Practice Starts Today

Fall camp started yesterday, fall practice starts today. I'm sure the fine folks over at Sportshawaii.com will have pictures posted up sometime this weekend. You can always visit their photo gallery for various photos. There are some recent photos from unsupervised workouts.

Right on, just saw that there's some really good news for Ian Sample, just in time for practice:

Hawaii football wide receiver Ian Sample was granted an additional season of eligibility by the NCAA, UH athletic department official Bill Bryant said this morning.

Sample was expected to be at the Warriors' first practice of fall camp today.

UH petitioned the NCAA to extend Sample's eligibility to a a sixth season because of a knee injury that limited him to three games last year and a situation in 2003 that required Sample to help with family matters when his mother, Debi, was diagnosed wtih multiple sclerosis.

Excellent news for Mr. Sample, who must be super-pumped right now. It's also excellent news for the UH football team. Ian will be a show-stopper this season.

Stephen Tsai has a pretty extensive interview with June Jones. Here are some excerpts:

Cornerback JoPierre Davis, who also was withheld from spring practice because of academic issues, has met the team, school and NCAA requirements to play this season.

...

The Warriors will use the silver jerseys with black numbers for the season-opening road game against Alabama.

...

At the urging of his players, Jones said, the Warriors will use black jerseys for all home games.

"The kids like the black, and they want to wear the black, Jones said. "Plus, it looks good on TV. We have the green (jerseys), but we'll probably use them for special events."

...

Once a year, several Warriors are evaluated extensively to determine their ability to perform under fire. Only one UH player — Bess — was found to be ESTP (Extra-verted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving), the highest level.
Jones said Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Peyton Manning and Michael Vick were rated as ESTP. Jones was found to be in the second level, ENPT.

So confirmation that Bess is da bess. I wonder how the test is run? Must be interesting. I imagine Leonard Peters throw flaming torches at the players while they walk across a balance beam with rattlesnakes on either side. Anyway, that's pretty cool that Davone is ESTP or whatever. If all our QBs go down in one game, I'm sure he could step in and lead UH to a come from behind victory!

And finally, here's an article regarding the NCAA APR rules.

Hawaii was stripped of five football scholarships and one baseball scholarship for this school year thanks to its first APR score under the new system, but UH officials remained optimistic.

"I think we've done all we can do in that area," coach June Jones said yesterday.

Last spring practice, Jones had several student-athletes spending time in study hall rather than the practice field.

Jones also noted in the spring he might take another look at his recruiting philosophy, as a player who transfers out without graduating counts against schools under the APR system.