Then after all of that,
everything happened at Virginia
Tech. Amidst the tragedy one thing rang
true to me again – sports are the great unifier in
this nation. Whenever something bad happens in
this country sports teams are always among the first
to pitch in and help. This week it was the Washington
Nationals playing with Virginia
Tech hats on. Was it a small gesture?
Sure, but it was also very moving and effective.
You can even bring the point closer to home.
When Bluffton
was shocked by the bus crash of March 2nd,
among the first organizations to offer help were the Cleveland
Indians, the Cincinnati
Reds, and the Florida
Marlins. I've brought it up in this space
before, but I am still very touched by the little
league in Atlanta
that got together and brought clothes and other things
that the Bluffton
players needed while they were still in Atlanta.
I think all sports fans remember the weekend after
9-11. No football. No baseball. It
was the right move, but it was certainly very surreal
for a September weekend. Then baseball came back
with moving tribute after moving tribute. No one
was a Yankee hater (for about a month.) Day's
later football game back too. I'll never forget
players tearing out of the tunnel with the American
flag held high or the same players tearing up during
the National Anthem.
When Hurricane Katrina hit I correctly
predicted that New Orleans sports teams would be among
the first to help in recovery efforts.
Little did I know that the entire sports world
would dig so deep. Yeah it was
somewhat shady that the NFL moved a home game for the
Saints to New
York, but they did raise a ton of money during
the telethon and in the end that mattered more.
So what exactly is the point of this babbling?
It's real easy to get roped into negative
sports talk. It happens to
all of this. Whether it's a local
basketball coach or a national talk show host, we tend
to get real riled up about the stupid things, and
completely forget when sports are at their best – at
times when we need comfort
I'm not at all saying that no one else pitches
in. There are countless stories of
charity in times of crisis from all walks of
life. But too often we get to
focusing on the negatives of sports, and talk about
how professional athletes are overpaid jerks, how
coaches don't have a clue, and on and on.
But every so often, when we need something
positive the most – sports are always there for the
pick me up we need. That's
why I was so impressed by the Nationals wearing the VT
hats this week. Was it a huge deal?
No. But it was a nice
reminder that sports will always be there for a boost
when we need them.
(4/6/07 Edition)
What's the worst part of
the football and basketball seasons being over? Is the
fidgety feeling I get on Friday nights? Is it the sinking
feeling that I won't be able to get concession stand popcorn until late August?
Is it missing the cheer of the crowds and excitement of the games?
Nope. It's trying to write a column about northwest
Ohio sports without their being a sport that people either care about or that I
am knowledgeable about going on. That could make this a
challenge for the next couple of months. Then again the title
of the column is "Rocker Corner Rambling" so if I really stretch the
limits of my rambling I should be good to go.
Of course there are a few
interesting things happening with local sports.
Elida and Lima Senior have announced that
they'll be playing each other in basketball again.
Of course this news sent some internet
assassins into a furor from the word go.
I think Todd Walker did a pretty good job of
hashing out why this is a good thing on his 1150
WIMA page.
Rather than restate everything Todd had to say
I figured I would just link to it. I'm
with T-Walk all the way on this one.
Just from a fan standpoint, how can you not
want to see local rivalry games? Isn't
that the fun of high school sports to begin with?
It's great to think about tourney runs and
league titles and the like. It's
also fun to grab some bragging rights.
Besides that it's just one game. Is
losing one game against a potential tournament tune up
that big of a deal? In theory you
get a little bit of a tournament feeling by playing in
front of a rocking crowd. Would it
be tougher to be at the ol' charity stripe with the
game on the line in that situation or in a game
against a team you hardly know halfway across the
state in December?
This is a good thing, and more than that, it's
an exciting thing for the area. I'd
love to see more local match-ups. I
think Ottawa-Glandorf should play Kalida in hoops.
(The two schools pack in the fans for their
annual Saturday night soccer game. Imagine
what would happen if they got together for the
official sport of Putnam County.) Findlay
should play Liberty Benton. Saddam
should play Gomorrah, and on down the line.
