This time of the year, Mondays are Lafayette football days. Due to the availability of college information so early in the week and the lack of high school information until late in the week, I try to get as much Lafayette game day work done as I can on Monday. The statistics are already updated; the game notes from the previous game are available; rosters can be created; and story lines are sought. Story lines are normally about the match-ups, the offensive playmakers, and the defensive studs. Once you gather the information, the next task is to organize it.
But… sometimes I come across a story that has very little to do with the game, but a great deal to do with human interest. That was the case this past Monday when I started my research for the Lafayette-Wagner football game coming up this Saturday at 6:00pm in Easton.
The Wagner football coach is Walt Hameline. As usual, I found out the basics on him – 34 years as head coach at Wagner – 217 wins – one of only five FCS active coaches with over 200 wins. This is the usual stuff. Then I saw this article by Ralph Russo:
NEW YORK (AP) — You think fall weddings are inconvenient for college football fans? Imagine being a coach with a daughter who has her heart set on a Saturday in late September.
That was Wagner College coach Walt Hameline’s dilemma, when his youngest daughter, Kelly, told him last fall the place she chose as the site of her big day had few dates available — and the one she picked was Sept. 20, the same day Wagner was scheduled to play Monmouth University.
“How can you do this?” Hameline said was his reaction. “What are you thinking about? It’s football season. Ever since she was a baby she went to every football game.”
Hameline is in his 34th season as head coach at Wagner and is also the school’s athletic director.
Sometimes it pays to be your own boss.
Last fall, Kelly Hameline, 28, let her father know that she had found the perfect place to have her wedding — “The most expensive place you can find,” Walt Hameline said — on Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
Turns out, the bill was only Hameline’s second-biggest problem.
“There was only like, one or two dates (available),” he said.
Still, Hameline could hardly believe what his daughter was asking. “There’s always been a golden rule in our family,” he said. “Once football season starts, my wife, my family, they go to the games and we do nothing else.” Not this time.
After last season was over, Hameline reached out to Monmouth coach Kevin Callahan. The two had crossed paths and become friends as young assistant coaches in the late 1970s, and when Hameline became head coach at Wagner, Callahan was the first coach he hired.
“It was kind of funny,” Callahan said, recalling the conversation with a laugh. “In typical Walt fashion he goes, ‘Hey, hey, hey, you gotta help me out.’ My first thought was, what’s he up to here? Let me figure this out.”
Callahan was in the process of filling Sept. 20 on Monmouth’s schedule, but was able to move the Wagner game, lock it in and build the team’s remaining schedule around it.
“We had the flexibility to make it work. I was more than happy to do it,” said Callahan, who has been coach at Monmouth for 22 years.
So while Callahan won’t be attending the wedding — the Hawks play at Duquesne that day — he’s covered for a gift.
As for Hameline, he’s just happy his daughter’s wedding didn’t conflict with Wagner’s game last week at Florida International, an FBS school. He said Wagner was paid $240,000 for that trip to South Florida.
“Let’s get this straight,” Hameline said, “I wasn’t calling FIU up.”
And CBSSports did the following video on the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rnkx_SOpyaI
I will get to interview Coach Hameline this week during our media luncheon press conference. I usually center my questions around the previous week’s events. However, this time I don’t think I will ask what color the bridesmaids wore or what the centerpieces were. It just doesn’t seem right to ask those questions of a football coach in the fall. I’m sure Coach agrees.
ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
1. Alessandro Florenzi plays international soccer for Roma. When he scored his first goal of the season this past week, he ran into the stands to hug his 82-year-old grandmother. She said she would only come to see him play if he would come to her and say, “Hi”. He did that and more. The referee gave him a yellow card for the infraction. Neither he nor his grandmother cared. Alessandro’s team won.
2. DeSean Jackson returned to Philadelphia on Sunday and caught an 81-yard touchdown pass. His celebration was as expected, but at least with the Eagles winning the game, he pretty much had to keep his mouth shut after the game.
3. Ray Rice is supposedly claiming that the video showing him punching his fiancé while in an elevator was edited. Edited from what to what? And dragging her unconscious from the elevator was the result of Emmy award-winning acting? Hard to accept his defense as credible.
4. Over 20 NFL players suffered injuries this week, many season-ending. It seems to me that more and more players are being hurt while the rules are being changed to protect them. Is there a correlation between changing the ways players are allowed to hit one another and the number of injuries that are occurring? Illogical? Only the players know.
5. I spent the weekend in Williamsburg, VA to do the Lafayette-William & Mary football game. It’s a beautiful place, loaded with history and great weather. Some days, going to work are better than others.
(Last Week 10-6; Seasonal Record 25-23: 52%)
WASHINGTON
MIAMI
CHICAGO
HOUSTON
INDIANAPOLIS
BALTIMORE
DETROIT
PITTSBURGH
SAN DIEGO
SAN FRANCISCO
ATLANTA
DALLAS
KANSAS CITY
