Wilson County Schools Strong In Wells Fargo Cup

It case you didn't notice it this year the two Big East schools from Wilson County dominated this year's Big East standings in the Wells Fargo Cup.  Each sport played by every team is listed with six points for the team winning first right down to one point for finishing last in the league.  When you add all the points up Fike wins the Big East conference Wells Fargo Cup accumulating 181 points.  Baseball was one first place finish for Fike.  Hunt finished second with 176.5 points.  Rocky Mount won both boys and girls track and with that effort finished third with 171.  Northern Nash finishes fourth with 161.5 while Southern Nash has 148.5.  Nash Central who started the year not winning a football game never got out of last with 125.5.

I find it rather funny that coaches have been going to football clinics learning how to teach  heads up tackling.  Back in my playing days they had a penalty called spearing if you led with your helmet.  We were taught that the only safe way to tackle was with your head straight up.  We were told you could not get a neck injury if you tackled that way.

The formula was make contact with the ball carrier with your head up into his number.  Grasp your arms around him and then drive with your feet.  It makes sense that if you lower your head you could have your neck driven back down your spine causing neck and spine injuries.  Never heard of neck and spinal injuries during the days I was growing up wanting to play ball.  Finally When it was my time never saw one either.  I was run over a few times but never had to worry about the spinal cord area.

If you think football drives the bus in college athletics.  There are more than 400 members of the North Carolina Athletic Association and 67 of it's member will have a new football coach by the time August football practices start.  Yes, some coaches  retired others move to a different school and some lost their job from lack of wins or pressure from not being successful.  If that figure occurs every year every school would have a new coach every seven years.

Since this is a one man operation it is very hard to be in the right place at the right time on any scoop that may occur.  I get Many text, calls, e-mails, and people walking up to me and say have you heard this.  I want to thank any of you who steer me into directions to find information that appears on this blog.  Sometimes that info needs further investigation and there are times I know the lead is dead on accurate.

If you watch any of the so called major networks sports reporters have their sources in which they rely on when they either go on the air with a report or write it down.  I guess in my small way I have a system of informants just like them.  We have in this area many athletes who do well in sports that nobody hears about until a source passes information on.  Why would they do that?  They want to see people get credit when credit is due. I know lots of information about things that will be happening but I have swore to keep secret until the proper time.  Thank you all the people who pass on to me your trust to give me what you know.  We have lots of things in this area worth everyone knowing about.

Tarboro Starts Hall Of Fame

Tarboro High school has started a Hall Of Fame to recognize outstanding sports accomplishments.  It has coaches players and even a team made the Hall Of Fame.


The 1970 football team which was the first team under the combined school of Tarboro and Patillo High Schools.  Playing on the Ahoskie High team in 1970 I remember Tarboro won their conference championship as the first team in the new consolidated high school.


Two coaching legends Doug Alexander and Jim Brett in football along with football players Kelvin Bryant who excelled at Carolina and for the Washington Redskins.  Donald Franks who played at Winston Salem St. and six years as a cornerback for Oakland and San Diego mostly.


Mike Caldwell  baseball pitcher  who excelled in Legion baseball, at N C State  and pitch for 18 years in the American League.


This century Marquetta Dickins took Tarboro high deep into the state basketball playoffs then spent four years playing for Kay Yow and only needed 11 more points to score a 1,000 in her Wolfpack career.  She spent a few season playing basketball in Europe but now is assistant basketball coach at Monmouth College in New Jersey.


Volley Ball has a representative in Casey Collins.  Carter Ray Suggs  and Wanda Phillips who were  outstanding in track.  Gus Andrews who starred in three sports.  Wrestler Michael Stokes, Artis Bryant who excelled in football at Patillo High.  Jontae Sherrod from men's basketball this century made the Tarboro Hall of Fame.


You know Tarboro is one of the last of the old towns where on Friday night it is all about Tarboro football.  Even a Tarboro High supporter made the Hall. Milton Steele "Coca Cola" Brown for his support of Tarboro High athletics.


