Cleveland City Stars are the Professional United Soccer Leagues

Director of Media Relations Ryan Aroney is on the road with the City Stars during the week-long trip to North Carolina and will provide updates on the team throughout their stay.

Saturday 8:30 a.m. - Final Random Thoughts

I had a few things on my mind that I wanted to write about but for one reason or another I was never able to work them into the blog and I wanted to fit them in before we left.

After I got lost on the way home from training and I joked about them never letting me lead the way again, I actually never did lead the way again for the rest of the trip. Remember that the next time you don't want to drive somewhere.

We went to two different restaurants with salad bars this week. Both times Max Cream made the biggest salad I had ever seen. Both times he forgot salad dressing. Only once did he realize it.

I learned two things about Executive Director Dr. Aaron Tredway. He has a witty comeback for everything you could ever possibly say, and don't call him Doctor. Ever.

This week made me realize how hard of a job Director of Soccer Operations Kevin Carpenter has. Kevin wasn't able to make the trip so he and I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to coordinate everything (and by that I mean Kevin did all the work and then called me to tell me what to do). Since Kevin was back in Cleveland coordinating everything from afar, I was here to do all the dirty work and run the errands and help with all the behind the scenes things that Kevin would normally take care of.  It wasn't easy and I'm tired and I can't wait for Kevin to join us on the road next week.

The real reason I wanted to write this blog was to get more hits on my bio on the front office page. We had a friendly bet in the office to see who could get the most hits after we relaunched the website. I sent the link to literally every person I know with a computer and asked them to click on my bio as much as possible. I jumped out to a comfortable lead and was ready to coast to my free lunch. That was before office administrator Krystal Klassen decided to rig the bet. We're not exactly sure how she did it yet, but she obviously cheated because I quadrupled Kevin yet she somehow doubled me. She claims that her friends and family back in Oregon helped out, but that's impossible because there aren't enough people in Oregon for that to have worked.

In case you're wondering, my bio can be found at http://clevelandcitystars.com/pro-team/front-office/150-ryan-aroney-director-of-media-relations

I had a lot of fun writing this blog and I hope you all enjoyed it as well. See you back in Cleveland!

Friday 5:30 p.m. - Charlotte Eagles Recap

I'm just getting settled in after this afternoon's exhibition with the Charlotte Eagles. The coaching staff used the final exhibition of the trip to rotate several trial players into the back line in a final attempt to evaluate.

There weren't any official stats but we fell behind early in what was probably the 5th minute. Coach Underwood has been working a lot with the defense while in North Carolina and the guys have been showing signs of picking it up. The early goal obviously wasn't a good sign and there were a couple of mis-haps early in the second half to push the score to 3-0.

From there progress was made on the defensive end and the City Stars went on the attack and put together a string of solid opportunities. One of the chances included a shot from Teteh Bangura that looked to be heading for the far corner before being redirected off the shins of Ryan Stewart.  Ryan came back a little later and found the back of a wide open net after a great cross from Godfrey Tenoff and a header back to the middle from Ricardo Pierre-Louis.

It was nice to finally get one across the line after two scoreless ties in the exhibition season.

Max Cream has been fighting through some sore muscles in his legs this week but he entered late for Teteh and made an impact. Max fired off two shots within his first few minutes on the pitch.

I talked to Rod after the match and he felt that he got what he wanted out of these two exhibitions. He was able to rotate a lot of trialists through the lineup while evaluating a lot of guys at different positions.

All in all, I think this week has been a great week for the guys. They added some key new players, put in more pieces on the technical side and gained some experience in playing togther.

Next week we travel to Xenia, OH for another week of preseason which will be capped off with an exhibition against the University of Dayton. It will be fun to see the progress that is made between now and that match on April 3rd.

After the match I drove Ricardo to the airport so he could catch a flight back to Haiti for a  national team match. He will be back in time for the friendly with Dayton. I also received word recently that Musa Otieno will be the captain of the Kenyan National Team for its next World Cup qualifier. Musa was previously the captain for ten years before briefly retiring from international competition in 2008.

