Great Effort Still A L

After a so-so week of 5-3 my overall guesstamation in college picks now stands at 38-16. Saturday games line up this week include. North Carolina played by far their best game of the year but in the end didn't do the things to win in the clutch and lose at home 27-23 to Miami. The game was closer than expected but I start the week on college picks 1-0. Greensboro College 1-5 travels to North Carolina Wesleyan for a 1pm kickoff at the Sports Complex. There is only one common foe so far and that is LaGrange where Greensboro lost by 14 on the road and Wesleyan lost by 24 at home. This is at NCW so this could be a nip and tuck affair. Greensboro 24 NCW 21 Duke at Virginia: Duke is on a roll offensivly but road games for every team is what they are. I think Duke has too much offense for the Wahoos. Duke 31 Virginia 21 Southern Mississippi at ECU: The Pirates will be spitting nails to get back out on the field after losing a game I won't say they lost but they had every chance to win. ECU 42 S Miss 20 Syracuse At Georgia Tech: After seeing the Cuse for the first time last week I will say they have the worse quarterback in the conference but yet they whipped State to death in 4th quarter with the run. This Georgia Tech that practices against the run every day with their offense. Tech 26 Syracuse 20 Maryland at Wake Forest: Can the B B&T magic continue? Maryland got killed by FSU and struggled at Virginia. The magic will last another week Wake 27 Maryland 24. ODU at Pitt: First year D-1 school ODU is better than your average first year team. Pitt had better be ready. Pitt 45 ODU 38 Just maybe the football game of all time in the ACC. FSU at Clemson 8pm on National TV. When has there ever been an ACC game as late as October 19th draw this much attention. You have to go back to the Mack Brown teams at Carolina meeting FSU. If this game was played at Tallahassee I'd take FSU by three touchdowns but this is in Death Valley. I will take NOLEs 30-27. Yesterday Hunt girls volleyball team beat Fike in the championship game of the Big East Tournament. Fike the #1 seed had beat Hunt twice during the regular season and this championship game went to a dramatic 5th set. Northern Nash Beat Nash Central for third in the tournament.

Week Two Of Conference Play

I was 6-1 last week on the high school picks running my over all standings for the year to 52-9. Heading into week two of conference play for teams in the Big East have a 6 or 7 by their name. If it is on the W side of the won-loss column this time of year that is really good but if it comes on the L side it is not. Going to Start off with the game of the year in Private school football. Rocky Mount Academy traveling to Courtland Va to take on the defending State Champs Southampton Raiders. Those of you unfamilar with Courtland it is a bedroom community of the greater Tidewater area. I would compare it to Spring Hope being a bedroom community of Raleigh. Many people commute everyday all over the Tidewater area from Courtland. This will be a monster game. Don't be surprised if the loser scores fifty. As well as RMA is playing I hate picking against them but Southampton 64 RMA 52 We will drop down to the easy pick of the week Tarboro comes to Rocky Mount to play Rocky Mount Prep. All six losses for Prep they have given up 36 points or more. Make that seven after this week. Another week for Tarboro to take their foot off the gas which in the long run is not helping them get ready for the playoffs. Yes they are getting plenty of playing time for back ups which is good for next year. Tarboro 52-Rocky Mount Prep 0. In a game that nobody can afford to lose Northern Nash travels to Southern Nash. The Firebirds and the Hunt Warriors are almost a carbon copy. Northern did a good job defensively against Hunt but needed better execution from the offense. Don't think the Firebird defense is as good as Hunt so this could be interesting game. SN 19 Northern 14 Fike right now seems to be the cream of the crop in the Big East. Fike at this point has a better all round offensive game that what Rocky Mount was able to produce with Nash Central. Fike had better not pull a Clemson at look toward another week. The Bulldog defense just can't do it alone. Fike 26 Nash Central 6. Oh boy, the real toughie of the week. Don't know where Rocky Mount's running game has gone. I think what you saw at Northern is about the offense Hunt has and they will be in low scoring games all the way. A field goal could be the difference in this one and I like what Rocky Mount has done this year in field goals with Micah Varnell. Rocky Mount 16 Hunt 14. Bet that you didn't even know that Washington is now a member of the Eastern Plains 2-A and own a victory over Tarboro and two close losses to Havelock and West Craven. As far as SouthWest Edgecombe is concerned this is the championship game to get to the championship game. If the Cougars win this one then it should set up the last game of the season finale with Beddingfield. This one should be a dog fight. Washington 26 SWE 22. We have a college football game tonight at North Carolina host the resurgent Hurricans of Miami. Thursday night football seems to always pose an upset and I suspect there will be a QB change for Carolina which may help score more points. Their problem defense and not being able to stop anybody. The Hurricanes are better than any one thought this year and I can't pick Carolina with their defense Miami 38 NC 24

