I went to scout high school football player Eli Harold today! Harold is ranked as the second-best college football prospect in the state of Virginia in the Class of 2012, according to “virginiatech.rivals.com.” (I recommend subscribing to VirginiaTechRivals.com, by the way. How can you be a Virginia Tech fan and not do so? You can’t really know what’s going on with Tech sports by just following the newspapers. These days, regular newspapers aren’t funded well-enough to do the same job they did 20 years-ago!)
Eli Harold plays for Group AAA-power Ocean Lakes High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He’s a 6-4 215 wide receiver who also plays some defensive end. Another major prospect I went to see was freshman Jamil Kamara of Princess Anne High School (the opponent for Ocean Lakes High School tonight). Jamil Kamara is 6-0 185 and a wide receiver in the Class of 2014. He was wearing jersey number 15 for the Cavaliers. Jamil Kamara got fame this summer, among other things, for appearing at the New Jersey-based National Underclassman Combine. DeMetri McGill, a 6-2 305 sophomore 
defensive tackle for Ocean Lakes High School who would be wearing number 56 in the game, was the third “major prospect” I went to watch. MaxPreps.com ranks DeMetri McGill as one of 100 players nationally in the Class of 2013 to watch!
Finally, a major college football prospect for the future to watch was Kamara’s teammate, sophomore Shyheim Stallworth, a wide receiver-outside linebacker who was wearing number 2 and who was listed at 6-3 185. The head coach of Princess Anne High, Ray Gatlin, had informed me before the game that so far, Stallworth was more advanced than Kamara. However, Jamil Kamara was nationally-publicized because of his age. Junior lineman Tyler Compton has some college potential for Princess Anne High also. But the first three players I mentioned are on a seperate level.
I left my house in Charlottesville, Virginia at 12:15 P.M. and headed for Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach, Virginia! I listened to the radio: “Charlottesville’s only full-time sports station, Sports Radio 1400-WKAV!” I stopped at the “Fifth Street Market” before leaving town. It was 12:44 when I got done buying gas and a chicken-cheese sandwich on wheat bread. As usual, I listened to the “Jim Rome Show.” “Live from Los Angeles, it’s the Jim Rome show, hosted by Jason and Randy Sklar,” the radio spoke. These two substitute hosts, brothers, were “chirpy,” and boring. They were not funny.
They were talking about Tiger Woods. About the only thing they said that seemed amusing to me was, “(Tiger Woods) is free to go after women (now that he’s divorced) who are ten times less hot than his wife than before.” Jason and Randy Sklar talked about the same sports news that any fans could get off of the wire services. Didn’t these guys do any investigative reporting on their own, for the money they were being paid? They talked about the same stuff that anyone could get off of the wire services: an Oregon State football player who was arrested drunk and naked, and then instead of surrendering to police, attacked them; a professional golfer who was fined for sleeping late. Hey, sports fans know how to read off of the interent also, guys! It was now 1:23 P.M. on Friday afternoon.
The first of many police cars with flashing lights would be seen on this trip. This one seemed to be going as fast as 110-miles-an-hour! It raced past without it’s siren on for some reason, at the 158 mile-marker. Soon, the band “Three Dog Night” sung the lyrics “On the road to Shamballa” on the Richmond, Virginia-area FM rock station 107.2 station. At 
1:27 P.M., the Richmond, Virginia-area FM rock station 102.1, spoke: “the X, Richmond’s rock station!…..it’s Casey (the name of the disc jockey)” The disc jockey spoke so fast, it was literally like listening to an auctioneer. This was a heavy metal station that played one SPEED rock song after another without giving the names of the bands or the songs at times. The only band name I could decipher was by a band named “Stained.”
I got to Richmond, Virginia’s state capitol, at 1:40 P.M. At 1:50, still two more flashing police cars were stopped on the right side of the road beside a car. FM radio station 102.1 played a tune by the band “The Smashing Pumpkins.” Near the “Richmond International Airport,” the speed limit changed to 55 miles-per-hour, but no one seemed to notice. I drive 64 miles-an-hour in a world where 99% of the traffic drives well over 65. Haha! At 2:04 on this Friday, August 20, 2010, the band “Judas Priest” played the song, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” on 102.1. A sign read that it was now 101 miles to Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is Virginia’s largest city, and America’s 40th-largest city.
