Another Tree Falls At Rocky Mount.

The rumors have been stirring and today the old oak tree was cut down as B W Holt resigned as head football ending a six year run that brought Rocky Mount football from mediocre to one of the best programs in the state.

Within the span of a week Rocky Mount will now have to replace both of their highly successful baseball and football coaches.

Holt's arrival in the city on the rise occurred in 2003 because of problems with the previous announce new head coach when complications arose over his resume'. In the middle of July Holt arrives not knowing one player and had to get ready for his first practice with a team that he had never seen.

Yet they won their first five games and finished his first campaign with an 8-3 record.

Year number two brought a stunning undefeated regular season and unset victories over Rose and New Bern on the road. The New Bern game I still consider my second most exciting game of all time that I ever did behind the mike on radio which resulted in a two point conversion in overtime to win at New Bern 35-34.

The New-6 conference during the next four years saw only two conference defeats in that span, three conference championships and three trips to the Eastern Regional finals.

A six year record of 71-12. Four conference championships and a playoff record 14-6. Those are Babe Ruth numbers .

When all the said and done is over I think The baseball program will be filled from within the program but football is a different beast all together. Those remaining football coaches none have head coaching experience and with the level Holt has the Gryphon program there is not a coach in North Carolina that would not want the job just based on football.

However with all the cuts being made within the county the number of assistants jobs available as well as what you might consider the gravy part of the job may not be there for an outsider to leave what he already has.

Regardless of who ever replaces B W Holt he will leave the well full of fresh water. I would suspect that Rocky Mount will be the preseason favorite to win the New Big East 3-A next year.

After Holt stayed at Starmount for 19 seasons he left the well over flowing and the next coach was able to win the state title.

The well is no where close to dry at Rocky Mount and you can thank B W Holt for that.

ECU Rallies,Headed To Chapel Hill

Down six to zip in the fifth inning the ECU Pirates fought their way back and in the bottom of the ninth inning got a three run homer to tie and send the game into overtime. Wasting little time the Pirates scratched a run home in the tenth inning to dispense of South Carolina 10-9 and earn a shot in the Super regional against UNC-Chapel Hill.

ECU played the Gamecocks three times in three days. South Carolina sent ECU to the losers bracket having beaten the Pirates 12-2 in Saturday's winner's bracket game. ECU won twice on Sunday beating Binghamton first in the losers bracket elimination game and then hung on for dear life in beating South Carolina in their second game on Sunday 10-8 after having a big lead almost disappear.

ECU and UNC begin their Super regional in Chapel Hill on Friday night. This is the first Super for ECU since 2004 and North Carolina's fourth in a row.

Lost by most of us when we heard of the Pat Smith resignation at RMHS was he is the second coach there that needs to be replace. Debbie Webb retired at Christmas as the girl's volley ball coach. She has been replace by Tabitha Wilcox who will lead the lady spikers next season.

Wilcox has been the volley ball coach at Edwards has coached all of the existing volley ball players except for this year rising senior class.

My daughter Morgan having been a volley ball player at Edwards as a seventh grader, I had a chance to watch Tab coach and she made all players serve over handed in order to play. This cost her some wins due to the fact they didn't always get the overhanded serves over while other teams underhanded it across the net. Once those players got to high school they were well ahead of other teams in their ability to play volley ball.

I think Tab will keep the tradition going for the Gryphons in Volley ball.

All of the hoop-la over Lebron not shaking hands is a big effort by the news media to keep something in the news. hardly any pro players shake hands after game in any sport.

If you think back the NFL coaches use to wave across the field at each other until the NFL made it mandatory that they shake hands. Now all you get is a slight hand touch in most cases.

Where the reel issue I have with LeBron James is his missing the news conference. The NBA is not going to fine him but they should have hit him with about a $50,000 fine. It was too late at night for me to sit up and watch the press conferences on ESPN- News but I enjoy the after game interviews during the NFL season especially Philip Rivers and San Diego. He didn't let the news media down but the fans who wanted to hear from him.

Lebron's news conference explanation to me on Sunday why he didn't shake hands is up their with the Allen Iverson's interview "but this is practice" which showed Iverson as shelfish, and above everyone else. Iverson was never thought of as the super star after that like he thought he was.

I'm Rooting for Mike Fox

This Wolfpacker is one guy who would really like to see Mike Fox win a national championship with Carolina baseball.

My son Brooks went to Mike's baseball camp while he was at North Carolina Wesleyan and the final Friday parents are invited to come watch your kids play. Brooks was on what looked like the best team after they had played one game. You played three inning games with a Wesleyan pitcher and catcher and you got one swing when you batted.

During the second game the best player on Brook's team slapped a teammate while they were batting right in front of Mike and all the parents that were there. Mike grabbed that young man by the collar and I am saying to myself "oh no Mike may killed him in front of all us parents".

