An All American Week!!!!!!

Earlier this week we had Riddell/All American reps in our place to go over and inspect all of our equipment before we shipped it off to San Antonio for our annual reconditioning.

Reconditioning is without a doubt one of the single most important things we do as equipment managers. Riddell/All American takes each and every single piece of equipment and cleans it, inspects it, then re-certifies it for another year.

Not only is Riddell/All American the leaders in this industry, but they employ some of the best people in the business. We had 3 of their best come and do our reconditioning this past week.

Below are some pictures from earlier this week:


Two of our favorite football players, Chris Merrill (left) of Scottsdale, AZ, and Jowyn Ward (right) of Katy Texas, both defensive tackles, stopped by to see what was going on in the equipment room before they went to workouts with Coach Edmond:We had all the helmets that we wore this past year on the floor for everyone to inspect for reconditioning:

Jeff Watson takes a close look at each helmet before it is sent off:

Dan Vooletich taking a close look at our helmets as he inspects each and every single helmet we wore this past year:

Benny Conger going through players equipment on top of cubby's:

Taylor Hanohano of Riddell (blue shirt) came down from Phoenix to help with our reconditioning.

Tim Pfennig takes a close look at a pair of shoulder pads:

After close inspection by our equipment staff, and the Riddell/All American reps, the pads are stacked and ready to load in shipping bags:

Jeff Watson is the local Riddell/All American rep here in Tucson:

At this point, we are loading the shoulder pads into the bags. We fit 10 shoulder pads in each brown shipping bag:

After everything is checked over and inspected by the Riddell/All American reps, they are loaded into bags and ready for FedEx to pick them up for shipment to the plant in San Antonio, Texas:

Getting ready to take the 25 bags up to the truck for shipment to All American plant for reconditioning:

More bags headed to the FedEx truck for shipment to San Antonio:

Big Baseball Series versus UCLA

Benny Conger is hard at work getting ready for Game 1 of two top 15 teams in baseball here this weekend.

UCLA and the Wildcats play at 6pm tonight. Benny was doing UCLA's laundry this morning when I walked in for work. It is customary to do each other's laundry in the Pac 10 when you visit another place. UCLA worked out last night here and Benny has now delivered their clean workout gear back to their hotel.

Our laundry expert, Zac Cook, will do both teams laundry after tonight's game.

Armando was cleaning baseball shoes this morning to help out. This is a very important series in the Pac 10 standings.

Getting Ready for Reconditioning

The managers are hard at work getting all of the helmets and shoulder pads ready for reconditioning.

Once again, we will be sending our helmets and shoulder pads to San Antonio where the great people at Riddell/All American will be re-certifying all of our helmets and shoulder pads for next season.

Right now, we are scheduled to send everything off later this month. This will give the plant in San Antonio plenty of time to carefully check everything, then get it back to us where we will be able to get it ready to put on our players again.

Reconditioning is one of the most important things we do in this business! We choose Riddell/All American for a number of reasons. All of the reasons are because we care about our players. We know by sending our equipment to them that we will have the best opportunity for our players to stay safe, not to mention we get the best service available!

Clinic and Golf update

We have been getting a lot of questions about our upcoming Equipment Clinic and Golf Tournament scheduled for this summer. We have launched our website, which is www.rkgscholarships.com

I hope you can click on the website address above and learn more about it. We are getting a lot of interest, especially locals here in Arizona, about the golf tournament. I started the same kind of tournament when I first arrived at Washington State University over 20 years ago, and that tournament is still going strong. Our tournament will be essentially the same exact kind of format. Besides the golf, those playing will have many opportunities to win some AWESOME raffle and auction items from across the country. Just in the first day, we got autographed items from the Kansas City Chiefs, St. Louis Rams and Louisiana Tech (Head Coach Sonny Dykes autographed a game jersey). Equipment Managers from all over the country are donating items that will be raffled off.

We look forward to having a full field for our Friday, June 18 tournament. We will shotgun start at 12:30 that afternoon. Please email me if you have any questions about either the golf tournament or Equipment clinic which will be the next day.

Spring Football Game Re-cap

Saturday seemed to be a huge success for the team, including the equipment staff. This spring has been a little bit more difficult considering most of our practices were at Salpointe High School. For one thing, we practiced at 6am when we went there, then that also meant we had to haul equipment each practice.

The good news is that the managers pulled all of this off with no real problems, and more importantly, no one complained about the extra work, even with having to get to work at 4am for each practice.

Now we start gathering all of the players gear and start getting ready for 2010 season!!!! We will start getting the helmets and shoulder pads ready for reconditioning. We will also clean out lockers and get ready for our new players who will begin arriving in early June!!!!! That is always an exciting time. I know our coaches are very excited about the new players we signed this past February.

