Can You Smell It? - Monday Cardinal Couple

Can you smell that?  It's the smell of anticipation, of excitement, and maybe some sweat and hard work.

We are now down to single digit numbers of days until the first UofL Fall Sports competition, an women's soccer exhibition at DePaul on Wednesday the 10th. That is followed up by another exhibition, with Morehead State coming in to Louisville to play.

While we here at Cardinal Couple (and other sports media) have been looking for topics to discuss over the summer (Thanks to Howie Lindsey for the comfort food diversion, that was a fun one), but UofL Athletics doesn't really slow down anymore at any time of the year.  Swimming has kept some folks busy pretty much throughout the summer with seven current and former athletes headed to Rio, while others have been running themselves to the edge of exhaustion with camps and recruiting.

The payoff is about to start arriving, however.  Unusually, this year, Soccer doesn't get the honor of starting the fall season. While they have exhibition games starting before anyone else, the official season opener for fall sports goes, this year, to Field Hockey with a game vs Ohio on the 18th.  Soccer gets going the next day at Indiana up in Bloomington. 

Volleyball has their exhibition game, a Red And Black Scrimmage, on the 20th, and their season opens up in Bowling Green, Ohio on the 26th (although their events are not showing up on the UofL composite schedule, yet...I'm not sure what's up with that).

The athletes have mostly, and hopefully, been hard at work over the summer in various events and individual workouts and practices.  Volleyball preseason starts on the 8th, but I have no word on when pre-season practices start for other sports, probably roughly the same time.  The hectic shuffle up and down Floyd street will begin soon enough, this year complicated by road construction on Floyd between Brandeis and Warnock as it gets reconfigured into a two lane street with bike lanes.  Fortunately, most of the fall sports take place down towards the south end of Floyd, so they won't be as severely affected by the construction, though getting to Cardinal Arena for Volleyball's Active Ankle Challenge might add a bit more challenge to the mix.  Trager Stadium for Field Hockey should be easily reachable, and Lynn Stadium for Soccer should be essentially unaffected.

But the anticipation for the fall season is palpable, and the non-competition events are starting to show up on schedules. Alas, the Fan Fest this past Friday had to be cancelled for weather reasons, but the traditional event at Captain's Quarters will be on August 16th.  Make plans to attend as this is always a fun event.

Paulie and I have also been notified of the Women's Fall Sports Media Day on the 12th, so you'll definitely want to tune in to The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour on the 13th for audio from Soccer Head Coach Karen Ferguson-Dayes, Field Hockey Head Coach Justine Sowry, and Volleyball Head Coach Anne Kordes, along with a few athletes from each sport.

I'm getting excited for the seasons to start, how about you?

-- JMcA