**New** (Larry) SUMMER UPDATE: Wade Woodaz
- By Cris_Ard
- The West Zone
- 15 Replies
TigerIllustrated - SUMMER UPDATE: Wade Woodaz
What we are hearing on Clemson linebacker Wade Woodaz to this point in the off-season.
clemson.rivals.com
**New** (Paul) Clemson zeroes in on son of former NFL standout
- By Cris_Ard
- The West Zone
- 18 Replies
TigerIllustrated - Clemson zeroes in on son of former NFL standout
We just spoke with one of the nation's top tight ends who will soon be back in Clemson. We've got the latest here.
clemson.rivals.com
Lost Sub
- By other1
- The West Zone
- 386 Replies
Aircraft detects underwater noises in search for missing sub near Titanic
Rescuers in a remote area of the Atlantic Ocean located approximately 900 miles east of Cape Cod raced against time Tuesday to find the missing vessel carrying five people.
www.wcvb.com
**New** (Paul) Midweek Recruiting Insider
- By Cris_Ard
- The West Zone
- 40 Replies
TigerIllustrated - MIDWEEK RECRUITING INSIDER
Our second major Insider of the week is here! Always loaded with recruiting intel. Always a must-read for Clemson fans.
clemson.rivals.com
OT: New Driver
- By BroMontana
- The West Zone
- 29 Replies
What’s up guys. I’ve been using a Nike Victory Red driver for the last 15 years or so, and it’s time for an upgrade. As a disclaimer, I will 100% be booking a fitting and have them give me some options. That said, the slight differences between the top of the line models should make it so that I could probably use any of them relatively successfully.
Without hitting it, I’m liking what I’m reading on the Titleist TS2 or TS3. Most sites are promoting the TaylorMade Stealth 2 as the best option out there.
Also currently hitting a 9 degree with a regular flex shaft, and I imagine that will likely stick.
Any recommendations on a driver that’s working for you guys? TIA
The real tragedy of Ryan Mallett's death
- By Cris_Ard
- The West Zone
- 15 Replies
The real tragedy of Ryan Mallett's death
By: Dan Wetzel - Yahoo! Sports
In 2008, Casey Dick was about to begin his second season as the starting quarterback at the University of Arkansas when 6-foot-6 Ryan Mallett entered the program.
It didn’t take long for Dick to become mesmerized by Mallett’s physical skills, namely how, if he wanted to, Mallett could uncork a football 80 or more yards downfield. Size, strength and a deep interest in learning how to play the position … it was all there.
“Immediately you thought, ‘This guy is going to the NFL,' ” Dick said Wednesday, one day after Mallett tragically drowned off a Destin, Florida, beach. Mallett was just 35 years old.
Mallett always knew his potential as a player. He also knew his real long-term future. He was certainly going to play as long as he could — in this case as a two-time All-SEC selection for some classic Razorback teams and then seven seasons in the NFL.
After the Patriots selected him in the third round of the 2011 draft, Ryan Mallett (right) played seven seasons in the NFL. He died in an apparent drowning. He was 35. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Eventually though, Mallett was going to get into coaching. His father, Jim, was a longtime Texas high school coach, including leading Ryan at Texarkana (Texas) High. Ryan grew up going to practices. As a toddler, he'd ride the blocking sleds for fun.
“Everyone in my family — my dad and his brothers — go by, ‘Coach,’” Ryan Mallett told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette this spring. “‘Coach Mallett.’ That's all I've ever heard. I was going to be a coach.”
“He always wanted to make an impact in people’s lives,” said Dick, now the head coach at Fayetteville (Arkansas) High School. “That was Ryan. That’s how he was as a teammate. He cared about everybody on the team. And that’s why he always wanted to be a coach at some point.”
The thing is, with his accomplishments, his name (he’s a legend in Arkansas, if not across the entire South), his pedigree as a former five-star recruit and SEC record-setter, and his pro experience backing up Tom Brady and being coached by, among others, Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh, he could have found a job at nearly any level.
