D's Notebook

Tag: reporting (Page 3 of 5)

Reporter’s Notebook

June 5, 2013 /

Man, it’s been a busy two-plus weeks. Between county tournaments, sectionals, and state finals, I’ve covered seven events over that stretch, most of which were terrific events to write about.

In the county baseball tournament, I had a preliminary round game that was run-ruled after five innings because of a 14-0 rout. Three days later I covered the title game that was an excellent 5-4 game that ended with the tying run on third base. The pitcher I saw that day might get drafted this week, but will play D1 baseball if he doesn’t. He was fantastic and was great to talk to after the game.

The highlight of that game, though, was sitting in front of some parents of FC players who bitched about everything. I’m 99% sure they didn’t know who I was or who I work for, but when I sat down one dad was asserting, loudly, that our paper would write more about the biggest school in the county, CG, not making the title game than the teams that were playing. Our paper has a reputation for covering CG more than the other five schools in the county. But CG is also the biggest school, competes in more sports, and is generally more successful than any other school in the county. The “bias” they see is more a matter of us having to cover more events that CG competes in.

Anyway, you can comment on stories on our paper’s website. There are almost never any comments on my stories. The photographer shooting the title game misidentified one of the FC players in a picture attached to my story. Whoops! When I checked the website Monday morning there were two comments on the story ripping us for the mistake. One of the commenters was clearly the loudmouth I sat near on Saturday, as he repeated some of the cracks he made at the game in his comment. Never mind that we published a glowing article about his son’s team winning their first county title in a decade. It was important to get his “clever” shots at the paper onto the (virtual) public record.

Fortunately, as my editor told me later, another dad of an FC player left him a message thanking us for taking the time to cover the game and complimenting me on the story. Even Stephen!

Two nights later I covered a softball sectional. The team I covered had been ranked #1 in the state a week earlier but lost their final regular season game and fell to #3. They won ugly the night I had them and their season ended in an upset the next night.

While they were losing, I covered a phenomenal sectional baseball game on the west side. The game ended 1-0 in eight innings after the center fielder for my team lost a ball in the lights and let the winning run score with two outs. The winning pitcher went all eight innings, allowed only three hits, just two runners to reach third base, and struck out 11. My pitcher also went the full eight and struck out 18. Eighteen! He gave up eight hits and the saw runners in scoring position with less than two outs in seven of eight innings. But each time he got into trouble, whiff, whiff, whiff. Inning over. Well, except for the last inning.

The big bummer of the game was it poured two hours before first pitch, more or less flooding the infield. First pitch was pushed back an hour so they could get it playable. Between the delay and the extra inning, the last out was recorded at 9:20. I had a 10:00 deadline. And coaches always talk to their teams forever after the final loss of the season. I had to run to my car and write as quickly as possible without getting quotes from any coaches or players. Which sucked, because it was a fantastic game and deserved more than my quick write-up.

Somewhere in there I had a sectional tennis match, and I had the same team, GHS, last Friday in the state quarterfinals. They feature twin sisters as their top two singles players, and neither girl had lost a set or match all season. The #1 singles girl lost a set Friday, but came back to win her match. Her sister wrapped her match up in about 40 minutes. Their opponents knocked out the two doubles matches in about an hour. Which left the #3 singles girls to determine who would go to the semifinals. My girl was up 5-2 in the first set and blew it. She won the second set pretty easily. Third set excitement! It was close through the first four games but my girl wilted and lost 3-6.

And then, finally, Saturday I covered my first ever track meet. It was an important one, too. I went down to Bloomington for the girls state finals. I was kind of dreading it as the storms which pounded Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri Friday were expected in southern Indiana Saturday afternoon and evening. When I got to B-town it was overcast and sprinkling. A couple times it rained a little harder but the radar kept showing the rain falling apart and moving away. Eventually the sun broke through the clouds and it turned into a glorious evening.

I only had a few competitors to be concerned with. My high jumper, just a sophomore, took second and was great to talk to after. One of her teammates took fourth in the 1600, her third-straight top five finish, and eighth in the 3200. The top eight get medals and these were the fifth medals of her career. She’s running in college next year and was also great to talk to.

Other than them, I watched a 4×800 relay team run the fastest time in the US this year, and the 8th fastest high school time ever recorded. They took ten, TEN!, seconds off the previous state record. The girl who won the 3200 lapped one runner, nearly caught another, and had the crowd on their feet as she came up 0:02 short of breaking the state record.

And it was just a fun day. There are all kinds of different bodies at a high school track meet. There are some large ladies tossing the discus and shot put around. There are some girls who are ridiculously muscular for being 16, 17, 18 years old. And there are girls who don’t look like much until they start running. That 4×800 squad featured twin sisters who weren’t super tall or have popping muscles or anything like that. They looked like normal girls from a little town in Indiana. But on the track they fly. Each sister won an individual state title to go with that relay win.

