Will the real Kaepernick please stand up

Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .I admit it, I have no idea who that guy is who wears No. 7 for the San Francisco 49ers with the name Kaepernick stitched across the back of his jersey. The media guide says it’s the former Nevada Wolf Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick. The announcers doing the 49ers games say it’s the guy who made Chris Ault’s pistol offense come to life. That guy wearing No. 7 even looks like the former Wolf Pack quarterback. But then I hear No. 7 mumble, grunt and growl at the media, wearing headphones and a baseball cap pulled down over his eyebrows and I read his sarcastic, how-dare-you-criticize-me ramblings on Twitter and, well, it just can’t be the same Colin Kaepernick who played for the Wolf Pack.

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Making more than $100 million, getting to play quarterback in the NFL, looking like a model and walking around in the perfect body each day of your life and getting your choice of every woman on the planet must not be all that it’s cracked up to be. It seems to have changed Kaepernick and not for the better. Kaepernick at Nevada was the most respectful young man you’d ever want to meet. He was humble, deferential, polite, modest, gracious and personable. He left Nevada, went back across the California state line and all that changed. Last week on Twitter he attacked one of his followers. Is the pressure of trying to be the next Joe Montana and Steve Young and living up to a $126 million contract overwhelming Kaepernick? I refuse to believe the jerk we’ve heard and seen wearing No. 7 for the 49ers is the true Kaepernick. That defensive, my-abs-and-girlfriends-are-prettier-than-yours jerk is the act. Right? The Kaepernick we learned to adore at Nevada is the true Kaepernick. Right?

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Kaepernick remains one of the greatest athletes we’ve ever seen play a team sport. There’s nothing he can’t do on a football field. Or off of it. We still believe he will win a Super Bowl someday. That guy we saw wearing No. 7 last year was criticized every week yet he still passed for more than 3,000 yards and ran for more than 600. And he did it on a team in disarray. Kaepernick can still walk up to the podium in Canton someday and become the next 49er quarterback in the Hall of Fame. He’s that talented. And you won’t ever find a better competitor or leader. He already has all the women, abs and modeling gigs a guy could want. Now all he needs are the Super Bowl trophies. He needs to stay off social media except to say thanks to his adoring fans and he needs to just smile and give meaningless Tom Brady answers to the media. He did it at Nevada for four years. He has 126 million reasons to do it in San Francisco.

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There’s something special going on at Peccole Park this season. The Nevada Wolf Pack baseball team is 7-1 right now and is going to likely be 10-1 after sweeping the winless Pacific Tigers (0-8) this weekend at home. The best thing about this fast start is the Pack might not even have to win the Mountain West tournament this May to get into the NCAA regionals. Pack coach Jay Johnson is the best coaching hire the Wolf Pack has made since, oddly enough, another guy named Johnson (Trent) took over the men’s basketball program in 1999.

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Johnson and his staff (in particular pitching coach Dave Lawn) deserve the vast majority of credit for the Wolf Pack’s success. Johnson’s positive attitude and attack-the-challenge-right-in-front-of-you philosophy has this team focused, confident and motivated. But former coach Gary Powers’ fingerprints are still on this team. Lawn, don’t forget, was a Powers assistant nearly three decades ago. Key current players like Austin Byler, Kyle Hunt, Kewby Meyer, Adam Whitt, Barry Timko and Michael Fain all played for Powers and Trenton Brooks was one of Power’s last recruits. Powers and Johnson might be night and day personality-wise but they are similar in their focus, work ethic and philosophy. Both Johnson and Powers preach the next pitch, the next at-bat, the next decision you make on the field is the most important one of your career.

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Why is it taking the University of Nevada so long to put Powers’ name on Peccole Park? The Wolf Pack football team didn’t play one game at Mackay Stadium before Chris Ault’s name was spray painted on the field after his retirement. The Pack baseball team is now in Year Two after Powers’ retirement and his name is nowhere to be found at Peccole Park. Peccole-Powers Park has a nice ring to it. No coach in Wolf Pack history deserves his name on the stadium in which he coached more than Powers. And that includes Ault. Powers cut the grass at Peccole. He shoveled the snow. He fertilized the lawn. It was his blood, sweat and tears that kept the program alive in the 1980s when everyone else up on north Virginia Street wanted to suffocate it. It’s Powers’ work ethic, standard of excellence and character that symbolizes Pack baseball. And his name should be on the front gate for everybody to see every single day.

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LeBron James is upset his 10-year-old son has already received college scholarship offers. The public seems to be amazed a 10-year-old has received offers. That’s not all that shocking. A 10-year-old getting offers is a bit strange but we’ve heard of junior high kids getting offers before. It means nothing. The biggest surprise is any college coach would assume LeBron Jr. would even go to college in the first place. If daddy LeBron has his way his son is going from eighth grade to playing in the Cleveland Cavaliers backcourt the next year.