(Writer takes off his shoe and dips his toe in. “Hmmm. OK. Let’s see where this blog stuff leads,” says the scribe)

Davis High football coach Steve Smyte is no dummy.

First, for this fall’s schedule, he has Week 5 open. In May of 2010, Smyte was named very late as the Blue Devil mentor. He inherited a program that had gone 2-16 in the previous two seasons — and then carded an even worse record, going 1-9 last year.

But this is high school. It’s about learning. Smyte’s squad was the most gung-ho 1-9 prep team you’ll ever encounter.

Now, with more real football players involved and the word getting out that football is no longer the f-word in the city, the Blue Devils should be a team to shock the region … if not this fall, certainly the following year (although 2012 may no longer be a shock).

The genius in Smyte’s rationale to keep Week 5 open is simple: He’s not sure he’ll have a roster of 40 to 50 healthy bodies; he remembers last year coming into Delta Valley Conference play looking like a M*A*S*H unit; and he has a young team, so having an extra week to prepare for DVC is welcome luxury.

Smyte also did something incredibly smart for 2012: He scheduled Dixon and Woodland! On paper, Davis is playing down. In reality, tell me how smart playing traditional rivals is? You watch, fans will be filling up stadiums when those games roll around.

Nice calls, coach.

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Lindy Peters, a DHS Class of 1970 three-sports standout, wrote a letter to our paper hoping that somebody would recognize the disrepair of the school’s Blue Devil pride foot stone.

Donated by the Class of 1959, the monument is broken and unsightly.

Peters is right when he says somebody should do something.

Here’s a perfect idea for some service club: rehabilitate this one-proud legacy — and while you’re at it, give the quad a miniature facelift. You know, paint some tables, plant some more trees.

Let’s make the DHS quad the gathering place it once was.

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Speaking of Clark Field (huh?)…

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, UC Davis played a handful of games at the neighborhood park in Woodland.

It was an effort for the baseball program and the university to reach out, according to Phil Swimley, the coach at the time.

It’s no secret that Clark Field underwent an extensive facelift this past year. Woodland is a baseball-nutty community and the facility seats more than 1,000 fans comfortably.

Our Aggies averaged 291 people per game. A three-game series in Woodland (with anybody) would double that average. Wrap in a fundraising opportunity or two, and my bet is a sellout.

(If you don’t have a fundraiser, try this. Davis Little League could team with the Aggies to sell tickets. Split the gate at $8 a pop, put 3,000 fans in the stands over a weekend and Davis Little League makes $12,000 — as does UCD — and our Aggies get a unique experience and maybe a future recruit or two in a city that covets the national pastime.)

— Read Bruce Gallaudet’s work daily in The Davis Enterprise. To reach him, call (530) 747-8047 or email [email protected]

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