Mike took the young man over to the bleachers where the parents were sitting and told him sternly "you sit hear don't move and don't open your mouth" until I tell you you can'.

With their best player missing Brook's team did not win that tournament that day. When the games were over Mike went over to the young man and explained to him how his selfishness has hurt his teammates and Mike made the player apologize to all the players and parents in attendance.

Right then and there I became a Mike Fox Fan. He never got angry with the young man but showed him the value of getting along with your teammates.

Carolina breezed through their regional and await either East Carolina or South Carolina. The Heels have almost won the world series in each of the last two years but didn't. I sure would love for Mike Fox get a national championship.

I tried to watch the Florida State /Ohio State baseball game in order to watch the crawler to see how Carolina and ECU were doing. Florida State scored 21 runs before Ohio State could get eight outs. Looked like a little league game. The final score was FSU 37 Ohio State 6. A football score.

The ACC is doing very well with only Boston College and Miami eliminated so far. Their biggest problem for BC was losing the 25 inning game Saturday which took seven hours to play and then playing in the loser bracket game first thing Sunday. Miami lost to Florida twice over the weekend.

Carolina, Virginia, and Florida State swept their regional. Clemson,Georgia Tech will play today trying to make the Super regional. The conference is 15-6 so far in all games.

Of all the ACC schools who played this weekend Virginia sure has the whole country talking. They beat the best pitcher in the country Friday and dominated the rest of the weekend.

ECU held on last night and will play South Carolina again tonight with the winner playing Carolina this weekend.

Unique community

Last Night daughter Morgan was part of the ninth graders presented at the Deb-u-ette ball held at the Dunn Center. Rocky Mount is a city of three public high schools basically within the city limits. We are a big town but a small city.

Between the ninth graders and seniors a cross section of our community was there. Every school was represented both public and private. In the gyms and on the ball field we are adversaries. In church we sit side by side. We work together, play together and live life together and as Northern Nash was the last surviving team in the playoffs we cheered together.

Despite fights against annexation Rocky Mount is a good place to live together.

North Carolina looks as though they will move on to the super regional next week. They still need one more win.

East Carolina's pitching doesn't look good enough to get them to next weekend. A Carolina-ECU matchup looks bleak.

Virginia has looked great and Florida State is playing well. Elon is alive today but in the losers bracket.

The Orlando Magic sure made Cleveland look like the Lebron Cavaliers as he got no help from team mates at all.

I am sorry to say this but I just have a hard time looking at Kobe Bryant and being able to admire his talent. He is selfish, takes terrible shots, and yet he makes most of them.

I guess Kobe is why I have lost interest in the NBA. I can't stand why four players go get out of his way and then he takes a twenty five foot shot. That's not good basketball to me.

I don't know whether you saw this or not but Boston College and Texas played the longest college baseball game in history last night. Twenty five inning and it took seven hours to play. Texas beat BC 3-2. Poor BC goes in the losers bracket having used up most of their pitching in one game.

You know I don't like the high school playoffs with so many teams involved. South West Edgecombe girls softball team is what the experts will point to when they say everyone has a chance. SWE got knocked out of the softball playoffs Friday night in the fourth round. They were the #4 seed from the NEW-6. They lead the entire game only to lose to Triton in the last inning. A victory and they would have made the state championship Tournament at Walnut Creek this weekend

You know what they say. When the game starts everyone has a chance.

Northern Swept Bt Eastern Wayne.

Eastern Wayne wins the Eastern 3-A Finals tonight in Red Oak 11 to 1 over the Knights of Northern Nash. In the process they avoided maybe the best left handed pitcher in North Carolina high school or college in TylerJoyner.

It is just the way the schedule dictated the pitching as Joyner having pitch seven innings Wednesday night just to get the Knight to the eastern Finals finished his high school career at first base and got one of the two hits in the game for Northern.

Northern's number two pitcher in Brandon Denton pitched 6 plus innings last night but was not involved in the pitching decision in the 6-5 lost to Eastern Wayne in Goldsboro.

Faced with an elimination game coach Eddie Loesner called on David Whitman to pitch and heading into the fourth inning I don't think any one could have asked for more from Whitman. He was down 2-1 but Northern was in the game until a five run rally in the fourth by the Warriors knocked Whitman out. He was replaced byJeremy Lucas who got six straight batter out and worked until the seventh inning.

The lone Northern run came in the second inning when Brandon Denton reached first on a throwing error advance around to third and a squeeze bunt by Mike Williams which rolled past the pitcher and Williams beat it out for an infield single.

On the night Eastern Wayne collected seven hits but were issued eight free passes five of them intentional walks and two hit batters.

Northern finishes 19-9 on the season .

I heard tonight from Don Johnson that John Haggerty of Northern Nash was behind the plate umpiring today in the LSU-Southern NCAA playoff game that was televised on ESPNU. I saw a few innings of that game but did not realize John was behind the plate.

