode into the next big recruiting tool. Let me explain, lets say I am a 17 year old kid and I am being recruited by the likes of Washington, USC , Nebraska, and Arizona, I can get to know Pete Carroll on a personal basis by just "following" him on Twitter. He will link me to other "tweeds" so that I can get an idea who he thinks is worth following. It is an insight that you may not get unless you have sat down with him and BS ed for a couple of hours.

Now I understand that he may not be writing his own updates, but remember I am 17 and I believe that he is and that is all he needs to understand. As I continued to explore Twitter, I find an even more intriguing Tweed and that is West Virginia head coach Bill Stewart! Now what in the world is Bill Stewart doing on Twitter? Well he is informing his "followers" about everything from congratulating the Big East hoops team to talking about what music he listens to on his way to practice.

Now call me cynical, but I would think that Coach Stew, is a little beyond the digital native age bracket, but he is a pretty smart cookie and he is embracing the opportunity to get his name, and most of all his thoughts out there.

I bet in the next coming months folks like Lane Kiffin at Tennessee, Chip Kelly at Oregon, and Mike Leach at Texas Tech will be Tweeds, if they don't well I will venture to say that someone with in those programs will be and extent the recruiting spill for all to see.