Thoughts & Notes From My First Spring Sports Season
Posted
Mark Howe-mhowe@timesuniononline.com
Notes, thoughts and comments from the first spring sports season worked by yours truly, America’s Oldest Rookie Sportswriter: I’ve already asked my wife to head to a flea market or some other massive sale and look for those gloves with the fingertips cut off and the mitten-type thing that flips over the exposed parts of the hand. I’ll be ready late this fall and early next spring! Sure hope you enjoyed summer weather while it was here last week. It went fast! If the season keeps up like this, there’s no way I’m going swimming outdoors. When the water’s this cold, someone had to have let loose in the pool. There are a lot of effective ways to play tennis. Hats off to Warsaw Lady Tiger freshman Colette Smith, who taught us all what patience is all about. The woman can hit consistently solid ground strokes all day long and never blink an eye. If coach Rick Orban wanted to make an instructional video, Smith would be the ideal candidate for any ground stroke. I’d think the Lady Tigers are already the favorites to 16-peat in the 2016 tennis sectional. The single-most bizarre moment in the spring had to be when Wawasee softball visited NorthWood on May 11. We’ve all seen kids warned not to throw the bat, but until three weeks ago yesterday I’d never seen a player called out for it. Allissa Flores lost a home run on the call that seemed to come from nowhere. I’d love to have the IHSAA make game officials available, even if by e-mail, to tell their side of the story. I fully realize these officials are there mostly for the love of the game because the income isn’t worth the abuse they take from fans, even if the comments are relatively mild. I understand why the policy is in place; good officials are hard enough to come by without subjecting them to people like me in the process. There has to be a happy medium in there someplace. Since I don’t understand, I’ll contact the IHSAA and ask why are games played on Memorial Day? We all want high school sports to be family-friendly, but isn’t it hard enough to do family things on a holiday without adding win-or-go-home games to the docket? I realize not every school has lighted fields for baseball and softball, and as long as the current Daylight Savings Time laws are in place, (they’ve changed before and I’m certain it’ll come up again in my lifetime) there’s not a lot of compelling reasons to add lights to already strained athletic/school budgets. But maybe there’s a way to play the first round games at multiple sites on school nights, rather than take up a holiday. While Northridge and NorthWood were the class of the Northern Lakes Conference baseball teams, most of the squads were pretty solid; much more so than I’ve seen in the past. I’ve learned if a high school team has one good pitcher, they can have a good season and if they have two, they can make a strong postseason run. Hats off to Dave Anson and the track staffs and volunteers at Warsaw. I dreaded covering track meets because it was rare they ran on time, and the norm was an hour or more late. Three times I covered meets at Fisher Field this spring, and three times the competition ran on or ahead of schedule. I can’t personally speak to any of the other schools, but if that’s the way all track meets go, then I’m all in for 2016. Part of me wishes I’d have played high school golf, if nothing else because the lessons would have been cheaper in school than they ever will be now. I’ve seen several young men play the game better than I ever will, and know I have to set aside my petty jealousy when I cover a tournament or match the way I do when I watch on TV. But every once in a couple thousand shots, I hit one that goes unexpectedly well, and pop one in or near the hole from a distance. And I think “Even Rory McIlroy couldn’t hit that much better.” I know better, but the thought still crosses my mind. The hardest part about the turning of the sports seasons is seeing the emotion when the season ends. So much time, effort and, yes, money has been invested and yet for only four teams in any one sport, except football, the season ends in defeat. I may never get fully accustomed to that. Now I’m looking forward to a summer where I learn a lot more about how athletic programs work, and a fall season where, by the time it ends, I’ll need those gloves.