That will do it for the 2012-13 academic season. Football is only 10 weeks away.

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Double Pisser

May 23, 2013 /

Wednesday was a great sports night. And an awful one.

I spent most of the night covering a tremendous high school baseball playoff game.1 I got home in time to catch the last out of the Royals’ dismal loss to Houston. Losing two of three to the worst team in baseball is not cool. At all. Especially when they blew another great start by James Shields. The next two weeks will likely determine the Royals’ fate this season. Their next 11 games are against the surging Angels, the red hot Cardinals, and the very good Rangers. They can’t do any worse than 5-6 in that stretch if they have real hopes of contending this season. It won’t matter whether Danny Duffy and Felix Paulino come back strong in July, or if the ice cold bats of half the team finally wake up if they’re 10 games back of the Tigers a week into June. I’m not optimistic and think it’s going to be an ugly summer in KC as the heat on Ned Yost and Dayton Moore gets cranked up.

After the Royals last out, I flipped over to the game one of the Pacers-Heat game. We had been casually following the score in the press box at my game, and I checked it several times on the way home. Each time the Pacers somehow had a 2-4 point lead. Miami finally got a little cushion right about the time I turned it on, but the Pacers made one more run, keyed by that ridiculous Paul George three that tied the game at the end of the fourth quarter.2

The Pacers had the game won at least twice in overtime, and managed to blow it each time. As crushing as the loss was – between a couple bad decisions by players, some awful turnovers in key situations, a key hustle play by Miami where the Pacers stood around and watched, and Frank Vogel choking on a two major coaching decisions – I don’t think the Pacers had a chance to beat the Heat four times in seven games. But this was a classic setup to steal game one on the road and change the complexion of the series.

Miami still has LeBron, though, who can do things no other human can do on the basketball court. It doesn’t matter that Paul George is turning into a top-tier star,3 that Roy Hibbert is living up to his contract, and the Pacers’ bench is performing well. Whatever they do, LeBron will always have a counter. His ascension to the top is complete. He may not yet have, or ever get, Jordan’s six rings. But he’s in the same place relative to the rest of the league that Jordan was at his peak. Between his skills and his will, he will always find a way to win.

Dumb loss. Multiple members of the Pacers had major mental vapor locks late. But this isn’t their series. It’s LeBron’s world and we’re all just living in it.

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  1. More about that in my next Reporter’s Notebook entry. ↩
  2. In my KU-heavy Twitter feed, there were plenty of references to Trey Burke’s ridiculous tying shot in Dallas in March. Coincidentally that was the last time I sat in my basement until nearly midnight watching hoops. ↩
  3. Dude has to learn how to handle the ball better, though, if he wants to be elite. ↩

Reporter’s Notebook

March 4, 2013 /

My basketball season came to a quick, inglorious end last week. None of our seven teams advanced from sectionals, with four losing in what were at least mild upsets. At one point it looked like I would cover a minimum of three post-season games, including a regional contest next week. But, thanks to all the upsets, I ended up with only one game.

But at least that was a good game. I had the Christian school we cover only in sectionals1 in their opener against a Baptist school. More on the makeup of that sectional in a minute. My school, GCA, jumped out to a 12-2 lead and while the Baptists slowly cut into that lead by halftime, GCA was able to keep them at arm’s length into the fourth quarter. Then GCA’s best player took a shot to the head in a battle for a rebound and left with a concussion. GCA got a cheap technical when the old men at the scorer’s table got tired of players not checking in appropriately, complained to the refs, and the kid who came in for the injured player got a T. Weak. Very weak.

The technical free throws tied the game, and it was back and forth until the final seconds. The Baptists went ahead on free throws with six seconds to play and GCA missed a contested shot at the rim at the buzzer. Game, and season, over.

The Baptists, who were under .500 coming into the sectional, went on to win Friday then upset the undefeated, #2 team in the state Saturday for the sectional championship.

But my game was great. It was at ECHS and the mostly full stands were split between the four teams playing that night. The were a few hundred fans for both schools, a few leftovers from the earlier game, and it was loud the entire time. It’s a big change from the 1/3-1/2 full crowds I see most nights.

The ECHS sectional is kind of strange. It is in class A, the smallest in the state. The three public schools are all from very small communities. Then there are three religious academies, the Christians and Baptists, and a Lutheran school. Finally, there is an inner city college prep academy from Indy that plays. I don’t know that there is another sectional like it in the state.

The best game I’ve ever done was in this sectional three years ago, when ECHS beat the inner city team for their first sectional title in almost 40 years. There were complaints by the inner city school of racial taunts from the crowd that night. Not that that can’t happen at any game, in any class, in any state. But the combination of semi-rural, inner city, and religious schools is just a weird mix.

