BOISE, Idaho — Wednesday, June 3, 2020.
If Notre Dame and Navy won’t travel to Dublin, Ireland, for their season opener, will Georgia Southern go across the country to face Boise State? Whether or not the Broncos are able start their schedule on time is one thing. The willingness of non-conference opponents to keep up their end of the bargain is another. The move of the Fighting Irish-Midshipmen game to Annapolis, MD, marks the first official change to the 2020 college football slate because of the coronavirus pandemic. Three of Boise State’s four games in September involve cross-country trips, with Georgia Southern and (elephant in the room) Florida State scheduled to come to Boise and the Broncos planning to head for Huntington, WV, to face Marshall. June could be a very interesting month.
ONE-ON-ONE OR ONE-ON-NONE?
Boise State players are returning to town to resume team activities now. One of the traditions of summer is player-run practices—we’ll see what those look like now. That’s where chemistry is built, especially between quarterbacks and receivers. Just like spring football would have been valuable for Hank Bachmeier, PRPs would have been a huge step forward. It’ll be difficult to further develop that connection with receivers if PRPs shrink going into what we hope is fall camp. Of course, everyone’s in the same boat, including USC grad transfer Jack Sears, who could really use a summer introduction to the likes of Khalil Shakir, CT Thomas and Octavius Evans. Gotta throw tight end John Bates in there, too.
JASON ROBINSON, CONTINUED
Chris Lewis is on furlough from KTIK, but he’s still active on his podcast. Tuesday his guest was Jason Robinson, the former Boise State safety who called out coach Bryan Harsin Saturday for not having made a statement on the chaos following the George Floyd killing. “I referenced coach Harsin, his family and his children specifically,” Robinson told Lewis off the top. “That was poor execution on my part on trying to make a point. That was bad form to bring his family into it. Please pass it along to the family.” Robinson is still upset, though. Referring to Harsin’s statement later Saturday, Robinson said, “We had a third-and-three, and we got a two-yard gain.” In fairness to Harsin, his statement was one of the early ones—a lot of big names in college football followed.
PARIS AUSTIN, ILLUSTRATED
We know where Paris Austin ended up after transferring out of the Boise State men’s basketball program. Austin just finished his college career at Cal. Now he’s featured in a book that just got a write-up in the New York Times. Gene Luen Yang once taught computer science at Austin’s high school, Bishop O’Dowd in Oakland. Yang is now a cartoonist and novelist, and his first graphic novel (a story told by cartoons), “Dragon Hoops,” was released on March 17 as the pandemic took hold. It’s about O’Dowd’s CIF state championship in 2015. Austin was a star on that team and is featured in the book. Yang never quite got sports, he says, until the O’Dowd Dragons title team helped him see it.
AMORO LADO CLOSER TO HOME
The next step in Amoro Lado’s development as a basketball player will be at College of Southern Idaho. No better place to do it. The former Vallivue High star announced his commitment to CSI on Twitter Tuesday. KTVB’s story on Lado just over a year ago still resonates. In 2001, his family fled from Sudan to Egypt, where Lado was born in Cairo. The family later settled in a crime-ridden suburb of San Diego before moving to Caldwell in 2015. Lado was often in trouble, but basketball turned his life around. He was 2019 4A SIC Player of the Year for the Falcons, putting up games of 42 and 41 points. Lado, a 6-2 guard, played last season at Chipola College in Florida, playing 10 games and averaging 2.9 points
FORMER HAWKS HIT BY CUTS
Major League Baseball teams are slashing costs, releasing dozens of minor league players, with hundreds more likely to come. The first wave of 15 cuts from the Colorado Rockies included seven former Boise Hawks. The most familiar name was pitcher Frederis Parra, the Hawks’ Opening Night starter last year. Parra went 4-0 with an 0.56 ERA before being promoted to long-season Class A. The crushing blow to minor leaguers comes from fallout due to coronavirus, expected minor league contraction and doubt surrounding the 2020 season. Jeff Passan, MLB Insider at ESPN.com, writes that “upward of 1,000 players could see their baseball careers end.”
THIS DAY IN SPORTS…June 3, 2012:
It had become a shockingly rare occurrence, but Tiger Woods gets a win in the Memorial Tournament, the event hosted by Jack Nicklaus. In the process, Woods tied Nicklaus for second place all-time in PGA Tour wins with 73 (Sam Snead holds the record with 82 tour victories). Tiger’s charge in the final round included a flop-shot chip-in from the deep rough on the 16th, spurring Nicklaus to call it "the most unbelievable, gutsy shot I've ever seen." It was only Woods’ second win since 2009. He was still chasing Nicklaus’ standard of 18 major titles—Tiger has 15 after winning the Masters last year.
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra and anchors five sports segments each weekday on 93.1 FM KTIK. He also served as color commentator on KTVB’s telecasts of Boise State football for 14 seasons.)
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