a Tie, a Shocking Moment, a Catastrophe... TGIFNF

Goodness, who is with me when I say, Can this week just END already??
Seriously, Thank God it is Friday Night Football again and hopefully a start to a much better week.

I hadn't planned to take this long to update my blog, but the week just got worse and worse after last Friday night and hopefully we got the last bit of bad news at 10pm last night.

By now most all of you know about our football game last Friday, but for my family in Amarillo, I will retell it once again from what I witnessed... quite possibly the one thing that is every parents nightmare.

We were playing one of the best games ever. It was exciting and it was FUN to watch. We were pretty evenly matched and we were neck in neck with them. 5 minutes left in the 4th quarter, we were tied 14-14. Pretty dang good considering they beat us 63-28 last year.
With 5 minutes left on the clock, we were punted the ball and down at the 20 yardline, but there was a player that was down, so it delayed the game. I didn't see it happen until the next day when watching game film with Josh, but Rudder's #45 got up and took 3 steps and them fell like a board. From the stands it seemed he just got the wind knocked out of him, but when they rolled him over and his feet were dead weight, we knew it was more. Then the gurney came out and we knew it was bad.
I looked down to find Josh and he was walking over to their coach and then all the sudden things happened so fast. I see Josh kinda jump back and then all the sudden they were ripping #45 jersey off and doing chest compressions. Everyone in the stands were silent, but we heard a lady on the field (maybe his mom?) let out this horrific scream and I honestly thought we just witnessed the one thing no one ever wants to see. But as it turns out, thank you to the Lord above, they pulled out the AED's and revived him.
Praise the Lord.
I can not tell you what a nightmare that was. I never EVER want to witness something like that again. Scariest moment ever.
The only good thing that came of that was seeing the 2 teams pray together. That is always a breathtaking sight.

Thank you to Chad Taylor for the pictures and for creating this logo for us. The guy is Rudder's mascot carrying #45. Taylor Elrod and I were planning to make and wear this on a button, but with all the latest festivities, we ran out of time. For now, I will sport it on my Blog:)

The game ended at 14-14 tie and will go down as a tie in the record book. Raiders are now 1-0-1

We got good news the next day when we learned that David Wilganowski will be ok and will get to keep his scholarship to Rice University.

Then, Sunday happened. A horrible fire across from our subdivision, burned 3 houses to the ground. That same day, the Bastrop fire and the Steiner Ranch fire and Pflugerville fires. The next day, the Leander fire- 3 fires in fact. Then on Tuesday, the Cedar Park fire and 2 other fires in my subdivision.

The Leander fire left 11 families homeless. And damaged several others- 4 of which were our athletes.

Between the Bastrop fire and Steiner Ranch fires, it burned down 1500 houses.

Then last night, a group of Florence football players were driving in a car, that flipped over and one of the Senior football players died, another was left paralyzed, one is in critical condition and I am not sure on the other kid yet.

This has been a rough week for our community. Not just for the Raiders, but for the Rudder Rangers, and all of LISD and Bastrop. Here is to hoping this Friday is a turn around for all of us!!

Rouse vs. Hendrickson Hawks

Last year they beat us 34-14 and we could have easily

We know Coach Killian and his wife and think VERY highly of them! Very excited to play this game and I hope we keep them on the schedule for next season.

The Hawks won their first game this year against Vista Ridge 28-26 and lost to Lake Travis last week 43-14

Making them 1-1

I truly think this game is going to be a good one, but its going to be a dogfight to the end. We are going to have to be mentally focused and not give up the ball, but I think in the end, we quite possibly could be the ones to come out ahead of the game!

Good Luck to our Raiders!! 

Go win this game for yourselves, but also for the entire 

Raider Community that needs something good to focus on! 

See you all at Kickoff!!!

Victory at Last

Not sure if he was TRYING to play on my poor nerves or give me an anxiety attack or what, but when Josh came home on Wednesday and told me that Coach Poehls and him thought we would shut out Liberty Hill, I laughed. Not that I didn't believe him, but truthfully, my only concern was to get one point more than LH at the end of the game. And I hated to point this out, but we lost to LH 34-14. So you're telling me that our team who went winless last year, is going to all the sudden not going to allow them to score at all. Umm.. ok

I really just didn't care about a shut out, I just wanted a Win by our name in the paper on Saturday.