It was a good hoops season. My final Total Margin Factor was +53. I had a few clunkers but, obviously, many more good games. Or at least games when my teams won by a lot. I saw a 40-point game, a 30-point game.

Saturday night I followed the sectional finals games from home, hoping my last team would win so I could work this weekend. Fox Sports Indiana was showing one of the better title games in Indy. The game went to overtime and was won on a 3-pointer with under 10 seconds to play. It was a back-and-forth, athletic game and fun to watch. What jumped out at me most, though, was how neither team sat on a lead. Both teams attacked, looked to get shots, and never hung back even if up four with 2:00 to play. When you grew up watching Raytown South suck the life out of the game with their Alley Cat offense, it was a strange thing to see coaches trusting their kids to go out and play.

On of my favorite things about covering basketball is looking at the track records boards that hang in the gyms. I’m not sure why I haven’t documented them some how. I think that might be a project for next year.

They’re fun to look at not because I’m a track geek or anything, but because of the history they hold. Almost without exception, the records will all come from the last 10-15 years. As in other sports, high school kids are bigger, stronger, faster, have better training methods, better equipment, etc. today than ever before. And we’re evolving so kids’ physical limits are greater than those of their parents, and their parents, and so on.

But, what really makes them fun is that there are almost always 2-3 outliers, a few records that remain from the early 80s or late 70s. They almost always involve one, maybe two, individual races, then a couple relays. I love looking at those numbers, reading the names, and seeing one person, or one family, that was clearly responsible for them. A once-in-a-lifetime middle distance runner who destroyed the 400 record and helped push two relay teams to historic heights. Sisters who, in the year they both ran varsity, lifted the entire team to levels untouched in almost 40 years.

My favorite part is, when the records were set in the late 70s, early 80s, thinking back to myself during those years. I was young, discovering sports, and thought even high school athletes were gods. There were people who are now my age, who sat in these same gyms as kids, and saw those records when they were shiny and new and thought they were the pinnacle of achievement. They were, in a way, right.

Finally, I worked a couple senior night games in recent weeks. Often schools will honor all their winter athletes, not just basketball players, at the boys senior night. I think it’s to bring the kids out in front of as many people as possible.

Anyway, the routine is pretty set in central Indiana. Kids line up with their parents. They are announced with a few highlights of their high school careers as a cheerleader brings them a balloon bouquet. Finally, the announcer shares each kid’s future plans. For the kids going to college, the expected course of study is generally listed. However, if a kid has no idea, they always say, “And her major is undecided.”

How can she be undecided when she hasn’t even graduated from high school yet? She’s probably worried about her calculus test next week, why her boyfriend didn’t return her texts that afternoon, and where she’s going to get her prom dress. If she doesn’t have a plan to go to IU then to medical school to be a surgeon, I think we can cut her some slack and not say she’s undecided. Lord knows a lot of us took our sweet time once we were at college figuring out what the hell we were going to study.

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  1. Not sure why we only cover them in the postseason. Last year they had the second or third leading scorer in the state. This year, while their record wasn’t great, they played an exciting style of ball and played a couple very good games extremely closely. I guess it’s tough enough finding enough people to get to boys and girls games for six schools throughout the week without adding another school to the mix. ↩

Weekend Notes

February 25, 2013 /

Some various and sundry notes about the weekend past.

I covered the boys high school state championship this weekend. As always, it was something else. The event itself is kind of tedious, especially when I only had one swimmer, who was in the finals of two events, to write about. Watching the crowd is the best. I believe I’ve written about it each time I’ve covered a swim meet, but the parents, coaches, and students in the crowd are absolutely nuts.

I covered both the prelims Friday and the finals Saturday. As I said, I only had one kid make it to the finals in two events on Saturday, and he finished fourth and fifth in his two races. Not bad for a sophomore. There were four other swimmers and three relay teams from my schools that made the consolation heats as well, but the focus of both stories was on the kid that advanced.

The last time I did the state meet, three years ago, a kid from a school up north won a bunch of races. I forget the exact number. By the end of the day, he had set the state record for most individual state titles and tied the record for most total titles (individual and relays). Or vice versa. Anyway, he has twin brothers that are currently juniors and swam over the weekend. One of the brothers set four new state record times, breaking his big bro’s record in one race. I talked with a reporter next to me who was covering that team. He said there is a sister in the family that graduated a year ago who won six state titles over her four years. Talk about good genes!

I pay attention to two auto races each year: the Indy 500 and the Brickyard 400. But I’ll admit I switched by the Daytona 500 yesterday just to check up on Danica. Her popularity waned here in Indy as she always seemed to be looking towards NASCAR, she never won, and she acting like a spoiled a-hole much of the time. But I still think it’s pretty cool what she’s doing. I’m not going to start sitting the girls down to watch her each week, but it is cool to have another woman showing them that no one can ever tell them they can’t do something.

