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Cole Pepper: EverBank Mega Event A Success, Summer Of Soccer Continues, Sharks Season Ends With Win

Cyd Hoskinson
/
WJCT

The scoreboards may have been the largest draw to EverBank Field this weekend, but there was some action on the field as well. Cole Pepper has it all in his weekly sports wrap.

EverBank Field "Mega Event" a mega success

The Jaguars unveiled the world's largest video boards Saturday night in front of nearly 53,000 at EverBank Field. Just days after extending the naming rights deal for 10 years, they unveiled the video boards between the Fulham FC vs. DC United match and the Carrie Underwood concert.

A great video titled "Jacksonville in Motion" helped show off some of the scoreboards capabilities. For fans who arrived at the stadium early, you could see just how much bigger the new boards are. They had a digital version of the old scoreboards up there and it was just tiny compared to the new ones. Fans had a great time in the pools, Fulham won 3-nil.

Jaguars president Mark Lamping said that the night surpassed his expectations.

"It was four or five times better than I thought it was going to be," he said.

Gus Bradley got into the act. The Jaguars head coach got to introduce Carrie Underwood. As usual, he was very positive about the evening.

"I just thought it was a great night and a great showcase," Bradley said.

Jax "Summer of Soccer" continues

We've been calling this the summer of soccer, and Fulham's first appearance in Jacksonville continued that. So did the open tryouts held by the Jacksonville Armada. This weekend at Patton Park 175 young men were trying to catch the eye of the Armada brass.

Well, maybe 174 young men.Then there was this, guy, Joseph Devlin, who turns 43 next week. He struck a blow for the 40-something set (yay, 40-somethings!). He was the oldest to try out. So how did he do?

"I thought I held my own, quite honestly," Devlin said.

The father of four added that he tried out in part to be a role model to his kids.

This weekend, tryouts by invitation will be held and the Armada could sign their first players within the next month or so.

One more note on soccer, congrats to Jacksonville FC girls under 15 soccer team who won the National Championship this weekend.

Jags training camp goes to school

The Jaguars continue training camp and tonight, they'll do something unusual. They're holding camp tonight at Bartram Trail High School at 6 p.m.

The last time the Jaguars held a training camp practice without another team somewhere other than downtown Jacksonville, it was the inaugural season in 1995 when they trained in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.

In other news... the Sharks season came to an end with a victory over the LA Kiss; so Vince Neil topped Gene Simmons in the battle of Rock & Roll minority-share owners.

The Jacksonville Axemen rugby team just hammered Tampa 56-4. They'll host the league championship game on Saturday.

You can follow Melissa Ross on Twitter @MelissainJax and Cole Pepper @ColePepper.

Melissa Ross joined WJCT in 2009 with 20 years of experience in broadcasting, including stints in Cincinnati, Chicago, Orlando and Jacksonville. During her career as a television and radio news anchor and reporter, Melissa has won four regional Emmys for news and feature reporting.