San Jose St. 12/5/09

Oh no it is here! I have been dreading this week. It will be our last game of the season. Am I disappointed? You bet I am! Am I proud of this team? You bet I am! If we can beat San Jose St, then the seniors will go out with a win. I don't know too much about San Jose St, so let’s take a look. A Spartan is a group of elite warriors from ancient Greece, located on the island province of Sparta. Spartan warriors are trained from infancy to be nothing but soldiers. They are to be perfect in every respect and aspect of war, and nothing else. Weaklings perish soon after birth; youth are taught to thieve and terrorize the slave class to harden them; young men are taught to nothing unless it has something to do with the arts of war - Even music and dance are there only to help keep step when marching and obeying orders. The result is a man who thinks nothing of danger, expects to win, and creates a sense of dread in his opponents. If all of this is true then, San Jose St has not lived up to their definition. Ok, that is enough about a fake Spartan! The travel business has been a little up and down. Some last minute holiday travel, spring break and the 2010 summer are the hot topics of the week. Who knows maybe one day the La Tech Alumni association might want to put together a group cruise or something. I bet that would be a hoot! I guess it is time to jump right in the middle of the last week of football for the Bulldogs. Matt had a full week to rest his ankle during Thanksgiving and would test it on Monday. His practices went well. His field goals were spot on. They broke down file on the San Jose St kick return team. Coach was working on the number hitting thing again. I just wish they would let him kick the ball. What difference is it going to make? His critics already think he can only kickoff to the 25! If you ask me those people do not know crap when it comes to kicking a football. They just want a line drive into the end zone that looks like a wounded duck. It’s not going to happen! The young man only kicks where the Coaches tell him to kick. Oh, I forgot, wounded ducks only fall out of the sky in McKinney, Texas. Ok enough on the venting! I just wanted to see if I could get some feathers ruffled! HaHa! Matt said the rest of the week went well. They really wanted to send the seniors out with a victory and that was the only thing on Matt’s mind. We were going to have a lot of family and friends attend the game. My sister and her family would be attending their first game. With the game starting at 1:00PM we would arrive at the stadium around 9:30AM. Our tailgate would be a liquid tailgate and it would consist of beverages for all ages. We met the bus at 11:00AM as the team drove in from Monroe. Matt looked sharp as he got off the bus. Mom & Dad got a big old hug and off he went. We head back to the suburban for a few more cold ones. We made our way into the stadium around 12:15PM. We saw Matt warm up for a few minutes, but we really wanted to be there to applaud the seniors. It was their day and time for them to shine. Gentlemen good luck to your future and lot's of success to whatever life brings you. I have to give a very special shout out to Thomas Graham. He has taken Matt under his wings and shown him the ropes in college football. I know Matt has the utmost respect for him and Janet and I could not have asked for a better mentor than Thomas. Not only is Thomas a great deep snapper, he is a great person and he will be missed on this team. Game time is here, so let the butt kicking begin. We started off a little rough as San Jose St would score first and at the end of the first quarter the score would be tied 14 - 14. This is not the start that we need. I need to give a special shout out to Matt for making his first touchdown saving tackle. It looked like a take down in a calf scamble. Awesome tackle Matt! Something has got to kick in real quick! Wow did we kick it into gear. We score 31 points in the second quarter. Matt got to attempt a 53 yard field goal and he toed it missing it left. Matt would end the 2nd quarter with a 40 yard field goal. Are you kidding me? Where has then type of explosion been all year? San Jose St would score on a 80 yard pass and Matt would make a 32 yard field goal as the 3rd quarter comes to an end with the score 48 - 20. San Jose St would drive mid way through the 4th quarter, but oops they throw an interception at the six and we return it 96 yards for a touchdown. The final horn sounds and the Bulldogs run away with this one 55 - 20. Matt was good on all of his PAT's and ended up with 13 points for the day. What a way to send the seniors out with a victory. We met Matt up by the locker room after the game. He hates taking photos but with new family in attendance more pictures need to be taken. It was pretty cool when his cousin came up with a mini helmet and asked Matt for his autograph. It really was classic! We were very proud of Matt's efforts in this game as well as the whole team. We are very sad because the season is over and we are not bowling, but on the other hand we are excited Matt will get to join us on the cruise we are taking to celebrate my parent’s 50th anniversary! Our evening would end with a family meal at the Log Cabin. Matt was going to hang with his older brother Saturday night and we would meet up with them Sunday morning for breakfast before we head back to Dallas and then myself to San Antonio. The Caribbean was now in our future! What a season it has been. We have met some fantastic people this year. Everyone we have met has been so kind to our family and we truly appreciate your open arms. We really appreciate everyone’s support during the season and look forward to meeting many more of you in the upcoming seasons! I will be writing an overview of the season before the end of the year. My goal is to write every 2 to 3 weeks on Matt's football happenings leading up to the spring game. I really appreciate those of you who have followed my blog and I hope I have not offended anyone. I write from the heart and apologize if I stepped on someone's toes. I want to give a special shout out to Mr. Tom Morris for allowing me to use his pictures for the games I did not attend. Until our paths cross again, have a blessed week! College Football Dad!

