Sargeant Wins by Inches in Mammoth Turnout

Does LYDELL SARGEANT look more like Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier?

Hard to tell, but what he unquestionably does look like is Lompoc Locker Room's People's Choice Male Athlete of the Year for 2008.

The Penn State cornerback's campaign put on a closing push that gave him 100 votes over the final 24 hours to inch past Kansas City Royal pitching prospect Danny Duffy 577-573.

Some 40 of those ballots came in in the final 90 minutes.

"I looked about 10:30 and Danny had it by 30 or so," said Dan Duffy, father of Danny, on Friday. "I looked this morning and it was as I expected-- close."

Sargeant, contacted in Dallas where he is attending the Deion Sanders cornerback camp, said he had no idea what was going on in the digital world but he felt happy and honored to be remembered in Lompoc.

Asked who was the mastermind spearheading his Obama-size electoral machine that brought him from a distant third place last weekend, he could only tick off who it was not. It was not Mom. "I don't think she knows it's going on," he said. "I only knew myself because Coach Cross said something about it."

Coach Don Cross (pictured above with Sargeant) was reached at Lompoc High but he refused to take credit. "I just follow public opinion," claimed the man who was Sargeant's head coach at Cabrillo. With his tongue planted firmly in his cheek as he laughed he said "I just mentioned it to a couple people at a basketball game that since Vai Taua was the panel's selection it would be nice to have another Cabrillo running back be the People's Choice."

Who exactly were "the couple people" that Cross was talking to? "Some of Lydell's teammates may have helped," the coach hinted.

But Cross also denied staying up late Thursday night monitoring the tally. "I have to go to work in the morning," he said, but suggested that his school-age sons may have played a surreptitious role.

Whether young Cross-men or Cabrillo alumni were pulling the strings the Sargeant forces put on a stunning campaign. To bring their man from a distant third behind Duffy and Chris White, they generated 200 votes in one weekend to vault Sargeant into a virtual tie with Duffy and far beyond the reach of White. The Detroit Tiger minor league outfielder posted more votes than last year, when he won this competition, but this year had to settle for third.

Duffy's forces operated from coast-to-coast, said Duffy Senior. "My wife's family, people at work, and my uncles back East. It was crazy. It took on a life of its own. I kept getting e-mails telling me 'Wow, I got five more that will vote every day.' It was nuts."

The total vote for the top two contenders was staggering--1150 votes cast on this race alone, not counting all the other 18 nominees or all the nominees in the other four categories.

"It really made it fun," said Duffy. "It keeps the sports pot boiling. I'm not suffering one bit of heartburn over this. It was a lot of fun."

The detailed final tally can be seen by scrolling down. In the other categories Cabrillo golfer Morgan Salm turned back closest pursuer Chelsea Cassulo for People's Choice Female Athlete of the Year. Cassulo had been picked by the Blue Ribbon panel earlier.

Coach of the Year according to the fans is Claudia Terrones of the Lompoc High basketball team after nipping the panel's choice, Jim Allen of LHS baseball.

Only the YFL Panthers, champions of the YFL Super Bowl, and the panel's pick as Team of the Year, was able to repeat in the opinion of the fans.

But all of the other categories were overshadowed by the titanic struggle put on by the Sargeant and Duffy camps.

As a result of the amazing response Lompoc Locker Room will be ordering up more polls in the future, said poll "commissioner" Mike Loney. Loney said LLR might stage a People's Choice of Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall.

"Would that be too much?" Not to Sargeant and Duffy voters.

Interviews with Sargeant, Cross and Duffy Senior will be televised Monday at 5:30 p.m. on TAP TV Channel 25.