You wouldn’t probably know it to look at me, but I get up around 5:30 AM most mornings and walk about a mile with my wife before the sun comes up. Now I see that Time.com says it’s a waste of my time. Good to know…I’ll start rolling over and going back to sleep and dream of lunch at Chuy’s. Mmmmm…

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Still getting in the game prep mode for the opening week of the 2009 football season. I think my buddy and broadcast partner, Brett Mills, and I are going to try to check out a scrimmage or two before our opener on 1560 The Game on Friday, August 28. We’ll be doing the Strake Jesuit-St. Thomas matchup.

It should be a lot of fun. An old Catholic school rivalry: Jesuits vs. Basilians. For those of you non-Catholics out there, I’m not real sure, but I think it’d kind of be like Missouri Synod Lutherans taking on Evangelical Lutherans, or Independent Baptists vs. Southern Baptists!

Instead of offensive and defensive breakdowns that night, Brett and I will be discussing the intricacies of the debate between the spiritual benefits of simplicity and dependency, as advocated by Francis of Assisi, vs. the benefits of detachment, which we all know that Ignatius of Loyola emphasized. Both great leaders of men, but vastly different philosophies—kind of like Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh.

I’m interested to hear where Mills stands on the subject…

Seriously, though, it should be a good game. Ron Counter always puts a competitive team on the field for the Crusaders and Donald Hollas will be starting his second season at the helm of St. Thomas. The old adage is that the greatest improvement in a team or program always comes between Year One and Year Two. We’ll get a chance to see if that’s the case first-hand that evening.

I’ll be writing more about the matchup as it gets closer. I’ll also try to mix in some quotes from both coaches.

Come on, football season!