Man, you know I don’t watch the Oscars, so don’t ask.

C. got to spend 45 minutes selling Girl Scout cookies with some of her troop at a grocery store yesterday. I dropped her off, made sure she was settled, and grabbed a cart to do my shopping for the week during her shift. After a few minutes, I could hear the girls (there were 4-5 there at a time) asking people if they wanted to buy cookies in sing-song voices. There was giggling and everything seemed to be going fine. Then, as I was on the far side of the store, I heard screaming, a clatter, a pause, and then belly laughing. I had a guess as to what had happened.

I finished my shopping, checked out, and walked over to the table. One of the girls incessantly tried to sell me cookies while I asked C. how things were going. C. was stacking up new boxes of cookies and just smiled at me and said, “Fine.” The cookie mom walked over and said that someone had leaned too hard on the card table the cookies were stacked on and it tipped over, sending them everywhere. Just like I thought.

C. had a good time. As I expected, she kind of hung back and let other girls talk try to make sales. Which is fine. Now that she’s experienced the rough-and-tumble world of grocery store cookie sales, I doubt she’ll ask me to do it again next year.

Later Sunday I was sitting there reading when I realized the Royals were playing a spring training game in Arizona. I remembered getting a message the previous week that my MLB.TV subscription had just renewed, so I opened the iPad, download At Bat, pulled up the game, and listened for a half inning. Listening to baseball in Indiana in the middle of February. These are great times, my friends.

Man, it’s been a cold but dry winter here. After that busy week around Christmas, when we got about a foot of snow total, and well more just to our south, we’ve only had an inch here, a half-inch there. There’s a chance of snow every day this week, but at this point it’s never supposed to pile up deeper than an inch. I wonder what it’s like to have a real, snowy winter?

Yes, I am trolling my Kansas City friends. Hang in there, brothers and sisters!

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Reporter’s Notebook

February 11, 2013 /

It’s been a busy two weeks out on the road.

I’ve covered three girls basketball games, a boys game, and the girls state swimming championships. Oh, and there was the night I drove into the ice storm. Some notes.

Saturday I covered a girls sectional championship game. It was IHS, which features the best player in the county who dropped 40 the last time I had them, going for their second sectional title in three years. In classic dumb, blind-draw Indiana tournament fashion, IHS played the second-best team in the sectional (who had beaten them in last year’s title game) in the opening round. Meanwhile an 0-21 team and a 2-19 team were both on the other side of the bracket.

Like I said, dumb.

Thus IHS entered the final as massive favorites, playing a team with 12 wins, but none against any decent teams. Before the game IHS fans were talking about how quickly the game would end so they could go do other things. IHS scored on their first two possessions, forced two straight turnovers on the other end, and the rout seemed to be on. But DHS managed to put together an effective defense that gummed up the game and kept them in it. It was 20-15 IHS at halftime, and 22-19 two minutes into the second half.

Then IHS finally caught fire. They went on a 9-0 run. That turned into a 22-6 run. Which eventually became a 46-15 run by the end of the game. I hadn’t done a sectional game in two years, and it’s obviously much more fun to cover a winner.

Friday night I handled the preliminary rounds of the girls state swim meet downtown. I’d done the boys finals twice before and the prelims are a breeze compared. They get those girls in the water fast, there are no awards ceremonies, and a lot of the families who come from the nether regions of Indiana for Saturday’s finals aren’t there on Friday, so the crowds are easier to manage. It was an easy night out.

Thursday was the night I went to Bloomington. I was covering CGHS against BSHS, which would have been a great game 3-4 years ago. BSHS won state titles in 2009 and 2011 behind the starting point guard for IU and a starter for Butler. CGHS’ starting point guard is now at IU as a redshirting walk-on and will be one of those rare walk ons who plays a bit. Another kid from two years ago is at Butler as well. But those guys are gone, both teams are young, and CGHS took it on the chin to the tune of a 21-point loss.

Finally, there was the ice event I mentioned last week. I was on my way down to IHS for their final girls home game. It is normally an hour drive. I was 40 minutes from home, cruising at normal speeds, when traffic came to an abrupt stop. The roads went from dry with blowing, light snow to covered in a sheet of ice instantly. Cars were spinning out on the opposite side of the highway. The first exit ramp I came to was blocked by two tractor-trailers that couldn’t get up the hill. As I continued to the next exit, I was behind a large truck that, each time we went down the slightest decline, had its trailer start to fishtail around it. I kept the right wheels on the shoulder so they could get some traction from the rumble-strips. Finally, after and hour and 20 minutes, I had traversed the 12 miles from where the ice started to where I could finally get off the interstate. I called my editor who told me to go home, so I cut over to the state highway and headed back north. Same story. For roughly 15 miles, everything was iced over and traffic never crept above 10 miles an hour. But I made it home safely, driving for four hours to make a big circle.