Our Sports Hero's Arn't Made Of Steel

News on Monday that UNC basketball coach Sylvia Hatchell has Leukemia has rocked the Triangle area and basketball world. Don't care which side of the fence you sit on sports has absolutely no meaning when a life is on the line. Hatchell who has become the 2nd winningest women's basketball coach in history will step aside from game day coaching and try to keep her hands in the day to day operations of UNC women's basketball as much as her health will allow. One national championship in her back pocket Hatchell still took a back seat to Kay Yow who is credited with creating women's college basketball in North Carolina. Like Yow Hatchell is in the basketball Hall of Fame. Like Yow has cancer. 61 years old there is no telling how long Hatchell could coach if healthy but our prayers go to her recovery. The largest crowd to ever see a college baseball game in North Carolina happened last year during the ACC baseball tournament when State and Carolina met. AlL these new teams being added to the ACC baseball teams will not play every team every year in conference play and State-Carolina will not play a three game series next year. They will play a single game on a Tuesday in April at the DBAP in Durham. I have to ask the question if baseball can figure out how to play at least once a year why can't State and Duke Play every year in football. Football is set up that you play everyone in your division and State and Duke are in opposite divisions and haven't played in several years. You know the year State plays at Duke most of the time it is the largest crowd Duke has that year because so many State fans go to the game. My grand mother told me years ago when I was a boy that only believe 3/4's of what you see and only half of what you hear. Our world is made up these days of people looking to find a way to bring anybody down any way they can. This picture of the Duke Basketball team holding guns at first glance you would say "what in the world are they doing". Then you find out the picture was taken at a shooting range on the Campus of the United State Military Academy when Coach K took his team there to see what our soldiers do to prepare to be officers. As far as I am concern that is a great teaching experience to his team about life. We have way too many people ready to jump and accuse without knowing the facts. Tuesday Rocky Mount Girls Tennis team won their opening round match in the 3-A playoffs beating Burlington Williams 6-0. Luckily there was no need to play the doubles but darkness would have been an issue it the doubles had to take place. Nash County spent 54 million dollars to buid a super great school. What is another $500,000 to put lights on a soccer field or tennis court when not having lights requires students to miss class time because events can't be play at 7pm because of no lights? If I understand the playoffs seedings now Rocky Mount will travel to Triton nex t Tuesday in the second round of the Duel tennis play offs. As expected Cardinal Gibbons beat Hunt 7-1

TV And Radio Commercials

Having spent many a day back in the stone age spinning records and playing commercials I thought it would be a good idea to have a training session on what you hear or see when you watch TV or listen to the radio. TV and radio stations are required to do so many minutes per week of public service. Sometimes they do it in the form of National Cancer Society ads or any public service group asking you to give money. In order to let you know what is up and coming they also do promos pushing up and coming shows or events on that station. When ever as they are called PSA's play(Public Service Announcements) the broadcast station donates that time and creates no imcome from it. The same for promos there is nobody paying them to run a promo and sometimes you get both promo's and PSA's in the same cluster of advertisments. When you see that you can think boy they must not be selling too much advertising to be playing all these promos. Yesterday I heard UNC running on the radio a package deal for the three remaining home games they have left and one of those games is the Duke game. Let me tell you right now, here we are in the middle of the football season and Carolina is still trying to sell out the Duke game. If you are a regular TV or Radio listener you will catch in April and May all the schools pitching their season ticket packages trying to sell out all of the games. Here it is October and any school still trying to fill the seats for any game now is in a lot of trouble. Guess What? It's not just Carolina but everyone is having trouble filling seats up every Saturday. The first sign of why people aren't going to the games would be how good the team has become as the season has unfolded. State, Carolina and you can now throw ECU into the disapointing department. Three weeks later you can see now that ECU beating Carolina wasn't all that much and the way things are now the State game could be the same. The next reason why people are not buying tickets is the cost of a per game ticket and the price of season tickets to any college team. I went to the grocery store over the weekend and when I came out I had $99 dollars worth in my arms. I had more money in my pocket when I made $1.65 an hour than I do now. There is a third reason why people don't go and this surely could be a Carolina problem. I hear it from many Carolina fans that they are still ticked at the Butch Davis fiasco and they way they got folks to buy the new enzone seats. The only way to make those folks forget is to have a winning team which will not be this year so the same problem will exist next year for them when it is time to buy season tickets. What all of this is saying is everybody is struggling to get by from the major TV stations to college athletics to you and me. This is the most unusual of times. Make pleny of money each week but don't have any two days after pay day. Sure can't buy a ticket to a ball game that way.