I know plenty of people will tell me I'm crazy,
and chances are I am. But for
my money I'd rather see a rivalry game between friends
and family than against some faceless opponent from
somewhere else in the state. There
are plenty of chances to play teams like that in a 20
game season. Bring on the
rivalries.
On that note I'm wrapping up this edition of
'Rambling' a little early. I
don't want to start getting into my grab of gimmick
columns just yet. We've got a long
summer ahead of us.
Doug Jenkins can be read daily at The Doug
Jenkins Sports Blitz.
3/23/2007 Edition
Two weeks have come and gone, and that can only mean one thing – time for me
to slap together a Rocket Corner Rambling at the last possible second! Not
that that’s a bad thing. I’ve been procrastinating since junior high
school and have it practically down to an art at this point. I’m the Da
Vinci of procrastination. First and foremost, let me get this off my chest
– GO BUCKEYES!!! (I wasn’t going to be able to concentrate until
getting that out of the way. Thank you for your understanding.) This
team is taking on some eerie characteristics of the 2002 Ohio State Football
team. (More on that at my
website later today.)
Now down to the meat and potatoes of the day – high
school hoops. I was able to go to the girl’s
state tournament last weekend, which allowed me to do
plenty of basketball and people watching. Just a
few observations:
- People who don’t have a horse in the race root
against Catholic schools like it’s their job. I
don’t feel like getting into the whole “They
recruit – No we don’t” debate right now, but I
think it is fair to say that not every parochial
school actively tries to bring in high class
athletes. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen,
but it doesn’t ALWAYS happen.
I bring it up again and again, and I’ll do it
again: What advantage does going to a small
Catholic school give you in regards to big college
recruiting? The only solid D1 prospect in the
tourney was Cleveland Central Catholic’s Jantel
Lavender, who played in Division 3. From my
standpoint she played on a solid team, but I would
imagine she would have got more college looks had she
gone to a D1 program. (She is going to Ohio State
next year, so it’s probably a moot point.)
If anything, she had more to lose by going to a
smaller school, but in her case she has every shot in
the book from 15 feet in, so getting recruited wasn’t
a problem. If you are a player on the D1 bubble
though, wouldn’t it make more sense to go to a bigger
school that would get more recruiting looks?
- The Delphos St. Johns – Cleveland Central
Catholic match-up was the only exciting game of the
bunch. I really liked the way both teams
played, and was hoping the ‘Jays would pull it off
in the end and bring a title back to northwest Ohio. That
would probably have angered the “Ban the Catholic
Schools!” Crowd around here. Now that makes
me wonder, when to parochial schools play each
other, which team do those people root for? (All
answers will be forwarded to the Pope.)
- During the Division II game Ohio State was playing
Xavier, so about half the people in the
Schottenstein Center were outside of the actual
arena watching the game on TV. When Ron Lewis
drained the game tying three half of the place
erupted while the other half was either confused or
secretly wishing they didn’t have a daughter
playing for a state title at the moment.
- That brings me to another point. Can we stop
lobbying to move the tourney back to St. Johns
Arena? Give me the comforts of the Schott any
day. Good food selection, comfy seats, nice
hospitality areas – why would anyone complain? Don’t
give me the “It doesn’t have the ambiance of an
old gym” argument. I’ve been to plenty of
Buckeye games there and the crowd is always hot. In
some people’s minds anything new will never be
good.
- Here’s one fans of X’s and O’s. The
Division I game was the best possible example of how
a solid team will always beat a team with an
outstanding athlete. Notre Dame had some good
players, but the sum of the team was greater than
the parts. Stowe had some decent players, plus
one outstanding athlete. Guess what? ND’s
defense cut off nearly every one of the athlete’s
(I can’t remember anyone’s name in this game,
you’ll have to forgive me) drives to the hoop with
solid help side defense.
