Our Sports Hero's Arn't Made Of Steel

News on Monday that UNC basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has Leukemia has rocked the Triangle area and basketball world. Don't care which side of the fence you sit on sports has absolutely no meaning when a life is on the line. Hatchell who has become the 2nd winningest women's basketball coach in history will step aside from game day coaching and try to keep her hands in the day to day operations of UNC women's basketball as much as her health will allow. One national championship in her back pocket Hatchell still took a back seat to Kay Yow who is credited with creating women's college basketball in North Carolina. Like Yow Hatchell is in the basketball Hall of Fame. Like Yow has cancer. 61 years old there is no telling how long Hatchell could coach if healthy but our prayers go to her recovery. The largest crowd to ever see a college baseball game in North Carolina happened last year during the ACC baseball tournament when State and Carolina met. AlL these new teams being added to the ACC baseball teams will not play every team every year in conference play and State-Carolina will not play a three game series next year. They will play a single game on a Tuesday in April at the DBAP in Durham. I have to ask the question if baseball can figure out how to play at least once a year why can't State and Duke Play every year in football. Football is set up that you play everyone in your division and State and Duke are in opposite divisions and haven't played in several years. You know the year State plays at Duke most of the time it is the largest crowd Duke has that year because so many State fans go to the game. My grand mother told me years ago when I was a boy that only believe 3/4's of what you see and only half of what you hear. Our world is made up these days of people looking to find a way to bring anybody down any way they can. This picture of the Duke Basketball team holding guns at first glance you would say "what in the world are they doing". Then you find out the picture was taken at a shooting range on the Campus of the United State Military Academy when Coach K took his team there to see what our soldiers do to prepare to be officers. As far as I am concern that is a great teaching experience to his team about life. We have way too many people ready to jump and accuse without knowing the facts. Tuesday Rocky Mount Girls Tennis team won their opening round match in the 3-A playoffs beating Burlington Williams 6-0. Luckily there was no need to play the doubles but darkness would have been an issue it the doubles had to take place. Nash County spent 54 million dollars to buid a super great school. What is another $500,000 to put lights on a soccer field or tennis court when not having lights requires students to miss class time because events can't be play at 7pm because of no lights? If I understand the playoffs seedings now Rocky Mount will travel to Triton nex t Tuesday in the second round of the Duel tennis play offs. As expected Cardinal Gibbons beat Hunt 7-1

TV And Radio Commercials

Having spent many a day back in the stone age spinning records and playing commercials I thought it would be a good idea to have a training session on what you hear or see when you watch TV or listen to the radio. TV and radio stations are required to do so many minutes per week of public service. Sometimes they do it in the form of National Cancer Society ads or any public service group asking you to give money. In order to let you know what is up and coming they also do promos pushing up and coming shows or events on that station. When ever as they are called PSA's play(Public Service Announcements) the broadcast station donates that time and creates no imcome from it. The same for promos there is nobody paying them to run a promo and sometimes you get both promo's and PSA's in the same cluster of advertisments. When you see that you can think boy they must not be selling too much advertising to be playing all these promos. Yesterday I heard UNC running on the radio a package deal for the three remaining home games they have left and one of those games is the Duke game. Let me tell you right now, here we are in the middle of the football season and Carolina is still trying to sell out the Duke game. If you are a regular TV or Radio listener you will catch in April and May all the schools pitching their season ticket packages trying to sell out all of the games. Here it is October and any school still trying to fill the seats for any game now is in a lot of trouble. Guess What? It's not just Carolina but everyone is having trouble filling seats up every Saturday. The first sign of why people aren't going to the games would be how good the team has become as the season has unfolded. State, Carolina and you can now throw ECU into the disapointing department. Three weeks later you can see now that ECU beating Carolina wasn't all that much and the way things are now the State game could be the same. The next reason why people are not buying tickets is the cost of a per game ticket and the price of season tickets to any college team. I went to the grocery store over the weekend and when I came out I had $99 dollars worth in my arms. I had more money in my pocket when I made $1.65 an hour than I do now. There is a third reason why people don't go and this surely could be a Carolina problem. I hear it from many Carolina fans that they are still ticked at the Butch Davis fiasco and they way they got folks to buy the new enzone seats. The only way to make those folks forget is to have a winning team which will not be this year so the same problem will exist next year for them when it is time to buy season tickets. What all of this is saying is everybody is struggling to get by from the major TV stations to college athletics to you and me. This is the most unusual of times. Make pleny of money each week but don't have any two days after pay day. Sure can't buy a ticket to a ball game that way.