Friday 9:30 a.m. - Update Before Friendly with Charlotte Eagles

Last night we had a chance to go to dinner with Martin Rennie and some of the RailHawks players. It was great to see the guys from last year as Jeremy Tolleson, Mark Schulte and Sallieu Bundu were on hand along with Brian Irvine and Martin. We got to see Eric Reed for a while at the field too, so it was nice to catch up with everybody.

The food was great last night and despite the fact that Jason "I have no tastebuds" Hotchkin swore that the chicken was fish, everybody enjoyed the meal. The food has been excellent all trip long. As a young guy that shares an apartment with his brother, the food has been glorious. This is definitely the longest I've gone without hamburger helper since I moved out of my mother's house way back when.

Before we went out to dinner, the guys had the morning off and had a light session in the afternoon. It was a good day because the guys have been working really hard and they needed to let their bodies rejuvenate. Remember that we traveled nine hours Sunday and had two practices each on Monday and Tuesday and a match on Wednesday. You could tell that the guys were starting to wear down but yesterday I could see them starting to come back to life. With this morning off, I expect the guys to be excited and ready to go for today's friendly with Charlotte.

I'm excited as well because this is the closest we've been to our full roster in any of our exhibitions. We were able to add a little more in yesterday's training session and we've had Teteh and Gordon around for a little while now instead of throwing them in there in only their second day with the team.

I'll be back this evening with an update on the match and will try to get Rod's thoughts up as well. We leave tomorrow and I hope to get some final thoughts up in the morning before heading home to Cleveland.

Thursday 2:45 p.m. - Guest Blogger Evan Bush

8:30 AM- I woke up yesterday to another beautiful day in Cary, North Carolina..... As I looked outside and saw the gray skies and felt the chill by the window I felt right at home in Cleveland. For some reason I didn't feel like this was what we expected by traveling nine hours down to the "south." Its amazing how the weather and the sun (or lack there of) can change people's attitudes, especially those used to the weather of T&T or South Africa!

11:00 AM- We had a light training session in the morning in order to get our legs moving for our friendly match against Campbell University later in the day. As we did some light jogging, stretching, and ball drills I started noticing some of the guys regretting they didn't bring their Cleveland winter gear down to Cary with us. Forty degrees is no temperature for just shorts and tee shirts!

1:00 PM- Another lunch with the team in the lobby of the hotel thanks to Ragazzi's Italian restaurant. As is typical with soccer teams, we loaded up with pasta, chicken, vegetables, and salad in anticipation for our game at 5:00. The meal was good and everyone headed off to their rooms for some rest and relaxation before we left for the field again at WakeMed Park.

3:00 PM- All the guys looked focused on the task at hand as we loaded up the buses and headed across town to get ready for our match against the Camels of Campbell. It has an interesting feel to the preparation as some guys like to be more to themselves, while others like to socialize and take the edge off that way. I, for one, like to keep to myself and think about what needs to be done in the game ahead.

7:00 PM- The game concluded and we drew 0-0 with our opponent. While we didn't have the good fortune of pulling a goal to seal a victory, we grew as a unit defensively and were able to keep the clean sheet. The game was played in fairly good soccer conditions with a slight drizzle and overcast skies. This is always good weather to play soccer in. Although we didn't get the result we hoped for we drew some good lessons from the game, as a team always should, win or lose.

8:00 PM- Dinner time! Coach Underwood led us to a local restaurant called Sweet Tomatoes for dinner after the game. The restaurant was a buffet style restaurant, serving soup, salad, pasta, pizza, dessert, etc. You name it and they probably had some sort of variation of it.. The highlight of the meal took place when the guys decided to see who could make the best ice cream sundae. The prize of the night goes to guest trainer Ante Pelikic, although he may have cheated because he informed everyone that he had previously worked in an ice cream shop!