But knowing Josh, he wanted a win too, but his goal was to be the best defense on the field or he wouldn't be satisfied. (at least in my opinion:) 

Anyhow, I told him good luck with that and went on about my business of praying that God gave us better athletes come Friday night. 

Looking ahead at Liberty Hill would have been something I normally would have done last year, but I ran out of time. Good thing too, because I would have been an even bigger ball of nerves than I was already. 

Liberty Hill made the playoff's last year and just barely lost to Navarro by 21-20 in OT.  Navarro went on to play 4 more rounds deep into the playoffs last year. 

They had 6 offensive and 6 defensive players returning. Not to mention they have won several state championships in the past- not that that means anything at all, but it does mean that they have Varsity winning experience, which is something we lacked.

Panthers won the coin toss and elected to receive and thanks to Sergio- they get the ball on their own 20! Not a bad way to start. 

I hid my eyes because in the first 3 drives, the Panther Offense kept gaining yards. On the 3rd down, I pretty much hid my eyes, thinking "Here we go". But thank you to our Daulton Moore, we got a fumble recovery and our Offense takes the field. 

Botello starts out at QB and hands off to Logan and we gain a few yards, but on the 2nd down, we got a pass interference call and lost 15 yards. But it went in our favor because on the very next down, Logan Kinder takes it down and scores! Sergio nailed the PAT-- 7-0 in our first drive on Offense. 

I literally had tears already at this point, just seemed too easy I guess!

And here we go again on defense and we hold em and get the ball right back, but they held us too, so punt team comes out and kicks it to the 10 yard line! Panthers have 90 yards to go!! Thank you for the bad field position for the Panthers! They take it to the 50, but that is all they get because our freaking defense holds them and force them to punt. The poor Panther Offense was forced to punt several times throughout the 1st and 2nd quarters. Our defense was just holding them each down. 

with about 3minutes, left in 2nd, on 4th down, Jordan Vise forced the offense to break up and the pass was incomplete and we got the ball on the 35 yard line, we couldn't get too far, but on 4th down and 6, we went for it and unfortunately we didn't get it, but the Panthers got the ball on the 38 yard line. Score is still 7-0. Our defense was on FIRE and we forced a fumble, and recovered the ball on the 43 yard line. 

**For those of you that are not aware of this- our defense led the district in forced fumbles last year:)

So our offense takes over on the 43 and on the first play of that drive, #12 Botello, takes it to the endzone and kick was good. 2 minutes left in the first half, we were leading the score 14-0. 

The next drive with the Panthers on offense, looked to be a little scary for a second. I can't remember the kids name, but it appeared that he was going to make a breakaway and go score. But guess Sean Hallberg came out of nowhere and squashed that Panther. HUGE play for Sean. HUGE momentum play for the defense. I realize that the Panthers picked up quite a few yards on that play, but stopping that breakaway seemed pretty big to me. Our defense was just gaining confidence play by play and GUESS WHAT- AVERY SCHEFFLER comes up with another Raider fumble!!!! For those of you that don't know Avery-get used to hearing his name!

Clock buzzes to zero and the crowd cheers the players all the way to the locker room to end the first half and we are 14-0. 

What the hell???

 Is this the calm before the storm?

I am still not convinced that we have the game in the bag. I have been to TOO many games where the losing team comes back to win the game. Do I need to remind you of the 2003 Wichita Falls/ San Angelo game? We were losing 35-7 at half and came back to win 68-35. 

So 14 points wasn't real convincing to me. 

At this point, I will just skip to what I really want to get to... 

We WON!!! Not only did we WIN, but we SHUT THEM OUT!!!! I am SO thrilled to be able to say that I was WRONG! WHOOHOO!!! 21-0!!

As I made my way down to the gate, I didn't have a thought in my head except- get to the gate and video the end. The last 1 minute lasted an eternity....an ETERNITY!!! The last time I headed down to the gate was the Vandegrift game last year and I was waiting on the sidelines for the clock to buzz and to run out and congratulate Josh and the team. As you all know, it was not a celebratory moment. But this time it was in the bag. We had that game won, NO CHANCE of them scoring 3 TD's in 30 seconds. 

The clock finally buzzed. 

I guess I underestimated how I would feel in that moment. It never once occured to me that I would cry. I don't cry- ever and ESPECIALLY in public. I rarely cry at funerals. But I cried. I think it was the road that we had to travel to get to that moment. I know the sacrifices that the players and coaches have made. 