Tarboro has been able to stay a small town where everyone knows everyone.  Those places are few and far between these days.  It is those small towns that have held on to local traditions because in Tarboro everything revolves around Tarboro High.  Don't care how big any town is Tarboro's Hall Of  Fame is as good as anybody else who has one.

Fox Promises A New Era In TV Golf Coverage

 Got home from work last night ready to sit back in my recliner and watch this new network Fox Sports do big time golf for the first time.  Getting off track on this story you know if you are any league college, pro or as low as it goes in amateur sports and in some cases pro sports any time there is a new sports network lookout here comes high dollar money to get something on the screen for their viewers to watch.  So in order to get a quality event Fox gave the USGA gobs of money to steal the major U.S. Championships away from NBC.

All of the leadup promo's told us that their coverage was going to be golf as you have never seen it.  If you remember way back when USFL football came out and I don't even remember what network even did it but they brought out the camera on the wire running all the way across the field.  Every network now uses that camera so even though the league folded some of the TV coverage stuck around.

Quite frankly I didn't see any camera coverage not already in other TV coverage.  I heard they were going to use drones with cameras.  I thought we would see a tee shot and the drone would follow along with the ball until it landed.  Just viewing of a round of golf  Fox didn't give me anything new.  In fact maybe less.  All you saw on the screen as players were proceeding in their rounds were the scores of the top five.  This is the first round of a major and 70 other golfers were on the course and unless they made triple or almost knocked one in you never saw what everyone's score was.  Please I want to know what my favorite player's score is as they travel the course if you are not going to show any of them.

I think their lineup of announcers for the most part was excellent. Joe Buck could do Poker coverage from a telephone booth.  The Shark and  Tom  Weiskopf  are old time color announcers and you wonder where they have been.  When you put eleven hours on the air the second wave of announcers were unknowns and it is hard to trust somebody you never heard before.

I thought the course looked like the British Open.  Brown fairways and even sometime greens.  This is of course the U.S. Open and if they put down holes in a cow pasture and these guys are suppose to be good let's play golf.  It was hard to even think this was a golf course without trees.  The course resembled any home development where strips are homes are built in a row all looking alike just painted different colors without trees.  Please give me some shade.

All the hype Fox gave in the buildup of the coverage they were going to give us I have to give them a D.  Nothing much to Bragg about. I know Tiger has been a great ratings in his heyday.  Watching every shot that Tiger made was like watching  an injured animal not yet dead struggling for life.  I kind of felt sorry for Tiger every bunker, every missed putt.  The fall of Tiger Woods is official.  We all saw it on prime time TV.  Fox gave us every bad shot he hit as if they thought the ratings would sky rocket.  It's time to forget Tiger.  His greatness is over.  The good news for Tiger he plays early today maybe by the time The TV lights come on Tiger will be on a jet heading to Florida.  Then we will see whether Fox can cover golf.  They didn't show me much Thursday.

It's Finally Hit The Fan

Several years back there was a vote to ban all private schools  from playing in the North Carolina High School Athletic Association.   The number of those that voted  overwhelmingly were in favor of kicking those out but just enough schools abstained from voting to not get the require percentage to make the vote legal.


Just before Christmas Cardinal Gibbons asked and was granted permission to join the Pac 6-4A  Conference.   Gibbons citing enrollment increases and that may have had some consideration in the matter but we all know that Cardinal Gibbons has dominated in what would be considered in the non-revenue sports in  3-A ever since they have been allowed into the NCHSAA.  They offered to jump to 4-A hoping to head off expulsion from the NCHSAA.


The 2015-2016 school year they will be joining the Pac 6 4A conference.  Just last week other Wake County area schools athletic conferences changed their by-laws and in doing so require their members to not play any Non-Boarding Parochial   school.  The shots have been fired.  High school conferences have found a way to keep Cardinal Gibbons and the likes from taking part in any athletic events with them.  If other conferences follow suit like all the area 3-A conferences who then can Cardinal Gibbons play?


