Year Round School

Wake County is going through a mess right now with the controversy over year round schools. If you have ever had a child in it, you probably like it. Like most government projects it is very hard to make a good decision on it when most people have more than one child. Then that means you have a child in traditional and one in year round and totally chaos ensues.

We found in our house when Morgan went to year round at Winstead Elementary you could hardly tell any difference in time in and out of school. They had three weeks out in March and September and all of June. We enjoyed our year round experience.

Looking at high school sports year round would be perfect for athletics. Normally the year starts the week after Fourth of July. Fall sports could start practice and begin their games the first week in August. Football state championships would be over by about Thanksgiving just in time for basketball to begin playing on December first.

Football and basketball step all over each other now especially if you have a football team that survives the playoff to the third, fourth or finals. Does anybody remember the day when the first football game didn't occur until September or basketball until December first?

Times change for it use to be that schools didn't open until September to let the farmers have the workers to pick cotton or finish tobacco. Today farmers have macchinery that picks twelve rows at a time so laborers are not needed during school times.

I think year round is coming whether you are for it or not. The only way to find out for sure whether it works or not is all students within the system to go year round. You can't have first through fourth grade on year round and every one else doing traditional. That is of course the way our government works so it seems the right way to them.

Second Season Begins

The Big East Basketball tournament gets underway tonight and Rocky Mount will be in scout mode. The Gryphons as the top seed sits tonight waiting for the semi finals on Wednesday. Mike Gainey's game of interest will be Nash Central and Southern Nash as the winner gets the Gryphons Wednesday.

Pam Gainey's girls basketball team sits during Tuesdays first round for the girls tournament. She will intently be focusing on Nash Central and Northern Nash as the Lady Gryphons draw the winner Thursday night.

If all goes as planned this week the Stretchlon Sports Show will cover both final games Friday night. I will do play by play of the girls game and Wes Bradshaw will colorize the game while when the boys play we will switch.

Spring sports can officially hit the practice field this week. Just about all high school teams play their first games March first. College baseball begins Friday. ECU will find out right off the bat what they have this year playing Virginia this weekend in Greenville and next weekend South Carolina. Both Virginia and South carolina are preseason top twenty teams. Either weekend will be outstanding to watch if you can stand the frostbite.

Pot holes are every where. Yesterday the Daytonia 500 stopped twice to repair a pot hole between turns one and two. it took about two hours for just one. How long will it take to repair the pot holes in front of McDonalds on Sunset Avenue? There is about fifty yards of pot holes one after the other.

108,000 people went to Dallas to watch the NBA all star game. About 70,000 of them had to watch it on the big screen to see it. Kobe and LeBron get all the attention in the NBA but Dwayne Wade is a darn good player.

One And Done Time

If you are not first or second in your conference standings heading into every conference high school basketball tournament this week then you season is on the line. One more loss and your season is over.

This week is not one of those weeks for either Rocky Mount team as the boys and girls are #1 seeds. They will head into the sectionals regardless of what happens this week. They would like however to get on a roll that they can carry into sectional play. There is nothing like adding another trophy to the showcase.

Boys play begins Monday at Hunt and the girls start Tuesday. RM boys don't see action until Wednesday and the Girls wait for their semi's Thursday.

The Winter Olympics are under way and I have not watched any of it as of yet. I still would like to know why basketball is played in the Summer Olympics instead of the winter.

The Carolina Hurricanes head into the Olympic break one of the hottest teams in hockey. The last time I mentioned them they were 11 points out of the playoffs with 27 games to play. There are now 20 games left and they have shrunk the points back to only nine. It is very hard in hockey to gain ground when every team that gets a game into overtime wins a point.

The Bobcats are sixth in the NBA East. If this continues it will be their first playoffs ever. But the NBA regular season still has to mid April to end the regular season.

If you are a Carolina fan there is at least one team that you are better than. That's N C State. I think the Pack has packed it in for this season and played miserable yesterday in Chapel Hill. Finally towards the end Carolina pulled away.