  I stayed by the gate to watch the end, then the boys ran to the locker room to meet up with Josh. 

That moment was something that will FOREVER be engraved in my mind, 

I don't know what I was expecting. I really don't and I really can not put into word that moment that I came around the gate and saw Jace run into Josh's arms, I was frozen- or wanted to be. I stepped back and was just watching the scene in front of me. It literally felt like I was watching a movie. To any random person, you probably would think we had won the state championship instead of a non district football game. But that is literally what it felt like. There were coaches and wives crying. People laughing, the players were cheering. The scene lasted just a few minutes because the next thing that happened was Josh taking Charlie into the locker room and EVERYONE in the locker room was cheering so loud.

It made me cry all over again. 

We haven't been able to experience this yet and now were. 

I have some video that i will post later, but for now, I am going to post the 2 pictures that Chad Taylor took that really capture the moment that i am talking about. I will never forget Friday night as long as I live.

It wasn't just Rouse's first Varsity Win, but it was also Josh's first Varsity Win as a Head Coach, Instead of being 0-11, he is finally 1-11 and we will hopefully add to the win column as the season progresses. 

Congrats to our 2011 Rouse Team.  

I couldn't be prouder of you if I tried. Keep it up-- we can do great things with this team...

 
I would also like to say Good Luck to Liberty Hill in the rest of their season. They have always been a great opponent and have had great teams. Beating Liberty Hill was a fantastic accomplishment for us Raiders. 

Good Luck Tonight Raiders!

I PROMISED an update this week and a pre-game show, but my stupid att internet service decided not to work on Wednesday, thus, I was not able to get anyone out here until yesterday and they had to install a new modem, so needless to say, I was not able to do a big update. I am so sorry. I miss this blog and I MISS the heck out of writing, so I promise this will be resolved and I will be back on Saturday with updates and we will be back on track this weekend!

For now, I am just going to say, GOOD LUCK to my guy and to the Raiders! I am so proud and so ready for tonight that I can't stand it!!

If you can not make it to Bible Stadium tonight, be sure to tune in to KMAC Sports and click on the Rouse vs. Liberty Hill  to here the play by play!
Gerald Spencer is the most amazing broadcaster- we are SO lucky to have him. I will be up there between 1st and 2nd quarter talking about Lady Raider Football Camp:)

Our day started with PERFECTION! Our nephew, Easton John Mann was born at 4:22am this morning. He is going to be our amazing Rouse Raider good luck charm. Hopefully our day will end with PERFECTION too.

We kick off in 4 hours and 35 minutes. See ya at Bible. 

Silent Auction is open and ready to go!

The Silent auction for the 2011 Lady Raider football camp is up and ready to go. You do not have to be registered for camp to be able to bid!

Feel free to check out just some of the wonderful items that have been donated!!

Silent Auction Items


Also- Good Luck to all the Incoming Freshman who are going through freshman football camp this week! We are excited you are here and hope you have a great time!!

Raider 7 on 7 from June (yeah I am a bit late on this:)

Sorry that I am so late on this, but better late than never right?!

Friday Night Fanstand Podcast

**** I wrote this on July 25, the day after the FNF and I accidentally saved it as a draft!! So here it is, sorry it is so late!!

Here is the link to listen to the Podcast from last Friday's: Friday Night Fanstand Central Texas High School Football blowout at Third Steet Sports Bar.

I got the AMAZING opportunity to FINALLY meet Coach Derek Long. I have communicated with him through email, so I was VERY elated to finally get to meet him in person. He is the nicest man, and hardly what I would have expected from a very well known High School Football Coach. (in a good way- I kinda always expect coaches to be more cocky and kinda brush off the coaches wives- but he did not do that:) ha

I did get to say hi to Johnathan Donaldson, but he was busy, so I didn't want to bother him too much!

There were a bunch of other schools lined up, right after us, Vandegrift was up, so I got to see Yuron in person. Not a bad looking kid- he definitely looked like a football player!!

I video'd the entire thing, but I am not sure you can hear it very clearly, so if you prefer- you can listen to the link above instead!

Video of the Friday Night Fanstand on youtube

Also, I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

excited to find out that the Hill Country News has FINALLY hired a REAL sports writer!! One that actually knows that football needs to be written about, and he is going to write about ALL the schools. FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY!!! I am so excited about this.