Despite the one loss, my Total Margin Factor for the season is up to +48. There is still a month left in the boys basketball season, but most of our teams are at least decent this year and I think that’s safely in the psitive for this year.

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Reporter’s Notebook

January 15, 2013 /

Some updates from the field.

My last three games, going back to the week of Christmas, have all been interesting and each related to the same school, IHS.

First I had their boys playing the #1 team in Class 3A. IHS fell behind 11-0 in the first 90 seconds and I was sure it was going to be just another blowout. IHS righted the ship, though, and got it down to four points before halftime. Their opponents extended again in the third quarter, but IHS got it back to three points. They were down five late in the game when their coach got T’d up and that ruined their last chance.1 They ended up losing by 15, but it felt closer and it was an easier game to write about that I first expected.

A week later I had them again, this time for a noon game at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the home court of the Indiana Pacers. I did a game downtown the first year I worked for the paper, but not again since. That first trip was a bigger deal, probably because it was on a Saturday instead of a Thursday, and the crowds were bigger. But it was cool to sit court side on an NBA court, even if it was just for a high school game.

IHS was again playing an undefeated team, although this time it was a Class A team. I won’t say the quality of play was the best, but it was a terrifically exciting game. It was tied after the first quarter, at halftime, and at the end of the third quarter. Both teams had four point leads in there, but never more than that. It was still tied after IHS’ opponents drilled a 3-pointer with three minutes and change to play. But IHS went on a convenient 13-0 run to both put the game away and write my story for me.

So that was the boys side. Last Thursday I had IHS’ girls team, which features the best player in the county, a girl who is headed to a smaller D1 school next year. It was a sloppy game without many obvious story lines. Well except for the best player.

She had 20 points at halftime. She was at 35 early in the fourth quarter. With IHS up big, I kept expecting her to get subbed out early. But her coach kept her in. She hit a three and then another two. I double-checked my math and sure enough, she was at 40 points even. My first 40-point game as a reporter.

After the game I asked her if she had ever scored 40 points before. Her eyes got big, she got a huge grin on her face, and she said, “Oh my gosh, really?” When I confirmed it she just said, “That’s awesome! Thanks for telling me, I had no idea.” She completely charmed me with her attitude, saying all the right things about not caring about stats, just wanting to make her team better, etc. But she didn’t do it in a bored, practiced manner that a surprising number of high school kids use. She was honest, happy, and even a little goofy.

She’s the first really good player I’ve seen play for all four years of her career. When she was a freshman she took that last second shot, not her senior teammate who is the all-time leading scorer in the county, as IHS nearly knocked off the three-time defending state champs in sectionals. I’ve seen her dominate on both ends of the court. I don’t know how good of a college player she’ll be because of her size (5’11”) but it’s been a lot of fun to watch her grow up the last four years.

Updating my Total Margin Factor for the year, the last two games erased the deficit my teams had dug in early December. It stands at +19 right now. That could take a hit tonight as I watch the ECHS girls play.

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  1. Bad time for a T, but it was one of those that had been building for the entire game and he just pushed it too far in the heat of crunch time. ↩

Sporty Weekend

December 3, 2012 /

Lots of sports, and sports-related things, from the weekend.

Friday I had my first boys basketball game of the season. It was a 20-point loss, which is about what I expected. My team actually got as close as seven in the second half, which was not expected. Thanks to a double overtime JV game, I only had time to file a brief story, which was just fine with me.

The news from the evening was my attempt at local food. When I arrived I headed to the concession stand for a drink and perhaps a snack. There was a handmade sign that offered a pulled pork sandwich on a kaiser roll for just $2. Wow, that seemed like a fine deal. I do love pulled pork. And it’s kind of hard to mess that up. I figured I’d give it a shot. I ordered one and a kid took a massive roll, picked up a ladle, and started dumping meat onto it. He slopped like three huge helpings onto it. This was going to be some snack!

I took my sandwich and headed back to my seat. I grabbed the sandwich, took a bite, and…was afraid to chew. The meat wasn’t ice cold, but neither was it even room temperature. Apparently the crock pot it was sitting in either hadn’t been turned on or the meat had been in it about 2 minutes. I rotated the sandwich and tried the other side, hoping perhaps it had been warmed. No dice. And this bite was full of chunky, gristly meat. Yuck. My stomach was starting to turn a little. There wasn’t anyone sitting around me, so I carefully covered the sandwich with napkins and slid the plate under the bleachers. Then I moved to another spot. Man, was it nasty. For $2 I didn’t mind just calling it a failed experiment, but neither did I go tell them they might want to warm the meat before they sold it. I hoped someone else would take care of that.