Major college football. The SEC. The NFL. Whatever. Mallett was someone respected across the game for his play, certainly, but more so for his work ethic, values and acumen. His future was nearly limitless.
“I will always remember the love he had for his teammates,” Harbaugh said.
“We lost a great man,” Brady added.
Ryan Mallett didn’t choose to chase a college or pro job though. Instead he decided to apply himself to the high school ranks, where he felt he could most impact his players on and off the field.
"My job is to help shape and mold young people,” Mallett told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. “This is the time a lot of them are finding out about themselves. I hope I can help them."
He didn’t even seem to care about where or who he was impacting. He didn’t try to join a title contending team or a school in a major city. He didn’t even demand that he was the head coach.
Instead, in 2020, he became the offensive coordinator at Mountain Home (Arkansas) High School, a small city along the Missouri border that is about as far from the NFL spotlight as you can get. And the football program? It was one the worst in the state, having posted a 1-29 record the previous three seasons.
Mallett couldn’t have been happier. Maybe no one else understood why Ryan Mallett — Ryan Mallett! — had become an assistant coach for a lousy, out-of-the-way, high school team. To him though, while those days in the SEC and NFL were great, it wasn’t because of the size of the stadiums or the national television cameras.
“It was a lot of fun, but the records and games are not what I think about most,” Mallett said. “It’s the relationships. That’s what you remember; the coaches, the teammates and everyone around the program.”
At Mountain View, he quickly helped end a 23-game losing streak. By 2021, the Bombers went 4-8 and scored a stunning upset in the state playoffs.
That was enough that in 2022, he was hired as the head coach of White Hall (Arkansas) High School in a 5,000-person town outside of Pine Bluff. It was still a long way from the spotlight, but as he hung some of his memorabilia in his office, he realized few, if any, of his current players knew much about the old days.
White Hall went 4-6 in Mallett’s first season, but when he and Casey Dick visited recently at a 7-on-7 tournament in Fayetteville, Mallett’s excitement for the job and building the program was obvious. More kids who had never played football were coming out and Mallett kept talking about the connections he was making.
“He’d found his niche,” Dick said. “It was just all about the kids, coaching kids, helping kids and making an impact with them. Sometimes your niche finds you and with Ryan it definitely found him.”
Big-time football legend. Small-town high school coach.
“It made him happy,” Dick said. “It was great to see him like that. It’s all just shocking.”
Dick and others lost a friend and teammate on Tuesday. The Mallett family lost a son and a brother. The Razorbacks lost a legend.
And potentially generations of young, small town Southern kids lost a leader, a mentor and a coach, who’d been to the top of the sport but was now far more interested in them then trying to get back.
By: Dan Wetzel - Yahoo! Sports
In 2008, Casey Dick was about to begin his second season as the starting quarterback at the University of Arkansas when 6-foot-6 Ryan Mallett entered the program.
It didn’t take long for Dick to become mesmerized by Mallett’s physical skills, namely how, if he wanted to, Mallett could uncork a football 80 or more yards downfield. Size, strength and a deep interest in learning how to play the position … it was all there.
“Immediately you thought, ‘This guy is going to the NFL,' ” Dick said Wednesday, one day after Mallett tragically drowned off a Destin, Florida, beach. Mallett was just 35 years old.
Mallett always knew his potential as a player. He also knew his real long-term future. He was certainly going to play as long as he could — in this case as a two-time All-SEC selection for some classic Razorback teams and then seven seasons in the NFL.
After the Patriots selected him in the third round of the 2011 draft, Ryan Mallett (right) played seven seasons in the NFL. He died in an apparent drowning. He was 35. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Eventually though, Mallett was going to get into coaching. His father, Jim, was a longtime Texas high school coach, including leading Ryan at Texarkana (Texas) High. Ryan grew up going to practices. As a toddler, he'd ride the blocking sleds for fun.
