Thinking Out Loud

Sorry to see this morning in the Rocky Mount Telegram of the death of Chuck Hinton.  Growing up I had more than 4,000 baseball cards that I kept in the bottom of my closet in Maola five gallon Ice Cream tubs.  I use to keep rubber bands around players that I had more than one of.  I think I had 27 of Mickey Mantle and I had one of Chuck Hinton.   After I had gone to work in life and moved from home I came home one weekend to find my mother had given my collection to one of my cousins.

Chuck was a lifetime 264 hitter mostly with the Washington Senators.  He twice in his career had hitting streaks of more than 15 games.  He played big league ball for 11 years and I can almost remember looking at his stats on the back of that baseball card and remember it saying Home Rocky Mount NC.  Hinton was 78 years old.  Sadly he died almost two weeks ago but just hearing of his death now.


The Nash County Board Of Education made a truly rather large mistake when they chose not to built a gym at Rocky Mount High School that would hold 2,000  or more people.  They made the same mistake when Nash Central was built.

I bet 3,000 or more would have bought tickets Friday night but you couldn't even find a parking space on pavement on the school grounds.  I am a person who likes to count.  If I go to any building that has seats I like to count just how many the place will hold.  From press row I counted the first row across the way had 50 people from one end to the other.  There are 12 rows high and the top row of course doesn't have  the isle dividers so there were 612 people sitting on the far side.  If the near side had the same then about 1225 people were sitting in the stands.  A throng of people never got in. Even more people we sitting in folding chairs with the cheer leaders under each basket. even more were standing.

Here we are the City of Rocky Mount the so called "City On The Rise" and there is not a meeting place in the entire city limits that a group of 5,000 can meet inside out of the weather.  Rocky Mount needs a building for inside sports at least the size of Williams Arena at ECU.  If we had something that size all of the big time high school games could be played there instead of a gym where people can't even get to go to the game.  Who knows if there was a palace with plenty of parking there might have been 8,000 there Friday night.

If Rocky Mount had such a place they could try to get the East Regional here.  Maybe even other State Championships.  Lord knows some music star might be able to perform here that you have heard of before other than some singer hoping to make it big one day.

Other Thoughts:  I wish Northern Nash girls had a little more speed in the line up.  The playoffs are all about match ups.  If the Lady Knights don't win it all they will lose to a tall quick team.

If Rocky Mount boys don't win it all they will lose to a quick team.  A team like last year's Hickory team was.   This year's squad doesn't handle the ball as well as last year and have had trouble against the really quick teams. They must shoot well from the outside too.

If Hunt doesn't win it all it will be because they are tall but soft inside.  Some where they will meet up with a team that will pound the ball inside and their outside shots will not fall.


Rocky Mount High mopped up in the Wrestling championships Saturday.  They won more than half of all the weight classes.  J J Jones has got something going on the mats at RMHS.

Congrats to Casey Cooke for becoming the first Lady Gryphon to receive a Division 1 scholarship in soccer.  Cullowee is a beautiful place.