Nevada 10/9/11

Another nationally televised game with the spotlight to ourselves. This is pretty awesome! It's a Friday night lights in the "Biggest Little City in the World." ESPN game against the Wolf Pack. Hoo Ya! I am not going to make the trip to Reno. This will be the first game that we will not have a presence in the stands. I guess I need to figure out a few things about the Wolf Pack. They have two Wolf Mascots. One is named Alphie and the other is Wolfie Jr. I am not sure what happened to Wolfie Sr., but I guess this is their version of a wolf pack. I did find out that they have a kicking record for the school. Nevada's Pat Brady holds the record for the longest punt in college football history with his 99-yard punt against Loyola Marymount on October 28th, 1950. It had to be wind aided, but that still is a long ways. Enough of this Wolf Pack crap. The team is coming off of a huge win against Hawaii and I feel like this game is a must win for us. I had several conversations with Matt during the week. His field goal practice was going well and they had a few things they were working on with his kick offs. His hang times and distance were pretty consistent. I still like the right to right kick, but when you have five different kicks you practice every week you never know what will be called during the game. The team hit Reno around 3:15 CST. They were going to check into the hotel first and then head out to do their walk thru. They ended up going to a high school stadium. I thought this was sort of odd since I thought all walkthrough’s are done at the field you were going to play at. I guess when you are just going through your substitution packages it really does not matter. Matt was impressed with the dryness of the air and the snow on the mountain tops. It would be dinner, a movie and lights out. I am so glad Friday is here! Matt said he had a team breakfast at 9:30, position meeting at 10:30, chapel at 1:40, team lunch/dinner at 2:30 and hit's the bus at 3:50 for a 4:00 arrival at Mackay Stadium. It sounds like their day is pretty organized, but with some gaps. Matt did mention to me that the hotel had a driving range that had floating greens out in a fake lake. It has been a crazy week with the business. Next week is what we call in the travel business the World's Largest Cruise Event. I have great deals and chance to win free cruises. It should be a fun week. I am ready for some football. I have been wondering about this game all week. How will we react? With both teams coming off of huge wins the week before, will we be focused? We have to multi task as an offense. We cannot have too many eggs in one basket! Time will tell very soon. I will go at this one by my lonesome. My wife is in Dallas and I am in San Antonio. I say by myself, but my two dogs will be watching with me. It's pretty funny though. When I tell them Matt is on the TV, they go look out the window by the front door. I have decided that my meal of choice will be my infamous Whine & Wangs. The drums will start marinating around noon and they will hit the steamer around six. I know it sounds weird and there is more to the process, but you can check out my madness at the Whine & Wangs link. As the game approaches I start my pacing. I am a horrible TV watcher if it has to do with someone I know. I need a few more glasses of whine. I see a glimpse of Matt as Nevada gets set to kick off. Matt always wants the first kick! The kick goes to Livas and the race is on. We score in the next couple of plays. As Matt gets ready to kick his PAT I have to go stand in the kitchen and watch. Don't ask me what difference it makes, but I have a real bad habit! I am super excited right now. As half time approaches I am very concerned. We go into half down 17 - 7. I hope the team gets refocused. I take my intermission to partake in the Wang portion of my meal. They have nice heat and my whine choice is paired nicely. It does not look very pretty when you get wang sauce on your whine glass. I have to tell a funny! Matt said that he and Cade came out about 10 minutes after half was over so they could warm up and the whole stadium booed them for several minutes! As he was kicking during his warm-ups before the team came out they would blow air horns every time he would kick the ball. Sounds like a concentration test to me. Matt would be short sleeve in the first half and long sleeve in the second half. I did not notice, but it was true. Nevada scores early and it is not looking good. La Tech answers with a score and we have some hope so I thought. Nevada scores right at the end of the 3rd quarter and early in the 4th Midway through the 4th we get down to the 21 and it is 4th down. We need touchdowns and out comes Matt for a 38 yd field goal. NOOOOO! Sure I want to see Matt kick the ball, but I want the team to win also. We need touchdowns. Matt would miss his first real makeable field goal of his college career. La Tech would go on and lose 37 - 14. This is not what I expected. Matt