“Everyone in my family — my dad and his brothers — go by, ‘Coach,’” Ryan Mallett told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette this spring. “‘Coach Mallett.’ That's all I've ever heard. I was going to be a coach.”
“He always wanted to make an impact in people’s lives,” said Dick, now the head coach at Fayetteville (Arkansas) High School. “That was Ryan. That’s how he was as a teammate. He cared about everybody on the team. And that’s why he always wanted to be a coach at some point.”
The thing is, with his accomplishments, his name (he’s a legend in Arkansas, if not across the entire South), his pedigree as a former five-star recruit and SEC record-setter, and his pro experience backing up Tom Brady and being coached by, among others, Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh, he could have found a job at nearly any level.
Major college football. The SEC. The NFL. Whatever. Mallett was someone respected across the game for his play, certainly, but more so for his work ethic, values and acumen. His future was nearly limitless.
“I will always remember the love he had for his teammates,” Harbaugh said.
“We lost a great man,” Brady added.
Ryan Mallett didn’t choose to chase a college or pro job though. Instead he decided to apply himself to the high school ranks, where he felt he could most impact his players on and off the field.
"My job is to help shape and mold young people,” Mallett told the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. “This is the time a lot of them are finding out about themselves. I hope I can help them."
He didn’t even seem to care about where or who he was impacting. He didn’t try to join a title contending team or a school in a major city. He didn’t even demand that he was the head coach.
Instead, in 2020, he became the offensive coordinator at Mountain Home (Arkansas) High School, a small city along the Missouri border that is about as far from the NFL spotlight as you can get. And the football program? It was one the worst in the state, having posted a 1-29 record the previous three seasons.
Mallett couldn’t have been happier. Maybe no one else understood why Ryan Mallett — Ryan Mallett! — had become an assistant coach for a lousy, out-of-the-way, high school team. To him though, while those days in the SEC and NFL were great, it wasn’t because of the size of the stadiums or the national television cameras.
“It was a lot of fun, but the records and games are not what I think about most,” Mallett said. “It’s the relationships. That’s what you remember; the coaches, the teammates and everyone around the program.”
At Mountain View, he quickly helped end a 23-game losing streak. By 2021, the Bombers went 4-8 and scored a stunning upset in the state playoffs.
That was enough that in 2022, he was hired as the head coach of White Hall (Arkansas) High School in a 5,000-person town outside of Pine Bluff. It was still a long way from the spotlight, but as he hung some of his memorabilia in his office, he realized few, if any, of his current players knew much about the old days.
White Hall went 4-6 in Mallett’s first season, but when he and Casey Dick visited recently at a 7-on-7 tournament in Fayetteville, Mallett’s excitement for the job and building the program was obvious. More kids who had never played football were coming out and Mallett kept talking about the connections he was making.
“He’d found his niche,” Dick said. “It was just all about the kids, coaching kids, helping kids and making an impact with them. Sometimes your niche finds you and with Ryan it definitely found him.”
Big-time football legend. Small-town high school coach.
“It made him happy,” Dick said. “It was great to see him like that. It’s all just shocking.”
Dick and others lost a friend and teammate on Tuesday. The Mallett family lost a son and a brother. The Razorbacks lost a legend.
And potentially generations of young, small town Southern kids lost a leader, a mentor and a coach, who’d been to the top of the sport but was now far more interested in them then trying to get back.
A mileage-based tax coming for EV's
- By Clemson Goat
- House Of Politics & Off-Topics
- 12 Replies
One state is considering a mileage-based EV tax – here's why that's a bad idea
Lawmakers in Vermont are gearing up for a mileage-based EV tax – there are better ways to raise funds for roads and infrastructure.
electrek.co
**New** (Larry) SUMMER UPDATE: Cole Turner
- By Cris_Ard
- The West Zone
- 55 Replies
TigerIllustrated - SUMMER UPDATE: Cole Turner
What we are hearing on Clemson wide receiver Cole Turner to this point in the off-season.
clemson.rivals.com
