Think Mike Noyes isn't tough? He has played the past three games with a cast on a fractured left wrist, then when he goes home he wrestles a pair of 150-pound dogs. He goes one-on-one with staff writer John Schwarb.
JS: You don't catch passes with that cast. Can you still call yourself a tight end?
MN: It doesn't make me a tight end, just more of an outside tackle I guess.
JS: Is tonight as much of a must-win game as you can have for the first week of October?
MN: Yes, it is. (Tonight's) pretty much our first playoff game. It's not a must win, but to control our own destiny, that's what we gotta do.
JS: Has school gotten harder or easier now that you're a senior?
MN: I only have like two classes, so I guess it's easier. I have about three weightliftings and an office aide.
JS: Office aide? What do you do?
MN: Nothing, pretty much. I go to the office and run passes. I'm trying to take it easy this year, you know?
JS: You work as a technician at an animal clinic. What's that like?
MN: I've seen pretty much everything you can think of and a lot more. Like dogs hit by cars, some of them abused. I've seen three die a week, at least. At first it was kind of rough, but you learn to live with it. If it helps them more to put them down, that's just what you've got to do.
JS: What kind of dogs do you have?
MN: I've got two, a newfoundland and a great dane, both 150 pounds. Big dogs.
JS: How do you play with dogs that big? Do they fetch?
MN: When I was young we used to put a blanket on the floor and we would sit it on it and they would just pull us around the house on the tile and wood floors. That's one of my memories of the dog that I grew up with, another great dane. These dogs, you pretty much just wrestle with them and they'll fight back. They know when to stop though, they're trained.
JS: If coach (John) Wilkinson had a pet, what would it be?
MN: Hmm ... I'd have to say a lion. Coach is pretty much the king of the jungle around here. He wouldn't have anything that could get beat up, and the lion being on the top of the food chain, that's probably what he'd want.