- A couple of the people sitting in my section were
referees, which meant every time the crowd disagreed
with a call we got to hear a 10 minute dissertation
on why everyone was wrong. Fun times! At least
they agreed with me on phantom traveling calls. I
felt vindicated.
- Are you ready for some football (controversy)? What
is going on in and around Lima with high school
football right now? First we had the Bath
transfer flap (which was well chronicled in the
forums here as well as in a previous Rocket Corner
Rambling), now this week Elida non-renewed (read:
fired) Chris Etzler, and Lima Senior’s Ricky
Vaughn resigned.
First the Etlzler deal. I understand that the
ultimate job of a coach is to get wins, but in high
school it goes a bit deeper than that. In many
cases you have to be a father figure or a mentor. In
the times I’ve talked with Chris I’ve got the
impression that he’s a good person to have around a
group of kids, someone they probably can learn from. No,
the wins weren’t there. When have they ever been
there for Elida? He should have gotten one more
crack at it. Not to mention that by brining in a
new coach at this point only serves to submarine the
2007 season anyway. The lesson to aspiring coaches
here is that you should never bench a school board
member’s kid.
As for Ricky Vaughn – I’ll never be convinced he
really wanted to resign. The guy wanted to be the
coach at a Lima Senior that was pretty much left in
shambles from previous regimes. How many coaches
could say that? Not to mention his pool of players
comes from a city where less than half the population
has a high school diploma. Just keeping his players
in school is enough of a challenge. But there was
an undercurrent to get him out, and so seeing the
writing on the wall, Rick decided to leave on his own
terms (kind of like why I decided to shave my head). If
anyone thinks the Spartans will be better because of
this, they are sadly mistaken.
Holy cow this
column has a negative tone. Give me a mulligan on
this one. This is what happens when you watch about
100 basketball games while trying to redesign a website
for the 100th time while trying to write a
story about a billboard ban for the 100th
time for your day job. I’ll be back to my
off-beat self next time I swear.
Doug Jenkins is the News Director of 1150 WIMA and
the writer of The
Doug Jenkins Sports Blitz. You can contact
him at mailto:djsportsblitz@gmail.com.
3/09/2007 Edition
Is
it that hard to watch a player's feet?
My theory is that refs are so concerned with calling
hand checking (another reason to hate the New York Knicks by
the way) on defenders that they never look below a player's
waist. So
when the player with the ball makes some spastic ball fake,
he's automatically guilty of a traveling violation because
in the ref's mind there's no way someone could move like
that without moving both feet.
I
can handle the occasional anticipation call (we're all
human), but this has gone beyond anticipation and has become
accepted practice.
When will the madness end?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back
in the real world (that's what I call my day job as News
Director for Clear Channel Lima) the powers that be decided
that after a year of me being a "one-man-band", it
was time to get me some help.
So they hired me a new news person.
One problem – he's a Michigan fan.
When
I first learned of this I tried to stop the hiring, but
apparently Michigan fans are protected. Something
about the Americans with Disabilities Act…
Seriously
though I'm excited about having some help in the news room
and I think Simon will be a great addition, despite his
sports fan short comings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If
you've been to my
site lately (visit
daily!) you obviously have noticed my love for the month of
March. One
thing I haven't mentioned is my favorite destination this
time of year: The Elida Fieldhouse.
If
you are a fan of basketball and don't have a high school
team left in the running, you owe it to yourself to make a
pilgrimage to at least one tournament game there.
I don't know what it is, but walking into that
building before a high school tournament game always gets my
heart beating a little faster.
Part
of the mystique is the teams that go through there in their
respective brackets. You
couldn't ask for better teams and fan bases.
The place is always rocking.
Part of it is because my first experiences there were
amazing. (The
Melanie Schroeder ¾ court shot to beat Ottoville was the
first basketball game I did play-by-play for to end on a
buzzer beater, not to mention it was probably one of the
best basketball games I have ever seen; boys or
girls…) And
another part of it is just the building.
For whatever reason it just smells like what March
should smell like in Fieldhouse.
