I have been with the Standard Democrat sports department since 2007. I took over as sports editor in May of 2011 and have been slightly crazy about sports since I can remember. I attended Southeast Missouri State University and Scott County Central High School. I co-created our sports web show "The Last Word" and my two children, Elijah and CJ. I was married to my wife, Angie, in May of 2014. I love to golf, I am an avid NBA2K gamer and root for the Fighting Irish on Saturdays.

Redhawks make statement on NSD, iced over basketball

Posted Thursday, February 6, 2014, at 4:39 PM

By now you've heard about the many local signings new Southeast Missouri State University head coach Tom Matukewicz added to his first football recruiting class on Wednesday. It's something fans have been clamoring to happen in what seems like forever.

In one morning, they got their wish.

Most sports fans in this area are die-hard high school fans and that's where it stops. Either their favorite prep star shipped off to a JUCO program up north or a Division II out of state which made it hard to see or even keep up with said player on a regular basis. As a SEMO sports fan in general, I like to know what's going on with athletes once they leave the confines of my arena. And as you can imagine, once they leave the area, that gets harder to do. You see players develop for the better part of three years, they sign and they're gone.

The move Matukewicz made was a great first step for simply generating interest towards his newly acquired football team. Once I saw the list and realized that eight of our local products were going to be right up the road, I instantly became excited. That's all you can ask for at this point. Simply put, for every local player he nabbed, I can almost tie 15-20 fans to a player that will be at Southeast's first home football game this fall. Now in the grand scheme of things, that's not a huge boost I know. But it's a start.

A start to a possible new way of looking at our college football team to represent our region. Something our area can be proud of. That's what fans get from their high school allegiance. They know the guys on the field are their to fight for the people in the stands.

Now, with that being said, winning cures a lot of ailments. Eight local kids is very exciting for us to have, but it's a real possibility that half or more won't see the field soon, or possibly, ever. And that's fine. Like Matukewicz said, this isn't a popularity contest. Putting jerseys on hometown heroes won't instantly create a winning football program that can sustain success. We won't know that answer for a long time, but for now, Matukewicz did all he could possibly do given the time he had to do it. He instantly created buzz and fans of his football team by simply giving our products a shot. If in the future wins follow this move, fans will treat SEMO as it's high school football team. Slightly bigger, of course.

Myself and my partner in crime, David Jenkins, discuss a bit more on SEMO's recruiting strategy on this new episode of our web show, The Last Word. We also give an update on the basketball scene and the exciting conclusion to the SEMO Conference crown we have coming our way in the future. Also, HERE was my story on Southeast landing our area's recruits.

Thanks for reading/watching and I hope all stay safe and warm as we try to end this week with a bit of the roundball. Enjoy!