Well, I never got the itch to come back and redo the lost blog from Saturday night. Oh well. I was just mainly going to discuss football, really. Can you taste it? IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON!! The great Mel Kiper once said, "I've always viewed summer as that droll time between draft day and the opening of camp." How right you are. Now that the preseason is underway, I can finally see the cool light at the end of the long, hot summer tunnel.

Buccaneers came out and represented, winning the preseason opener over the J-E-T-S-Jets-Jets-Jets in a laugher, 30-14. It wasn't even THAT close, as the Jets picked up a junk TD late in the game; it had been 30-7 much of the way throughout the fourth quarter. I was pleased, but you always have to take preseason games with a grain of salt, as most of the starters played one series and that was IT. I think Brad Johnson threw maybe 2 passes. However, Marv Levy's philosophy on preseason was firstly to ensure that no regular starters got injured; assessing 2nd- and 3rd-string talent came second, while actually winning the game was 3rd or 4th on his list. The man took teams to 4 straight SBs, so he was doing something right.

So I'm about to head to Prescott and join up with Coronado's band for a few days. Since the staff pretty much consists of Ms. Rich by herself (last I heard, which would have been Thursday, there was still no pit instructor, no drumline instructor, and no guard instructor, so section leaders have a lot of responsibility this year), I moved my time off from Friday/Saturday and combined it with my regular Wednesday afternoon-thru-Thursday-morning break to give myself 2½ days off all at once, so I could spend these next two days up in Prescott. 'Course, I have to work straight through until next Thursday when I get back, but them's the breaks.

I'll give my thoughts of this year's program when I get back. They certainly are an eager group, though. With all the turmoil of the past year, the ones that have stuck it out REALLY want to be there, and they're willing to work. But there's no escaping the fact that this is the quintessential "rebuilding year." It's a fairly young group, lots of sophs and juniors, so we're working towards building a cohesive nucleus as a core for next year's program. But "rebuilding year" doesn't mean "throwaway year," either; we're still going to make the best of what we've got.

Look at me, saying we, we, we. I guess I feel like I'm part of the staff, kinda. I'm just volunteering, though. Once camp's over, I'll only be able to help out Thursday mornings during the week, since I decided to keep my day off on Saturday so I can go and help out at band days and stuff.

Anywhey, I'm going to take a brief snoozer, then head for the hills.