As Beefy mentioned last night, Parkway North Anthony Gatti did indeed commit to play for Mizzou yesterday. Dave Matter has more on the big, mean-looking dude from StL...
"He’s not a stranger to Mizzou," Parkway North Coach Bob Bunton said of Gatti. "Obviously being the state school, he’s been a fan of Missouri. He' been up there for games and he knows quite a bit of the St. Louis kids who are on the team. It was a real secure fit for him. But he really did a nice job in respecting what the other schools had to say and to offer. I was really impressed the way they took their time this summer and didn’t wait for all the hoopla of an official visit."
Other football recruiting links:
- PowerMizzou: Missouri opens [Edmond (OK) DB Xavier] Smith's eyes ("I've visited OU, OSU, TCU, North Texas and Texas A&M. I liked Missouri the best. The players really did it for me.")
- Independence Examiner: Fort Osage's Gaines headed to Mizzou
- Rivals.com: New Rivals 100 is out. Major targets Justin McCay (#34) and Nick Demien (#61) are still solidly on the list. Another target--Hillside (IL) WR Kyle Prater--shot to #4. Mizzou is considered a longshot with him right now, but we'll see.
ESPN's Bruce Feldman (one of the best of the best IMHO) shares some notes from the 2009 Elite 11 QB camp (Insider), with Chase Daniel prominently involved.
After 20 minutes of campers awkwardly going through their backgrounds, Stumpf began calling up the counselors who talked about what these quarterbacks will soon go through and what they need to understand about the life of being a blue-chip QB. Chase Daniel, the former Mizzou star now with the Washington Redskins, talked about the fraternity of the Elite 11 and what the next three days would be like at the camp. Texas Heisman hopeful Colt McCoy told stories about coming from a small ranching town (population 714) where he often had to drive 30 to 40 miles to "scoop up my friends" to throw to. McCoy stressed how vital preparation is for becoming a great quarterback, about how he never watches film without a pen and his notebook, and about how when he was a redshirt, he stuck to Vince Young's hip whenever the UT great was watching film and said, "Just talk and say whatever you're thinkin'" as Young observed different blitzes and coverages on tape. McCoy also explained how before every practice, he will go over to either Mack Brown or Greg Davis, UT's offensive coordinator, and ask specifically, "What can I do to get better today?"
Other Mizzou Football links:
- Rivals.com: Sean Weatherspoon: the #45 player in the country (that low?).
- The Maneater: Athletic facilities receive upgrade
The Trib's Steve Walentik takes a look at where the Big 12 stands in basketball this offseason. I'm really seeing #3 through #7 as about a 5-way tie for third--just really nothing separating these teams with defined strengths and defined holes. Should be a fun debate.
This has nothing to do with Mizzou, but Dan Shanoff takes a look at something I think the Worldwide Leader has been tremendously smart about: going local. While newsapers flop about and mostly fail in terms of forward-thinking, ESPN, for better or worse, has done quite a few great things. Shanoff also mentions SB Nation:
Local newspapers' sports power was already under erosion on other fronts, besides ESPN: SB Nation has put together the best collection of team-based blogs found online, across every sport, in every market, with coverage that -- yes -- complements local news, but also goes a long way to displace it. Its distribution deal with Yahoo -- itself a traffic firehose -- amplified that power exponentially.
In an ideal world, the $8 million that SB Nation just got from Comcast includes a commitment from Comcast to use SB Nation to power its local cable affiliates' web presences. And here's one more idea for Comcast: Drop the notion of Versus as "place to find niche sports whose rights ESPN didn't want" and pivot it to be about "Your Team," leveraging Comcast's local sports networks and the new investment in SB Nation.
Via our buddy Atch at Teenage Kicks, I bring you the high point in 2000s culture. We really didn't produce many memorable movies or albums in the '00s, but we did produce this:
Finally, some time in late-morning yesterday, Rock M Nation got its 1,000,000th page view. I'll say this again when we get our 500,000th unique hit in a couple of weeks, but thank you so much for helping this community grow, and we hope you stick around for quite a while.