Signing Day 2009

Signing Day has become an unofficial holiday for football fans. I'm amazed at the way things have evolved. Ten years ago, you would be hard pressed to find any kind of coverage about where local sports stars would be attending college. Now, Signing Day has become an event.
When I first came to WPDE, we would visit a long list of schools and do our best to cram a long list of interviews into a five minute sportscast (usually double the time we get). Over the years, we've realized what a special day it is for area athletes and have done a thirty minute special.
It's great to see the future stars of college football come into our studio on their special day. More important than that, we are able to give every athlete on our board a chance to have their moment in the sun on TV. By having the signees come into the studio we can give everyone a chance to have that moment.
Hags and I are a lot like college coaches in developing our own recruiting board in the month of January. When it all got finalized, fifteen schools had 47 players sign on Wednesday. 43 of those players were able to come into our studio. To the coaches and families, we greatly appreciate you taking time to come to visit us during the day.
We started shooting signings and interviews at 12:15 pm on Wednesday. By 3:00, we had shot forty interviews. As the final three people came by, we had to turn around a lot of information in a short amount of time. It's a fun challenge, but a little stressful as the time winds down towards our 7:30 pm show. The end result was a chance for everyone to be part of signing day. All of these kids worked hard to get an opportunity to play college football and deserve some kudos. It is also great to give some of the small college kids some spotlight as they tend to get overlooked when it comes to media attention.
We have many kids going the junior college or prep school route. These are players that have the ability to play in the SEC or ACC, but must take care of business in the classroom. Hopefully, we will have more success stories like Allen Patrick, who went from Hutchinson CC to Oklahoma to the Cleveland Browns.
On a side note, I remember Signing Day 2004 when Lawrence Timmons signed his letter with Florida State. Now, he's a Super Bowl champion. Timmons was the first WPDE All-Zoner to play in a Super Bowl. I'm quite sure there will be many more in the coming years.