Final Notes on a Scorecard

I pondered life and last Sunday's Palermo Corsari game while viewing the Ionian Sea.

I NEED a row boat!

Matt on the left, watches Master Chef Brandon work his magic!

Final Statistics from The Matthew Epperson Show’s tour stop in Palermo last Sunday to play against the home standing Corsari:

SCORING:

5 TD’s, 1 two point conversion = 32 points

OFFENSE:

Pass Receiving: 11 catches, 209 yards, 3 TD’s

Rushing: 1 carry, 3 yards, 1 two point conversion

KICK OFF RETURNS:

2 Returns, 155 yards, 2 TD’s, Long of 80 yards

DEFENSE:

Matt led the team in Total Tackles with 8, all were First Hit Tackles including

5 Tackles for losses = -18 yards

1 QB Sack = -9 yards

Matt did a very poor job bringing the water out to his beleaguered and sometimes broken teammates during timeouts! THERE IS JUST NO EXCUSE FOR SUCH A TRANSGRESSION OF TEAM ETTIQUETTE ON MATT’S PART!!!

SIDE NOTE: Over the 38 years I’ve coached football, I have had the pleasure of coaching athletes that have gone on to play at schools like USC, Arizona, California, Stanford, Oregon, Washington, Washington State, San Diego State, Colorado, Kansas, Colorado State and San Jose State amongst others. Two of our young men went on to play in the NFL, Gary Wellman (5 years as a WR with the Houston Oilers) and Scott Fujita (entering his 7^th NFL season as an OLB now with the New Orleans Saints after stints with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Dallas Cowboys). As good as all these players were and as much as I’ve enjoyed coaching all of them, I’ve never coached anyone who had the all-around game that Matthew Epperson displays every week in games and at practice. Some major college and pro people really missed the boat on this kid! It’s just my opinion of course.

Monday and Tuesday are physical rest days for the Elephants although Jason worked on the Palermo Game DVD including making another highlight clip that will be up on his blog soon, check it out, it’s worth the price of admission! As for me, I worked on extracting the Defensive and Kicking Game Statistics from Jason’s DVD.

Brandon and Matt came over for dinner last night. We provided the meat and adult beverages while they brought the pasta and Brandon did the cooking. Brandon may have a future as an Italian chef someday! GOOD TIMES INDEED!!!

It was a relaxing evening that included conversations about a wide gamut of topics ranging from God, religions and the Bible for 100 please Alex, to Carravagio, football war stories, Italian cooking techniques, how to improve our tackling, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Corsari game, the Italian train system’s Ancona to Catania run and pretty much everything in between. Of course we watched the Corsari game DVD at about 2:00 a.m.

Tonight we’ll have a team meeting at 8:00 p.m. in the Elefanti War Room to watch the Corsari DVD as a team and start preparing for the Ancona Dolphins game this Saturday at 3:00 p.m. in Catania’s Stadio Santa Maria Goretti.

Life in Malibu continues to be a daily overdose of fun, food, good natured teasing and friendship.