"19" Enshrined

Every time Terrell Hudgins walks into the gym at Rocky Mount High he is reminded of his athletic career. Since he won the North Carolina High school Athlete of the year in 2005 he can look on the wall and you know he must have a flash back to something that help lead to that Banner to make it to that wall. Football,basketball or baseball all three together help make him the best athlete in North Carolina .

Today every time he walks into Rhodes Stadium at Elon University there will be another reminder. This time it will be solely for football as Terrell Hudgin's "19" was retired and will hang forever along the facing of the playing field at Elon. I was very lucky to be behind the mic for Terrell's three football season, two in basketball and baseball.

Photo's Courtesy of Darius Hudgins a very proud papa.

Cross Country ran in the D H Conley invitational this morning and Lady Gryphon girls finished second and the boys finished fourth. Gryphon James Bond won the boys race.

There are no more undefeated teams in the ACC as Virginia Tech proves tooo much for N C State. Carolina gets a big intra state rivalry win beating ECU. The Pirates just can't stop anybody.

Last night in non-conference football Southern Nash out scored Nash Central 42-27. Rocky Mount plays Greenville Rose Monday night in Greenville. Nash Central plays Rocky Mount Friday night in the first conference game for both schools and I think the loser will not make the playoffs.

Rain, Cancellations And Postponements

Rocky Mount's Total of rain from Thursday alone was more than four inches. Greenville over twelve inches and New Hanover County was over twenty two inches of rain since midnight Sunday.

High School sports has taken a hit this week from all the wet stuff except for those who play the inside game in the fall. Rocky Mount's volleyball team traveled to Fike hoping to clinch a tie for first place in Big East VB and they did. In doing so they clinch first place during the regular season with only Hunt able to finish 8-2 should the Lady Gryphons falter twice next week but Rocky Mount having clinched two victories over Hunt they have the tie breaker.

They beat Fike 3-0 yesterday. Volleyball will be in a tournament this weekend at South Central and they once again will be in that let see how much we have improved mode. Last year during this Susan G Komen event in Winterville they lost to both New Bern and South Central. In fact they were dominated in both matches. Due to the excessive rains in Winterville the Saturday event at South Central has been poseponed until Oct 9th.

Rain forced tennis and soccer to reschedule their Wednesday and Thursday matches to next Monday. Soccer already having lost Monday's game this week to the weather now has two matches to make up. Tennis and soccer will play Monday in what should have been yesterday's matches. Tennis will then play Tuesday and Thursday their final regular season matches. Soccer will reschedule last Monday's match later as they still have a couple of weeks of regular season to go.

The JV football game hosting Rose has been cancelled altogether with no make up. The varsity game has already been pushed to Monday.

I don't know whether you have noticed this or not but Volleyball and tennis the sports that play each conference member twice has a really weird conference schedule this year. They both started with four straight home games and then finished up the first time around the schedule on the road. Then they had four more road games before the final games of the season will be at home. Volleyball going to the tournament in South Central tomorrow that will give them seven straight road games. Soccer with the two rain outs this week and all the schedule juggling going on they may escape having to play five in a row on the road.

Would love to be at Elon on Saturday but will be following volleyball in Winterville. Terrell Hudgins number 19 will be retired. Terrell's Mom Leslie has promised pictures and if that comes true will have them either Saturday night after we get back from Volleyball or on Sunday's blog.

Drought Buster

The Varsity football game between Rocky Mount and Rose High school in Greenville scheduled for Friday night has already been moved to Monday night at 7.00pm.

The quickest way to end a drought is to get 15 inches of rain in a four or five day period. Girls tennis managed to get enough wins in on Tuesday to beat Hunt 6-1 which is their fourth conference win in seven tries. Soccer's match from Tuesday has been moved to next Monday. I'm not sure when today's match with Southern will be made up assuming we see no sunshine today. I would suspect today's tennis match with Fike will get moved to Monday also.

It is hard to tell sometimes when you watch TV how many times a show has been repeated before you see it. Last night I saw a segment of the show "Real Sports" with Bryant Gumbel on HBO. I have no idea how old this segment was but it was the first time I had seen it.

Those of you that don’t remember Josh Hamilton of Raleigh was the #1 draft pick in baseball in 1999. He was rising up the minor league ladder of the Tampa Bay Rays until his family was in car wreck in the off season in 2001. Up until this point in Hamilton’s life his mother and father traveled with him on the road. They stayed in Raleigh while they healed from their injuries and Josh went to Tampa to rehab his at the Rays facility.

During that separation Josh had a tattoo put on his body. He became friends with the tattoo artist and he introduced him to alcohol. One thing lead to another and drugs were part of the scene. Hamilton’s addiction became so bad that baseball suspended him for two years.

