Happy Birthday, Ricky Lannetti

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Ricky Lannetti would have turned 25 this weekend.

If you don’t recall the name, a reminder — Lannetti was a wide receiver for Lycoming before he passed away on Dec. 6, 2003. He lost his battle with a staph infection that night, the day Lycoming was scheduled to play Bridgewater in the national quarterfinals.

19, snow angel

I came across a tribute site built to him this evening. If you’ve been around this site for four years, you may remember our coverage of his death. We were in Williamsport that weekend and had unprecedented access behind the scenes on a day in which the game was snowed out.

People still sign Lannetti’s guestbook. They get together every year on his birthday. There’s an annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament in his memory each summer. They raise awareness of MRSA — methicillin resistant staphyloccus aureus, the superbug that killed Lannetti.

His parents, Theresa and Rick, spread the word about MRSA to this day.

“His name is now living through MRSA awareness campaigns throughout the country,” Rick Lannetti told the Times News, a newspaper in Carbon County, Pa. “His picture and other helpful information is posted at colleges and high schools everywhere, and I still get emails thanking him all the time for making them aware of this superbug. His name and his story are being heard around the world. His passing tells about the superbug and that it could kill even the healthiest people. He’s pretty much actively saving lives, or at least bringing about an awareness that this deadly germ exists. To have a family street named after him, that would be really something special. His friends and college teammates, they visit me now and then, and I know how proud they would be for a long-term tribute to him.”

Hope this helps.

The Texas Stagg Bowl bid

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COPPELL, Texas — By an unusual coincidence in my work for Verizon, I am in the Dallas area this week and took the opportunity to do a walk-through of the stadium in the bidding against Salem Stadium for future Stagg Bowls. (Not for 2007, which is in Salem.)

Shockingly, like a typical Texas high school football stadium, Buddy Echols Stadium Google map is big. It is listed at 12,000 capacity, though I actually thought it seated more.

They are in the midst of installing artificial turf — the grass was all out and the playing surface was stripped down to dirt. There’s certainly plenty of parking. It’s less than 10 miles from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.

Those are the positives. The negatives are that the D-III crowd will get swallowed up in a stadium that size, unless an ASC team makes the Stagg Bowl every year. How many Mount Union fans are making the 19-hour drive to Coppell? (Or, how many are paying through the nose for plane tickets on short notice?) Even if they draw 8,000 fans, how many empty seats does that leave? Who in the local market cares one bit about the Division III championship game while the Texas high school football playoffs are going on? Would the game generate even a blip on the local news radar, as opposed to the minutes upon minutes of coverage it receives in Salem? And who will pick up the mantle from Stone Station, which has been the Division III welcome wagon (photos) in Salem the past couple of seasons? Will those fans make the 1,200-mile drive? Will the Division III community come out in force the way it has the past couple of seasons?

The scoreboard is sufficient, though not as new as Salem’s, and the press box accommodations don’t appear to fulfill the need I have seen at recent Stagg Bowls. There’s a box on one side that seats 15-18 people across, six partitioned booths on the other side of the stadium, but not a space similar to Salem for television to build out of.

But these concerns are secondary to the location and the size. I just don’t think the Stagg Bowl works here. But I’m glad I got to see it to make sure.


Recruit Recap: Long road begins

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In a couple months thousands of students will head to Division III schools for the first time with the hopes of playing college football. Many will have very interesting stories, but few will have a longer trip than Brock Graziadei.

Graziadei played quarterback for Lathrop High School in Fairbanks, Alaska, graduating from the far northern outpost in 2004. It has taken three years, four states and more miles than Mapquest can calculate but Graziadei’s long journey south ends in Pineville, Louisiana where he’ll play for Louisiana College. The Fairbanks Daily News Miner has Graziadei’s story.

For Brandon Griffin the road to college is much shorter, but no less meaningful. Griffin put up great numbers as a receiver at Campbell County (Alexandria, Ky.) High School, but not enough to generate a Division II scholarship. So he’ll play his college ball less than an hour away at Mount St. Joseph according to the Cincinnati Post.

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