Babies On Board

The Idaho State football coaching staff has had a lot to be thankful in the past three months as three different coaches each welcomed the birth of a child, most recently Coach Nick Whitworth (Running Backs) and his wife Erin on Thursday, August 12 to their son Colt, the couple's second child.

Three months ago Coach Brian Strandley (Defensive Coordinator/DL) and his wife Erica had their first child, daughter Brianna (named after her dad) and just a month later Coach Drew Miller (Wide Receivers) and his wife Diana also welcomed their first daughter. You can bet on seeing their kids sporting ISU gear during the Bengals home opener on Saturday, September 4 at 3:35 p.m. at Holt Arena.

--Katie Zigars, Asst. SID

Playing Overseas

Idaho State is continuing to make its presence overseas as another one of ISU's men's basketball players will be headed to play ball in Europe. Amorrow Morgan, who was ISU's leading scorer last season averaging 17 ppg, is leaving today to play for West-Brabant Giants of the Eredivisie, which is the top professional league in Holland. He will join most recent basketball players to hit the European continent, Matt Stucki who competed for Germany last season and David Schroeder who played for France. Talk of Rolando Little finding an overseas team to play for is a possibility, but nothing has been locked down yet.

--Katie Zigars, Asst. SID

Bouncing Back

Idaho State has several players bouncing back from injuries incurred in the 2009 season. Check out the story "Ward, Clayson Battle Way Back to Field" by Mark Liptak written for the Times News about two players who are just a few of many to have bounced back from their injuries: Bryant Ward and Braeden Clayson.

Another article along the same lines is Jay Heater's "ISU Player Comes Back From the Brink" about Andrew Benavides' recovery since his neck injury during ISU's game at Northern Arizona that doctors feared would leave Benavides paralyzed. However, this reselient player is back on the field today waiting to be cleared. He is currently helping the coaches, calling players and working with the players. This gives him the opportunity to fully understand and learn the offense and defensive sides inside and out for when he returns. If he clears a nerve test Benavides will be able to compete this year if he wants to, and boy does he want to! Or he will redshirt this season and play for the Bengals in 2011. Either way the Bengals will have an experienced and knowledgeable player helping them.


--Katie Zigars, Asst. SID

Volleyball Makes a Splash with Team Photo

I would probably have to say that our volleyball athletes can be the silliest of all as far as their personalities. It is never a dull moment with those players. Today the team took their head shot photos for the website and media guides as well as their team photos. With a minor camera problem slowing down the process in the beginning the girls entertained themselves by playing pictionary on the white board in the photographic studio, throwing out random topics for drawing ideas. Some of my favorites were Breanne Van Every (featured in the action photo to the left) drawing cricket for the sports theme. She drew a picture of the insect cricket and a bat, Katie Grajewski was able to get everyone to guess "crabby" the emotion by drawing a boat and something that honestly resembled more of a jellyfish than a crab. Finally, assistant coach David Hyte unsuccessfully tryed to get players to guess Talledega Nights for the movie theme by drawing Ricky Bobby, but needless to say his skills were lacking.

Eventually the camera was fixed, but the pictionary game continued until all the photos were taken. Then the team traveled to the Rendezvous to take their team photo. In fact, the volleyball team is the first program to take their photo in front of the Rendezvous which turned out to be a pretty silly time. Just after we scoped out the best location for a photo and had all the players and coaches aligned on the new grass that has been put in, the sprinklers went off! Who knew sprinklers would be going off at noon. Some of our girls got pretty soaked which turned into a fit of hilarity. The players and coaches were moved to a different section of the grass and continued to take photos. Then the timers must have kicked in (or someone was playing a prank) as the sprinklers went off again! An even greater fit of laughter ensued but poor Karissa Legaux and Haylee Thompson-Brock were sitting right in front of the sprinklers and probably received the most damage. We decided with our luck we would move the players to concrete only and took their photo on the walkway in front of the Rendezvous Center. The photo came out very nicely and I can't wait to put them up on the website! Even if it was a more difficult task than usual, it made for an entertaining afternoon.

-Katie Zigars, Asst. SID