At 2:14 P.M., the band “Hoobastank” played a song, and a disc jockey said, “My name is crash…..Stone Temple Pilots next.” I took Exit 205 and stopped at a familiar place, the “Fas Mart Fuel.” Soon I was back in the car, listening to the “Scott Van Pelt Show” on 950-AM radio at 2:47 P.M. The guest host was talking to ESPN reporter George Smith, who was talking about Tiger Woods. Why have I never considered golfers athletes? Soon, a voice on ESPN Radio 950AM was announcing, “The Nationals will most likely be without (pitcher) Stephen Strasburg all of this season and all of next season. he will have Tommy John surgery.” Didn’t the baseball world know he had arm trouble in college? Why was he drafted so high then? How come so little in baseball makes sense? It’s no wonder that I don’t consider baseball players athletes either.
Continuing eastward in the state of Virginia, by 3:05 P.M. I was passing through Williamsburg, Virginia. There were now 40 miles to Norfolk, Virginia. It appears that All-sports ESPN FM radio station 94.1 is the home of what was used to be known as ESPN all-sports radio 1310. It’s THE sports radio station in the Tidewater area if you’re a sports fan! So I now tuned in to 94.1 FM on my trip. Soon, I had only 26 miles to go to Virginia Beach: I was now in Hampton, Virginia. On ESPN radio 94.1 FM, the popular sports host Tony Mercurio was asking the audience, “What burns you up (as a sports fan)?” The answers were typical: one caller said it was people who criticized Brett Favre. Another said it was people who criticized Joe Paterno. Then, one caller said it was the fact that quarterbacks seemed to disappear once they were drafted by the Denver Broncos.
At 4:32 P.M., still another police car appeared on my trip to Virginia Beach. This police car was pulled over to the side of the road, it’s lights flashing. ESPN radio 94.1 FM sports host Tony Mecurio shouted that “the TV people around here shove the Redskins down everyone’s throat.” At 4:39 P.M. I was AT Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach Virginia. It’s located on a busy, swanky-looking street, but the high school is run-down, due to it’s age and the burden of constant use. The football facilities are terrible. But then, the varsity football team is 1-39 over the last 4 years, and as a result, it must be hard to drum up much interest or money for football!
I went to eat at a Panera Bread that was almost next-door to the high school. At 5:29 I was done, got back to my car, turned on the radio, and Tony Mercurio was saying, “Here are the lines for the NFL…..let’s see…..the Redskins are (playing Dallas in their regular season opening game in September)…..Dallas is still favored by three-and-a-half (points)”
The game started at around 7 P.M. Finally! Eli Harold, the blue-chipper I had come to see, looked great! Harold made a tackle on the first offensive play of the game, holding Princess Anne High to a 2-yard gain. Harold’s team, Ocean Lakes High School, got the ball back. On the Dolphin’s first play, they threw it deep, and amazingly, Harold snagged it for a 58-yard touchdown! The game was at the 9:40 mark of the first quarter.
Another player I was here to see was sophomore Shyheim Stallworth of Princess Anne High School. He caught a pass at the 6:05 mark of the first half on third down. But Ocean Lakes High scored again on a 30-yard run at the 3:47 mark and it was soon 14-0. This game got totally out-of-hand quickly. However, Jamil Kamara played well. He had a great night, if there is such a thing when your team is getting totally outclassed! He would have 8 catches for 71 yards in the opening varsity game of his freshman year.
At the 3:25 mark of the first quarter, Jamil Kamara caught a pass for a first down. But Eli Herold caught his second touchdown pass at the :52 mark of the first quarter, from the 9-yard line, in the 
corner of the end zone, and it was now 21-0, Ocean Lakes High. Ocean Lakes High School quickly scored again at the 8:32 mark of the second quarter, and it was 28-0. It was 34-0 at the 1:23 point of the first half after they scored on a 16-yard touchdown. Ocean Lakes got a 30-yard field goal at the buzzer, to make it 37-0 at the half.
The Virginia High School League put in a rule (designed to benefit who? Did the players have any say in this?!) that automatically causes the clock to KEEP RUNNING when one team is up 35-0, so in the second half, it was harder for substitutes to get playing time. Boo! Ocean Lakes High kept scoring anyway: the Dolphins scored on a 22-yard touchdown, and then a 59-yard score. They soon led 51-0. That’s how the game ended. The contest finished at almost exactly 9:00 P.M.
Driving back from high school games, I’m not in much of a mood to report what I hear on the radio or see: I’m just in a mood to get home! Haha! At 10:21 P.M. on this Friday (August 27, 2010), I noticed another police car with it’s lights flashing as I passed westward through the state of Virginia, in Hampton, Virginia. I was back in Charlottesville over 4 hours after the game ended around 1:15 A.M. on Saturday morning, August 28. It was now the start of college football season! Yahoo!