called me right before he would board the bus to the airport. All I can say is he was pissed that they lost and he was pissed that he missed a chip shot. I asked him what happened and he said "Dad, I did not pay attention to one small detail. I did not line up properly. It will not happen again!" "Yes the wind was blowing and the field goal posts where only high school height, but college width and I missed." I know Matt will learn from this. He is way to mentally sound. He watched film with Coach Dooley on the way back to Ruston. His last kick had a 4.26 hang time and Coach Dooley was stoked. They just need to work on the coverage. This is a quote from Matt after he returned to his apartment Saturday morning at 7:00AM "I'll walk through the fire if this is what it takes to take me even higher. Then I’ll come through like I do when the world keeps testing me." I am not sure where he got his mental toughness, but it did not come from me. Matt will be fine and loves learning life’s lessons. I am a firm believer of failing at something every day. This is how we improve in life. I have to admit that I did have two pair of drawers on during the game, but all was good. I can use them for another game. I will be attending the New Mexico State and cannot wait to say hey to Matt. There will be many family and friends at the game and I cannot wait to visit with you all. We were in this same position last year and we went 8 - 5 and went bowling. I have confidence that we will be knocking down pins again. The pictures that are in this blog were taken by Mr. Tom Morris. He has allowed me to use them in my blog. If anyone wants any photos of your favorite kicker please visit La Tech Sports Pix. Thanks again Tom! I just wanted to thank all of the family and friends for all of the support. We truly appreciate it. Let’s get ready to kick some Aggie butt! Until our paths cross again, have a blessed week! College Football Dad!

Auburn 9/5/09

WOW! What can I say? I think I have finally caught my breath. I keep telling myself it is really happening. I have been to most of the big college venues across the USA, but nothing was bigger than being on the grand old stage watching your son on the green grass. The years of hard work and his complete dedication has presented a reward that not many young athletes get to experience. The day has arrived and my external nerves are in check. I have my extra drawers with me for my internal nerves. The Suburban was loaded from top to bottom with just barely enough room for the six passengers. Tailgating supplies were stuck everywhere. It was an unbelievable site. Why do we need so much stuff? You only need beverages of many adult kinds and several fillers. My travel companions consisted of Janet, my Mom and Dad, along with my brother and his wife. We left Troy at 8:45 AM to head out to Montgomery to visit Matt at the team hotel. They were staying at the Embassy Suites downtown. He would be available to meet with family at 10:00. It took us an hour to get there. They had a team breakfast and many meetings that morning. We were there and waiting at 10:00. There were coaches and players everywhere. We spotted Matt wearing his new La Tech warm-ups. I have not seen him since the first of July. He looked really good. I think the flu bug was running through some of the team and Matt was one of them. They gave him a B-12 shot that morning and we found out later that they gave him an IV before the game. We got to visit with Matt in the lobby for a little bit and then went to see his room. Took a few family pictures and it was time to say our goodbyes and let Matt get focused for the game. Our travels would take us from Montgomery into Auburn. We hit Auburn around noon and drove around the campus looking for a spot to tailgate. I have never seen so much orange and blue in my life. We finally found a few parking spots over by the intramural fields. I would say we were about 1 1/2 miles away from the stadium. We took a few of our chairs to put them in the other parking spot to save for Tyler and Kasie who were driving over from Ruston. We got the tent set up with the help of several Auburn fans who were set up next to us. No one could remember how it went up. The ice chest, grill and enough food to fill a refrigerator all made it under the tent. I have had enough of the setting up. It is time to start reducing the amount of adult beverages that we brought. We had brats, burgers, hot dogs, chips, peanuts, gold fish, cashews, crackers, dips and who knows what else. It was like we were on a camping trip and the food would last us for the week. Tyler and Kasie pulled into Auburn around 2:00. The grill was fired up and the cooking would commence. While we were tailgating I would get to hook up with Jeremy. Jeremy and I are both in the travel business and had met while at training with Cruise Planners. He was a huge Auburn fan and we had planned on this meeting back in November. Today was his birthday and Matt's first college game. What