Interesting First Night

Getting to the top of the mountain and in this case a conference football championship for those standing at the bottom of the hill it is a high climb. Those who have been there and in this case Hunt they are not all that willing to let someone else join the perch at the top. Hunt may not be nearly as good as in the past but they still have players that have seen the mountain top and are still going to be a tough out for anyone wanting to knock them from the perch. Rocky Mount has struggled the last couple of games getting the running game going. This week they have to find it to help give them balance for the passing game. There is nothing better in high school for a team that can throw to have a running game that the safeties are trying to stop the run. Hunt and Rocky Mount could be locked up in a game just like Northern and Hunt just had. A balance attack could be the key this week. Fike travels to Nash Central and the Bulldogs have as good a defense as any in the league. It is hard to notice when you have the worse offense. There has been a promise made to shake up offensive personnel at Central. That might have needed to be done five weeks ago. Fike had better not sleep walk in this one or every thing they have made all season could come tumbling down. Northern and Southern square off and the loser of this game will have a tough time making play offs. This is do or die for both. Every teams life revolves around luck and injuries are a part of that. There is no telling how good Southern could be with their starting back field. If this were next year for Northern a year farther in the Randy Raper regime you can just see the trend is upwards in Death Valley. Big East semi finals in volleyball has 3 seed Northern at Hunt Tuesday the 5 seed Southern at Fike. Tennis first round playoffs start Tuesday weather willing. Seems to be a trend in Big East tennis that the only way to win the doubles title is with sisters. The Brice sisters at Rocky Mount senior Tanner and sophomore Chandler have continued what the Price sisters had at Nash Central. How many years is it now that the doubles champions four or five years have been sisters?

Volley Ball Playoffs Begin

The regular season of Big East volleyball ended Thursday and Rocky Mount who has suffered through probably their worse season ever since volley ball has been played on the high school level for girls. Northern Nash beat Rocky Mount 3-0 to wrap up the #3 seed in the Big East. The season Rocky Mount has had they had secured the 6th seed and 3 and 6 become foes in the opening round of the Big East Tournament which sent Rocky Mount right back to Northern again on Saturday. The Knights as expected dumped Rocky Mount ending their 1-21 season and Northern advances on to the semi finals of the Big East tournament. Tabita Wilcox the Gryphon coach in the past couple of weeks has taken a job in Franklin County and is now teaching there. Yesterday was her final game as the Gryphon's volleyball coach. She has been the Gryphon VB coach for five years and even before that was at Edwards as the middle school coach. It was during her Junior High days that Morgan Doughtie tried to make the VB team and one of the requirements Tab made all players do is they had to be able to serve over the net over handed instead of bumping it across. This is not easy for any girl in Junior high to do and Morgan found that in order to be part of the volleyball team she asked to be the manager. It worked out that as Morgan went to high school so did Tabita as the head varsity coach after Debbie Webb's retirement. There were a couple of championships during her high school years but her passion for being a part of VB spread as now a sophomore at Campbell. We know every day as young people that new ideas pop up about life but as I write this Morgan's future goal as we speak is to become an athletic trainer. Teachers have trememdous impact on our children every day. I can only say great things about Tab Wilcox and her influence on our daughter since the 7th grade of her life right on through now as a sophomore in college. Morgan barely five feet tall who has her dad's desire to compete even when it means standing on the sidelines cheering for someone else. Tab gave Morgan that chance to continue in sports way back when she physically could not play the game. In our household Morgan went to games and cheered for the Pack and Gryphons. Somewhere along the way two of my children have chosen sports as their livelyhood. Brooks as a Triathlon coach and somewhere down the road whether it is in a high school or at a college Morgan will have a life of sports. In this house GOD comes first but sports is near the top of the list. Tab Wilcox opened Morgan's door in sports and this family will fore ever be greatful. Thank You Tab!.

The Race Is Off And Running

Tonight Big East Football began the process of selecting their represetatives for the up coming playoffs and after the first ballot Fike, Rocky Mount and Hunt are leading the ballot. The second ballot will be next Friday night and in this race you get to keep your votes as the ballots head toward five rounds. The battle of the unbeatens Fike has proven this year to be a quick starting team and they did that again tonight as they jumped to a 19-0 and 26-7 before the Firebirds of Southern Nash made a run but came up short in Wilson 33-27. Fike is now 7-0 while the Firebirds lose for the first time this year and drop to 6-1. I don't know whether this game was a game that Rocky Mount 6-1 played down to the level of Nash Central 0-7 or the defenses were just so good or what. Between both teams Rocky Mount got one first down in the second half and then got a second on an off sides penalty late in the game while running the clock out. Nash Central never had a series in the second half that took more than three plays before a punt. Rocky Mount scored in the first on a Micah Varnell field goal which was matched early in the fourth quarter at 3-3. A nice kick off return and a long pass play on their first play after the kickoff would score the only touchdown of the game. If you are really into official stats any scoring play of more than 11 yards is credited with a first down so for the second half Rocky Mount had three first downs to 0 for the Bulldogs. Hard to watch for those that were there. Northern Nash did everything they could to get ready for Hunt but in the end the team that knows how to win managed two second half scores while Northern Nash could not and Hunt wins at Death Valley 14-7. Randy Raper loses his first conference game in three years while Northern has still not won a conference game working on two years plus. What can you say. RMA 64- Arendell Parrott 0. Looks like RMA really does want to go far in this years state private school playoffs. In other action SWE 36 North Pitt 22. Nice win for the Cougars on the road. Tarboro 51- South Creek 8. I 'm sure the Vikings put the breaks on in this one. next week Big East games have Hunt at Rocky Mount, a battle for first place..... Northern Nash at Southern Nash and this will be a battle that neither team can afford to lose. Fike and Nash Central. Fike will be watching the Hunt/Rocky Mount game.