10:00 PM- Time for everyone to relax and get some sleep for the night. We found out from coach that there would be no morning session Thursday and you could hear everyone's legs give a big sigh of relief! We will still have an afternoon session in order to rejuvenate our bodies and minds in anticipation for another matchup against the Charlotte Eagles of the USL2, a rematch of last year's USL2 Championship. Hope all is well back in Cleveland and can't wait to get back to the sunny skies and high temperatures of the north coast!

Thursday 2:20 p.m. - Guest Blogger Anthony Stovall

I was in the van and I felt my tooth wiggle more than it should have, so I stopped messing with it. It felt like it might have come out but I wasn't sure so I just left it alone. So we go into the Subway and we're ordering food when the lady asked me if I wanted anything more on my sandwich. I went to open my mouth and it just fell out and I could not believe it. I covered my mouth and I was laughing so hard. I was like, "this is not happening here." I saw the tooth on the floor and like Ryan said, I heard, "is that a tooth!" I couldn't believe it. I didn't put it back in because there was no way I could have eaten with it in. I'm glad I didn't lose it outside because I probably would have found somebody else's tooth.

As soon as I covered my mouth and we found my tooth and I got up and looked at the lady, she said without flinching, "Are you going to have anything else on your sub?" Not are you alright, did you find your tooth, do you need a dentist, do you want a free sub, a hug? Nothing!  She said it like that was something that happens everyday, people losing their teeth in line.

After we got to North Carolina the guys were ragging me hard. Hard! It felt like every second somebody was on me. They had jokes left and right. I was enjoying it a little bit, not the jokes, but not being able to say F words and V words, it sounded funny but the worst thing is I smile too much. I'm trying to say hi to people and all they can see is this wide open gap in my mouth.

I've been to the dentist office so many times, I really thought it was only going to take ten minutes. I personally like going to the dentist because I'm going to come out looking better than I did going in, but I was just hoping it wasn't going to be a scheduling conflict with practice. It was but Rod was cool with letting me get it in.

When I first got there they were expecting me, like "oh you must be the soccer player." So that was funny. Everybody was really friendly and their equipment was very hi tech and up to date. The photo shoot I did for Ryan was awesome and it went by fast and they gave me some good advice and they even discounted a brotha so it was great!

I got my got my swagger back when I got my tooth back in and all that self consciousness went out the window. I just wanted to hug somebody. I had already hugged Ryan like five times. So I saw this lady in the lobby and I love old people, I really do. Old people are cool, all they want is some love! So I just put it on her! It was good, she was a sweet lady. I gave the receptionist a hug too. I just wanted to thank everybody. I thought about hugging the dentist but that was going too far so I just gave him a firm handshake.

I feel like I can conquer the world. I'm back to my regular self now, passing out hugs and kissing babies so I feel great.

Thursday 1:35 p.m. - "I'm Back in Stage Two"

When Stovi and I walked into the Stanley Dentistry, the receptionists immediately said, "Oh you must be the soccer player."

"How'd you guess," said Stovi. "Was it the tooth or the hair?"

I would say the hair, which is why I was so worried about Stovi. In the days after the tooth incident, Stovi became more reserved, and even self-conscious about showing his trademark smile. I knew something was wrong when Stovi started talking about shaving off his blonde mohawk. This coming from a guy who just a week earlier told me the stages he had planned for getting his hair ready by the start of the season ("a tv interview for next month? I'll be in stage three by then!")

Apparently Stovi was feeling ugly because of the missing tooth and the hair was just too much to deal with. As the receptionist said, "You can't have hair that screams look at me and then have a messed up grill."

On the ride over, Stovi was dead set on shaving the mohawk as soon as we returned to Cleveland. I was worried, but I told him that I bet he feels differently once he gets his tooth back.

We made our way back to see the dentist and I was pleased that everybody in the office was happy and laid back. This was the perfect office for Stovi as he had an audience for his jokes. Stovi was even cracking jokes after his mouth was numbed, which of course was even funnier than the mithing tooth thtovi.

