Vols get commitment from 2016 WR
Tennessee received a commitment Saturday from junior-college wide receiver Jeff George, a 2016 prospect. George announced his choice with a post on Twitter. George, a Leavenworth, Kansas, native, is currently playing for Dodge City (Kansas) Community College.
Last season, he was named honorable mention AllKansas Jayhawk Community College Conference.
George caught 39 passes, four for touchdowns, last season for 584 yards. He’s the 11th member of Tennessee coach Butch Jones’ 2016 recruiting class.
My favorite former pro athlete died last week.
You won’t have heard of him. He didn’t hit home runs or run for touchdowns. He didn’t leap high in the air and dunk basketballs. He didn’t win championships or have his highlights shown on ESPN SportsCenter, although his very occasional victories on the track did appear sometimes in agate type on the Scoreboard page of this newspaper, back whenwerantheresultsof the greyhound races from Southland, in West Memphis. RIP, Cagin Cabalero. That was his racing name, anyway. But racing wasn’t his thing, really. Or, at least, winning wasn’t. He was twice as likely to finish second as to win — for which I have a theory (more on that later).
But he was a champ in retirement, where he was known as Lance, short for Lancelot, his kennel name when we adopted him from Mid-South Greyhound Adoption Option. He owned retirement, which is to say, he owned us — not the other way around. He quickly came to run the house, by dint of being more wily, willful and tactically advanced than the humans of the house. So much for the dog who so often finished second — or worse — on thetrack.
Maybe life with humans suited Lance — he was so like them. Whereas our other greyhound, Pop, is very much a “doggy” dog, with those two doggy looks — winsome and longing, both of which translate, loosely, as “May I have a snack, please?” Lance seemingly had the full range of expressions at his employ. He could seem imperious or quizzical. He could stand in high judgment. He could be stern or outright silly.
Whenitwastimetogo on our twice-daily walks, he would go into a celebratory routine — a walkinghorse canter with a bit of Michigan J. Frog thrown in — to show his approval.
When a seventh snack of the evening was not forthcoming, he would — I swear to you on this — whine in such an earnest and expressive way that I thought he might just be done with us altogether, go to the phone and order his own pizza.
He spoke only once — and that was in a dream of mine. In reality, alas, the speech breakthrough never came. But if he had spoken, I believe I know what Lance would have said:“Whybother?”
Because he always got that seventh snack of the night, and sometimes the eighth.
Which is not to say — despite all I’ve said here — that Lance was, well, a demanding, commanding, painofadog.
He was sweet and funny, with quirks and personality enough for three dogs and four people. He loved to walk, and he loved to run. Despite his lack of success on the track, watching him run in enclosed fields with other retired greyhounds, you could see his pure speed — but you also could see something else. He seemed more interested in catching other greys — and then talking some good-natured smack — than in passing them. He was a showboat, a character. SportsCenter would have loved him, actually.
Lots of mustard on that dog of ours. That’s my theory, anyway, on why he was more likely to finish second than to win.
Or maybe the rest of the dogs were just faster. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, either way.
His best days were ahead.
Ours, too.