I made it home in time to catch the end of the Pac-12 championship game. I loved having it at the home field of the higher ranked team (I think that’s how it worked). Make having the best record mean something. Of course, it was at Stanford, which has a small stadium, and hardly anyone showed up, which isn’t exactly the financial windfall the conference was looking for, I’m sure. But man did Fox make those 35,000 people sound loud. Seriously, they cranked up the crowd mics so much that it sounded like 100,000 people were screaming at the tops of their lungs. And Gus Johnson was all-too-happy to try to scream over them. I think Fox even turned his mic down to make the crowd seem louder.

Saturday I got a text from a grad school friend who went to West Virginia for undergrad. He wanted to know if I was interested in a KU-WVU bet. He got the football margin of victory, I got the cumulative basketball one, for a six pack of good beer. Sure, I responded, but I should just go ahead and send it to him since I figured WVU would win by 50 Saturday. I was off by one. He was generous enough to give me a potential Big 12 tournament game, too, so I may have three chances to make up the margin. Despite my friend’s lack of confidence in Bob Huggins’ crew this year, I still think that’s going to be a long climb for my boys.

A quick post-mortem on the football Jayhawks. It says much about the program that you can look at a 1-10 season and say, with a straight face, things got better this year. They were much closer to the early Mangino years, where teams tried hard but were beaten because of talent/depth issues, than the Gill years, when the teams had no idea what they were doing. It’s not going to be easy, and I’m still far from certain Charlie Weis is the guy to right the ship, but at least it’s not sinking anymore. For the time being.

Speaking of the SEC, that conference’s title game was awesome. Many times it seems like someone rolls into that game, whether it’s Alabama, LSU, Florida, or whoever, and just destroys who they play. This year, though, it was a classic game. Props to Georgia for showing up and taking ‘Bama to the wire.

Here is where I must come clean: Sunday I gave up on the Colts. I think they were down 10 and had just given up possession in the fourth quarter. “Game over,” I thought. I got my list and headed to the grocery store. While I was checking out, I saw it was down to a five-point game, but Detroit had the ball and the 2:00 warning was fast approaching. Another tough day of learning for the young Colts. Or so it seemed.

By the time I was in our garage the Colts were inside the Detroit 30 and had roughly half-a-minute to take a few cracks at the end zone. I raced inside in time to see the last 4-5 plays, including the brilliant Luck-Avery game-winner. Just when you think this season can’t get any crazier or more magical for the Colts, something like that happens.

8-4 with four games to play. It would have been nice if Pittsburgh and Cincinnati had lost their games yesterday, but still, if the Colts go 2-2, they should be in the playoffs. Tennessee, Kansas City, and Houston twice. And the Texans likely won’t have anything to play for in week 17, so there’s always the chance they rest their starters that day. I’ve been trying to poo-poo playoff talk all season, but it’s moving into the realm of likely instead of just possible. And while the seedings still have to play out, I have a feeling it will work out that they go to Denver for their Wild Card round game.

Of course the big sports news over the weekend was the Jovan Belcher incident in Kansas City. I don’t know what to say about it. I’ve been touched by suicide, if that’s the right way to put it, and it was awful. This is so much worse than even that, I can’t imagine how the survivors will even begin to deal with it. The only positive thing is in a public event like this, there will be no shortage of offers of assistance for those who have to carry on after. Not that that will erase the pain or explain it all to the little girl who is now parentless.

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Tip Time

November 12, 2012 /

There was snow on the ground, briefly, here in Indianapolis today. Which means its time for what the Hoosier state does best: high school basketball. The girls season kicked off last week, and I had two games.

I lukced out and got to see both the teams that are probably our best and which are coached by my favorite coaches.

Thursday I had our biggest school, CGHS. This is a school that is very good in almost every sport. But for some reason their girls basketball team is never great. Part of it is playing in a brutal conference. Then, if they get through sectionals, they almost always run into one of the 2-3 teams that are favorites for the state title in a given year in regionals.

Anyway, they have a very talented but young lineup this year and were facing an inferior opponent Thursday. They got out to a 14-2 lead and that was pretty much that. They won by 22, which was a solid start to the year. Two other wins last week have them at 3-0 going into this week’s county tournament.

I like their coach because he talks a lot, so I can ask him a couple questions and get plenty of material to pull quotes from. Plus he is always super friendly. When I walked up to him Thursday he greeted me with a big smile, Hey, man, how are you? Great to see you!” When we were done he asked if I would be doing anymore of their games this year and again said it was great to see me. I’m sure he’s like that to everyone, but it’s nice to get that treatment when a few of our other coaches are about as terse and impersonal as can be.