If this is the tidal wave to shun Cardinal Gibbons then Charlotte Catholic and Bishop McGuinness in Winston Salem had better look out they are next. I would suspect that Charter schools will eventually make the list too. These by-laws changes will require no member to play non conferences games with Cardinal Gibbons.  They will abide by any playoffs or tournament action where you might be seeded against Cardinal Gibbons.


This will limit who Cardinal Gibbons  can fill out a complete schedule in any sport with.  They just might find that conference games may be the only games they can play without heavy travel involved.  Can the Pac-6 Conference withstand the pressure from other NCHSAA members and eventually say no to Cardinal Gibbons


This  is the first shot across the bow of Cardinal Gibbons to get them to start playing in the private school playoffs and not in public NCHSAA.  The NCHSAA is right in the center of the cross hairs as Cardinal Gibbons was voted in just like the other private schools were in joining the public school sector.  I see no way around it now that there has to be another vote by the members of the NCHSAA to include or exclude Private schools and who knows Charter Schools too that have their athletic boarders outside their school district.


I think this is only right that private schools should be excluded.  They have no set boundaries where their students come from while the public schools can only have players from their school districts.  The public schools are at a major disadvantage in there own system.  If this doesn't get the changes this go round it is only a matter of time.  The public schools especially the 4-A sector didn't mind Cardinal Gibbons dominating the 3-A cause they were not effected.  The shoe is now on the other foot.

A Banging Good Start

Collins Cuthrell is off to the start that every player playing baseball and getting paid wants to have.  You show up get inserted into the lineup to DH and after Saturday and Sunday action Collins is 5-10 hitting a cool 500.  We all know that it only takes an 0-4  this early in a season and you average drops 150 points.  As great as 500 is that is only 57 points higher than his season average playing for UNC Pembroke this season.

Brian Goodwin has pushed his average up to 222 since last week which is a welcome site.  He does have a new teammate that has joined him in Harrisburg Pa.  Trea Turner the former NC State shortstop who was traded last December by San Diego to Washington and named as the player to be named later finally got traded on the 15th and has reported to Harrisburg with the AA team.

Hobbs Johnson is now 4-3 in Buloxi Ms.  His ERA is at 3.12.  He has struck out 54 batters in 56 innings pitched.

Wilson Post 13 is now 8-1 on the season and Rocky Mount's Blake Helms 2-0.  Derrick Carter  of Northern Nash  is still 1-0 and RMA's  M J Jones are all making contributions to make Wilson the top team in the  the east at this point at 8-1.

Spent the last four days at the Outer Banks.  Watched a very interesting  race on the beach at Jennette's Pier.  Teams of runners ran a 3.1 mile obstacle course down the beach.  They had to crawl  through a pipe, run a rope  course, crawl on the sand  and all of this was in the heat that we have had the last several days.    I had a hard enough time watching it from the comfort of leaning on the pier and watching from afar.  I don't know how people from five years old to 80 had enough to do what they did.  Three cheers for every one that even tried and about 99 percent finished the race.

Where Did This Pat Venditte Come From???????

Have you heard about this Guy?  Pat Venditte has been in pro baseball since 2005.  He played his college ball at Creighton University in Omaha Nebraska the home of the college world series.  If you haven't heard you sure have missed something.  Venditte is a switch pitcher!  What in the world is a switch pitcher?  He can throw the baseball with either hand.  How good is he at it?  He can chunk it to the plate at between 92-94 miles and hour with either arm. Venditte pitches for the Oakland A's.
 So why if he can do all of this how come now we are hearing about him for the first time????  He is 0-0 on the season with a 2.37 ERA. 

 We know all about switch hitters where if you are a left handed batter and a right handed pitcher is on the mound you have the ball breaking at you instead of away.  That would make sense that if I am a right handed batter then I have the same going for me when a left handed pitcher is throwing.  There are time when teams change pitchers in the middle of an inning or even during a turn at bat.  They change from a right handed pitcher to a left hander then any switch hitter can change sides of the plate and hit the other way.

How ever as a switch pitcher the pitcher must announce before each batter which way he is going to pitch.  Doesn't seem fair does it that  a batter can switch at any old time but the pitcher can't.  Venditte has a seven finger glove made to fit right on the mound every time he switches from right hander to a lefty.