As soon as the procedure was complete and the dentist left the room, Stovi asked me to take a picture so he could see the results. Of all the time I've known Stovi, that was the happiest I've ever seen him. The resulting celebration included hugs and high fives for the entire office, including the nice elderly lady that was patiently waiting in the lobby (Oh my, did you see him give me a hug!? That was great!)

After we paid the unbelievably discounted price (thanks again Stanley Dentistry), we walked out and Stovi immediately had his swagger back and you could tell by the strut in his walk.

"So Stovi," I asked, "You still getting rid of the hair?"

"No way," he said, "I'm back in stage two!"

Look's like Stovi is back to being himself.

Photo Gallery: Stovi Goes to the Dentist

Stovi's makeshift carrying case

Stovi's intimidating mean mug

Before

After

Wednesday 10:50 p.m. - Rod Underwood's Thoughts on Campbell Exhibition

I thought overall the game went well. We showed signs of understanding the things we've been working on defensively. We're trying to give different guys a look and we're looking at players in different positions and seeing who can play where. I thought overall defensively we were good and offensively we had some chances that were created. We created better chances than last game against Rochester and that was definitively an improvement.  A lot of it was on the players and their individual ability because we've spoken about what we want to do offensively but we haven't spent a lot of time on it because we're trying to get the defense organized first.

Today we had a walk through in the morning and we talked about how our forwards and midfielders would defend and how the back players would have to attack when needed and I thought we definitely took those lessons into the game today.

It was good to see Gordon Kljestan out there today after getting him signed.  He was a little bit out of position for us today. He's regularly an inside player and we had him out left but he did a good job for us and we're excited to have him.

We're at a point now where we can start to add some more and do some attacking but we can't do too much tomorrow because a lot of guys played a lot of minutes today and we can't over do it because we have a game again on Friday. Tomorrow we have off in the morning and the afternoon will be more of a tactical day and a rejuvenation day to get ready for the Charlotte Eagles on Friday.

Wednesday 2:35 p.m. - Quick Update Before Exhibition With Campbell

Today has been a hectic day scheduling wise because Stovi had to leave the first session early to go to the dentist. The good news is he got his tooth put back in, the bad news is we got back to the hotel an hour later than everybody else and we have to be back at the field at 3:30 p.m. We have to stop back at Stanley Dentistry (the best dentists office in the world!) to get Stovi's personalized mouth guard and because of that we are going to have less than an hour of down time.

After getting back to the hotel Stovi and I rushed through what was left of lunch. A funny little story happened about lunch. As we left the dentist, I received a phone call from Rod saying that the team was done with lunch and they had saved some for Stovi and me. When I told Stovi the message, he said, "Yeah right, all they saved was some bread."

When we finally made it back to the hotel, we found two foil covered containers waiting for us. We opened them both together to find 50 or so bread sticks. After a few seconds of frustration, we realize that the actual food was left hiding a few tables away in a box.

Good one guys.

That's all I have for now. We play Campbell University at 5 p.m. so I'll have a recap of that later and hopefully some thoughts from a couple of players as well. Stovi has also agreed to blog about his trip to the dentist, and trust me, I have plenty more to write about that visit anyway.

Tuesday 10:30 p.m. - Thoughts From Rod Underwood

Training has been good so far.  Its been good to get the guys in together and we're getting more of the core together. The first two days of training have been focusing on defending. Guys are starting to get an idea and understand what the expectations are and what we want from them. We're still infusing the team with new players but we're happy with where we are right now. We are moving forward and being methodical about what we want to do.

Teteh Bangura had his first day with us today and early on with Teteh it has been good. He's definitely going to be a player that we can use and he can play an integral part of what we do going forward. For a guy like him coming in from a different country, joining us this week on the road where there aren't any distractions and the team is together almost 24/7 is a positive.

