PredBlog Entry 2- RB/WR/DB/KR/QB.... Jeff May

December 19, 2006

Welcome back to the PredBlog for our second installation of “Getting to Know Our Organization”. Being that we have already established the rules and what goes on in here, we ought to be able to jump right into it. (If, however, you missed the first article, you can find a link to it on the right of this page, titled “Head Coach Ed Peterson”.)

Let’s get right to it, shall we? Our next featured Predator is the one and only Jeff May. In no way is Jeff going to appreciate his horn being tooted, so to speak, but after the entire PredBlog staff tag team wrestled him into submission, he agreed to sit down for a harmless interview and subject himself to the infamous PredBlog 20 Questions. But, as the rules go, first thing’s first, a little about Jeff, who he is, and how he got to be a star player for the Pocatello Predators.

Unlike many of the Predators, Jeff doesn’t come from around these parts. While not too far away, in fact, just a couple of hours west of here, Jeff was born and raised in the Twin Falls area. He grew up being taught well about how to work and the value of determination specifically in the arena of sports. Being raised around a family full of athletes, he learned at a very early age that playing sports got him out of a mess of chores on the family farm and at the family business. He quickly grew to love football and more than anything else became his true passion in life.

Although Jeff was a multi-sport letterman and a quarterback at Twin Falls High School, class of ‘96, he always felt every sport other than football was meant to be used as a training time for the next football season. He excelled in basketball and baseball and participated in those simply because “the ladies dug the guys playing basketball and baseball”. Jeff, not by his own admission was uber-successful in his days under center even though at one point in a game he found himself calling signals from under the guard. Yup, it’s no joke, but it’s something you’ll have to ask him about on your own time.

During preseason of his senior year, Jeff was unfortunate enough to blow his knee out and thought to himself that he was done playing football for sure. Something we all know about Jeff is that he is a warrior, and throughout the season he battled against all odds to come back midway through the year, where he was able to contribute just enough for a few small colleges to take notice. Also during the season, he found his calling as a scat back; spending much of his field time lined up at running back, but was equally dangerous from the wide receiver position. After high school, Snow College came calling and Jeff signed to play with them. He was a part of the 1996 Snow College team that played in and won the Midwest Bowl, and finished ranked 12th nationally. Jeff looks back on that season as a very special time in his life, especially playing against guys like Corey Dillon (of the New England Patriots), and says, “How many guys can say they’ve butted heads with a super bowl champion?”

After that season, Jeff spent two years on a LDS mission to Santa Rosa, CA. Upon returning from his mission, Jeff bounced around the Idaho-Utah area, living in Twin Falls where he played three seasons with the Magic Valley Bulldawgs, Logan, UT (attending Utah State) and landed himself on a pretty permanent basis now right here in Pocatello. We can call his status “pretty permanent” because he just accepted a job at Idaho Central Credit Union in their fast track to Executive Management program immediately after graduating from Idaho State University with a degree in Mass Communications. He and his wife Jodi seem pretty happy to be living here, and are excited that they get to stick around. They just welcomed their first child on November 9, a boy Jeffrey Jackson (He’ll go by Jackson) who is already suited up in his Dad’s number 7 jersey.

That’s probably enough for everyone to get to know Jeff outside of his notorious message board reputation. So without further ado, we can get to what everyone has been waiting for, the PredBlog 20 Questions. Here you go!

PredBlog Staff: Q. Who would be your three ideal dinner partners?
Jeff May: A. My wife, Jodi, George W. Bush, and my Grandpa May.

PBS: Q. If you weren’t doing what you’re doing, what then?
JM: A. High school teacher and coach.

PBS: Q. What would you want for your last meal?
JM: A. Roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, and apple crisp for dessert.

PBS: Q. What is the best and worst inventions ever?
JM: A. The best is the TV, and the worst is pass interference penalties.

PBS: Q. What is the best piece of advice ever given to you?
JM: A. Not to be churchy or anything, but 1 Corinthians 9:24 for sure.

PBS: Q. What is you biggest pet peeve?
JM: A. Traffic.

PBS: Q. What would you do if you won the Lottery jackpot?
JM: A. I’d keep working. I’d give money to my family and I’d build a nice house on a private lake and water ski all day long.

PBS: Q. What would you do if you were the RMFL Commissioner for the day?
JM: A. Give the Predators 10 home games, and make a new rule that anyone wearing a #7 jersey gets one free penalty per game.

PBS: Q. What athlete would you most not want to meet in a dark alley?
JM: A. Ray Lewis, definitely.

