A New Season on the Horizon
The summer and all the sports’ activity characteristic of the season is about to come to an end. The fall season for the schools will capture the attention of coaches, players and fans in Gordon County for the next few months.
Football, softball, soccer ball, cross country, middle school golf, volleyball, competitive cheerleading will occupy attention of loyal fans before cold weather will lead us into comfortable arenas for basketball and wrestling. Any way you look at the local athletic scene, the fact is it is going to be a busy, busy time. One of the busiest will be our own Alex Farrer who will continue to do an outstanding job in getting news about more events and players in the paper than one can imagine.
The horizon for softball is earliest on the schedule as Coach the arena with his Lady Phoenix. Injuries to outstanding and key players will plague his team early but as the weeks roll along he will have his team quite ready for region and state competition.
The first football game will be here so quickly. Then it will be crowded stadiums for regular season games which will cover a period of nearly three months. In addition to the football teams, talented bands will be on the scene at halftime. This is a great time and opportunity for young people to participate from recreation leagues to middle school and finally at the high school level.
Here is wishing individuals and teams the best in their endeavors during this busy fall season.
TV Sports Recordings: Technology has brought us a long way. It used to be that you watched a sports event on television when it happened or it was all over for the viewing. Of course, there were always highlights on news broadcasts. Whole games were hardly ever shown.
Now, reruns of previous day’s events are shown in their entirety (Braves games for instance). Then there are many who record games to be viewed over and over. A good friend records his favorite college basketball games and watches them four or five times. There nothing wrong with that. A few comments are in order.
It has long been a contention here that when the emotion of the moment is going an athletic event has little meaning as far as listening or viewing. Without a doubt, athletic competition offers more universal emotions of the moment than nearly any event in the world. The outcomes of games, great plays or great accomplishments never offer the same emotional high as they do when they are viewed at the moment of happening.
All that has already been said does not suggest there is not any reward at listening or watching an event after the happening or the outcome has been determined. Most of the above comments are intended for all of us who might attend a game or watch it on TV. For players and parents of young athletes there might indeed be a great reward and pride in seeing the young ones play.
Let me conclude by saying that there is no reward in viewing athletics at all for this writer after the event has happened and the outcome has been determined. Life moves on and there are other mountains to climb: but, to each his own.
The Braves and Streaks
As I write on Monday morning, I am looking back at a losing streak our Braves are suffering.
Last week in the section “Baseball and ‘A cup of coffee,” I made reference to the Hall of Fame manager Walt Alston. There is no place better to turn for timely comments on streaks in baseball and other endeavors than Alston.
Way back in 1978, Alston declared in the May 7 issue of the Los Angeles Times, “Fans tend to get too excited by streaks of either kind and I think the press does too. There should be a happy medium.”
Alston further explained himself by saying, “I’d rather win two or three, lose one, and win two or three more. I’m a great believer in things evening out. If you win a whole bunch in a row, somewhere along the line you are going to lose some too.” Aren’t we ready for the streak to turn the other way? It will change.