Spring Scrimmage 09 Recap...Sorta

Ok, so I kinda goofed in regards to the Spring Scrimmage. I thought it was going to be similar to last year’s scrimmage, with the first half of the practice being position drills, and the actual 11-11 portion following afterwards.

So after circling the streets of Berkeley for 40 minutes looking for parking (we were nearly ready to pay the frat boys $30) for a spot, we found a nice spot on Haste and Ellsworth, and made our way up to the stadium. Thinking that we would simply be missing warm-ups and stretches, we swung by Asian Food Ghetto (Durant Food Court) before we eventually wound up in Strawberry Canyon.

Hence, it was with some confusion that I saw Covaughn Deboskie get chased down by Chris Little in full scrimmage mode.

Puzzled, I asked an old Bear next to me, “How long have they been scrimmaging?”

Old Bear: “Oh about an hour now.”

Me: (silence). “Have they been going 11 on 11s the entire time?

Old Bear: “Pretty much.”


So yeah, I missed a good chunk of Spring Ball. And even had I stuck around the entire time, it would have been difficult for me to top some of the thorough reports of Saturday’s scrimmage already out there.

• Rusty Simmons, SF Chronicle.
• Jonathan Okanes, Contra Costa Times.
• HydroTech, California Golden Blogs
• Official Cal Website
  

So instead, some fun tidbits:

• Watched in amusement as DE Tyson Alualu got into a slapboxing match with his young daughter after the scrimmage. Well, let me explain. A little girl who I presumed to be Tyson’s daughter (as I can’t imagine it being any other kid), was standing on a bleacher seat in front of him, and appeared to be playing some quirky father-daughter game. Essentially, the gist of the game goes as follows: Papa Alualu stares down his daughter, Daughter giggles, sticks her tongue out at Papa Alualu, smacks him in the face, and Papa Alualu immediately responds back with a hearty smack to her cheek. Daughter collapses into a barrel of laughter, stands back up, rinse and repeat. The kid is tough.

• Saw former Cal FB Will Tau’ufo’ou in the stands. Dude looks even bigger.

• Jahvid Best has grown his hair out a bit. No more Mohawk. We’ll see if that returns come fall camp.

• Briefly Met up with Ragnarok and TwistnHook from the California Golden Blogs. I must say, they are almost exactly how I imagined them to be. They really talk exactly like they blog. It certainly makes for a pretty surreal experience.

• Got to meet Ken Crawford from Excuse Me For My Voice and his lovely family as well. Became depressed when I realized Crawford’s kids got to see more of the scrimmage than I did.