Friday Cardinal Couple -- Spy vs. spy

FRIDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

- "What you lookin' at?"

Staff columnist Jeff McAdams (renamed Jeff McDaniels by the Central Cardinal Club), Sonja and I attended the annual fundraiser for the Central Cardinal Club Wednesday night at the PNC Plaza in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. It was good to see some folks we knew and catch up on their summers and share a few laughs.

It was a fun event...speakers including Anne Kordes (UofL head Volleyball coach) Christine Krellwitz (UofL senior women's administrator, asst. AD) and Manuela Velasquez (former UofL women's tennis player). A good showing of UofL women's sports participants.

Adrienne Johnson (special assistant to Jeff Walz and color commentator for UofL WBB radio broadcasts) was scheduled to appear...but her mom is back in the hospital and she made a brief appearance and left to be with her. Family first, we understand. If you get a chance to drop A.J. an e-mail and let her know you're thinking of them and keeping them in your thoughts and prayers, please do so at:

aj@gocards.com

The speakers were good. We were able to catch snippets of their talks and will play them on our CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO HOUR this Saturday at 11 a.m.

www.crescenthillradio.com

The PNC Plaza sits on the east side of Papa John's Cardinal Stadium and affords a great view of the football field. Walk down a few steps and you can get a great overview of the field. I did, and observed the Cardinal Football team hard at work preparing for their first game.

That soon changed. I arrived with K.C. Skull, stadium manager of Papa John's and shortly after we got there...an announcement was made that the viewing of practice was off-limits and chairs were placed in front of the stairways leading to the overview of the stadium. K.C. and a few Cardinal Athletics staffers personally placed the barricades. 

I guess Charlie Strong doesn't want anyone watching the offense and defense he is installing for Ohio University (not THE Ohio State University) on Sept 1st.

I sort of understand. Who knows whether their were Ohio Bobcat (or Kentucky WIldcats) spies, dressed in red, circulating among the 150 or so Central Cardinal Club members and guests...taking copious notes and detailed dossiers on blocking patterns, Teddy Bridgewater's passing skills and whether the Cards were in a four lineman defensive set?

It got me thinking about other preventions that other coaches might take to protect the secrecy and sanctity of their pre-season preparations.

Jeff McAdams (aka Jeff McDaniels) came to the PNC event after watching volleyball practice. He arrived with coach Anne Kordes. Is Anne really sure that Jeff isn't a Penn State
double agent...compiling strategy notes on how high Maya McClendon can jump and how well Caitlin Welch is libero-ing this year?

Jeff Walz has invited me to watch WBB practices before.

Can he really be sure that, masked under the clever disguise of a UofL women's sports web-site operator, I'm not actually a UConn die-hard....sending every bit of information I can to Geno Auriemma about Shoni, Sara and Shawnta?

What if Jeff McDaniels and I went to the radio and revealed all? What if there was a real Jeff McDaniels?

Yep, it's NCIS and PCI stuff. Later today, after this article is up and fit for print (results may vary) I will hop on a SouthWest Airlines non-stop to Baltimore and meet with UConn assistant coach Chris Dailey ( how I wish!) at a clandestine location (in my dreams) and provide top-secret documents about Asia Taylor's cross-over, Emmonnie Henderson's lane-driving skills and Sara Hammond's new ASUS Notebook.

Maybe we'll go for pizza and beers afterwards...

We have a good show lined up for Saturday on the Internet Radio. Jeff and I won't be there (we got fired last week by Don Paulie)...but we'll be hovering in the wings, nervously watching Jenny debut:

"The Jenny O' Bryan, sponsored by Don Paulie, Show About UofL Women's Sports Stuff." This should fly well...

I did get Christine Krellwitz's business card at the CCC Fundraiser. She seemed fairly interested in what we do here at CARDINAL COUPLE and CARDINAL COUPLE RADIO. If she figures how what it is that we DO actually do..I hope she let's us know. Most days, it's flying by the seat of our pants and blind ambition. Maybe she's hiring, now that Jeff and I have been stripped of any responsibilities at Cardinal Couple.

On second thought, that doesn't sound too bad, actually...this whole "lack of responsibilities" thing. After all, I survived the 70's that way...and had some really nice polyester leisure suits and floral shirts.

Until then, Agent Paulie...signing off. Trust no one and do everything in code. Control, alt, delete.

-Paulie

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