Douglas graduate and incoming University of Nevada freshman Jeff Nady has been putting in plenty of time in the weight room since basketball season ended.
Nady, who signed with the Wolf Pack football team early February, has been working out with his new teammates at the school's summer weightlifting sessions.
"I've been coming down here every day to get stronger," he said after the Sertoma All-Star Classic football game at Mackay Stadium Friday night. "I've been in the weight room a lot, just working on getting better as a player.
"It's a great environment and it's been nothing but a positive experience for me."
When he first signed, Nevada coaches were trumping Nady as an offensive tackle even though he'd spent the majority of his high school career at tight end and on the defensive line.
I had my initial doubts, and I still wonder if they'll plug him in (even temporarily) at punter since he is capable of booting the ball 60 yards on the fly, but after watching him play Friday I have to say that he appears to be ready to shift into the tackle role.
He was listed at 246 pounds on the Tigers' roster last fall, but he's put on 27 pounds since to bump up to 273 pounds.
And the crazy thing is, it doesn't appear to be bad weight.
"We've been doing a lot of running drills up here," he said. "We're doing a lot of footwork and agility with the trainers, some speed training and some offensive line specific stuff."
It didn't appear to hurt him any.
While he still played on the defensive line for the Silver team in the all-star game, he was consistently double-teamed.
The Blue team didn't have a single play that I could see where it successfully ran at him, and he fought through the double-team blocks and looked impressive in pursuit of the quarterback.
Time will tell how he fits into the scheme at Nevada, but the work he's done already deserved a nod.
The first two of the five Little League All-Star tournaments in the area will be coming to a close this week as the Hooligans and Renegades wrap things up.
Watching the Hooligans dismantle Reno American East Monday night, jogged my memory back to a conversation I had with a Washoe Little League coach at the state basketball tournament who was there helping out along press row.
Washoe is considered the top league competitively in the area and annualy produces most of the all-star district championship teams.
He said that every year they have trouble with Carson Valley teams at every level. He said while the talent level isn't quite the same since Carson Valley doesn't play year-round like Washoe does, the teams from down here are always well-coached and the kids always play hard.
The scoreboard may not always show it, he said, but it seems like every year Carson Valley teams manage to give them plenty of fits.
Just thought I'd pass that along.
Just a little background here: I got this wild idea in my head a couple weeks ago that I was going to attempt to compete in the all-comers track meets at South Lake Tahoe this July and August.
The idea up there is that these weekly meets, held on Thursdays and conducted by area track official Anthony Davis, are open to anyone ages 2 to 99.
We're two weeks away from the first meet and I'm still not completely sure I'm going to go through with it.
It's tough to tell, day-to-day, where I actually stand.
I didn't run a straight-up 800 last week, instead alternating between five 200-meter sprints one day and three-mile jogs the next.
I started with four 300-meter runs this week and followed up with another three-mile run today. I'll expect to know more next week when I start running the 400 splits. My hope is to be completing those within a 1:30 time frame.
If not, then the track meet is going to be a pretty painful experience. We'll just have to wait and see.
Just one more note: All this smoke in the air doesn't make for good running at all. In fact, it'll probably cause you more harm than just taking a couple extra days off until the smoke clears.
I may do that as well.
This will be a weekly column item through the summer, so anyone with any tips, suggestions or stories of their own is more than welcome to contact me at jcrandalll@recordcourier.com
Stats for Week 3, 800 meters: Baseline time, 3:53 (Ugh). Best time this summer: 3:53. Best time this week: Didn't run a straight-up 800. Goal in order to run in a meet: 3:00. Goal for the summer: 2:44.
- Having taken into account everything said about Nady above, it would have been fun to see the 6-7, 273-pound Divison I recruit in at offensive tackle for at least one play Friday night. Nady spent his entire night on the defensive line. Sure, it was his position during the school year, but the offense only managed a handful of postive rushing yards in the game. It might not have hurt to give him a look.
- On the other hand, the decision to slide Douglas linebacker Luke Wartgow in at offensive guard was puzzling to me. I think I saw him play there for maybe 10 snaps during his high school career. He was selected to the game because of his play on defense and was done a disservice by having to play his final football game out of his natural position.
- Reed quarterback Zack Parker, who earned the start for the Silver team, is a monster. The kid is as fast as I've seen and he can throw a pretty nice ball. I was glad to see he caught on with Division III Cal Lutheran for his college career.
- Fireworks at the Reno Rodeo lit off about midway through the third quarter Friday night. They could be seen just over the south end zone bleachers at Mackay Stadium.
