Sorry I missed you all last week. I am on vacation from the radio station this week, and as many of you can attest, the week before vacation is usually the busiest week of the year. I have a lot running through my head, so I am going to cram a lot into one article. Seemed fitting to me to have a “buffet” in the week leading up to Fathers’ Day. NIC MOORE GETTING NOTICED: Our diminutive hero has finally started to draw some attention from NBA front offices. The former Warsaw hoops star worked out for the Dallas Mavericks before heading to Washington this week. If you pay any attention to the NBA, you know two things: having a good point guard is critical, and the league is getting shorter. I feel like a lot of people in thinking that Moore just needed one team to work him out and several others would come calling. I still wonder if he doesn’t ultimately start his professional career in Europe to prove his worth before a team takes a chance on him state-side. MANGAS MAKES AN IMPRESSION: Kyle Mangas has had a heck of a summer. Last week, as a member of the Indiana Junior All-Stars, the soon-to-be WCHS senior started in the North exhibition game in Lebanon against the Indiana All-Stars. Remember, Mangas was not a core player. Core players are considered the top six of the class and get to play in both the north and south games. Kyle was one of six players who joined with the core six to play in Lebanon. Mangas got someone’s attention, because he started for the Juniors. I guarantee that NorthWood coach Aaron Wolfe, who was an assistant for the All-Stars, noticed that Mangas was there. Kyle scored four points and grabbed six boards in the Juniors’ win. FISHER FIELD MAKEOVER UNDERWAY: The replacing of the natural surface at WCHS’ football field is underway. It’s been fun to pop out there from time-to-time to watch the progression of skimming off the top layer of soil and prepping what’s left for the new artificial playing surface. A lot of you have been asking about what the field will look like when it’s done. The smarty-pants answer is “always perfectly green.” The truth is it will say WARSAW in one endzone and TIGERS in the other in white letters on a black background. There will be a giant “W” over the 50 yard line with the cat scratch marks around it. I have posted a picture of it on the News Now Warsaw Facebook page. THE NBA FINALS ARE UNWATCHABLE: I was really looking forward to watching the Finals rematch between Golden State and Cleveland ... until the games started. This series is brutal to watch. The officials in the series are clearly just out there for the exercise, because they aren’t calling any fouls. It looks a lot more like wrestling than basketball. Actually it doesn’t look like basketball at all. And the suspension of Draymond Green, justified or not, only leads us to that ongoing perception that the league is tinkering with the outcome. I really like new Commissioner Adam Silver, but he’s got to find a solution to the same problem that has dogged the league for years. REMEMBERING TWO LEGENDS: Losing Muhammad Ali last week was really tough, but even as former opponents and celebs carried the “Greatest of All Time” to his corner for eternity, we found out that hockey legend Gordie Howe had also passed away. Two men – both as big and tough as they come – who were the undisputed faces of their sport. There was one big difference: how they went about their business. Ali was also the undisputed mouth of all sports and backed it up most of the time, while Howe was more like a gentle giant. Boxing and hockey will miss these two greats. GARAGE SALES ARE NOT FOR ME: My wife, our neighbors and a couple of Holly’s teacher friends hosted a garage sale last weekend. I get garage sales, but I have one really significant problem with them. People come to your house, rummage through stuff that you want to sell for as little as 10 percent of what you paid for it originally, and then ask you if you’ll take less for it. It takes a lot of … something … to look at a $2 T-shirt and ask “would you take a dollar for it?” I now choose to stay inside or put the boat in the water during our garage sale – it’s probably better for business that way. Father’s Day is not my favorite holiday, but it’s probably the most important to me. You may not believe this, but I am not a big fan of being the center of attention. This weekend is an occasion that forces me to put aside the everyday distractions and take personal inventory of “Roger Grossman … the Dad.” What did I do well in the last year? What do I wish I had to do over? What did I learn from being the dad of two kids? I can tell you this: the best part of being “Roger Grossman … the Dad” is hearing the sound of a 2-year-old laughing while his 6-year-old sister chases him. My dad is gone. Cancer. If you still have your dad, don’t think it too cliché to do something with them and for them. If you have a strained relationship with your dad or you don’t speak much or whatever, figure out a way to put that aside and mend that fence … while you still can. Happy Father’s Day on Sunday.
