Telegram's Area Athletes Of Year

I don't think there is any doubt that the staff of the Rocky Mount Telegram got it right when they made their All Area Picks for Athletes of the year in the fall sports.

Football being the fall glamour sport has two picks of offensive player of the year in Tarboro's Todd Gurley.  If he is the player of the year across the state you would expect him to be offensive player of year in the area.  Nash Central's Jalen Hendricks was the top pick on defense but he is also the quarterback on the All Area offense.  Since Hendricks is the only players in the area to make it on both offense and defense then you would expect maybe Hendricks was the All Area Player of the year?  The Telegram didn't have to worry with that by having both and offensive and defensive players of the year.   Brings up a great question of what if doesn't it?

There is no doubt that there were several easy picks as players of the year in the different sports but none was easier than Girls Tennis where the Price sisters share the title.  I think the night I had them on the Stretchlon Sports Show they told me between them in singles and doubles they lost one regular season singles match between them all year. Randi and Kaley will be back as a senior and junior next year so we can argue again next year which is the best.  Too bad for all the other teams in the Big East.

The most dominating girl in Volleyball was none other than Rocky Mount's  Tia Hudgins.  If you watch during warm ups Tia at only five feet seven inches was hidden behind the net.  But, when the action started she was always the one above the net and my guess Rocky Mount scored 80% of their points any time she was along the front line on the net.  She could jump but she had that innate ability to know where you were going to try to hit it over the net and was there to get blocks.

I don't care what you do in life any one who walks three miles a day I say that is a great thing to do.  But the two cross country runners ran three plus miles under twenty minutes ( I have a hard time walking one mile in twenty minutes) for every day and for Nash Central's Michae'la Willimas she was by far the most dominating girls runner each week.  Southern Nash's  Nepolian Patel  push the seventeen minute barrier every time he ran.

Southern Nash has two players who makes the All Area team  and the second one comes in soccer. Moises Gonzalez help lead Southern Nash to one of their best years in quite a while.  Tarboro has two on the All Area best players when Katie King makes it in golf.  Especially for girls it is rare than you find a girl who can shoot under 100 and I doubt Katie  even thought about shooting 100 at any time during the year.

The Telegram sport staff of Jessie, Justin and Nick did a great job on their picks  and before you know it, it will be time for the winter sports picks.

Players Get a Feel From The Fans

This week two of the the Triangle schools have done their bit in the College Bowl season.  North Carolina was embarrassed in Shreveport while State took part in a very entertaining game.

Players are just like everyone else they talk among themselves and at Carolina the players had to be talking about the lack of interest in those fans that call themselves True Blue Tar Heel fans in the fact that Carolina bought only 1,000 tickets to go to the Independence Bowl.  I think Carolina's  football team performed about like the fans asked for and failed to show up for the game too.

Players hear the talk on the street and I don't care how much a coach tells you different  if  the town is talking we will stomp this team no problem the players can't  avoid not thinking it.  Just like in the movie "The Verdict" when the judge strikes down testimony only in the end the jury awards a big payout on what they heard regardless of they were suppose to hear it or not.

Now that the game is over and everyone has now seen the heavy hand of the NCAA on Ohio State I think every Carolina fan wishes they had of told the NCAA that they would not accept a Bowl Game this year but serve a one year ban.  Everyone is figuring now that they will get a one year Bowl next year at least..

State gave a good effort and that is in direct response to 35,000 Wolfpack fans getting tickets through the Wolfpack Cub and probably another  ten thousand any where they could get a ticket.  I would have to say that the game was one of the worse officiated games that I have seen in a while.  I will say that the calls went bad both ways and evened out throughout the game.

I realize the Belk Bowl is not one of the top flight bowl games but couldn't ESPN do better than that guy they had doing the play by play.  He was awful.  It was hard to tell how good Brian Griese was as the color man because the PBP guy wanted to do both.  There is a major difference in a telecast like the Belk Bowl over doing the High School game of the week.  They spend all week memorizing player numbers and looking at the stats provided by both teams Sports Information Departments.  That's all they do all the time is prepare for ball games.  The way we do it here is get off of our regular job show up at the games get the lineups and go.  We are not prepared any way like they are suppose to and at least we have a good excuse for not doing all that great when we mess up names.

I am available next year if they want somebody just as bad as he was.  I'm a lot cheaper too.