In sports every week there is a new conclusion who is the best and Duke is near the top, but if there is one team in the ACC capable of making the final four to me it looks like Wake Forest. The Deacs have some ball players.

NO Help Needed

Unlike the girls basketball team, going into tonight's action against Northern Nash Rocky Mount knew if they won, they won the conference. If they lost they could lose the top seeding in next week's conference tournament as well as a #1 seeding in the sectionals.

There was no more motivation needed as Rocky Mount pour it to Northern Nash from the git go in downing the Knights 90-63. Doing so the Gryphons wrap up the conference regular season crown and a bye until Wednesday in the Big East tournament to be played at Hunt.

Tashawn Mabrey and Darius McKnight combined for 57 points 32 and 25 to lead the way for the Gryphons. Rocky Mount finishes the regular season 18-2.

I told Morgan Friday afternoon that the girls might lose tonight due in part to a improving Northern girls team but also that with Fike losing twice this week and the conference crown being hand delivered to the Lady Gryphons on a silver platter their motivation might not be there tonight.

Between an ever improving Knights squad loaded with freshmen who now have beaten Fike and Rocky Mount both at the time both were either tied or in first place or no mojo the Knights beat the Lady Gryphons 36-35. The Lady Gryphons still hold the conference crown and the #1 seed and a bye in the Big East tournament until Thursday at Hunt. The Lady Gryphons finish the regular season at 16-4.

Carolina got more bad news today for it's floundering basketball team. Ed Davis broke his wrist Wednesday against Duke and is out at least six week and the way this season is going for Carolina the season might be over by then.

Carolina and State have over the history of the ACC finished first or second many times, but in ACC basketball history neither has ever finished 7th and 8th in the old ACC or 11 and 12th in the expanded ACC.

As I sit in front of this computer on a Saturday morning just after midnight both Carolina and State have a combined four wins between them. They play each other again today in Chapel Hill. Snow is falling and who knows how much we might get before it is over but you can believe if no one shows up to watch the game (for lack of interest) we can blame it on the snow anyway.

Has anyone thought much about this. Carolina has been on a down hill spiral ever since Roy Williams threw that Presbyterian fan out of the Dean Dome.

Dear Roy: Next time you play a religious school be nice YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Champions

The second day in a row the Lady Gryphon basketball team awoke to find out that Fike has lost the night before. In doing so this time after the Lady Gryphons had won over Hunt Wednesday night the Fike lost give Pam Gainey and the Lady Gryphons the first ever Big East 3-A basketball title.

So what do you do to celebrate. The girls basketball team traveled to Durham Thursday night to be in attendance at the N C State-Duke womens basketball game held at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Duke won 70-39.

The boys can clinch first place tonight but they must beat arch rival Northern Nash at Northern to do it. The big East basketball tournament begins Monday at Hunt and we know for sure the Lady Gryphons will not play until Thursday. To keep from playing Monday a boys victory would put them in the Wednesday Semi's.

I hate to have to say this but Rocky Mount High School got a state champion over last weekend and here it is six days later and just now talking about it.

Hannah McMillan a senior at RMHS won the North Carolina Jr. Miss Scholarship competition which was held last weekend in Greensboro. This is a big deal and there has hardly been any mention of this from any body.

The Jr. Miss main focus is academic excellence,phyical fitness, interview, talent and and self expression.

I use to be in the Ahoskie JC's back in the 80's and we sponsored the Jr Miss there. I for several years worked with the judges and was there during the interview process.

I remember one year a girl who I thought had a real shot at winning was marked down in the interview because on her Jr Miss application UNC was not one of the school she wanted to attend. You might say ,Oh the judge pulled for the Tar Heels but no. This young lady was a finalist for the Morehead Scholarship. Her answer was not very convincing as to why she didn't want to go to UNC but was going through the interviews for the scholarship.

McMillan will now compete for the National Jr. Miss in June in Mobile Alabama. Good going Hannah. I am sorry it took so long to mention it.

Tonight basketball at Northern to finish the regular season in basketball. Thursday Northern Nash hosted the 3rd round of the 3-A wrestling duels. Northern survived as the only Big East team to get out of the first round but lost to Havelock one of the best wrestling teams in the state at any level.