(That probably only made sense to me)
Anyway,
I didn't get a chance to catch any games there last year, so
I'll be in attendance Saturday night to cheer on Ottoville.
(If they win I promise to Dave Kleman and all Big
Green fans I'll stop bringing up the Schroeder shot…)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm
going to let you in on a little behind the scenes info on
the morning show staff at WIMA.
Off the air we speak to each other almost exclusively
using quotes from "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron
Burgundy". This
morning I gave everybody two tickets to the gun show.
I just thought you should know that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've
probably gone over this before, but can something be done
about the sheer volume of cheerleaders at basketball games
these days? At
least two schools I went to this year had three times as
many cheerleaders as they did basketball players.
Is this necessary?
I'm proposing two rules:
1.
Cheerleading squads can only have five members.
There are only five players on the court for a team
so why would you have more cheerleaders than that when they
are supposedly there to support the team?
2.
Cheerleaders will defer to the student section for
chants. I've
been advocating this for years.
Student sections are creative and funny. Let
them do the heavy lifting.
Along
the same lines I'm also proposing that the "entrance
cheers" be trimmed to 15 seconds in length.
Let the team get out and warm up for the love of God.
(I
wrote an article about why I would eliminate cheerleading
last year that got some pom-poms in a ruffle.
You can read it here.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I
hate to end on a serious and sad note, but because I've
spent the last week covering the Bluffton Baseball tragedy I
feel like I should address it.
Everything that can be said about the accident has
been said, so I'll only add a little.
Amidst all the chaos there were two stories that
really caught my attention and were immediately added to my
list of reasons to love sports.
Apparently
after the crash, a youth baseball league in Atlanta gathered
clothes to give to the players while they had to be in
Georgia. These
kids didn't even know where the heck Bluffton was, but felt
compelled to help because of one common link they had.
They were baseball players, there were other baseball
players who needed help, so they helped.
That one got me for some reason.
Also
as reports started coming out last Friday, word was that
after some of the players got out of the bus, they turned
around to go back in to get their teammates.
When people argue that we as a society place too much
emphasis on sports they should take a look at what sports do
for the people who play them.
I don't know if a group of random strangers would go
back into a bus with gas leaking all over, but teammates
always will.
That's proof enough to me that sports matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Doug
Jenkins off-beat views on sports can be read everyday at The
Doug Jenkins Sports Blitz…
2/23/07 Edition
Welcome to another
edition of Rocket Corner Rambling. I hope you all survived
the apocalypse last week to enjoy the final night of the regular season for high
school boy's basketball. After putting in some extended
overtime, I'm ready to watch some hoops. On with the
show…
I might as well start off with the biggest
controversy of the moment, that being the flap over Todd Rugley transferring
from Bath to LCC. I won't comment on whether or not I think
it was a recruiting deal, because I honestly have no idea. (That
and I'd rather not deal with any libel suits.) I will
say that neither side in this debate is really in the right. Let me break it
down for you…
First, let's talk about the
people from Bath who are in an uproar and are calling for
the superintendent's head. These
people need to take a deep breath and reevaluate.
I understand being frustrated about losing your
star running back to another school, but how does the
superintendent play into any of this? He
signed an athletic release. That's
it. I think it's safe to say that
he didn't go to the Ruggley family and say, "Hey man,
this program's going nowhere, why don't you get out while
the getting is good?" I
really don't get what he was supposed to do here.
So again, calm down, Bath has a good coach in Todd
Clark (you can't go wrong with a University of Findlay
graduate, no that I'm biased or anything), and while
losing Ruggley will hurt, the world will continue to spin
on its axis.
Now to the flip side of the
coin. If (and this is a big if because
no one really knows for sure) the transfer was completely
for athletic reasons, then I simply don't get it.
I understand that LCC is becoming a football power
and that Bath, while improving, won't be contending for a
league title next year. Is that really
a reason to leave?
