Chip Shots: Writing About Writing
“Some things are hard to write about. After something happens to you, you go to write it down, and either you over dramatize it, or underplay it, exaggerate the wrong parts, or ignore the important ones. At any rate, you never write it quite the way you want to.”
Chip Shots: Spring, Ugh!
I hate the first six weeks of spring. I also woke up on the wrong side of the bed Friday morning.
Chip Shots: NAIA Basketball, For A Change
Looks like the three-week “real” NCAA Division I (D1) season starts this coming Tuesday.
Chip Shots: No Matter What, Appreciate
Friday night, the last Friday night for high school boys’ basketball games this postseason, the Times-Union readership had six teams in IHSAA boys’ basketball sectional semi-finals. Each had either a clear shot or a puncher’s chance at making and advancing last night and even winning its sectional title tonight.
Stifling Defense Earns Manchester Sectional Final Berth
The Manchester Squires boys’ basketball team tipped off at 6 p.m. in Wabash’s Coolman Gym for the first of two IHSAA Class 2A Sectional 38 boys’ basketball semifinals’ games last night, ending the Rochester Zebras’ season with a 71-46 win.
Chip Shots: The Day After
I’m five full days ahead of my print deadline. I certainly hope nothing in the world of sports takes the spotlight from the Sunday afternoon following the Warsaw Lady Tigers basketball team’s 67-61 win over Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) for the North Semi State title.
Chip Shots: Here Ye, Here Ye
What a fun-filled, action-packed weekend. I might, for starters, just sound like I’m the town crier for local sports’ scheduled events at first, but I’ll find an unsolicited opinion to share before I exceed my word limit.
Chip Shots: Get Off My Lawn!
I’m six months shy of 61 years old. When I hear someone my age say something crotchety, I enjoy replying ironically, “Get off my lawn!”
Chip Shots: As I Type…
I shamelessly brought my laptop to the Northridge-Goshen IHSAA Class 4A Sectional semifinal last night to complete my column. There were so many options for today’s thoughts.
Chip Shots: February... You Know What That Means
This first full week of February signals the beginning of the end in the winter scholastic sports season. Area schools competing in swimming and diving, wrestling, and girls’ basketball will fight starting today and on through the week to survive, advance, and earn one more week of practice.
Chip Shots: Low Key Plans Yield Unexpected Results
I think – based on my count – my column is near 14 readers. I met three more folks who’ve perused my weekly output Thursday night at one of the area’s newest gathering places, the Falling Rabbit.
Chip Shots: I Can’t Feel Nuthin’
What in Heaven’s name is going on with me?
Chip Shots: Potpourri Of Thoughts
This morning, I don’t have one issue to discuss so instead, I am just letting you follow my stream of consciousness.
Chip Shots: Oy Veh, What A Year
Personally, my year had its share of accidents, incidents, health scares, injuries, and surgeries to the point that if I even started to sound like I was saying, “at least we have our…” I was met with a boisterous “shut up” rejoinder cutting me off for fear of bringing more hard luck; schlimazel as it’s called in Yiddish.
Chip Shots: Mid-Week Break Sparks Foul Mood
I don’t enjoy the Christmas season when Christmas Eve and Christmas Day land in the middle of the week.
Chip Shots: At Least Their One Speed Is Fast
Tuesday night I was PA announcing the IU South Bend women’s basketball game versus IU Columbus. It was a blowout, and in the third quarter I statistician from on loan from another school in the conference asked me, “They’re up by 40 in the third quarter. When are they going to stop pressing?”
Chip Shots: Coaching College Football Gets Tougher
College football and college basketball are sports where a coach with reasonable success can hang around a while by winning consistently.
Chip Shots: A Look At Tiger Football With Parker’s Help
My daughter, Ellen, in early 2021, broke my Chip Shots writer’s block in what turned out to be a fun piece to prepare.
Chip Shots: A Month Of Reckoning?
The final four among each IHSAA football enrollment class battled for a trip to Lucas Oil Stadium. I finished my picks (only predicted one school in Class 5A) at a near-even won-loss record of 10 wins and 11 losses.
Chip Shots: Enjoy Those Lady Tigers
The Lady Tigers’ basketball squad scored prolifically in their 74-45 win over Fort Wayne Snider in Thursday’s home opener with an aggressive defense creating opportunities for Warsaw to score easily.
