A hoarde of players, coaches and media descended on University of Phoenix Stadium Tuesday morning for a “media day” before this weekend’s football championships.
Several of us Tribune folk were in attendance, so be sure to check out Varsity Xtra this week (especially Friday and Saturday) for loads of football coverage, plus highlights and results from a good weekend of basketball and soccer tournaments.
Anyway, here are some tidbits from the 5A-I tilt between Phoenix Desert Vista and Phoenix Brophy, some of which may appear in depth in the paper later this week. Some may not.
Desert Vista’s Luke Matthews shaved his head into a mini-mohawk before the ‘Ahwatukee Bowl” against Phoenix Mountain Pointe game late in the regular season. He said one other player, Patrick Johnson has a similar look.
“It’s something different,” Matthews said, a statement some teammates said fits Matthews to a T.
Desert Vista junior Devon Kennard, on recruiting: “I don’t open any letters. I let my brother (Derek) and mom deal with that stuff.”
The way he’s played this season (90 tackles, 24 1/2 sacks), it’s a full-time job.
Devon’s older brother, Derek, won a state title with Desert Vista under Jim Rattay in 1998 and was a three-year all-WAC lineman at the University of Nevada. He’s now the Thunder’s defensive line coach.
He’s also the team’s prognosticator. After the Thunder beat Mesa Mountain View in the quarterfinals, Derek declared the state title would come down to D.V. and Brophy.
Sure enough, both teams did their part in the semifinals.
Thunder coach Dan Hinds denied any knowledge of this bold prediction, but the players said it’s true.
Jeff Thompson is Desert Vista’s offensive coordinator. He was going to be Brophy’s tight ends coach, and joined the Broncos in spring, but when Dan Hinds called last summer, Thompson got the green light from Brophy coach Scooter Molander.
Molander, on winning the state title two years ago in his first year as a head coach: “It was a transition. I was utterly inefficient. I was exhausted. It was a learning process for sure.”
Following up on an item we had in today’s paper:
Brophy lineman Mike Tree said the latest installment (part 3) of “Mike Tree: Campus Linebacker,” will be shown in school on Friday. The guess here is won’t take too long before it finds its way onto YouTube.
BTW according to more than one of his Bronco teammates, anyone wondering who Mike Tree is can find him screaming throughout Phoenix Xavier volleyball matches.
