SportsEd

For the record, which is something that no school board member would say, I absolutely, positively, 100 percent DO NOT CARE how good or bad these teams are, nor do I welcome the changes going on currently on either the women's or men's side. I can see why they came about, but if they hadn't, I really wouldn't have cared. If you think I was "fed up" with the state of affairs in both basketball teams, or any other team, for that matter (other than the choking-in-the-first-round Cubs), you're SORELY mistaken. So thanks for trying to read my mind, but as I've had to tell many others over the past few months when they tried to assume how "disgusted" I "had to be" by covering all those losses: Whether they win the state title or don't win a single game, my check doesn't go up a dime. With that said, I do appreciate you for reading the paper. Thanks, Rob Nunley (Sportsed) P.S.: In case you still think I'm lying about my apathy, look to the left of the screen and see how long I've been a member, and how few posts I've actually made. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

You're welcome; looks like WC will go to Cookeville next week. I can't believe how few posts I've made in the past (nearly) eight years, but I sure enjoy reading all you guys' comments. Well, almost all /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Oakland 45, WCHS 19... WC only 3 points (all FT's) in second half, no points at all in 3rd quarter.

Hey, hoop, write any letters lately? Just curious. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Got a nice long letter at the office today; too bad it was another one of those anonymous things, with no one's name at the end -- otherwise we might have been able to run it. I'll spare the details, but it was the same ol' complaints, and it will generate the same ol' response. Nice try, though. And I don't care what team you are; until you get players that can hit lay-ups, and prevent opponents from doing the same, you're going to struggle.

Here's the coaching rule from the TSSAA handbook. I keep it saved on my computer for just such an occasion. You're looking for Part 3, sections B and C in particular. Coaches Section 9. All coaches will fall under one of the following categories: 1. Full-time employee (a minimum of 100 school days) of a board of education with a Tennessee state teaching license or the equivalent. 2. Retired educator (five or more years' experience) with a valid Tennessee state teaching license or the equivalent. 3. Non-faculty coach - - Anyone approved by the principal, superintendent, and/or local board of education in the normal course of employment procedures in accordance with applicable state law. All non-faculty coaches shall be submitted to the state office annually. Use of a non-faculty coach who has not met all the requirements listed below or who has not been submitted to the state office shall result in a fine of $500.00. A. The position shall be advertised and no full-time employee with a teaching license who meets the qualifications required for coaching the specific sport in question is available. B. Head coaches in football, basketball, baseball, girls' softball, and track and field must be full-time employees or a retired educator (see #1 and #2 above). C. Head coaches in girls' volleyball, cross country, golf, wrestling, tennis, girls' soccer, soccer, and bowling may be full-time employees, retired educators, or a non-faculty coach. A non-faculty head coach must take the ASEP Coaches Education Course in a TSSAA-approved course within two years of assuming the head coaching position. He/She must complete the TSSAA Online Coaches Training Session within the first year of assuming the position. D. Assistant coaches may be full-time employees, retired educators, or non-faculty coaches. If a school is using a non-faculty coach as an assistant, they are limited to three assistant coaches in football, and two assistant coaches in basketball, baseball, softball, and track. Two non-faculty coaches, one of whom may be a head coach, may be used in golf, cross country, volleyball, soccer, wrestling, bowling, and tennis. E. A person who has served as a non-faculty assistant coach in football, basketball, baseball, girls' softball, and track may become a head coach in that sport if that person has five or more years of experience as an assistant coach and has taken the ASEP Coaches Education Course in a TSSAA-approved course and completed the TSSAA Online Coaches Training Session. F. All non-faculty assistant coaches must complete the ASEP Coaches Education Program in a TSSAA-approved course within two years of his/her employment and must complete the TSSAA Online Coaches Training Session within the first year of his/her employment. G. All non-faculty coaches and all first-year teachers who are coaching are required to complete the TSSAA Online Coaches Training Session during their first year of employment. Failure to attend will result in a fine of $50.00 and the coach must complete the TSSAA Online Coaches Training Session immediately or the school will face further disciplinary action. H. All coaches are subject to the TSSAA rules and regulations and must conduct themselves in a manner becoming of a coach and representative of the school. All coaches are responsible to the principal of his/her school. Coaches must be paid entirely from funds approved by the board of education or the governing board of the school.