PBS: Q. Who has been the most damaging athlete to sports?
JM: A. Terrell Owens.

PBS: Q. What is your personal best day?
JM: A. A couple of Fridays ago. I got taken to lunch by my boss, I got taken to dinner by my wife, got a new job, Jackson had a good day…it was just one of those days where everything seemed to go my way.

PBS: Q. Your personal worst day?
JM: A. The day I tore my LCL in high school and was told I couldn’t play my senior year.

PBS: Q. Who is your most memorable sporting icon?
JM: A. George Halas.

PBS: Q. What is you favorite thing to do in your spare time?
JM: A. Water ski with my family and friends.

PBS: Q. Something strange and unusual about you that your friends don’t know?
JM: A. Nothing really, I’m a pretty open guy, if there’s something strange or unusual about me, my friends probably know about it.

PBS: Q. Who is the most dangerous player in the RMFL?
JM: A. Kelly Nebeker, hands down. (Our very own All-Star wide receiver.)

PBS: Q. Fill in the blank. Every man should have a _______?
JM: A. Little baby boy.

PBS: Q. The best improvement to football since its inception?
JM: A. Moving the goalposts behind the end zone.

PBS: Q. What one piece of advice would you give yourself if you could talk to yourself 10 years ago?
JM: A. Education is more important than you think it is.

PBS: Q. What’s you biggest fear?
JM: A. Not being a good parent or husband, and not being able to provide for my family.

PBS: Q. Any final thoughts?
JM: A. “I am NOT the dirtiest player in the league.”

-PBS

Head Coach Ed Peterson

December 11, 2006

Welcome to the first edition of PredBlog, where you can get to know your Pocatello Predators coaches, players and management team. Since this is our inaugural edition, there needs to be some established rules and protocol so that we may all be on the same page.
First off, these PredBlog entries will showcase a member of the organization every so often. Since we are all volunteers here on the PredBlog staff, we aren’t going to hold ourselves to any sort of deadline, but look to see a new article every 10 days to two weeks, and a little more frequently the closer we get to the season’s opener!
Second, each person in the PredBlog will have a somewhat short bio (depending on their background and credentials). Following the bio, we will ask each featured person to respond to 20, shotgun style questions. The catch here is that their first response will always be the one printed, unless of course they are extremely and blatantly non-family appropriate.
Finally, each featured person will also be required to have their picture taken and posted along with the article so that we may all put personalities to faces.
So, sit back, and enjoy.

First up, is our new head coach, Ed Peterson. In Coach Peterson’s defense, there needs to be a qualifier here. Ed isn’t exactly new to the Pocatello Predator organization; in fact he has been around since the inaugural year of the Predators in 2003. Peterson spent his first two years with the Predators as a defensive coordinator. He then took 2005 off for a number of personal reasons, and returned to the team this past year, and helped coach the team into a semi-final playoff finish.
But before we really get into Peterson’s coaching resume, we need to get to know where he came from and what got him here with the Predators today.
Ed is a born-and-raised, local-yokal, died-in-the-wool, (feel free to add your cliché here) Pocatelloan. From what we can gather here at the PredBlog, he’s pretty proud of it, too. Peterson was a 1978 graduate of Highland High School, where he lettered twice on the varsity team while playing wide receiver and defensive back, and laughable enough, only tipped the scales at 160 pounds.
After high school Peterson joined the Army where he spent most of his four years waiting in line at the business end of a troop carrying aircraft watching for the red light to turn green so that he and the rest of the paratroopers in front and behind him could hop out and truly see how smart Sir Isaac Newton really was. Anyone who knows Ed at all knows he is a bit of a crazy guy, willing to do and say things that most warm-blooded Americans just won’t do and say. When asked about it, Peterson blamed his military training and experience for the hardened nerves, saying, “I spent four years jumping out of perfectly good planes, what makes anything else really that difficult to do?”
Upon returning back to Pocatello, Peterson enrolled in the Idaho State VoTech’s welding program, but soon realized that welding just wasn’t for him and left for the United States Postal Service, where he has been happily employed for the last 23 years.
You may be surprised to know that the crazy, hard-nosed Ed that we have all come to know has a shockingly large soft side to him, evidenced by the long chat we had about his family. It was easy to see right through his theory that he had better speak well of his wife and kids to avoid a beating to see that he really cares about his kids, and especially his wife Sandy. Together they have three kids, Amber-25, Ashley-23 and his only son Jordan-20, who will be joining the Predators this upcoming season.
Now, back to football and his resume, so to speak. Coach Peterson really has no shortage of notches on his belt as far as his coaching career goes. He began coaching back in 1981, with his good friend and current Predator offensive coordinator Gary Kinghorn. Together this duo coached hundreds if not thousands of local fifth to seventh grade-age kids in the Pocatello Youth Football League for 21 years. His winning ways certainly didn’t go unnoticed because in 1993 (then subsequently in 1996 and 1999), his Youth National Football team was the first team from Idaho invited to play in the by-invitation-only Las Vegas Youth National Football Tournament. He was able to coach his team to a wild 16-15 championship win over a tough, nationally accredited Los Lunas, New Mexico team, to which Peterson credits as one of his sweetest victories in memory.
Following his time spent with the Youth League, he was invited by Brent Koetter to work on his Highland High School coaching staff as the JV defensive coordinator and worked specifically with the linebacker corps. He spent three seasons there, and feels fortunate to have coached such a fine group of young men, and saw a number of them play in college and professional leagues across the globe.
Coach Peterson is a great coach that brings a winning mentality to our organization and will demand that only the best performance be brought to the field by both his players and coaching staff. He is extremely excited about the new changes to the program, and feels that the things he can provide to the team, combined with the changes in organizational structures have the potential to return a championship trophy to Pocatello.
And now for the 20 Questions!