I came into this week with no expectations because we're still building the team. My goal is to teach these guys how we want to play and then as we grow, everybody will grow and learn and then put their qualities into the team as well.

After a good first session I thought we started off a little bit slow in the afternoon but part of that is because for some of these guys this is the third week of two-a-days. It can be difficult and Monday was a really heavy day so we eased off a little bit today because we play tomorrow.

We're starting to see some things shape up and move in the direction that we want to see and hopefully we really get a chance to see more Wednesday in the game. Hopefully we can build upon the first two days, which were similar days with adding components of defending and building upon them. Today was nice because we got to see some of our attacking players show off some of their flair and dynamic ability.

Tomorrow's exhibition is an evaluation process.  We still have a few guys on trial and we're starting to put our system in.  We're still in the understanding process and tomorrow will be the first time that we actually play our own system because the other exhibitions were with trialist players. We also have some players that aren't in their natural positions so we'll move them around to see where everybody fits. Tomorrow will be a big day.

Tuesday 2:50 p.m. - Cleveland, North Carolina?

I knew I should not have teased everybody about the weather because today we awoke to Cleveland-like temperatures. I was wearing long sleeves and a jacket when we headed out to the first session and I was still freezing. I was thinking about my hooded sweatshirt that I left back at the hotel the whole time.

At least the sun was shining (I don't think we've seen a cloud the whole time, and now that I say that it will surely rain tomorrow) and it did warm up during the training session, so it could have been worse.

We picked up Teteh Bangura from the airport last night and it was good to get him in with the team. It took all of five minutes of training to see that Teteh is a very talented player. I'm looking forward to watching his development over the next week as he gets more familiar with his surroundings.

After training we came back to the hotel for more Italian food (my favorite!) but we were a little late getting back. I wish I had someone else to blame (because I would) but I missed a turn and took us about 20 minutes out of our way.

With a few South Carolina natives on this trip and a van with a GPS in it, the guy who's never been to the Carolinas with no GPS in his van ends up leading the way.

I'm not sure how that happened but I bet they don't let me lead the way anymore!

After lunch I came back up to my room to get some work done. I have a meeting scheduled with Rod here in a few minutes so I'll be sure to get his thoughts on session one and pass those along (probably tonight after dinner).

Monday - 11:30 p.m. Guest Blogger Jason "you're not the only one that can blog" Hotchkin

8:00 a.m.- It was time for breakfast. I woke up a couple hours early in order to get a good meal in and let it settle before a full morning of training. I thought I'd be the only guy sacrificing sleep for food but I was wrong. I walked passed the fitness room coach was in there running. He had probably already been on the tredmill for a couple hours. There were a number of us getting and early start and preparing for the day. The guys seemed energetic and happy to be out of the cold of Cleveland. I was looking forward to getting out in some warm weather and be on a good surface.

10:00 a.m.- I will admit after having traveled for 9 hours the day before it was a bit hard to get the legs going for the session. Most guys seemed to feel a bit heavy due to the travel, but we managed to push through it as a team and kept a positive attitude. Coach is always reminding us of a 30 game schedule and the back to back games we will encounter. So for now it has been good preparation for the up coming season and the demands it will put on our bodies. I finished training with a sense of excitement knowing that the team is coming together. We are still waiting on a couple guys to get in due to visa issues, but for the most part we are settled in. Finally.

12:30 p.m.- Lunch was catered to us. It was a good time for the guys to get some rest and get to know one another a bit more.  I overheard Stovi introducing himself to a person at the hotel, "I'm Anthony Thtovall. I play for the Cleveland Thity Thtars. Nith to me meet you." Gotta love the Stovi. Of course his speech impediment has been caused due to an impending dental issue, but it hasn't stopped him from being so outgoing. He brings a great personality to the team and is always postitive and uplifting and always provides the guys with a good laugh. I will tell the "Subway Story" to my grandkids someday.