Below are some pictures from Saturdays game:


Coach Stoops talks to Terry Swartz of Nike before the Spring Game. Coach is decked out in the new shirt for next season:

Robert Lloyd catches up and hands balls of the Ryan Ewalt during pre game drills:
Tim Kish calling the defensive plays for the defense during the game:

Mike Harlow and Zack Risdon working the defensive sideline during the game:

Jordan Gobel holding on to a couple of jackets for Coach Stoops. Even though the weather was nice and warm, Nike was here to take pictures of coach in new gear for next season so they can advertise the new merchandise.

Michael Barnett running balls during the game:

Ryan Ewalt tossing ball to QB's during passing drills before the game:

Earl Mitchell and Lance Briggs were on the sideline lending support to Coach Stoops and the football team:

Zac Cook was on hand for the Spring Game to help out anyway he could:

Nice crowd turned out for the Spring Game. Weather was perfect!

Football Alumni Golf Tournament

Fun was had by all yesterday, as Frankie Acosta of the Alumni department of athletics put on another FIRST CLASS event out at Arizona National Golf Course.

Former football players from all eras came back for a reunion. Each year we have this tournament and weekend reunion as part of the Spring Football game.

Tim, Benny and I got to play with our good friend, and huge supporter, Rick Grinnell. Thank goodness we asked Rick to play with us, because he bailed us out more than once! Not to mention, he had a GREAT joke to tell on just about every hole! We shot 6 under par, which is really good for us. I played horrible (whats new), but Tim and Benny both played much better than they have in the past. Tim and Benny both hit some GREAT shots, plus some LOOOONG drives. Not sure we ever used one of my drives.

This afternoon is our Spring Game and I hope to have pictures up later.

LeeAnn Skow worked tournament registration:

Kelley Hooker working hard at registration:
Xavier Kelly taking a swing at it:

New Defensive GA, Ryan Walters and Kris Heavner:

Sterling Lewis:

Seth Littrell and new coach, Frank Scelfo:

Not the winning team, but the team with the most fun (left to right): Donald Horton, Corey Hall, Xavier Kelly (keeling), Sterling Lewis, and Herman Hall:

Frankie Acosta on the cell phone before the tournament:

Corey Hall and Xavier Kelly before the tournament:

Guys I got to play with: (left to right): Benny Conger, Tim Pfennig, Rick Grinnell

Barrett Baker:

Final Practice Before Spring Game

Well, no more 4am mornings for awhile! This morning was our last spring football practice before the Spring Game on this Saturday.

While our Jiminez Practice Facility is being renovated, we are doing most all of our practices at the very nice facility at Salpointe High School. The only thing nicer than the stadium field at Salpointe, is the the weather!!!! Looks like today will be another GREAT weather day in Tucson.

It is hard to believe that spring football is about over and the spring semester is getting close to coming to an end. Seems like not very long ago we were in San Diego for the bowl game.

The Spring Game will be more like a scrimmage with the Offense going against the Defense. Tim Pfennig and his AWESOME crew are getting game jerseys ready for the game. The offense will wear blue game jerseys, the defense will wear white game jerseys, and the QB's will wear red game jerseys.

Below are a couple of pictures from this mornings practice. The picture of the sun coming up over the Rincon Mountains before practice does NOT do justice of just how awesome the sun rise was this morning....but I tried to capture it.

Sun coming up during pre-practice drills:

Jordan Bates, of Orlando Florida, catching up for QB's during practice drills:

Great Practice This Morning

Once again, the managers showed up for work this morning at 4am! We have been working out this spring at 6:00am each morning, so we have to get to work at 4am.

Not only are our managers showing up on time each morning, they are doing a GREAT job and they are doing it with a smile on their face and with joy in their heart. This job is so much about attitude, and these kids show up each morning ready to make our team better, anyway they can!

We have another early morning tomorrow, then the Spring Game on Saturday. It is hard to believe that Spring Ball is almost over. I was telling Erick Harper, Director of Football Operations, this morning at practice that we will blink and then be heading to Fort Huachuca. He asked me if I had come up with a t-shirt design yet for camp there this August. It made me think that I had better start thinking about it pretty soon. We are already getting excited about 2010 Football Season!!!!!

Below are a few pictures from this mornings practice at Salpointe:

Zack Risdon, of Illinois, works hard to keep Defensive Back drills going:

Robert Lloyd, of the Bay Area in California, waits for balls to be thrown back in during passing drills early this morning:

John Landwehr, of California, plays quarterback during one on one drills between the offensive line and defensive line:
Mike Harlow, of Idaho, helps out with defensive back drills:

Last Week of Spring Ball

I forgot my camera this morning when we left at 6am for practice at Salpointe. Otherwise, I would have pictures up for you.

We have been very busy with Spring Football, plus with everything else that is going on.

Hope each of you had a GREAT Easter yesterday.

We enjoyed Hot Dogs for lunch today as we watched some Opening Day Baseball throughout the day.

No football practice tomorrow, but we go again at 6am on Wednesday. It really makes for a long day when we arrive for work at 4am!

Spring Game is this Saturday at Arizona Stadium.