Losing isn't fun, but leaving
all the people you grew up with before your senior year
seems a bit extreme to me. Believe
me, I know losing. Back in high
school my soccer team (That's right, soccer. Deal
with it) won only one game (against Bath ironically
enough) in three years. Despite
the fact I had a chance to play some D3 ball I don't think
I would have ever thought of leaving to maybe play
D2. I don't think I could have
ever left my friends on the team behind.
I don't see this helping his
college options that much. Ruggley is a
D3, maybe a D2 prospect. At that
level playing for a team that wins it league doesn't
really make much of a difference.
The public outcry got me to
thinking, and it reminds me of the book Friday Night
Lights. I just read it a couple
of months ago for the first time, and it was a great
read. It perfectly describes how
important football is to the heartland. It
also does a pretty good job of showing how it can bring
people together and tear them apart. If
you haven't read it yet, then I'm taking away your license
to watch sports.
Along the same lines, I'm also taking away your sports fan
license if you aren't watching Friday Night Lights on
NBC. It already has supplanted 24
as my must see show every week. The
characters are great, with the exception of the
cheerleader Lyla Garrity. But her
role has been toned down quite a bit in the last few
weeks, making her only completely annoying.
(Believe me, this is a downgrade. After
the first few shows I considered buying the rights to the
domain www.kill-lyla.com.
She was that bad.)
Anyway, this may be the first show where I actually get
mad if it gets cancelled. I try not to
develop attachments to TV shows, because aside from the
fact that people who get emotionally attached to TV shows
are creepy, network execs will never EVER allow a quality
show that gets low ratings to stay on. I'm
really surprised Friday Night Lights is still running
after it stumbled out of the blocks.
I briefly considered writing
this entire column in an illiterate fashion.
After perusing some of the OG threads this week I
was stating to think the highest form of comedy was to
pretend to be an uneducated redneck. However,
by Thursday there seemed to be a backlash against posting
that way so I scrapped the idea.
Also,
for those of you who listen to OG games on 106.3 and
wonder why I don't bring up things posted on the internet,
ask yourself how dumb the following would sound:
Me:
"Butch, I talked to anonymous web fan
'SprSprtFn1212', and he said that everyone at his favorite
bar agrees that the team should win by at least 100 points
tonight…"
Butch:
"Um… ok then."
I want to give a quick shout
out (that's what all the kids are saying these days) to my
Indian Lake Lakers. The girl's team
finished the season #1 in the AP Poll, and I think that's
the first time any sports team from my old stomping
grounds has done that. Unfortunately
for the Lady Lakers, their accomplishments will always be
in the shadow of the Cheerleading National Title (Division
#356B Non-Mount Class) that they brought home from Florida
a couple of years ago. It's a sad
statement of priorities really.
Now onto the most important
matter of this column; popcorn at basketball games.
We've really reached a crisis in terms of schools
that actually sell good popcorn anymore.
I could accept sub-par popcorn when most schools
were charging 50 cents a bag. But
in the day and age of 75 cent and even dollar popcorn, I
expect perfection. It's not hard
people: light salt, don't scorch
it, and don't let it sit too long. That's
it. Yet I've had to deal with eating
the equivalent of Styrofoam packing peanuts too many times
to count this year. I'll play the
homer role for a second; Ottawa-Glandorf does a damn fine
job of making popcorn. They should
start a consulting firm or something.
Finally, we end on a sad
note. Celtics great Dennis
Johnson passed away yesterday. I'm
a little too young to remember many Celtics games, but I
think most basketball fans love the Larry
Bird steal, pass to DJ for the lay-up to win
combo. Take some time to watch a
YouTube clip of it today.
That does it for this week's Rocket Corner Rambling.
Be sure to check out the updated Doug
Jenkins Sports Blitz
Website. Questions or comments?
Click
Here. Have
a great weekend!
02/09/07 Edition
Welcome
to the first installment of “Rocket Corner Rambling”.
Every other Friday I’ll be writing about the latest issues in Ohio
Sports, from High School to the Pro’s. I’ll
also be covering what people are talking about in the Rocket Corner forums.