4:00 p.m.- It was time for our second session of the day. After having waited for Max in the hotel parking lot for 10 minutes we were on our way to the ground. (By the way Max, thats a fine.) We started off the second session with some defensive minded drills and moved into some passing situations. We finished up with a short sided game and some fitness. Of course the fitness. You can always count on the fitness. But its a mental thing you learn to push yourself through and you are all the better for it at the end. I think thats the thing for us as a team. To be mentally stong and able to deal with any circumstance and not let it effect our drive and hunger to be the best. Its encouraging to see the guys beginning to fight for each other and to claim responsibility for our team and how it performs.

7:00 p.m.- We all went together to eat. These are some of the best times as a team. It can be a pretty rowdy bunch of guys and you have to be thick skinned and able to take a few sarcastic comments here or there. I feel bad for our waitresses at times. Cruikshank started up with his Trini banter that not even a Trinidadian could understand. You pick up a few words here or there from him but for the most part its just a bunch of jibberish. He was mentioning something or another about my game. I couldnt really understand what he was saying. So while he got up for some more dessert and another milkshake on top of his first dessert he had already had I decided to heavily salt his water, which he drank and nearly threw up. But we all had a good laugh.

9:00 p.m.- It was off to pick up another player from the airport. One more to add to the squad. It'll be nice when everyone gets in. Soon very soon.

11:00 p.m.- Just got back to my room and  I am getting ready for bed. If all goes well I'll fall asleep by 12a.m., I hope, but not until I make one last phone call.

Monday 11:15 p.m. - Day One Recap

The weather was beautiful today and the guys were able to get in some great work. I missed much of the morning session as I drove to the airport to pick up Executive Director Aaron Tredway.

Aaron was originally scheduled to arrive at 10 a.m. so we pushed the start of the morning session back an hour from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. to accommodate. His flight was delayed and he ended up arriving at noon so we changed some things and training went on as scheduled with no Aaron or Ryan (does writing your own blog make it okay to refer to yourself in third person? Ryan thinks it does).

Upon returning, I saw that Coach Underwood had the guys lined up to run. After the first sprint was finished, I heard Rod say, "Only seven more to go." What the players didn't know was that he meant only seven more to go, in that set.

It was at that point that I appreciated the fact that my athletic days are behind me.

Immediately after training was over I ran and picked up lunch for the team and we headed back to the hotel to eat. Because of the late start, we had less of a break between sessions so it was a rush to get everything done before heading back to the practice facility (naps for the players, emails and a press release for me).

At 3:30 p.m. we headed back for session two. This time I got to watch most of the session and the guys were really going hard. Ryan Stewart really impressed me with his desire today as he fought through leg cramps and refused to leave the field. Terrence McAllister is another player that jumped out at me today as he seemed to always be around the ball.

After training we went directly to dinner where Stephen Cruickshank had the prank of the day played on him. Jason "I talk on the phone for 30 minutes at breakfast without saying hello to anybody at my table" Hotchkin poured a few heaping tablespoons of salt into Stephen's water glass while Stephen was at the salad bar.

The anticipation grew as Stephen resumed his dinner but apparently Stephen doesn't stay hydrated very well because it took him exactly 10 minutes to finally take a drink.

Luckily for all of us watching, Stephen took a huge gulp and the look on his face was priceless. It didn't take him long to figure out the culprit as he pointed at Jason as he spit the salt water back into his glass.

While at dinner a few of the players expressed interest in sharing some of their thoughts on the trip through this blog, so I'll look to put those up in the next few days.

I'll also get some thoughts from Rod about tomorrow's training.

Off to bed so I can be ready for another long day tomorrow (in the sun).

Monday 9:05 a.m. - "Well at least we're in West Virginia"

I had the plan to blog this trip for a while but I was unsure of how I wanted to start it off. Should I simply introduce myself? Talk about my plans for the blog? Or get straight into the soccer specifics?

Thankfully for me, those questions were answered as the first blog entry wrote itself before the trip was even five hours old.