Friday I had ICHS, a 3A school that features the best player in the county. She had scored 37 in their opener and did not disappoint in game two. She had 34 points, 12 rebounds, and five steals. She only missed three shots from the field. I’ve been watching her for four years, and it’s been fun to watch her grow up. She was really good as a freshman and has gotten steadily better each year. She’s already committed to a small D1 school and is trying to win the county player of the year award for the second-straight year. ICHS has a really good team again this year and coasted to a 29 point win. They did lose to a 4A school Saturday, though, so go into the county tournament with a loss.

My stat keeping was a little rusty, and this was my first basketball game on the iPad so I had a few moments of panic when my stat spreadsheet wasn’t doing what I wanted. But the stories got filed and hopefully the rust is gone.

As I did last year, I’ll be keeping track of the Total Margin Factor of my games; basically the cumulative margin of victory or loss by the teams I cover. You may recall I was deep in the hole last January but a few big blowouts in February left me positive for the season. I start the 2012-13 season with a nifty +51, which won’t change this week as any games I will be doing will be between county teams at the tournament.

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Monday Notebook

October 15, 2012 /

Shall we kick off the week by catching up on odds and ends that have accumulated? I think we shall.

M. took another step towards big-girlhood a week ago when she got her ears pierced. Our rule has always been there will be no piercings until the girls can take care of them themselves. M. seemed ready for that and after a month of earning them through good behavior, she finally got them. She was super excited, telling her soccer teammates “Something’s going to look different about me the net time you see me! in a sing-song voice at practice one night. She’s been taking good care of her ears and is very proud of her new accessories.

A little different process than when I got my ear pierced 24 years ago. I went on a Friday night when my parents were out of town. Whether it was because I was a guy and they didn’t think it would last or they just forgot, the girls at the mall who put the ring in failed to tell me to leave it in for six weeks. So the next morning when I went off to work my shift at Taco Bell, I took it out as dictated by corporate policy. Image my surprise that night when I couldn’t get t back in! That led to an embarrassing trip back to the mall when I had to explain to a different girl that no one told me to keep it in. “We’ll of course you do, everyone knows that,” was her response. Clearly not EVERYbody knew.

M.’s soccer season ended this weekend. After slowly improving over the year, they finally got their first win two weeks ago in their final regular season game, then won a scrimmage the next week. Saturday they won their first round tournament game 5-0, although M. missed that game because of a church commitment. She made it for the second round game. They played incredibly well, but were going against a team that had a bye in the morning. It showed as the fast, scorers on M.’s team ran out of energy in the fourth quarter and they lost 3-1. They dominated the first half but could only manage one goal despite controlling the ball the entire half. It was a lot of fun watching them get better each week. Even M., who was still very passive mid-season, became a much better defender late in the season. She actually controlled the ball a few times Saturday and did a great job staying between the ball and the goal.

Some horrible news forward to me by a college chum. They’re trying to year down the dorm I spent two years in at KU. How dare they! Although as another friend said, given how crappy it was 23 years ago, can you imagine what a hole it must be today?

Of course the Colts crashed back to earth in New York this week. And I’ve kind of given up trying to figure out the NFL. My picks suck every week.

I likely wrapped up my high school football coverage last week by watching good ‘ol ECHS get pounded. They gave up an 83-yard TD on the opening kickoff and never got closer than that again. Sectionals start this week. We have a wedding this weekend and then will be out-of-town next week. So unless we have some major surprises and four teams are playing for sectional championships, I likely won’t work again until early November when girls basketball begins.

I covered six games this year, with one rainout thrown in. I saw two great games, one fair game, and three blowouts. I saw a 95 yard kickoff return, a screen pass that went for 83 yards, an 80 yard TD run, a 19-point comeback, two games won on fourth-and-goal, and a double overtime game. I also covered a soccer sectional final in there. A pretty good way to spend fall Friday nights.

The baseball playoffs have been crazy entertaining so far. My pick for World Series champ, Cincinnati is gone, and my AL champ, the Yankees, are down 2-0. I sure know baseball.

Favorite sports-related Tweet of the weekend, from “Ken Tremendous aka Parks & Rec’s Michael Schur:

If any person made me as upset, as often, as sports, I would totally not be friends with that person.

Much truth there.

I have a bad habit of leaving things on the DVR for ages if I don’t watch them immediately. All summer I had avoided watching the final three episodes of Community as I wanted to watch them together like they were broadcast. I finally knocked them out last week. Such a great ending to the season, and I loved how they framed the last episode so it could serve as the series finale if NBC never gets around to putting it back on the air. I’ve liked how Modern Family has kicked off this season, but I’d still put Community behind only Parks & Recreation as best comedy on TV.

I’m way behind on Louie, too, and knocked out four episodes one night last week. The Ikea episode was fantastically cringe-worthy. And I loved the piano lesson (I think the same half hour): “I have crabs but I don’t know if you gave them to me or I gave them to you. So ‘Fuck you!’ or ‘I’m sorry’.