Of course since I’m doing the writing, you can expect some off-color
and random remarks about just anything. Hopefully
this will develop into a feature you will look forward to twice a month.
At the very least it will have less typo’s
than my average column or blog. On
with the show...
1.
Ohio
State
beat
Michigan
in basketball this week, and hardly anybody has said
anything about it. I
don’t mean to start this column’s life by scolding the
readers, but that is a bad job by
Ohio
State
fans. I
understand the Wolverines haven’t exactly been
world-beaters for about a decade or so, but still…
When UM was handing the Buckeyes their backside every
season in football we still considered it a rivalry, right?
Where
were the posters on the web reminding
Michigan
fans that they haven’t been relevant in hoops since the Fab
Five, and they were a bunch of cheats?
Where was the build up to the game?
I’m very disappointed in the Buckeye Nation right
now.
Remember,
just because the Wolverines are dangerously tip-toeing the
Notre-Dame line of irrelevance, doesn’t mean the evil
isn’t still out there.
We must be vigilant in our fight against the state up
north. I’ll
get off my soapbox now...
2.
Funny Rocket Corner Stat that I
may be Imagining:
The thread about the
Lima
vs. Ottawa CYO game has seen more talk than the thread about
the Lima Senior vs. Ottawa-Glandorf
game back in December.
I think the lesson here is that the amount of
interest in a game in inversely proportional to that of the
length of the names of the teams competing.
3.
Shawnee
and Van Wert will go at it for the Western Buckeye League
Title tonight, and it should no doubt be a heck of a game.
Of course I said that about last week’s OG-VW game;
and it wasn’t much of a heck of a game.
If Van Wert wins the turnover battle, I say they get
the win. The
Cougars thrive by letting other teams beat themselves, and
then letting Morrow make the opposition pay for not taking
care of the ball. However,
if the Indians take care of the ball, they will score points
in bunches, which will be tough for the Cougars to keep pace
with. My
prediction… The
WBL will be over after tonight.
(Probably wouldn’t be ethical of me to pick since I
call WBL games on the radio.)
4.
The Cincinnati Reds signed
Bronson Arroyo and Aaron Harang
to extensions this week, which means the club
has locked up slightly better than mediocre pitching in
their one and two guys for the rest of the decade.
Not that ‘m against the signings.
You have to start somewhere, and both Harang
and Arroyo are serviceable in the National League.
I’m especially happy about the Arroyo signing, as
he doubles as my favorite Red of the moment.
I’m a fan partially because he is a borderline
legitimate starting pitcher, and partially because of the
“Bronson Arroyo covers ‘Slide’ by the Goo
Goo Dolls music video” that
they played before games at Great American last season.
It was both unintentionally funny and good at
the same time.
5.
The Cleveland Browns signed the
rest of their coaching staff this week.
Let me tell you how this will play out.
The defense will play well to start off the season,
the call will go out for Romeo’s head, he’ll get fired
and replaced by the defensive coordinator and the Browns
will rifle off a couple of wins in the aftermath.
Browns fans will clamor for Todd Grantham to be named
the next head coach, and people will make the irrational
debate that
Cleveland
should hire Grantham of Bill Cowher.
The best part
of being a Browns fan is the ability to see the future…
6.
Not an
Ohio
sports note, but Wade Phillips was hired as the head coach
of the Cowboys. This
is great news for many reasons, the best being that the
Cowboys will be doomed to mediocrity for a couple of
seasons.
Dallas
should have hired Mike Singletary.
I have no stats to back up that claim, but I’ve
hired him as my defensive coordinator for my Madden dynasty
and it’s working out well.
That’ll do it for the first edition of Rocket Corner
Rambling. Next
time I’ll go for a solid 10, even if it means giving
detailed accounts of that one NHL game I watched part of
this year. That
was fun.
Doug Jenkins is the author of The
Doug Jenkins Sports Blitz, as well as the Play-by-play
broadcast of Ottawa-Glandorf
sports on 106.3 The Big Buck.
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