A lone athlete works out in the blistering July heat at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, preparing for the upcoming University of Louisville football season.
Practice begins Thursday, Aug. 4 but Charlie Strong has decided that practice sessions will be closed to the public this season, according to Rocco Gasparro, assistant sports information director for football.
Fan Day is not a casualty, however, and will be held Sunday, Aug. 14th, with times to be announced soon. (Photo copyright (c) 2011, CSWorks)
That is disappointing; however, as with Tom Jurich, I’ve come to implicitly trust that Charlie Strong is considering all aspects of each situation, and then deciding what is the best overall choice of all options.
In this case, I trust he knows this will be viewed as an unfortunate move (especially considering the 3 days of generous access last year). But he also needs to take a young offense and win games — hopefully more than 50% — get in a bowl and hopefully win it — and then use all that to demonstrate sufficient program progress both to more 3/4-star prospective students and to the butts in the seats! In order to accomplish that and more, if he needs to keep all practices closed to reduce distractions or whatever, I’m behind him!
Too bad practices will be closed. Too many Nosy Nellies roaming the sidelines, tweeting, facebooking, message boarding, blogging. I can understand the decision and appreciate him protecting his team.