Finally, I have not updated you on my beer brewing. My Octoberfest went into bottles about a month ago and we’ve been drinking it for a couple weeks. It turned out great! I love Sam Adams’ Octoberfest but I have to admit I like mine better. Sometime this week or next Ill be brewing a holiday ale that should be ready in early December.

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Lightning Strikes Twice (Two Times)

September 25, 2012 /

First, quickly, yes I am kicking myself for staying up and watching Sunday Night’s game rather than Monday’s. I only made it about halfway into the third quarter last night, thus missed the replacement ref fiasco I had been hoping for. I say we keep it going! Don’t stop now, Goodell, owners, and referee union. Let’s drag this thing out as long as possible and see just how many ways we can screw up the season!

Alright, last weekend’s high school football action was a repeat of two things I’ve already seen this year: bad weather and a nail-biter.

I was traveling just up the road to cover our only undefeated team GHS, ranked #7 in 4A, take on a Catholic school that’s up my way. The Catholic school, GCHS, was 1-4, but their quarterback, who had led them to semi-state last year, was coming back after a five-game suspension.1 And they had beaten GHS the past two seasons.

So Friday I jumped in my car, drove five miles, and was there. Much better than driving two hours to Terre Haute. But, as with my trip to Terre Haute two weeks earlier, the western skies were black and storms were headed our way. They had already cleared the stadium before I arrived, and we weren’t allowed back in until 6:30. So kickoff would be at least 30 minutes late.

There was more lightning soon enough and the stadium again cleared, except for us in the press box, and we started another waiting period. Right around 7 the storms hit, with heavy wind, heavy rains, and eventually hail. We got word from counties to the west of games being postponed, so we all guessed it was just a matter of time. Finally at 8:00, they announced the game would be played the following afternoon. By the way, I highly recommend spending 90 minutes in an aluminum and steel press box during a severe thunderstorm for giving your Friday night a jolt.

This time I was able to go back on Saturday, and I’m glad I did. The hosts scored two quick touchdowns to take a 13-0 lead. One was a screen pass that went for an 86-yard score. GHS, which is a grind-it-out team, tightened up on defense and slowly got back into it, taking a 14-13 lead late in the second quarter. The winds were ridiculous, and GHS had to work from deep in their own territory on their final two possessions. One resulted in a short punt and quick score for GCHS. On the next, GHS fumbled and GCHS scored again. 26-14 at halftime.

On the first play of the second half, GCHS’ QB dropped back, looked all over for a receiver, stepped up, thought about it for about 10 seconds, and finally took off. Eighty yards later it was 33-14 and I was beginning to think about how I would frame my article about GHS’ perfect season coming to an end.

Not so fast.

Despite trailing by 19, GHS stuck with their ground attack. A score on their next possession cut it to 33-20.
They scored again on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 33-27. I started rethinking my story.

But they gave up another quick touchdown2 and it was 40-27 with 11 minutes to play. They might score enough to get back into it, but it was tough to see their defense stepping up.

Only they did.

GHS’ quarterback ran for two more touchdowns in the quarter, giving him five for the day. The final came on fourth-and-goal with 1:23 to play. The defense forced a key punt and then slowed GCHS down just enough to let the clock run out before they could get in the red zone. Pandemonium on the GHS sideline!

I raced down and talked to the coach, who was absolutely ecstatic. I’ve never seen a coach as pumped up about a regular season win. I didn’t have time to catch any players, as they all raced to the locker room, hooping and hollering, before I had a chance to grab any of them.

So for the 2012 season, I’ve had two games decided on fourth-and-goal runs from the one, one of those in double overtime. And I’ve had two games wiped out because of severe weather. Weird year in Indiana.

This week I get probably our weakest team, FCHS, against a conference foe that should take care of them pretty easily. They can’t all be instant classics, I guess.

Also worth noting that Good Ol’ ECHS is going for win number four this week. They play a home school team, so I’m confident they’ll get it. Looking at their schedule, there may be another win on it, so there’s a chance they’ll go into sectionals 5-4.

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  1. The word in the press box was his parents pulled him off the team because his SAT scores weren’t high enough. That’s a pretty ballsy thing to do to a kid who will get some looks from small colleges – force him to miss half the season. I have no idea what the family’s financial status is – he is attending a private high school in an affluent community – but I admire his parents’ actions. ↩
  2. GCHS’ scoring drives for the game: 3 plays, 22 yards; 2 plays, 90 yards; 4 plays, 27 yards; 2 plays, 26 yards; 1 play, 80 yards; 2 plays, 58 yards. I’m bad at math and don’t know much about football, but I think that qualifies as efficient offense. ↩
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