I got even more pumped when I read the actual article that he wrote! I know it was Josh doing most of the talking, but the parts that he wrote were SO good and it was MORE than a paragraph! whoohoo!
I may actually subscribe to the HCN now!

Raiders Trying to do the Impossible!

A great article and a little smack talk:)

I am loving the new Hill Country News Sports Writer!!! He wrote such a great article about Nik and Sean Hallberg. It was really neat for me to read because my boys are about to play on the same Tiny Mite team for LCP. Hopefully it will not be the only team they play on and hopefully this same sports writer will write an article on them when they play for Rouse- 8-10 years from now!

Go read it! Rouse High School brothers both Varsity Starters

After I read that awesome article, I happened to notice that Rouse Seniors Ready to do the Impossible article had a comment. You can go read it if you want... go ahead, you know you want to! I'll make it more enticing: a Vandergrift person wrote it... I was so going to comment back, but Josh reminded me that I am nearly 31 years old and should be mature.. So, just to please him, I didn't and like a good wife, I didn't even post it on facebook, but he didn't say anything about my blog, so I decided to come over here and get you all to go read it! lol

I LOVE IT!!! I love the banter and the smack talk- its so fun!!! I just hate that I am too old to participate in it.

UGH, the joys of getting old. 

Exactly 50 days left until we meet up with Liberty Hill Panthers!!!!

Friday Night Fanstand!!!

First off, I am SOOOO stinking happy to report that our Booster Club voted to switch our broadcast network from Hutto FM to K-MAC this year!! I had kinda wanted to do this last year, but I think we were in contract with Hutto, so I didn't suggest it. This year, it happened before I even had a chance to voice my opinion! ha

So, I am happy to say, that the switch has been made and we are going to get a WHOLE lotta bang for our buck by using these guys!! whoohoo!!


If you are on facebook or twitter, look up Friday Night Fanstand and become friends with them. Whether you are a Raider fan or not, these guys try their best to cover everyone. I LOVE them. Derek Long used to be a coach for Westlake and Chuck Licata has been co-ower of KMAC for quite awhile I believe. Jonathan Daniels has made MANY efforts to work with Rouse and I am just SO thrilled we are!!

Anyhow, so tonight they are hosting a HUGE high school football event tonight at Third Base Sports Restaurant (6th and Mopac). Coach Mann, Brady Spencer and Will Zarsky will be doing a broadcast as well as a ton of other teams across the Austin Area, so this will definitely be a FUN event.!!

Third Base has a special for $5- you will get 2 sliders and a basket of fries. So come on out and have a ball with us!! We can at least size up the competition. (as if we don't already know how big Lake Travis is!!)

See you there!!!

Oh, and by the way:

there are 

63

Days until the start of Texas High School Football Season!!!

All Gave Some, Some Gave ALL

2011 Raider Spring Ball Game!!

Typically if its not a real football game, I am bored out of my mind, but not this year! I had a ton of fun watching the Black and Maroon teams play against each other. We looked pretty good out there, so hopefully we will look as good in the fall! I think with a little bit if commitment from the football team over the summer, we will be fine in the fall.

What do you think about those cheerleaders? My boys were digging them!

Right before this, Jace asked me if he smelled like a football player.

Yes and embarrassingly enough, that was my child who told his friend to go away, because we don't want you to hear our plays. Really? I mean, how could I get onto him for that?? Its the biggest rule in football to not let the opponent hear the other plays, so I am going to let that slide- however, I did talk to him about being a bit more polite when he asks.

    

I am working on a slideshow of pictures. I have about 70 and I thought it was too many to post! 

My summer posts will be pretty sporatic. When I am not working on Lady Raider Football Camp, I will be spending time with my boys and Josh. I will be putting up video  and pictures of Strength Camp, but I am not going to be very consistent!! Thank you!!

May 25, 2011 Spaghetti Dinner!

I was not able to make it to the entire Spaghetti Dinner, so most of these pictures are all from Chad Taylor with Team Taylor Photography. Please take time to go look at his website because the pictures are amazing!

And here are some video's! (those are mine:)




LOVED what Taylor had to say. I think it is SO important to hear it from someone that has been though something similar to what you are facing and going through now. 

I also think its pretty cool that both Coach Bresnehen and Coach Cochran could both attest to each of the things that both Taylor and Blake spoke of because they coached them.

