TryNotToSuck

TSSAA was low on funds and they had to find a way to come up with $11,000 to give Gene Menees his retirement gift, so they decided to fine Melrose to receive that money for Gene's gift.

Yeah, JCM went from missing a field goal in the Quarterfinals to win it against Milan, to dropping 5th is nonsense. JCM will beat Union City, and I expect them to beat Peabody as well. Huntingdon, JCM, and Milan are the 3 playoff teams in that 2A region. Peabody/Union City will be the 4th. Union City won't have the speed to keep with up with JCM. Too much turnover going on at Peabody right now. Let's move to 1A: Hayden Williams has improved offenses each year from a scoring standpoint. In 2021, Bolivar averaged 12.5 points a game on offense, went up to 21.7 points in 2022, and then 33.5 points in 2023. Humboldt only scored 11.8 points per game in 2023, and that's with their big offensive lineman that's at whatever school he is at. In 2024, Humboldt scored 24.5 a game. When you looked at Humboldt's schedule, they only lost to Greenfield by 7, and beat Gleason by 2. With Williams getting a full offseason under his belt, have a better understanding of what his athletes can do. Won't shock me if they're able to score close to 32-35 points a game offense based on Williams' track record. I won't be surprised if Humboldt finishes 2nd in region, obviously they'll have to challenge Lake for that spot. Humboldt does need to solve things with their middle school program and make sure they get that in check. I'm curious to see what will happen because there might be some hope back in southwestern Gibson County. And if Humboldt is good, West Tennessee football is good.

Dyer County job is open.

You pumped your chest out about this matchup on a Friday night in the second week of April with Huntingdon (I'm assuming to get all the Huntingdon fans fired up). Your team lost the game, and you immediately jumped to another sport that no one cares about in April. That is some fake coward talk.

I don't have Westview as a top 5 team in West Tennessee right now. They may not even be a top 10 or 12 team if you include Shelby County. The .350 batting average is a good batting average, but stats can be altered at the baseball level to "uplift" a team or player. Huntingdon is the best team and I do expect them and Loretto to compete for it all. Won't be surprised if Scotts Hill, Adamsville, or Riverside can all make another deep run, which is the region for them. McKenzie went for the World Series 2 weeks ago by throwing Surber against Huntingdon, and the Rebels still couldn't win the game. Wasn't even Huntingdon's best game as they made 4 errors on defense. McKenzie gets to have the luxury (same as Bolivar) to save their best pitchers for non-district games. The problem with Westview is district. The district is down. Ripley is down, not sure what's going on with Gibson County and Peabody. Milan can compete, but the depth of their pitchers took a big hit. They lost one of their pitchers in December, and lost starting catcher with a leg injury about 3 weeks ago. As we all know, baseball is a funny game at the high school level.

He reportedly turned down multiple offers from schools throughout the state, even some in Alabama. I knew when Lexington announced the "stadium renovation" plan in the summer of 2023, they were getting ready to throw everything at Jacobs in hoping he would accept that job. Not sure if it happened in reality, but it wasn't a secret in L-Town that 2023 was going to be Hollingsworth's last season prior to their first game. I am extremely happy for Jacobs, and me have the best job in all of education (outside of a few superintendent jobs) in West Tennessee. USJ has an amazing person and a great leader. I also hope that coaches across America find efficient ways to study film. I understand where he is coming from in the article. But I hope coaches don't spend time away from their family and their kid(s) events to study film. At the end of the day, it's a kids game we're talking about. No point in getting burned out over watching Huntingdon (for an example) when everyone knows what 5 plays they're going to run.

Jackson Christian is available

Not today at the high school level. Just half to rely on the clock operator to stop the clock immediately, not the technology we see where the clock stops when the whistle is blown because of the technology they have at the college level.

Not sure how many officials Jackson has sent to state because I can honestly careless about D-2 basketball, unless USJ or TCA participates in the state championship in Cookeville. However, in the last 3 years, Jackson had sent officials that have all officiated the boys tournament in Murfressboro. Obviously, they can't call the girls state tournament games that involved the "Jackson schools" that are in the association, but not sure why they've done the boys and not the girls. But there hasn't been an official that has participated in the girls tournament that I'm not familiar with in terms of names.

To my knowledge, Casey Prather (North Side) and Robert Hobbs (Dyer County) are the last two players across West Tennessee that went to play SEC ball out of High School. Varnado (Haywood) played at Troy, he graduated high school 10 years ago. You also have Willie Kemp and Wayne Chism from Bolivar. I can't think of anyone else that went to play major college basketball as well, especially recently. When you think of Memphis players, there's not any elite NBA talent in the city. Kim Jones went to ECS and played at Marquette. Matthew Murrell is from Memphis and is playing at Ole Miss, but they're not NBA potential players. It's just the talent is not there. Simple as that.

@pioneer42 hit on the head that the Jackson association is a good association for basketball officials. I do believe it's also a good association for football officials and even baseball umpires. Football could used some more younger guys, but the baseball one is pretty solid, especially with their top-tier umpires. The people in the Jackson area should be blessed to have them. Ego, to me, is a funny word. Everybody that has some form of success, has some ego in their bones. I'm sure Danny Hurley has a massive ego at UCONN. Since, we are in March Madness, I'm sure college basketball officials that travel throughout the southeast calling SEC games on Tuesday nights, and calling American (or another conference) on Wednesday's have an ego as well. Those guys will officiate anywhere between 70-85+ games in a season. I'm sure college football officials that have worked in D-3, and made their progress to the D-1 level have some type of ego as well. Ego is something that has always been here, and won't leave. I think training is based on each individual. I workout at a gym, and I know someone I see that also workout about 3-4 days a week, and has good health and is in good shape. He officiates High School football and umpires baseball as well. To see the amount of work he puts in the gym is an appreciation for me. Sometimes, I see him at games I attend. While he may not get every call right on the grindiron, or call every pitch exactly right behind the plate, he seems like a guy that enjoys officiating and does well in the communication part with players and coaches. For that reason, I respect him. If people want an association or a state to do "training" as a group for their officials, then keep dreaming. If it didn't happened 10 years ago, it won't happen today.

It’s always a topic, and has been for years. I remember South Side was on the verge of being eliminated, until they were hit with a technical foul. After that T, the whole game flipped and South Side basically shot over 2X more free throws than their opponent (and it wasn’t like 6-3 either. More 24-12 in disparity). South Side ended up winning the game, and eventually went on to win State* I know basketball is a tough sport to officiate, but I’m positive there has to be a meeting or what not prior to the tournament, to see what the state wants these officials to call. Someone recommend having all 3 officials from the same area, and I think that’s the best option, even though some associations are going to have to skip out a year of sending someone (or a group of people) to state. Just questioning the officiating at the end of each girls state tournament is getting tired.

Yes, and they have done that in years past for football. However, this past season (2024) they started doing an “All-Star crew” meaning that each individual official will represent their association, and that’ll create a crew. So, there was a game or two in Chattanooga this past December that had a crew that each individual ref lived throughout the state, not “well, all these officials are from Memphis or Knoxville” so they’re representing either Memphis or their Knoxville association.

I feel like that’s already happening today, and has been in a while.

And what sucks for Clarksburg is they’re trying to make small investments towards their athletic programs. Example: they added lights to their baseball/softball fields. Something that is not cheap nowadays, especially for a small school like Clarksburg. For Bruceton, they do what’s best for what they have.