That'd be a resounding YES. Great effort vs. the Cavs, only to fall short in DOUBLE OT 83-77. Four starters fouled out for WC, including Weir on some questionable player control calls. Got to hit those freebies, Pioneers, but way to put up a great fight.

I saw the freshman game tonight, and I think Siegel is going to be very happy with the personnel they put on the field for the next few years. Congrats to the Stars. Who won the second game?

I covered Forrest through the 96-97 school year for the Daily News Journal (back in the Jaybird Mealer and T.J. Tipps days), and they've always had great fan support and well-coached young men and ladies. Good luck Rockets and Lady Rockets!

As a fan, I'd like to see them win. As a reporter, it doesn't matter to me one way or the other. As far as "stirring the pot" about anything "without concern of what people think," if you've got an issue you want to bring up in my -- or any other -- paper, send a letter to the editor. All you need is a topic, 300 or less words, and your real name.

Bitterness abounds. But when it's all said and done the best we all can say is go get 'em girls, give it all you've got, and leave it at that.

I just looked at the box score, and two things are clear from it: Antioch didn't knock down a whole lot of 3's, and the point totals dropped dramatically in the second half. That means they "pulled off the dogs." In a lot of games, a struggling team (and I've seen plenty) can't help but turn the ball over, and you can't stop your players from catching an errant pass, etc., and driving in for uncontested shots. Didn't see the game in question, of course, but I'll bet that's where much of Antioch's huge total came from.

After two strong showings against Blackman and Lebanon, a 65-33 loss to previously winless Tullahoma tonight. Sounded like this three-games-a-week deal showed its wear on a very young WC team. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the month.

Wow. I couldn't disagree more with those two statements.

Congrats on a good win, Falcons. And it's good to see that Ramsey is OK. (Note: I normally don't go around congratulating every team that wins on Friday nights, but since I was the only one to pick LCHS in our 'Pigskin Panel' in this week's paper -- WAY TO GO!)

It was so late in the game, and everyone was in such a hurry, I think everyone in the stadium forgot the down, including Coach Olive, the WC coaches, the chain gang, and everybody else in the stadium. The intentional grounding that was waved off had us all screwed up, maybe. Who knows? But I spent five minutes staring at my notes, wondering how I had messed up, before one of the Tullahoma radio guys and I compared notes and found that yes, WC did have two fourth-down tries. Good, exciting game by both sides. Good luck to the Cats the rest of the way through their season, and congrats on a 3-0 run against teams from Region 3-5A.

Let's tweak the topic of this a bit, to "What's really wrong with (insert any high school here) football." 1. Teams lose, and their fans hate it. 2. Parents look at their kids and see NFL, when in reality they should see JV. 3. When the team happens to lose, the parents (whose kids, remember, will all be going pro after 4-year SEC careers) are embarrassed, and comfort the players by telling them "It's OK, if the school would get you a decent coach, I'm sure you would've made that block/not missed that tackle/caught that pass/won that game." 4. Come Monday, since the players are firmly convinced the loss had nothing to do with their performance, they could give two flips about what coaches try to teach them in preparation for the next game. How would the coach know what he's talking about, after all? "Dad told me my coach was BAD, and Dad should know since he played high school ball/coached my pee-wee team/hangs out in the stands with an ex-coach. So why should I listen to what this bad coach has to teach me?" 5. The following game, when the player now not only has a lack of natural talent but is backing it up with a healthy dose of ATTITUDE, he could care even less about his team's success than he did last week. Dad, in the stands and now so into his own story about the "poor" coaching staff that he's in his own twisted plane of reality, now views his son's, and his son's teammates', poor performance and is even more firmly convinced he's correct about everything being the fault of the coaches, or the people who hired them. He checks the scores in the paper the following day and sees a win by the team coached by Candidate A from four years ago, who wanted the job but didn't get it (@#@%# POLITICS!!!), and that bizarro-world sense of reality kicks in again, whereby he's NOW convinced that that former coaching candidate has the SAME PLAYERS that his son's team has. "SEE?!?! We'd have won if we had Coach A on the sidelines!" Since we're quoting Sci-Fi characters in previous posts, let's paraphrase Han Solo: "We're out of a few games, and everybody starts getting delusions of grandeur!" Of course, the above scenario does not apply to every player, be it at Warren Co. or any other school. But if you think it's not happening, all over the country, on every Friday night, you're fooling yourself. Sorry if that went on for a bit; but i've gone without posting for a couple of years now, and have been dying to get that off my chest. Thanks for reading; now feel free to reply and tell me how dumb I am.

