Serving Franklin County, WA
Serving Franklin County, WA
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My new year’s resolution is the same as every year I don’t make a new year’s resolution. I don’t think you should worry about improving yourself only to disappoint yourself by breaking the resolution. So I’m just going to do the best I can to do the best I can! Now there will be a bunch of people that will go to their nearest lake and do the Polar Plunge and that really looks cold. I’m not sure I see the importance of freezing on the first day of the new year. The closest I e...
Here we are again with another football season finished and playoffs and bowl games on the agenda. Once again we see players opting out of playing in their team’s bowl game for fear of an injury. And now there is another issue for teams preparing for the post season and that is the Transfer Portal. For the Marshall University Thundering Herd they opted out of their bowl game due to lack of numbers. After a highly successful season their head coach took another head coaching po...
Just to let you know that this column is being written a bit early to meet the Thanksgiving deadline that all papers need to meet. So I'm going to try to bring some words of wisdom or maybe just some words that will hopefully be fun to read but there are no guarantees. I attended the November 16th EWU football game in Cheney versus Idaho State. Last year the Bengals rallied from a couple of touchdown deficit late to beat the Eagles by one in Pocatello. This year Idaho State...
I watched a lot of football over the years and I can tell you that the kicking game has really changed with the soccer style kickers. Pete Gogolak became the first soccer style kicker in the NFL. A couple of years later his younger brother Charlie would be the second. Up until that time most kickers were linemen. The NFL kicking award is named after Cleveland Browns tackle Lou Groza. There were other kickers that played skill positions like Paul Hornung and George Blanda but...
This is the time of the season when sports cross paths especially when it comes to the professional ranks. The Fall Classic (World Series for all of you baseball haters) may be over by the time you read this column. Or it might be getting really exciting for the fifth, sixth or seventh game. The Dodgers-Yankees matchup is one I grew up with in the 1950s and sixties. I guess the two richest franchises should be playing for the World Championship. I’m glad it isn’t every yea...
This has been an interesting season for college football and not necessarily good interesting. For someone that was a big fan of the Pac 8, 10 and 12 it has been a big adjustment to the Pac 2. But it looks like the Pac whatever number they end up with is on the rise. And for you purists that don’t think that Gonzaga is a good fit for the conference just check out how many full arenas there will be during basketball season when the Zags are on the road. They will also be a g...
So I’m sure that you heard about the passing of Pete Rose. Most people either hated him or loved him. There were very few sports fans that didn’t have an opinion. Rose was the all-time Major League hits leader with over 4000 hits. Rose played for the Cincinnati Reds or when he played they were known as the Big Red Machine. He played five different positions in the infield and outfield and earned two gold gloves. He was a part of three World Series championships, three bat...
Postseason baseball is here and again the door was shut on the Mariners once again. They were one game out and still had a chance on Saturday but that was not to be. Since the Mariners last won their division in 2001 with 116 victories they’ve only made it to the postseason as a Wild Card team a couple of years ago. Now the M’s won 90 games in 2002 and 2003 but there was only one Wild Card team at that time. Since then the amount of Wild Card teams in each league is now thr...
The 2024 football season is off to a rip roaring start. Last year’s national champion Michigan Wolverines were humbled by the Texas Longhorns in week one and the runner up Washington Huskies were defeated by the WSU Cougars last Saturday at Lumen Field in Seattle. It was a great win for the Cougars who played the Huskies tough at Husky Stadium last November nearly upsetting the Dawgs until a gutsy 4th down play brought them new life leading to a game winning field goal. The n...
I was visiting with someone the other day when we got to talking about this column for the paper. They asked how long I had been doing this and it occurred to me that it had been 20 years. They were surprised and I guess I was too. It seems time really does fly by when you're having fun. Honestly, I didn't think it would become a weekly occurrence, maybe twice a month but when stuff happens I had to write about it. Sure I missed a week now and then because I was busy or I...
Coaches and Managers at the professional level at least are basically hired on a temporary basis as firings are commonplace if things don’t go so well. Let’s face facts, it is much easier to fire a manager or coach than it is to fire the whole team. I know a few teams that a general manager put together and there was no way any head man could find success with the crew that went onto the field of play. Last Friday, Seattle Mariners’ General Manager Jerry Dipoto fired Manag...
The temperatures are beginning to be more reasonable which will be helpful for the start of high school football today (Wednesday). The weight rooms have been busy, hopefully, as athletes prepare for their fall camp practices. There is always a lot of anxiety and positivity especially if the returning team has a great deal of experience. There are always several schools that graduated much of their team and it is back to the drawing board about how to fill those key spots that...
A few days ago, I was thinking about a guy that had been hired at a place where I worked years ago. What is interesting about this guy is how he could involve himself in almost any conversation. It seems that this guy did it all. As we listened, it became quite clear that this guy had trouble keeping a job because he couldn’t tell the truth. This guy was in his early 30s, yet he had already driven over one million miles as a long-haul trucker. When someone asked what I did ove...