Interesting First Night

Getting to the top of the mountain and in this case a conference football championship for those standing at the bottom of the hill it is a high climb. Those who have been there and in this case Hunt they are not all that willing to let someone else join the perch at the top. Hunt may not be nearly as good as in the past but they still have players that have seen the mountain top and are still going to be a tough out for anyone wanting to knock them from the perch. Rocky Mount has struggled the last couple of games getting the running game going. This week they have to find it to help give them balance for the passing game. There is nothing better in high school for a team that can throw to have a running game that the safeties are trying to stop the run. Hunt and Rocky Mount could be locked up in a game just like Northern and Hunt just had. A balance attack could be the key this week. Fike travels to Nash Central and the Bulldogs have as good a defense as any in the league. It is hard to notice when you have the worse offense. There has been a promise made to shake up offensive personnel at Central. That might have needed to be done five weeks ago. Fike had better not sleep walk in this one or every thing they have made all season could come tumbling down. Northern and Southern square off and the loser of this game will have a tough time making play offs. This is do or die for both. Every teams life revolves around luck and injuries are a part of that. There is no telling how good Southern could be with their starting back field. If this were next year for Northern a year farther in the Randy Raper regime you can just see the trend is upwards in Death Valley. Big East semi finals in volleyball has 3 seed Northern at Hunt Tuesday the 5 seed Southern at Fike. Tennis first round playoffs start Tuesday weather willing. Seems to be a trend in Big East tennis that the only way to win the doubles title is with sisters. The Brice sisters at Rocky Mount senior Tanner and sophomore Chandler have continued what the Price sisters had at Nash Central. How many years is it now that the doubles champions four or five years have been sisters?

Volley Ball Playoffs Begin

The regular season of Big East volleyball ended Thursday and Rocky Mount who has suffered through probably their worse season ever since volley ball has been played on the high school level for girls. Northern Nash beat Rocky Mount 3-0 to wrap up the #3 seed in the Big East. The season Rocky Mount has had they had secured the 6th seed and 3 and 6 become foes in the opening round of the Big East Tournament which sent Rocky Mount right back to Northern again on Saturday. The Knights as expected dumped Rocky Mount ending their 1-21 season and Northern advances on to the semi finals of the Big East tournament. Tabita Wilcox the Gryphon coach in the past couple of weeks has taken a job in Franklin County and is now teaching there. Yesterday was her final game as the Gryphon's volleyball coach. She has been the Gryphon VB coach for five years and even before that was at Edwards as the middle school coach. It was during her Junior High days that Morgan Doughtie tried to make the VB team and one of the requirements Tab made all players do is they had to be able to serve over the net over handed instead of bumping it across. This is not easy for any girl in Junior high to do and Morgan found that in order to be part of the volleyball team she asked to be the manager. It worked out that as Morgan went to high school so did Tabita as the head varsity coach after Debbie Webb's retirement. There were a couple of championships during her high school years but her passion for being a part of VB spread as now a sophomore at Campbell. We know every day as young people that new ideas pop up about life but as I write this Morgan's future goal as we speak is to become an athletic trainer. Teachers have trememdous impact on our children every day. I can only say great things about Tab Wilcox and her influence on our daughter since the 7th grade of her life right on through now as a sophomore in college. Morgan barely five feet tall who has her dad's desire to compete even when it means standing on the sidelines cheering for someone else. Tab gave Morgan that chance to continue in sports way back when she physically could not play the game. In our household Morgan went to games and cheered for the Pack and Gryphons. Somewhere along the way two of my children have chosen sports as their livelyhood. Brooks as a Triathlon coach and somewhere down the road whether it is in a high school or at a college Morgan will have a life of sports. In this house GOD comes first but sports is near the top of the list. Tab Wilcox opened Morgan's door in sports and this family will fore ever be greatful. Thank You Tab!.

The Race Is Off And Running

Tonight Big East Football began the process of selecting their represetatives for the up coming playoffs and after the first ballot Fike, Rocky Mount and Hunt are leading the ballot. The second ballot will be next Friday night and in this race you get to keep your votes as the ballots head toward five rounds. The battle of the unbeatens Fike has proven this year to be a quick starting team and they did that again tonight as they jumped to a 19-0 and 26-7 before the Firebirds of Southern Nash made a run but came up short in Wilson 33-27. Fike is now 7-0 while the Firebirds lose for the first time this year and drop to 6-1. I don't know whether this game was a game that Rocky Mount 6-1 played down to the level of Nash Central 0-7 or the defenses were just so good or what. Between both teams Rocky Mount got one first down in the second half and then got a second on an off sides penalty late in the game while running the clock out. Nash Central never had a series in the second half that took more than three plays before a punt. Rocky Mount scored in the first on a Micah Varnell field goal which was matched early in the fourth quarter at 3-3. A nice kick off return and a long pass play on their first play after the kickoff would score the only touchdown of the game. If you are really into official stats any scoring play of more than 11 yards is credited with a first down so for the second half Rocky Mount had three first downs to 0 for the Bulldogs. Hard to watch for those that were there. Northern Nash did everything they could to get ready for Hunt but in the end the team that knows how to win managed two second half scores while Northern Nash could not and Hunt wins at Death Valley 14-7. Randy Raper loses his first conference game in three years while Northern has still not won a conference game working on two years plus. What can you say. RMA 64- Arendell Parrott 0. Looks like RMA really does want to go far in this years state private school playoffs. In other action SWE 36 North Pitt 22. Nice win for the Cougars on the road. Tarboro 51- South Creek 8. I 'm sure the Vikings put the breaks on in this one. next week Big East games have Hunt at Rocky Mount, a battle for first place..... Northern Nash at Southern Nash and this will be a battle that neither team can afford to lose. Fike and Nash Central. Fike will be watching the Hunt/Rocky Mount game.