College Football Another Week Game Day

So far this college football season I have been able to pick three out of every four college games on our weekly pick-em. 33-11 heading into another week of interesting games. UNC,FSU,Miami and Wake forest are all off so will not have a chance to miss these games. We start with Georgia Tech at BYU. Interesting game in Provo Utah. Both teams comes into the game 3-2. Just due to the travel I'll take BYU. 31-28. Boston College At Clemson. BC is not a bad club but this game is in Death Valley. I would hope Dabo has the Tigers understanding that if they even want to be in the National Championship talk they can't slip up anywhere. Clemson 42 BC 22 Duke host Navy. This game the loser may have 40 points by the games end. The wishbone or what ever kind of option offense you want to call the USNA offense Duke has struggled to stop anybody this year but they have had two weeks to prepare. Navy 45 Duke 38. ECU at Tulane. Like Clemson for the Pirates this is a game they can not let slip by them if they want to be Conference USA Champs. The Super Dome is a place just in it's size can make you a gawker instead of paying attention to the game. ECU 31 Tulane 20. Pitt at Virginia Tech. Pitt can score and the Gobblers can't. This game will be a matter of how good is the Tech defense. When it is over and Pitt has 20 or less then Va Tech can count on their defense for rest of season. If Pitt rumbles for 40 Tech won't be around in the conference championship games. At this point nobody has shown me the Tech defense is not for real. VAT 24 Pitt 17 Virginia at Maryland. Boy didn't that 63-0 shellacking Florida St laid on Maryland feel good for the whole conference but this is another week and Virginia is in town. Maryland 35 Virginia 17 Syracuse at N C State. State's already 0-2 in conference and I bet Mitchell plays a couple of series this week. Pack needs this one badly. Pack 28 Cuse 24. North Carolina Wesleyan at Christopher Newport. NCW 1-4 and Chris Newport 3-1. Seems as if CN is always near ther top in conference play and this is a tough draw for the Battling Bishops. Newport 31 NCW 13

The Football Playoffs Begin

We  get down to the real football in the NEW area as all football conferences in the area begin the shuffle to determine  who will qualify for the state playoffs in the Twin Rivers 1-A, Eastern Plains  2-A and the Big East 3-A all begin the persuit of playoff glory.  Yes they would all love to be  called conference champs but those that don't win the championship will all have one thing to sell. We can all win the state championship even without a conference crown. So what we all have to do is get in the playoffs.  If we get in we got a chance.

Tarboro a two time loser to rather good  3-A teams opens it new conference play hosting South Creek a team that stands 1-5 and has given up at least 40 in all five of their losses. Look why would we not expect the Vikings to have forty by the half? I would suspect coach Craddock will be a sportsman like as possible. Tarboro 52 South Creek 0.

North Edgecombe host Rocky Mount Prep and the Warriors have scored at least 14 in every game or more while RMP has only beaten a team that they had to shutout to beat.  Can't see a Jags shutout and I can't see Prep scoring enough to win this one.  NE 26 Prep 6.

RMA takes on Arendell Parrott Academy from Kinston. The thick part of the Eagle's schedule begins.
If I am not mistaken APA won his game last season.  So far this year RMA has done well in the games from last year that they lost.  I know absolutely  nothing  about APA.  RMA 44 APA 34.

SouthWest Edgecombe 3-3 travels to North Pitt 5-1. The Cougars have played a tough schedule but NP schedule hasn't been bad.This could really be a ball game.  This is the first test to see if any teams non-conference was a quality schedule or not.  I think SWE will prove that a 3-3 record has made them ready for the future. SWE 26 North Pitt 21

If records 6-0 for both teams means anything the the Big East game of  the week is Southern Nash at Fike.  Fike has been impressive in the first part of the season while SN is coming off one of the big wins in any season.  Fike was off runs a wide  open offense and Southern has had trouble against spread offenses.  Southern can not afford to let down before the conference gets going.  They also can't afford putting the ball on the ground. They will need every trip to count.  I'm taking Fike, they are home, had a week off and have an offense that gives trouble? Golden Demons33 SN 28 .

Nash Central at Rocky Mount Don 't expect this one to be a runaway but I do think that Rocky Mount
will handle the Bulldogs.  Central's defense could keep the game close if the offense doesn't help out Rocky Mount with field position all night? The Gryphons defense is equal to the Bulldogs but surly their offenses better.  Gryphons 26 Bulldogs 6

It may feature two 3-3 teams but the most intriguing game of the night happens at Northern Nash .  The Knights winners of three in a row and also the owners of last year's Warriors coach. Because Randy raper wants Northern to play the Randy Raper way and Hunt still playing the Stevie Hinnant way which is a continuation of the Randy Raper  way.  Both of these teams could switch uniforms  and they would still look the same.  I'll take the team on the rise Northern.  Since both teams will want to run the clock this one could've over by 9pm.  Northern 14 Hunt 12 .