Hamilton says he had a vision sometime during the down times and turned his body over to the Lord. He also married. Hamilton returned to pro baseball and was picked up by the Cincinnati Reds. In 2007 he was traded to the Texas Rangers where is today. You may remember that in 2008 Hamilton set the baseball world on fire hitting 28 home runs at the 2008 all star home run derby.

According to the REAL SPORTS story Hamilton’s wife picks him up after every home game. He is not allowed to carry any large amounts of cash. In order to make sure Hamilton does not stray Johnny Narron from Goldsboro the former manager of the Cincinnati Reds who we had on the Stretchlon Sports show a couple of years ago is his traveling partner and will not let Hamilton go any where alone. Just think that they don't trust Josh Hamilton enough to even let him go to the store alone to buy a loaf of bread. Major League baseball drug test him three times a weeks to make sure he is clean of drugs.

Hamilton made the all star team two of the past three years. He has become one of the best center fielders in baseball. He broke two ribs in early September crashing into the center field wall. So whether he wins the American league MVP is up in the air since he has missed almost a month of the season. Other wise he was a shew in as the MVP.

Drug addiction is no different from me being over weight. I can go two or three weeks and lose weight and then there is this urge that says just this once let’s have a candy bar and the weight is back on.

In one way or the other we are all addicted to something whether it’s money, TV, cigarettes, eating or alcohol. I cannot sit here and say how could he throw some very good years from his life away? When you don’t have the will power to over come your inner desires life can have tragic results for any one.

We all want to be famous. The price that Josh Hamilton has paid will have a lasting effect on the rest of his life. If you get a chance try to find that story on HBO. It is well worth 15 minutes of your time.

Winning Streak Still Intact

The battle for first place in Big East Volleyball was a classic and those that were there went home glad they were there to see it. Hunt opened the first game winning the net and Rocky Mount played as if they had lead in their feet. They did more watching others play than joining in on the fun as several balls fell between players expecting the other person to get it.

Hunt serving and winning the net they won the opening game 25-18. Somehow the Lady Gryphons got 18 when it seemed the score was worse than it was. Game two was much the same as the Gryphons found themselves down 18-10. It was this point in the match that the lead the Lady Gryphons had been wearing in their shoes finally wore off and they even took a 24-23 lead. Serving to win the game a ball rolled down the top of the net fell to the floor on the Gryphons side giving Hunt their 24th point and enough momentum to win game two 26-24.

Last season at Rocky Mount, Hunt had won the opening two games only to see the Lady Gryphons charge back and take a match but today was at Hunt and to this point Hunt was playing like a team destined to end the Lady Gryphons 16 games conference regular season winning streak. The only Big East match of any kind that Lady Gryphons have lost was the conference tournament held last year at Hunt and it was Hunt who beat the Lady Gryphons.

Feeling lighter in the feet and knowing they needed to win game three or go home a loser Rocky Mount's more athletic team began to turn the tide. No longer was Hunt winning with kills at the net as now the Lady Gryphons were out jumping Hunt and blitzed the Lady Warriors 25-13.

Game four the Lady Gryphons started well but Hunt caught their second wind and and at 22-21 Rocky Mount the girls in blue and gold scored the last three points to win 25-21.

This set up game five the first to fifteen points and the conference lead on the line. Rocky Mount won the serve but lost the opening point and playing only to fifteen you can't afford to get down by two or three points. The Gryphons managed to lead 8-5 and 12-8 but Hunt had one more rally and was serving to tie the score at 12 but the point fell the Gryphon way. Two points later the Lady Gryphons put a strangle hold on their second straight conference crown winning game five 15-11. They now have a two game lead and three games to play.

There are those days in life where you have to find a will because life just is not going your way today. Tamisha Walker coming off an ankle injury played more and more as the games wore on. Kashunn Seabreeze had a good day serving and had her best day at the net when the Ladies Needed it. Tia Hudgins was money in the bank when the Gryphons needed it the most. Casey Cooke was probably the most consistent player throughout the day. It is a team effort and Sydney Browder , Evie Hunter,Precious White, Lauren Campbell, Emily Jacob and Alexis Threat all made plays to help in the victory.

Hunt is taller and the Lady Gryphons are more athletic and by game three quickness was winning over the power that Hunt had in the first two games. Football has a saying that the game is won in the fourth quarter. The Lady Gryphons found that the fourth quarter today started before game three and lasted what seemed like an enternity. They had to dig deep to beat a fine Lady Warrior team but the fourth quarter belonged to the Lady Gryphons.