Chip Shots: Football Musings, Crow Up?
There is no secret this column isn’t “live” each Saturday morning. I am excited about the prospect of Warsaw’s ability to compete with and defeat the Concord Minutemen in their sectional title clash considering the Tigers had them on the ropes with a 17-0 halftime lead six weeks ago.
Chip Shots: My Favorite Final Four
Is it blasphemy in Indiana to be more excited about six sets of high school football final four fields than The NCAA Final Four for men’s and women’s college basketball? If so, I’ll have to watch for airborne stones as I move through the Lake City.
Tigers Take Care Of Business In 52-7 Sectional Opening Win
A kettle of hawks, RedHawks, Goshen RedHawks in fact, descended on Fisher Field at Warsaw’s Tiger Athletic Complex for the second time in eight weeks hoping to keep their 2024 football season alive.
Chip Shots: Football Fandom: My Taunt, My Fail
We’re faced with another week in fall sports where all the competition is slated for Friday (football sectionals) or Saturday (all other fall sports). Area athletes who were still practicing this week, good luck in your continued postseason runs.
Chip Shots: Billionaire Welfare Comes To Brook Park, Ohio
The Cleveland Browns ownership, Jimmy and Dee Haslem, is the latest billionaire welfare success story for Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Brook Park into an agreement to be the location for the Browns’ new stadium, another Northern U.S. city with a dome.
Dominant D + Explosive O = Tiger Boys’ Sectional Title
The Warsaw Tigers boys’ soccer side streaked to a convincing 4-nil victory over the Homestead Spartans for their third straight IHSAA Class 3A Sectional 5 title Saturday night on the synthetic turf at Huntington North High School.
Chip Shots: Wrong Side Of The Bed Sunday
I was a member of Toastmasters International, a speaking and communication club affording several opportunities to improve the aforementioned skills along with improving brevity.
Chip Shots: My Fall Break Comes Naturally
October is here. There are certainties as… certain… as… death and taxes for me.
Chip Shots: Get Back To Work
I feel a little different today. This column, in a rare instance, was prepared late last night. Many times, I am opining while referring to your Saturday morning in the present.
Chip Shots: Meatloaf… I Mean Football, Again?
Meatloaf – again?
Chip Shots: Football Rambling
Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, bought the team for approximately $140 million in 1989. He said, in an episode of the NFL Network’s A Football Life, that an entrepreneurial type of businessperson must be comfortable with ambiguity.
Chip Shots: The Goal: Chicken Salad
I returned from my company’s North American controller’s conference Thursday night with a takeaway I’ll share this morning.
Chip Shots: Team USA Missed Uncontested Open Shot
The 2024 Paris Olympics is behind us, but the television ratings were better than the 2021 (postponed from 2020 due to COVID) games in Tokyo. Women’s basketball, specifically Team USA’s games, average 7.8 million viewers, no noticeable change between the two sets televised games in 2021 and this summer.
Chip Shots: Not Feeling Stuck In The Middle
Stealer’s Wheel released a surprise hit, Stuck in the Middle With You” in 1972. It was a surprise because Gerry Rafferty and his bandmates used the song to parody Bob Dylan in vocals and lyrics on a lark.
Claypool’s Kennedy Krull Makes Leap From 1A To D1
Kennedy Krull, a Claypool resident, a Whitko basketball and softball alum, a Huntington University (NAIA) infielder, and most recently Triton Junior-Senior High School’s head varsity girls’ basketball and softball coach is taking another big leap into a Division I (D1) college softball assistant coaching position with Georgia Southern University.
Chip Shots: Are You Ready For Some (Option) Football?
Can you hear Hank Williams Jr.’s voice from the ABC Monday Night Football musical intros?
Chip Shots: NBA Action In The Ivory Towers
Free agency is winding up, and most of the action remains in the Association’s ivory towers.
Chip Shots: Loyalty
I follow teams more these days based on how they operate as a business rather than any regional loyalty I had similar to my days growing up in Northeast Ohio.
Chip Shots: The Slowest Week Of Sports
I comment about this July week in sports each year: Major League Baseball All-Star break, Home Run Derby, the All-Star game itself, the ESPY awards (ESPN’s sports-related award show with huge names on the red carpet, pre-show) … and nothing else really happening.
