OK, if you didn't follow my blogs in basketball, I'll let you in on a badly kept secret: I'm a movie buff. 

   I like to drop movie references into my blogs and here I go again.

   Bobby Wilder kept five players from last week's walk-on tryouts. 

   One of them was a former English soccer player. I kid you not.

   So here I am, walking the sidelines at Friday's practice when I see this kid in shorts and a helmet wearing No. 94 and he's drilling the ball. I mean he's DRILLING the ball. Finally, scholarship kicker Drew Hareza has some competition in camp.

   Hareza's got a leg. He once kicked a 61-yard field goal in a high school game.

   But competition is a good thing. It wards off complacency.

   So No. 94 is booming it right beside Hareza from about the 45 and splitting uprights and I hear he's English and all I can think is ... Nigel "The Leg" Gruff from the movie The Replacements.

   Actually, the kid's name is Charlie Grandfield. His dad's British, his mom's American. He grew up in England and, yes, was a soccer player. Then he moved to the States when he was 16. While at Stafford High, the football coach talked him into placekicking as a senior. He had a good year and booted a 47-yarder at one point. He kicked a 46-yarder last year while at Fork Union Military Academy.

   I got all of this from chatting with him on the sidelines.

   Sadly, most of his accent is gone.

   "Yeah, three years here will do that," Grandfield said.

   Good kid, from what I could surmise. Polite. Smiled and made good eye contact.

   The others who were added: offensive lineman Patrick Madaj from Chantilly in northern Virginia, running back C.J. Reaves from Dominion High in northern Virginia, wide receiver Daniel Harvey from Turner Ashby in Bridgewater, and linebacker Osric Robinson who played at Ferrum last year and is from Macon, Ga.

   Until next time.