Back from Bama
-
- May
- 11
It’s not every day you get to write these words: I just got home from Alabama.
But I can. I spent the weekend down in Birmingham attending the wedding of former Journal News writer Ian Rapoport. It was, well, different down there but we enjoyed it. Of course, it helped that Josh Thomson and I squeezed in a few rounds of golf at the famous Robert Trent Jones Trail.
While I was away I did see this story in the Providence Journal that New Rochelle’s Geoff McDermott is exploring the possibility of playing football at Boston College. As you know, McDermott was a two-sport standout at New Ro before opting to play basketball at Providence, where he started for four seasons.
The 6-foot-8 McDermott was recruited to play QB, TE or DE out of high school by schools like Rutgers, Syracuse, Wisconsin and many others. At Boston College, McDermott would likely have to be a DE or TE for the one season he’s there.
NCAA rules allow athletes to transfer schools and participate immediately if they’re switching sports. It’s the same thing former Duke point guard Greg Paulus is considering playing football at Michigan, Nebraska or Syracuse. Paulus and McDermott quarterbacked their teams to the 2005 high school state championship game, which is the best game I’ve ever witnessed.
Many have projected McDermott to take this route since high school. I was always skeptical. I know McDermott and he clearly loved basketball more than football. In fact, he considered not even playing football during his senior season to concentrate on hoops. He was talked out of it by Ray Rice and, in turn, Rice played basketball after skipping his junior season. I always believed McDermott was aggressively pursue a career in basketball in some way. Perhaps I was wrong.
We’ll see in the next few weeks. McDermott will be visiting BC soon and will meet with the coaches on his role. As the article states, he’d have to be accepted into any school as a graduate student.
This entry was posted
on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 1:52 pm by Kevin Devaney Jr..
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Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of 2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting, Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his wife, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University, where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in history.
Kevin,
Glad to see you headed over to Oxmoor Valley. I hope you played all 36 holes.
Kevin:
Is their anyway you can find out why he is choosing BC? Granted it is an excellent football program, I am just curious. Seems like other schools would open him with open arms ad well.
HRs, he’s not “choosing” BC, he’s looking into playing there. I was told when I asked that Coach DiRienzo at New Ro is in the process now of helping him out to find a school to play at next year. I’ve heard Arizona State, Oregon, Temple..etc. From what I understand the Rutgers/New Ro connection is no good in this case because I believe the transfer rule states that you can’t transfer to play a sport at a school in the same conference as your old school, so any Big East School is out for McDermott.
Thank you for that info. I was wondering why Rutgers or Syracuse wasn’t an option. Well of the schools you mentioned, if he has any plans of playing TE, Oregon is not the school of choice for a year. They have their top 3 TE’s back. Now AZ st. just lost their top 3 TE’s so this would be a great fit. Temple, Buffalo, etc all would be great fits as well. I wish him the best.
Buffalo would have been a great fit last year with Willy, Starks, Jackson and Roosevelt.Gill is a great coach, however, Willy was a 4 year starter and will be hard to replace. Mel Kiper did say that Starks is an NFL back.
[...] to give this, but one anonymous comment replying to a post on Kevin Devaney’s blog sheds some light on Geoff McDermott’s transfer. I was told when I asked that Coach DiRienzo at New Ro is in the [...]
Leagues,
Kevin can you post next season’s basketball leagues?
Kevin,
anything on the Westchester Hawks 17u team this year? I think I saw they didnt do too well at regionals but I might be wrong. Anything else on them?
Bama is always a good time!