Legion Wins Home Opener

Head coach Hank Jones continues to look over his flock of Post 58 baseball players trying to find the right combination that when Tuesday comes around and conference play starts he will know what each player can give him this season.

Post 58 sent five pitchers to the hill and they gave up 16 hits between them. They walked eight batters but the good news after nine innings North Raleigh with all those base runners score but seven times and four of those came in the ninth inning to give them a 7-6 lead.

Cameron Ramsey lead off the bottom of the ninth with a single, Mike Smith hit a ball in the infield in which the throw to first went in the dugout and sent Ramsey to third and Smith to second. North Raleigh faced with having to cut off the runners coming home to tie the game brought the infield in and outfield to little league death. Collins Cuthrell hit a high school routine fly ball to center which would have score the tying run but with the outfield at little league depth the fly ball hit the ground and roll all the way to the wall scoring both Ramsey and Smith. Game over Post 58 -8 Post 297- 7'

Ramsey and Cuthrell both had three hits in the game, Thomas Berry had a pair, Michael Whitehead, T J Taylor and Hobbs Johnson each had a single.

I know this is real funny to say but I believe the Legion has much better depth at pitching this year than last. Hard to say that giving up 16 hits. Post 58 is now 4-3 and play Sunday in the Durham Post 7 showcase. Tuesday night they open conference with a game at Fleming Stadium in Wilson against Post 40 who will have seven Hunt players for Tuesday night's game.

Speaking of Hunt: The Warriors just did not have enough good pitching to take on East Rowan, ER sweeps Hunt 9-3 last night and 15-10 Saturday.

Bumped into Whit Barnes one day this week. Man oh man has a red shirt year helped Whit or what. He looks about 20 inches thick in the shoulders and told me he was on the Wake Forest depth chart as a back up lineman heading into this football season.

Saw Billy Godwin tonight at the Dunn Center escorting his daughter Mallory during the Debu-ette Presentaion Ball. Billy cleans up nice in a tux but I told him I like it better when he wore Purpleand gold baseball uniform.

State is the only ACC team eliminated from the NCAA tournament. The ACC went 6-2 Friday and Virginia Tech the only other team to lose Friday won today. They will mean seven ACC schools will play Sunday including North Carolina who beat California 12-3 Friday. Rocky Mount's Brian Goodwin went 2-5 scored a run and stole a base.

Brian Godwin's two out bottom of the ninth inning triple driving in two runs help North Carolina get into extra innings with Oklahoma in the winners bracket game in Norman Oklahoma. Goodwin is 4-9 two rbi's two runs scored and a stolen base in his first two NCAA playoff games. Goodwin was left stranded on third which couldhave been the winning run for the Heels. Oklahoma score in the top of tenth to down North carolina 7-6.

The Wizard Of Westwood

It has been thirty five years since John Wooden coach a basketball game. Having watched the National championship game in 1975 it seems like just yesterday.

Influenced by being an ACC backer I never gave John Wooden credit for what he accomplished during his coaching days at UCLA. Won ten National Championships all of them in a twelve year period. It was after he retired that I came to respect Wooden. I heard him say in a TV interview that he never used the word win at any time while he coached. He asked his players to give him the best they had. The largest salary that Wooden ever made coaching was $35,000.

Just last year on one of the college basketball broadcast you could tell that his mind was very good and active. John Wooden was not your average win at all cost coach.

John Wooden was inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame in 1960, not as a coach but for his playing. He was a three time All American at Purdue where he earned the nickname "The Indiana Rubberman" for his ability to dive on the floor for loose balls. Purdue won the national championship in 1932 with Wooden as a guard.

He even played pro basketball for the then Indianapolis Jets and to this days still holds the record for making 134 straight free throws which is the professional record.

Married to his wife Nellie for 59 years Wooden has wrote a love letter to her on the twenty first of every month since her death. Those letters are on her pillow today.

There is more to life than basketball and John Wooden live that until his death. he has been quoted "Basketball is not the untimate. It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins and that is the one that places his faith in his savior".

John Wooden was truly one of the greatest ever in college basketball. Player or coach, but much more a great human being.