Let me start from the beginning.

The team arrived at the City Stars Twinsburg office Sunday at 9:30 a.m. prepared for a 10 a.m. departure. Jason "I root for the Steelers at your Super Bowl party just to make everybody else mad" Hotchkin and I were the first two to arrive. Shortly after, Anthony Stovall made his presence known. For those of you that don't know Stovi, you learn that he has arrived before you even see him because of his constant and unmistakable laugh.

After Stovi got out of the car laughing, I had the misfortune of witnessing Stovi and Rising Stars Director Stephen Cruickshank say good morning to each other with a bear hug. Let's just say the two got to know each other quite well. Afterwards, as I tried to erase the image from my brain, Stovi showed off his toothy smile and pointed out that one of his front teeth had been knocked loose during Saturday's exhibition with Rochester. I laughed as Stovi played with the tooth like a five-year old and advised him that it might be best if he left the tooth alone.

We finally gathered everybody together and took off from the office. Now that we were on the road I could focus on the important matter of the day, finding a way to follow the Cleveland State basketball game that was to start at 2:40 p.m. Stovi made the suggestion that he might be able to find it through his i phone. I promised to always mention how awesome he is in my press releases if he were able to come through.

I was a bit nervous going in, but now that Stovi had my back in my quest to root on my alma mater, I became focused on the second most important aspect of the trip, when do we eat? Coach Rod Underwood and I decided that Parkersburg, West Virginia offered a good chance to stop as we would be there by roughly 1 p.m.

We followed the plan and exited the highway somewhere around Parkersburg and pulled into a gas station sub sandwich shop that's not a sponsor of ours. I'm not sure what was funnier, the look on the employee's face as she yelled for her co-worker (Rachael!) after seeing the intimidating line of professional soccer players walking through the door, or Max Cream's look of astonishment when noticing the bearded guy with yellow suspenders in front of us in line (where are we?).

Rachael finally made her way to the front to help out with the line and was greeted by Jason "I refuse to smile on picture day" Hotchkin.  The friendly greeting didn't work as Rachael was also shocked by the line of people stretching out the door. Apparently pro sports teams don't frequent these parts too often.

We began to make our way through the line and Stovi was up to his normal tricks, talking to everybody in sight and having a great time doing it.

And that's when it happened.

As Stovi asked Rachael for a bit more sweet onion teriyaki sauce ("there's no teriyaki in that Stovi, just sweet onions"), he suddenly became quiet and put his hand over his mouth. That's when I heard the sound of something bouncing on the tile floor.

"Is that a tooth!?"

That's right folks, Stovi's tooth fell out right there in that sub shop in the middle of his sentence. I guess he didn't listen to my advice.

After the laughter died down and the guys picked themselves up off the floor, Stovi retrieved his tooth (presumably for a future dentist appointment and not to help him eat his sub) and sat down for lunch.

I had the luxury of sitting across from Stovi as he ate and literally every bite he took caused laughter from me and his teammates as his new gap-toothed smile peaked out at us. At first he tried to hide it, but by the end of the lunch Stovi was practicing his new and improved mean-mug growl to be used on the pitch.

I must say, he got pretty good at it.

The highlight of the lunch came when Jason "I wear denim shirts to formal dinners" Hotchkin tried to console his friend Stovi.

"At least we're in West Virginia, right Stovi?"



With that, we were back on the road. I think Stovi got distracted trying to save his tooth because he never got the CSU game on his i phone for me. My text message updates kept me up-to-date and unfortunately I didn't miss much.

Since Stovi missed the opportunity to get pumped up in my press releases, I suggested that he keep the gap-tooth look as a publicity stunt.

"I smile waaaay to much for that," he said.

Almost as much as I smile when I hear him attempt say "forty miles from Winston-Salem" without his front tooth.

We're heading to training right now. I'll be back later with updates on how the guys look in action.

Weather forecast: Cleveland, OH-46, Raleigh, NC-63.