People Watched, Or Did They

The numbers were released earlier this week that the Super Bowl was the most watch television show ever. More than 106 million people watched.

The Neilson Company who does the ratings has 5,000 people across the nation who have black boxes much like what pilots have in cockpits of aircraft. Those black boxes record those 5,000 peoples viewing habits. If you watch any one channel for more than ten minutes in any hour you are deemed to have watched that show.

The Super Bowl numbers broke the record which had been held by the final episode of M*A*S*H in 1983 which had 105 million watchers. If I remember correctly the final M*A*S*H was a one hour final show. The Super Bowl is basically a four hour event.

I personally did not watch the Super bowl from start to finish. I did change channels four or five times and every time I came back to the game I watch at least ten minutes before I turned away. So if I was a person who Neilson had a black box in my house then I watched the Super Bowl at least four times. I would show up on the graphs as four people watching the game.

It took four hours to get 106 million to watch the Super Bowl while back in 1983 105 million watched M*A*S*H in one hour. You know I can make these numbers look any way I want to.

The #1 watched show of all time is still the when Elvis appeared on the Ed Sullivan show back in 1957. 60 million people watch at a time there were only 74 million TV's in this country. That works out 81% of all TV’s at the time watched Elvis gyrate. The second most watch show percentage wise is Lucy Goes to the Hospital in 1953 when 71% of all TV’s watch as little Ricky was born.

Of course back in those days there was only three choices on the TV. So while Elvis had 81% watching, Milton Berle has a bad night on the other channel. By the way did you know that Ed Sullivan had Elvis on because two months earlier Milton Berle had Elvis sing and on that night he killed Ed Sullivan in the ratings? Oh yeah, It is only a myth that Ed Sullivan only showed Elvis from the waist up. All you have to do is go to You Tube and watch an old replay of it.

There are more the 300 million people who live in the good old USA today. Back in the fifties we had around 180 million. We have 327 million tv's in this country or about one for every person. So in my computerized brain doing the new math I was taught back in the 60's only 33% of all tv's were tuned to the Super Bowl.

You would think with all the hype made of the game and all the conversation made about the commercials you would think everyone in America would have at least watched for ten minutes. Only one out of three even watched ten minutes. Maybe the Super Bowl is not as important as we think in the life of every day America.

Senior Night

Rocky Mount High school played their last regular season Basketball game at home Wednesday night and both varsity teams took care of business.

The Lady Gryphons awoke this morning to hear that neighbors Northern Nash had upset the Fike girls last night and by doing so gave the Lady Gryphons a game lead in the standings heading into the night with Hunt.

Buoyed by the good news from Northern Rocky Mount came out of the gate much quicker than last night and put 21 points on the board in the first quarter and lead by eight. Half time the lead had grown to 13 and the second half was even Steven as the Gryphons Ladies win 59-46.

Danita Whitaker continues to dominate inside for the Lady Gryphons as she lead the way with 18 points followed by Tia Hudgins with 12 and Marquita Hines with ten. The Lady Gryphons can clinch another regular season title Friday night but the #1 seed in the upcoming Big East Tournament is not guaranteed unless they win Friday at Northern.

Between the games all of the winter sports seniors were honored and when it got down to basketball the Gryphons took control early and lead 19-9 at the end of the first quarter. Rocky Mount opened the second quarter scoring the first twelve points and pretty much tucked the game away.

Tashawn Mabry had 20 point at the half which was more than Hunt's total of 17. The second half belonged to Darius McKnight and William Young as the two guards controlled the ball and McKnight hit four three pointer in the half.

Mabry lead the way with 22 followed by Darius Mcknight with 18 and Young threw in 17.
The Gryphons can win their first Big East basketball title with a win at Northern on Friday night.

Tuesday the wrestling team traveled to C B Aycock in the team first round playoffs and were beaten in the first round. Next week individual wrestlers will try to advance in the state playoffs hoping for individual state titles.

Tomorrow I will discuss the TV ratings for the Super Bowl.