The on-field and in-stands reaction when that first lightning bolt hit was classic! I saw Underhill's dad with a video camera before the game, I hope he got Jordan's homer (too bad it didn't count), but I REALLY hope he got the "duck-and-cover" in the top of the third! I'd love to see that. And alas, my first-ever stint as the Pioneers' public address announcer got cut short. Regular press box crew will be back in action Wednesday night, and anyone in McMinnville that can't come out to the game can tune in to 1230-WAKI AM or check out Channel 1 if you have BLTV. Keep me at home Friday night, Pioneers! It's hero time!

Ouch, man. Very 'ouch.' Coach Holt called me at 4, and said we're definitely on. And I'm substituting on P.A. because the radio guys are doing election coverage, so I'm working on my mic voice as we speak. Good luck to both teams, and remember, as Henry Rollins so eloquently said: "Hero time starts right now!"

Nothing against Sparta, but if that game the Pioneers coughed up against them costs them a chance to host, Warren Countians might just move up through Doyle and stage an invasion Wednesday night to get some revenge! Thanks, David, for the info. And what a season it's been! Should make for a hum-dinger of a tournament. Here's hoping Ramsey Field sees some action after Tuesday night.

Sorry. Told you i wasn't good at this. So if they win, and both Blackman and Oakland lose, all four teams will finish 7-7 in a big nasty tie for 2nd place. This is why there is a David Limbaugh. You know he's loving this, especially with his Warriors just waiting for the car wreck behind them to clear out.

Good question. But even if they win tomorrow and Oakland, Blackman and Warren all lose, Siegel was swept by Blackman AND Oakland, so I think that puts them out of the mix. I think. All this makes me do a lot of thinking. Can anyone else smell wood burning? Neil Robinson went 6 and 1/3 for Siegel, gave up seven hits and fanned 8. Not sure if any of the runs were earned, but at first look, i think just two were. Final score was 5-1 Warren.

OK, now it's a final. Coty Grissom nailed down the save, fanning Medlock and getting Tobitt to line out to 2nd after hitting a guy after two straight errors and loading the bases. So here are my questions: With Blackman, Oakland and Warren all winning on Monday, am I correct that if all three win again on Tuesday, Warren gets 2nd based on its sweep of Oakland and Oakland's sweep of Blackman? I'm pretty sure of the following. Correct me if I'm wrong: * If Warren and Oakland win and Blackman loses, Warren gets 2nd based on its Oakland sweep. * If Oakland and Blackman win and Warren loses, Oakland takes 2nd based on its Blackman sweep. * If Warren and Blackman win and Oakland loses, Warren gets 2nd based on Oakland's sweep of Blackman. * If either wins and the other two lose, the winner is 2nd based on record. Does that make sense? Help me out, David!

Not yet. Couple of boots by the WC shortstop got Killian chased from the mound. Tying run at the plate for Siegel, bases loaded.

Got a little premature with my scenarios there... let's make sure Warren Co. nails this one down, then I'll ask my questions.