I saw on the crawler on the bottom of the TV screen that the Denver Broncos have waived J J Arrington. J J had just signed with Denver since the Super bowl. He must have an injury. It's curious getting cut even before summer camp starts.

Congratulations to Brian Goodwin of the Rocky Mount Gryphons being named the Gatorade North Carolina High School Player of the year.

The day of June ninth is a big day for Brian. That is the day of the Major league baseball draft. Whether he plays for Mike fox next year or plays minor league baseball Will be determined by high up in the draft he is taken. There is still a good chance he will be drafted in the first round. I would suspect if he is the money will be enough to start pro ball right away but if he is second round or more he will probably wear the Carolina blue for a while.

It will be interesting to see when Tyler Joyner is drafted.

We haven't Seen Nothing Yet

Education is feeling the crunch of less dollars. Every county is not being asked but basically being told you must make cuts because you are not going to be getting the money that you have from the past.

Being politicians you always want to make cuts where the least people will be hurt. In the case of North Carolina where is the obvious and easiest. The double dippers. We have a system in North Carolina where we don't reward people for long tenured service. When your thirty years are up there is no incentive to stay.

So there is a teacher shortage. How does the state remedy that shortage but rehire teachers who are retired. It would make a lot of sense to me to give a gradual increase in retirement benefits for a teacher to stay thirty eight years instead of thirty. As it is now we not only pay for their retirement but also pay them to come back and teach.

I guess you are wondering what this rant is all about. John Gay the athletic director at Fike has resigned now that he has thirty years in and is leaving Fike. Fike has lost their football coach boys basketball coach and now the AD and girls basketball coach.

All of these cuts will effect sports as much as any area in the school system. Just look this year at Pat Smith at Rocky Mount. This season he had two volunteer coaches helping him. Tom and Hank Jones truly love Gryphon athletics. You know Gryphon football didn't have a full staff last year.

Cuts are coming. There is no denying that.

It would not shock me at all to hear the state say in order to save thirty million state wide that four days a week school days could happen. Think of the gas money saved it they went to a four day a week and one hour a day longer.

All of this pressure to make cuts puts stress on the lives of those who know deep in their heart that they could be one of the cuts. My industry has been under that threat since the fall of last year. It has now hit the education business.

Our economy is showing signs of recovery but in the state budget business it is how much money do we have on July 1st of each year that counts. So what ever cuts happen will last until at least next July.

Don't be surprised More cuts are coming. I can see the day just like travel league ball. If you want to play your parents must get you there, the county will not provide travel. Laugh if you will but I can assure you it has been talked about in some conference room some where.

So John Gay at Fike and Pat Smith are retiring. Don't be surprised at any other name you might hear.

Game One Heart Break

The Knights of Northern Nash with the help of faulty Eastern Wayne defense found themselves ahead 5-0 after four innings of play tonight in the opening game of the Eastern 3-A baseball championships in Goldsboro.

Through the first four playoff games and the first four innings tonight Northern pitching had allowed just one run for thirty one innings of playoff pitching.

Tonight a ghost from Rocky Mount high as John Wooten Senior first baseman for the Warriors hit a grand slam home run in the bottom of the fifth inning for Eastern Wayne. Wooten who is headed to Greenville to play for Billy Godwin at East Carolina is the son of former Rocky Mount high Great Sonny Wooten. Wooten was a member of the Rocky Mount American Legion team that won the state baseball championship in the early 70's and after playing pro baseball settle in Goldsboro.

Wooten's slammer made it 5-4 and Northern was able to hold the lead until the bottom of the seventh. After walking the leadoff runner in the seventh Northern's head coach Eddie Loesner Pulled starter Brandon Denton in Favor of senior Mike Williams who had to face John Wooten as his first batter. Wooten hit a shot to second baseman Mike Smith who knocked the ball down tossed to second and Wesley Joyner's throw to first got a double play. Two outs and no one one. The very next batter drills a home run to tie the game. Then the next two batters get back to back doubles and in a matter of a few seconds Northern's opening game victory turns into a stunning loss.

Game two is tomorrow night at Northern where the Knights find themselves in a must win to survive mode. Eddie Loesner is really in a major pickle. Having pitched Tyler Joyner last night just to get to tonight's game he must find someone to help get a win Friday and maybe pitch Joyner Saturday night.

If there was one area that the playoff game against Rocky Mount showed was that Northern had two great pitchers but were very thin looking for a third starter. That third starter must come through for Northern Friday night in order to play back in Goldsboro Saturday night.

Tonight was a good night to have played the game in Goldsboro as thunder storms rolled through Rocky Mount at what would have been about game time in Goldsboro.

If luck has any thing to do with winning right now Northern could use a rain out Friday and then play a double header if necessary at Northern on Saturday. That way they possibly could use Tyler Joyner and Brandon Denton some on Saturday.

Game two is Friday night at Northern at 7.00pm