Rain wedges JSU into crowded football day

Rain wedges JSU into crowded football day
The coach gave the pregame speech in the way only she could truly deliver and all the players had on their game faces.

The only thing that didn’t cooperate was the weather.

The storms that blew through the area late in the day and all evening forced Jacksonville State officials to postpone the J-Day Spring Game to 10 a.m. today.

They tried to beat the weather by pushing the game up 30 minutes, then back to the original start time when the rain and lightning came in. Finally, after a big bolt looked like it struck right outside the stadium, they called it a night.


“The electricity was the thing,” said Gamecocks coach Jack Crowe, who checked the weather radar before conferring with the officials on calling it off. “We had a lot of people here who I was really glad to see and I think are very important friends of the program and I’m sure it would be difficult for them to turn around and come back, so I’m disappointed from that regard.

“I had already talked to the team and I felt like they had a good mindset. I would just wonder whether they could recover that mindset.”

The reason the Gamecocks scheduled the spring game for Friday to begin with was to avoid conflicts with race weekend at Talladega Superspeedway and other weekend events on campus. Most of the crowd that assembled took shelter in the Club Level of the stadium.

The night had enough electricity on its own without Mother Nature’s help.

The postponement forced a delay in Ashley Martin Cockrell’s return to the JSU football program as well as the chance to see the way Alabama transfer quarterback Thomas Darrah could run a game and the debuts of several newcomers like cornerback Ace Lockheart.

A midyear JUCO transfer, Lockheart is expected to be one of the mainstays in Crowe’s desire to bolster his team’s pass defense.

Ten years ago, Cockrell — as Ashley Martin — became the first woman to play and score points in an NCAA football game when she kicked three PATs in the 2001 season opener against Cumberland.

She was back on campus Friday as honorary coach of the Red team (first defense, second offense).

She already had given her pregame speech by the time the game was called.

“I told them to make sure they don’t go out there and play like a bunch of girls,” she said.

And then she reminded us all the last game of her only college football season was played in conditions similar to Friday night. Indeed, storms and tornado warnings forced a delay during that game with McNeese State — a game moved to the final weekend of the season in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“It’s kind of funny,” she said. “My last time down there was that and now … so, we’re picking up right where we left off.”

There’s no way she was not going to return today.

“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss for a minute the chance to be your boss,” she jibed offensive coordinator Ronnie Letson when he asked the question. “I’m here.”

And so will Lockheart, he said he was ready to go Friday, “this being my first almost real game and all,” but agreed putting it off until today was a good call.

“I think it’s going to be a little bit better for some people,” he said. “Because of the rain delay I don’t think people were going to be as hyped as they would have been, so with the good weather conditions it might end up being a better game.”
Source:Annistonstar