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Norman,
OK. – If the 2008 Elite Series rookies thought their path was going to be an easy one, they were sadly mistaken. Of course, their 2007 predecessors had given them some reason for hope. The class of 2007 certainly experienced some difficulties, but they also experienced some major highlights.
Boyd Duckett started off 2007 with a bang, winning the Lay Lake Classic before he had officially participated in his first Elite Series tournament. In the season-opener, Derek Remitz claimed victory at Lake Amistad. He followed it up with a 2nd place finish at the California Delta. Casey Ashley won an Elite Series tournament and Duckett won a Major. That’s four wins and a near win. Rookie Matt Sphar joined those three in qualifying for the 2008 Classic.
So the bar was set pretty high for the ’08 crop of rooks, and generally they didn’t match it. Only Bobby Lane made the Classic and none of them earned a victory. But nevertheless, there were some high points for this year’s crew. Here is our accounting of the top six:
Changing Lanes
With substantial experience on the FLW Tour under his belt, Bobby Lane wasn’t a rookie this year in the truest sense of the word. That said, he had a unique set of pressures facing him: First, would his FLW Tour success translate onto the Elite Series, or would there be growing pains? How would he compare to brother Chris, who had carved out a solid career of his own on the BASS side? And would he be able to use his Florida knowledge to carve out a Rookie of the Year lead in the first two events?
Lane lived up to all of those challenges. He led the Rookie of the Year race wire-to-wire. His 15th place finish in the AOY race showed that he belongs and qualified him for his second consecutive Classic. Indeed, as a result of his fine showing in the Southern Opens, he double-qualified for the upcoming Red River Classic. And after a 4th place finish at Hartwell, he started off the year with 3rd and 7th place at the Harris Chain and Kissimmee, respectively.
By any measure, he came out swinging and showed that he’ll be a BASS contender for the foreseeable future.
Talk this Way
Arkansas Rookie Clark Reehm showed that he could compete with the big boys by virtue of his 8th place finish at the Hartwell Classic. But one good tournament does not a career, or a season, make. After a mixed bag of finishes at the Harris Chain, Kissimmee and Falcon, Reehm established himself as a force to be reckoned with at
Amistad.
Indeed, but for a dead fish that he otherwise could have easily culled, Reehm would have beaten Amistad champion Todd Faircloth. He showed maturity and comfort fishing under the limelight, but more importantly, he used the tournament as a springboard to build his personal brand. Tommy Sanders and Mark Zona commented that he was a talker of nearly unprecedented proportions and Reehm played to the camera with the savvy of a marketing veteran. Even without a trophy in hand, the Battle on the Border was a shining victory for Reehm’s young career.
Grooms Nearly the Best Man
Bobby Lane set the standard for rookies with two Elite Series Sunday cuts. The most any of the others earned was one. But Wade Grooms came the closest to matching Lane’s feat. In addition to his 7th place finish at Kentucky Lake, he barely missed a Sunday appearance when he finished 13th at Kissimmee.
At Kentucky Lake, he caught a 20 pound bag on day three to vault into 5th place before settling into 7th on the final day. After a tough midseason stretch that saw him miss consecutive checks after Amistad, his magic spot at Kentucky Lake was the type of tournament he needed to regain confidence. He finished the year 2nd behind Lane in the Rookie of the Year race.
Smells Like Teen Spirit
It was a tough year for 19 year old Fort Worth, Texas rookie Corey Waldrop. While he didn’t regret making the leap to the big show, he has elected not to return in 2009, even if invited to do so.
Waldrop’s season was complicated by his decision to use a motor home and a double-stack trailer as he made his way from lake to lake. Numerous mechanical failures forced him to miss practice time or spend the night repairing his equipment. Oddly enough, one of those times was at Wheeler, and it produced his best result of the season, a 9th place finish.
While the two triple-digit finishes and three others in the nineties may best represent Waldrop’s year on tour, as he sits in class this fall he’s more likely to remember the good times at Wheeler.
Brew Crew
Most fishing fans didn’t know much about Texas rookie Billy Brewer prior to the start of the season, except for the oft-repeated stories about his years in Major League Baseball. But he staked his claim to a piece of the limelight early in the year by whacking a 20-pound bag on the first day of the Sunshine Showdown on the Harris Chain. While he eventually fell to 45th, he did corral two checks in Florida, which enabled him to get his financial bearings and to show that he was nobody’s doormat.
Had it not been for Reehm’s heroics at Amistad, Brewer might have gotten some more air time there, as he ended up 8th in that event. While the second half of the year was tough on him, with no checks in the last seven events, those two early showings proved that he belonged and that he wasn’t just a ballplayer moonlighting as an angler.
Tough Economic Times
This last achievement doesn’t affix to any one angler so much as it reflects the economic realities in which the Elite Series rookies operate. While the Elite Series boat wrap requirements present a huge opportunity to enterprising anglers, there can be no doubt that the burdens of coming up with $55,000 in entry fees, along with expense money, can be overwhelming for relative newcomers to the sport. That is particularly true for those anglers who qualified through the Wild Card, and then had to come up with a first payment within weeks. If the financial pressures of competing weren’t enough, regardless of what any rookie tells you it can be intimidating to launch your boat next to Kevin VanDam, Skeet Reese or Rick
Clunn.
This year’s rookies had to operate within tighter economic tolerances than their predecessors. Gas prices reached record highs and corporate dollars were tough, even before the recent stock market plunge As evidenced by Bobby Myers’s decision to drop out mid-stream, even a talented angler can come up short. Accordingly, any rookie who made it through the ’08 season and will return for more in ’09 deserves a pat on the back. But once that’s over, it’s time to put their noses to the grindstone. You get one “mulligan” for being a rookie – sophomores get no such special treatment.
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