I just don't understand as news hungry that this world is why we didn't hear about him when he was in high school. He should have been news worthy every step up the ladder all the way to the majors.  I have not actually seen him pitch but just the high lights he is amazing how well he throws from
either side with no side better than the other.

There was a period in my life that I bowled in leagues and of course you go as teams to tournaments.  I remember years ago the bowling ally in Wilson had a tournament on a Sunday afternoon.  You shot one game  getting your high score.  The next game was the third, sixth and ninth frame were strikes and you tried to add to a strike given to you.  Then had to bowl a left handed game.  In those days I averaged about 182 and in this tournament I had a 139 as a lefty.  There are not many people opposite hand can break 100.  Then the final game was low score where the least pins were subtracted from all of your other games.  If you got nothing but gutter that counted for a strike on you first ball or spare on the second.  I shot a 39 which is a great low ball score.  I won the tournament mostly because of the low score and my lefty game.

I know you have to practice twice as much when you are trying to pitch from both sides or bowling either way.  It is kind of funny the few times I ever bowled from the left side your approach speed and release are the main elements.  Left handed I had a natural curve but from my natural right side I have to really force myself to get it to curve like bowling balls do.  Right handed I am a natural straight ball thrower but you can never get any score without the ball breaking into the pocket.

Years ago the there was a major league pitcher who had only one arm and had to hold his glove under his arm pit and grab his glove after he released the ball.  He got all kinds of attention going up the ladder of baseball but not Pat Venvitte.  I guess the news media has become so entrenched in the bad news they have forgotten how good, good news can be.

MLB Draft Hard To Watch

The NFL draft is held in cities that have NFL teams  and are at sites where the public can attend.  They can get rowdy at times when ever a local team gets a pick and the fans either hate the pick or love it.  That is one of the reasons the NFL is so popular.  They try to cater to the people.  We all  know why the NFL is in the position it is in is gambling.  Sixteen games it  is easy to pull up your local paper and see that the Redskins are a three and a half point favorite over the Falcons this week .  Fantasy football once again is flourishing because it is easy to keep up with your team one day a week.

Baseball on the other hand is the so called leave the game alone we like it how it is and has always been.  If you are purist you love the game for what it is not  how much more it could be with changes.  Because games are every day unless you are a gamble-holic it is hard to keep up with every game every day and lay money down. Even fantasy is harder to keep up.

Baseball cherishes it's history.  Any baseball fanatic can tell you the all time hits leader and how many he hits he has.  Does anyone even know the all time NFL rusher and how many yards he has without google or NFL.com? Baseball hate changes.  They have fought tooth and nail on any replay while the NFL is making the extra point harder this year.  They try anything to make the game interesting while MLB thinks the history of the game is what makes it so enduring.

Major league baseball's draft is held in the studio of MLB.  It is set up to cater to TV or in baseball's case MLB.COM.  The NFL has ESPN and NFL.com all showing the same draft with the crowd  hollering and hooping in the back ground.  Great players from the past like John Smoltz of the Atlanta Braves are introduced to the camera to make the next pick with three people off camera clapping.

It is hard to watch that baseball draft unless you are waiting for a name you know to pop up.  It is so ho-hum it will put you to sleep waiting for the next pick.  There is so much excitement at the NFL draft that all the noise makes you forget that every thing you just heard about the player drafted you already heard 10 million times before.

I guess I am a purist in a way.  I would still like for MLB to have a fifth ump in a booth on all the cameras and any time there is an argument about a call let a team go to the replay booth.  Give them two red flags like the NFL coaches have and if they are wrong lose the next one or even lose one for the next game.

I think everyone would like to see a computer call balls and strikes and have the ump there to make call on plays at home.  If there is one place they truly need replay is second base.  I bet half the close plays at second at missed by the umps.

There are so many players picked in baseball it takes three days to do the draft.  They surely could go  into a live setting at some convention center the first night and let all the fans hoop and holler and  for the rest of the draft just flash it on the round by round draft tracker.  That's how I watched it. I couldn't take watching all day the second and third days.