Last week I gave you my predictions for the first six months of 2016. They included high hopes that Ben Higgins will choose the right girl out of the 25 gorgeous twenty-somethings on The Bachelor, the equally-high hopes that the Cubs made the right offseason moves to end more than a century of futility, and that our local basketball teams will take us on long postseason tournament trips. Since it’s probably not going to break 20 degrees today, it feels like a good time to consider an annual phenomenon called July. JULY: America will celebrate its 240th birthday with the usual fanfare, and the guy up my street will shake the shutters on my house with an aerial display that you should have to pay to see. In sports, local athletes will begin the month with a mandatory break from organized activities that is not nearly long enough. We are seeing our kids peel themselves out of sports because their summers are lost to doing a lot of the same things they do all fall, winter and spring. I know, “they have to or they can’t compete.” I also know the Law of Diminishing Returns, which means you only have 100 percent to give and when you try to give more than that your productivity actually drops away from your full potential.” AUGUST: The young athletes of the world will converge on Rio for the games of the XXI Olympiad starting Aug. 5. It promises to be one of the biggest parties the world has ever seen in a place that is famous for endless partying. Unfortunately, officials in the host city will fall far short of making infrastructure improvements they had promised when they entered their bid 10 years ago. That means the bay where many of the rowing and water-based events will be held will still be filled with enough human waste and bacteria to cause competitors to become terribly ill. PREDICTION: Despite last-minute efforts to put a good face on the conditions, an athlete who will compete in events in the bay will become ill and will die from it. The International Olympic Committee will lament the loss of life, as will the mayor of Rio whose promises went uncompleted … and a new Olympic sport will be born, the lawsuit heptathlon. SEPTEMBER: Football is underway with the high schools starting conference play and college teams and the NFL beginning. Tippecanoe Valley will begin its second season under Coach Darrin Holsopple with a whole spring and summer to get a better grasp on his scheme. Warsaw’s Phil Jensen will be back to coach the Tigers after a terrible fall at his home just before Christmas that left him with nine broken ribs and broken vertebrae, but not his spirit. PREDICTION: Notre Dame will start 2-2 and Brian Kelly will be answering questions he shouldn’t really have to answer anymore. I.U., having given coach Kevin Wilson a big extension Monday, will win their non-conference games despite giving up over 40 points in most of them and then struggle in the conference (sound familiar?), and Purdue will field a varsity football team (because contractually the Big Ten is making them). Warsaw will have thrown 90 passes by Labor Day, while Valley will have thrown nine. OCTOBER: Ah, October, when heroes and legends are made on the diamonds of Major League Baseball. The Cubs will win the NL Central and will have the best record in the majors. As the ivy on the walls of that hallowed ground at Clark and Addison turns from dark green to yellow and orange, the Cubs will have a 3-1 series lead over Kansas City with Game 5 at home (the AL will win the All Star game and have home field in the World Series). PREDICTIONS: With the Cubs having their three best pitchers (Arrieta, Lester and Lackey) ready to secure the first title since 1908, the vaunted Cubs offense goes cold, they lose three straight and are denied again. Also, the machines that are the Warsaw cross country teams will roll through their regular seasons unscathed and be in contention at the state finals in Terre Haute. NOVEMBER: A month of transition as football and the fall sports end and basketball and the winter sports begin. PREDICTIONS: The Wawasee girls basketball program will begin their first season under someone other than Kem Zolman as he hangs up his wipe board – 18 seasons in Syracuse and almost 250 victories. After a season that ended with its most losses in school history, Warsaw begins a girls season seeking redemption with the same basic team that ended the current season but with a new attitude. Anne Secrest begins her swan song at Tippecanoe Valley on a march toward 1,500 points and with the hope of leading the program to 80 wins in her four seasons. DECEMBER: An early December snow storm wreaks havoc on area sports schedules and athletic departments will spend 200 percent of their long-distance phone budgets trying to reschedule games. Because of the backlog, some schools will schedule one boys game on a Saturday morning against one opponent and another at night against a different opponent. PREDICTION: the Colts will realize what a massive mistake they made by extending the contracts of both GM Ryan Grigson and Coach Chuck Pagano, whose relationship deteriorates and becomes more publicly awkward as the season goes along. The Colts finish 6-10 and rumors surface that Andrew Luck doesn’t want to resign with Indy. Merry Christmas and Happy 2017!!! (Boy the year went fast didn’t it?)