I love what Blake was talking about as far as sacrificing for your team.

Both were amazing speakers.


We did not get the opportunity to play against Taylor's team while we were at Cedar Park because they were not in our district. (and I may be wrong, but I do not recall playing them in non district either), but I do remember playing against Leander HS and Blake was a pain in our side. He's a tremendous athlete. One of the most awesome things that I think is so great about being a coach (or a coaches wife:) is to be able to watch your ex-athlete's play on Saturday's once they have graduated HS and moved onto college. This is an opportunity that is rare. It is SO rare to play past HS, so when we get to watch our ex-athletes, its memorable, not matter how well they play! It is also neat to watch players that you have coached against. Blake was Leander's QB, and Josh was Cedar Park's defensive Coordinator, so I heard Blake's name often!! ha.... I kind of would like to think Blake was cussing our defense too:) lol

Josh coached Linebacker's at CP, and for 2 years in a row, Josh had the All State Defensive MVP- Brandon Hawg in 2005 and Justin Allen in 2006 and Austin Minor was recognized in 2007 as a Sophomore.

Justin Allen was one of the best players that Josh has ever coached. I wouldn't say he was the best KID, but he was one of the best athletes. raw talent and he was a fighter that had a lot in him and he was ready to play given any chance. One game he played in, he got hurt, but never told anyone, and played the ENTIRE game- he got a fumble recovery  and I believe he tipped a ball too-. After the game, he went to our trainer- turns out he had a terrible sprain and his hand had to be wrapped. Not even a wrapped arm could stop him, he had his personal best game the very next week- where he played both ways and he scored 2 touchdowns- all with a wrapped arm. If that doesn't spell determination, I don't know what does. 

And, ughh.....well DARN IT- You KNOW from my previous posts that once I start mentioning the 2006 Cedar Park team, I ALWAYS have to mention the 2006 CP vs. Pflugerville game... so JUST to prove to you that Justin played with a sprained wrist- here is the link to highlight video from that game- he is #31 and I swear to the Almighty Above that i have yet to watch another football player that is as much fun as him. I am hoping that one of the Raiders takes his place this year:)
2006 Cedar Park vs. Pflugerville Game- look for #31

 He went on to play  at University of Idaho for 2 years, then transferred to Rice, where he is currently playing alongside Taylor! (some of you may remember Tyler Smith- the amazing running back at Cedar Park- he also plays for Rice:)




Michael did an exceptional job and personally, I think WIN games should be in the middle and #1 on that list, so we were totally cool with you getting it out of order- doing it that way will totally make everyone remember:)

AND, as a special for all of you that were too young to know our Special Guest Speakers- here is a tribute to them.

We are going to start with #1 Blake Gideon (I wasn't kidding- he really was #1 in High School:)

 Here is his Highlight video from Leander High School! He played numerous positions.
(I didn't do any research, so I am going off memory- so if I am wrong-sorry:) I believe he predominately was Leander's Quarteback, but played some at Running Back and I think he also was a kicker. I am sure he probably played a defensive positon as well.



Blake is now the Safety at the University of Texas (Hook 'em Horns baby!)  He graduated in December of 2008 and started workouts with them as soon as he could. (kind of like what Chet Moss did). He is amazing to watch and FUN! I love the fact that we can say he was a pain in the butt to try to stop while he was at Leander. So fun! Blake is now #21:)We wish him all the luck this year and hope to watch him play
in the NFL next year!

Taylor McHargue played #10 Quarterback at Vista Ridge High School. I did not get the pleasure of watching him play, but he was obviously a tremendous athlete as well for him to be THE QB for the Rice Owls. I am sure that Charlie Rouse was pumped to hear him speak seeing that he is a Rice Owl Alumni!

As a Rice Owl, he is #16 and will be the Owl's starting  Quarterback in 2011! and  we have promised Justin Allen that we will come see a Rice game, so in that case, we will get to see Taylor play as well!!

Good Luck this season to both Blake and Taylor and thank you both very much for being our speakers at the 2011 Spaghetti Dinner!

I started this post at 9am and it is now 1:42pm. Its impossible for me to search for football stuff on youtube and NOT look at like a million other football highlight video's. So now that I am jacked up and ready to watch some football, I guess I will have to settle for 7 on 7:)

I hope the next 

81 days and 5 hours and 40 minutes 

go by QUICK!! I can't wait much longer!!!