PredBlog Staff: Q. Who would be your three ideal dinner partners?
Ed Peterson: A. Walter Peyton, my Dad, and my wife, for sure.

PBS: Q. If you weren’t doing what you’re doing, what then?
EP: A. I’d be a professional fly fisherman.

PBS: Q. What would you want for your last meal?
EP: A. At my age, probably Mexican, because it would be my LAST meal, the spices just kill me now.

PBS: Q. What is the best and worst inventions ever?
EP: A. The best? Probably the garage door opener. The worst would have to be the snooze button on the alarm clock.

PBS: Q. What is the best piece of advice ever given to you?
EP: A. “If you ain’t in bed by 10 pm, then go home!” (Which he claims was more applicable to him in his youth.)

PBS: Q. What is you biggest pet peeve?
EP: A. People who show up but for the wrong reasons, people putting out half efforts.

PBS: Q. What would you do if you won the Lottery jackpot?

EP: A. I know this sounds corny, but I’d build a youth sports complex for the local kids, a football stadium, baseball park, pool, the works, and make it financially stable so it wasn’t a burden to the community.

PBS: Q. What would you do if you were the RMFL Commissioner for the day?
EP: A. The things I would want to do you really can’t do.

PBS: Q. What athlete would you most not want to meet in a dark alley?
EP: A. The Fridge (Perry), or Shawne Merriman, of the San Diego Chargers.

PBS: Q. Who has been the most damaging athlete to sports?
EP: A. Terrell Owens, or Allen Iverson, it’s a toss up, but there’s also Al Davis, that’s a tough one.

PBS: Q. What is your personal best day?
EP: A. It has yet to come.

PBS: Q. Your personal worst day?
EP: A. The day my Dad died.

PBS: Q. Who is your most memorable sporting icon?
EP: A. It’s a long story, but Brett Fowler. (Former ISU and HHS wide receiver).

PBS: Q. What is your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
EP: A. Fishing, and camping, and there’s never enough of either of them.

PBS: Q. Something strange and unusual about you that your friends don’t know?
EP: A. That I’m actually a nice guy.

PBS: Q. Who is the most dangerous player in the RMFL?
EP: A. The #58 from the Rhino’s. I don’t know his name. He’s probably not the best in the league, but he plays all out on every down, full of heart and plays to kill.

PBS: Q. Fill in the blank. Every man should have a _______?
EP: A. A good wife.

PBS: Q. The best improvement to football since it’s inception?
EP: A. Cheerleaders.

PBS: Q. What one piece of advice would you give yourself if you could talk to yourself 10 years ago?
EP: A. Lighten up.

PBS: Q. What’s you biggest fear?
EP: A. Letting people down from their higher-than-my-own expectations.

PBS: Q. Any final thoughts?
EP: A. People in this league still have something to prove. If you can’t come out and give it your all, then why are you even out? There’s got to be a passion involved.

Welcome to the PredBlog!

Thanks for visiting the PredBlog, where you can find occasional updates on the goings-on of the Pocatello Predators, a Pocatello, Idaho based semi-professional football organization. Look for the upcoming blogs on our head coach and a few returning players. See you then!