There are a lot of songs that were once quite popular but as time goes on the lyrics get lost on younger generations. In the song ‘Return to sender’ made popular by Elvis in the 50s there is a line that says, ‘no such number, no such zone.’ A zone was utilized in big cities which basically located the nearest postal facility. That was replaced by the Zip Code. Imagine the song rewritten: No such number, no such zip code. Harry Chapin had a hit song Taxi in 1972 that has a l...
Forgotten in the annals of time is the story about a farm kid from Ritzville that nearly made the Olympic track team. Walter “Spike” Arlt was an outstanding athlete at Ritzville High School and as a track hurdler he set a state record for the 120 yard high hurdles in 1956 his senior year. That mark still stands as an all-time Bronco track record since the 120 yard high hurdles is now the 110 Meter hurdles. Spike would go onto run track at WSU and in 1960 was selected as the...
Years ago, I wrote a column about how our family used to celebrate the 4th of July. Today, it is important to talk about some of those great traditions, again. I can tell you Dad really liked fireworks. He wasn’t crazy into them, he just understood more than many the importance of Independence Day. So, late afternoon on July 3, Dad would drive us to Lind, where they had real cool fireworks for sale in an old gas station leading into town on Highway 21. The tradition was one w...
I find it interesting how we determine who our favorite players are. I know that as a young Dodger fan that lived in a home with other Dodger fans it was easy to have Maury Wills, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale as your go to favorites. But when it came to the NBA it was different in the 1960s. There weren’t a lot of college or even NBA games on TV. I know that today we have ESPN, TNT, ABC and may other ways of watching basketball games so a young fan can gravitate to watching g...
A couple of months ago I was asked by several eighth-grade boys that I had the opportunity to coach the last two falls and winters if I would give the promotion address for their class. These are 14 year olds, so I told them that if they were serious I would certainly do it. Well, it turns out they were serious. I also had the opportunity to substitute teach for these classes when they were in sixth and seventh grades, so I got to know most of the girls, as well. I have to tell you that it is an honor to be asked because it...
The NCAA basketball tournament ended the first week in April. The all-time leading scorer in NCAA history is Cailtlin Clark from the Iowa Hawkeyes. She and her teammates were runner ups to the National Champions two years in a row. Clark, the three point making machine was selected number one in the WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever Now because of Clark the ratings for the tournament semi-final and final were record setting. People wanted to watch her play. Some for her success...
I sometimes think that I am way too busy at my age but that can also be my fault. When a person retires they are supposed to do this or do that but whatever you do don’t sit around and do nothing. So I’m at least not doing nothing. This was a much anticipated weekend for some time now with the Invitational track meet on Saturday but also the EWU spring football game on Friday. My buddy Kenny G. came to town on Friday and we drove to Cheney for a reception pre-football wit...
There have been a lot of changes in NCAA basketball. UConn won its second championship in a row — in case you forgot. Coaches moved to different challenges, replacing coaches who were fired or took a successful season and received a bigger paycheck somewhere else. I guess we could call it the coaching transfer portal. Eastern Washington University head Coach David Riley moved onto WSU. I like Riley, but I wish he hadn’t said this was his dream job because a lot of dream job...
By the time you read this you will know who the men’s NCAA basketball champion is. All I can say is that the two best teams are playing for the crown. I’ll watch as I always do because it’s the right thing to do. It was a great season and an interesting one. Whereas the women’s champion was undefeated the men’s’ teams stubbed their toes a few times, Purdue 4 times and UConn 3. It has been a long time since the men had an undefeated champion mainly due to talented rosters and...
I’ve always maintained that timing is everything. I wrote last week’s column and sent it off a few hours before WSU basketball coach Kyle Smith announced that he would be the next Stanford Cardinal men’s basketball coach. When I found out I thought that it wasn’t a step up as Stanford has had trouble winning and now they are going to the ACC to play the likes of North Carolina, Duke and this year’s tournament upstart North Carolina State. A few hours later when I was watch...
There are a ton of stories about the teams, players and coaches in the NCAA basketball tournament. There are family stories and stories of tragedy that can make a person cry. With the games there are upsets and blowouts and buzzer beaters. We all know that some of the players that had great tournaments will be on someone else’s roster next year. Coaches that had great seasons will be courted by bigger programs that weren’t happy with the person that is heading their pro...
I’m sure that many people who enjoy watching the NCAA basketball tournament really don’t watch many of the conference tournaments. For fans around here that watch Gonzaga and WSU your interests were in Las Vegas last week and the last game you watched ended in a loss for the men and also the GU women. The only local team to win their conference tournament was the EWU women. The Eagle ladies had and extraordinary season and will now take on Oregon State in Corvallis. Nice rew...