Highlight Reel: East Lansing's Faymous Tyra

August 29, 2012

East Lansing's Faymous Tyra helped the Trojans light up the Haslett scoreboard quickly in Friday's season opener by taking the first kickoff of 2012 back to the Vikings' 2-yard line.

See that clip here -- and help us show everyone your favorite highlights from any sport.

Have a highlight or two we all should see? Email the mp4 file to Geoff Kimmerly at [email protected], along with a brief explanation of who is on the clip, when it took place, where and the final score of the contest. We'll produce them and post them on our Second Half "Videos" page. Or point us to a video clip already posted on YouTube, and we'll give a home here as well.

Here's Tyra's kickoff return, which is already making him a little "faymous" around the Greater Lansing area.

Football Follies

October 7, 2014

Notice reached the MHSAA office of a so-called “2014 Michigan Youth Football Classic” that invites youth league teams to “a great weekend of youth tackle football.” For $450 per team, youth football teams will bang bodies for two days – Nov. 8 and 9 – with each team guaranteed at least three games. Three!

No level of football but this – for the youngest players who have the most vulnerable skulls – allows the idiocy of three games in a weekend. Most limit competition to a maximum of one game in a week!

In my opinion, this isn’t a football classic. It’s child abuse.

I wish the foolishness would stop there, but even an organization called USA Football seems to have lost its head. Initially and mostly with funding from the NFL, USA Football was focused on teaching youth football coaches and players safe blocking and tackling techniques. Good.

But now this pseudo-national governing body for amateur football is planning events for various age groups that will extend tackle football practices and games throughout what used to be an off-season. Multiple competitions in tackle football are scheduled for high school age players in January, February and July of 2015.

At a time when professional, college, school and Pop Warner football are all reducing contact during practices in-season, USA Football wants to expand the contact experience out of season. It makes about as much sense as three games in a weekend.