a way for both of us to celebrate, a couple of beers and the love of college football. As game time nears, we stuff our face with all of the grub that we had brought with us. My eagerness is about to get the best of me. It is 4:00 and I am ready to head to the stadium. We take all of our stuff down and load the suburban back up. We all grab two cold ones for the walk to the stadium. About a 1/2 mile from the stadium we come to a standstill. I had heard of the Tiger Walk, but have not witnessed it until today. The Auburn football team gets off the bus at the top of the road that leads to the stadium. They walk between rows of thousands of fans the entire 1/2 mile into the stadium. It was quite a site to see orange as far as you could see. We all stood out like a swollen thumb all dressed in La Tech blue. As we made our way to the stadium, it was like we were walking with the Auburn team down the hill. At least that took the attention off of us as we made our wat through the sea of orange. The Auburn fans that we talked to were all very friendly. Not once did we get a "Tiger Bait" yelled at us like they do at LSU. We picked up our tickets from will call and headed into the stadium. I had been to Jordan Hare before, but I was still in awe. I stood at the rail for a bit as I spotted Matt warming up. He looked like he was hitting the ball pretty well. I was holding things together on the outside, but my insides were a mess. It was finally starting to hit. Before the teams come out they release a War Eagle and it fly’s around the stadium a few times and get the crowd really riled up. It was quite spectacular as it landed in the middle of the field. As game time neared we spotted the La Tech team getting ready to come out of the tunnel and Matt and Cade were leading them out on the field. I was quite shocked to see two freshmen leading the way. Matt had told us that morning that he wanted to kick the opening kickoff. He did not want to wait. His wishes came true as Auburn elected to receive after they won the coin toss. The realness has set in and I am sweating bullets. Matt takes the ball from the ref and his first kick is on its way. Matt's girlfriend Kasie was sitting next to me and after that kick she asked me if she could borrow an extra pair of my drawers. Since I had several in reserve I gave one up. HaHa! The game would go back and forth in the first half. Matt set several goals for his first game and I think he hit all of them. He kicked a PAT, a kickoff, a short field goal and in the 3rd quarter he was sent out to attempt a 46 yd field goal. I am not going to lie, I was sick at my stomach. I saw the snap and from my vantage point it looked like it was going right and then it went through the uprights. I saw the refs hands go up and there it was a 46 yd field goal in front of 85K on national TV. What a moment to share with our family and friends. Matt had proved to everyone that he was the real deal. ESPN announcers quote! "Matt Nelson, Welcome to the world of division 1 football, pretty big leg for a little man!" La Tech would not play up to Coach Dooley's expectations in the 4th quarter. Auburn would win the game 37 to 13. It is always tough to go into a hostile environment, especially a big SEC school. He had 7 of the 13 La Tech points with two field goals and one extra point. I was happy for Matt in his kicking efforts, but extremely disappointed in the results of the team. Win or lose, you do it as a team. There is no "I" in team. We found the buses that would take the team back to the Montgomery. We waited for Matt to come out. He came out with his bags and put them on the bus. We got to visit with him about 30 minutes before they would load up and head out. What an experience for a College Football Dad. I could not be prouder. Matt had taken another step in his journey. While I made it through my multiple pairs of drawers, I cannot think about this game too long. We will celebrate as a family tonight. As Sunday rolls around it will be time to get my mind set for Navy. They play Navy on Saturday at 2:30 on the CBS College Sports channel. That will be an experience for a young man to go to Annapolis and play at the Naval Academy. I just wanted to give a shout out to all of our family and friends who either went to the game or had game watching parties. We could feel all of the support and I cannot thank everyone enough. I want to give a super special thanks to Jim & Jean Mueller for letting us stay at their home in Troy and treating us like kings and queens. Before I leave to get my game face on for Navy, I wanted to give my official drawer count for game #1. The official drawer count that I wore to the game was two. I needed all of the extra support on those hard metal benches. Pops will not be attending the game at Navy. Janet, her Mom, Aunt and Uncle will all be in attendance. I will be in front of the tube with Tyler, along with a few adult beverages. Until our paths cross again, have a blessed week. College Football Dad!