I just got finished with 31 minutes on the elliptical. The resistance setting on the thing goes to 20. I always use 14. That is plenty. I made the comment to an old friend recently that I need to think about some self-preservation measures. No, I am not admitting my age is a factor. Not having an age is. Fortunately I enjoy working out once I get there and do it. I know the end result is favorable. I will be doing it more often.
My mother’s old high school alma mater, Forest High School in Forest, MS, beat Morton last Friday night. North Harrison plays Corydon Central around these parts for pride and the Big Cat Classic Trophy. Forest and Morton play for the Golden Chicken. Chicken processing means a great deal in Scott County, Mississippi. It is a great place filled with wonderful people.
The North Harrison Cougars host the Batesville Bulldogs Friday night. We finally have some football weather. Cool damp nights. You see your breath. You might have to stomp your feet a little to remind your toes to warm up. You roll your eyes when you see kids with what you deem as not enough clothes on to stay warm. You are glad the Batesville bunch has to drive down to us instead of us having to make the trek to Columbus then hang a right on 46 to get to finally get to Batesville. Nothing against those folks, I can tell you. When Gus and I did the sectional final game on radio there many years ago the folks in the press box were gracious in the extremist. In fact, Gus still brings up the pumpkin roll they offered and we ate.
With North Harrison’s recent success on the gridiron, I am asked now and again what happened. How did the Cougars get so good at football? I remember when I moved to North Harrison in 1979 the folks in this part of the county that didn’t know if a football was filled with air or stuffed with feathers. Then I tell them that North had the good sense to hire me as a school counselor and their football fortunes turned around. Since I have been back on campus the Cougars are 27-4 and still counting on more this season. This I say in jest. I had nothing to do with it. It is just a wonderful, humorous, ironic circumstance that I can sit here and type about. What happened? Well, North Harrison finally decided to make football a priority. What do I mean? I’ll give you one prime example of how we have come a long way, baby.
In 1990 the head coach was a teacher in the middle school and all of his assistants were what we call “lay” coaches. Translation: they did not work at the school. Today we have a head football coach in the school working closely with athletes on a daily basis. There is another football coach in the high school building. There are two other coaches working next door in the middle school. They are not “lay” coaches. A newer kinder school administration, God Bless Them, finally decided football should be given a chance to succeed as other sports had. It is pretty simple, actually. Plus the administration stuck in their thumb and pulled out a plumb when they came by way of Coach Mark Williamson. He is a great football coach. There is not enough room on this page for me to go on about the difference he has made and has been allowed to make. We got the right guy. I am so very thankful for that. I know what I am talking about.
The World Series begins tonight and I am so glad that we will finally see a World Series game that looks like most of the rest of season does: hot! I always thought it was ironic that baseball players spent 3/4 of their season deciding on who would make the playoffs while they played in the summer heat sweating their noodles off. It is supposed to be 100 degrees today in Los Angeles as the most anticlimactic World Series between what I still see as National League West foes go at it in the World Series. By choice, my MLB acumen is planted in a time warp on purpose. Maybe I need to take it with me on the elliptical.
Lastly, Anthony Thompson nearly won the Heisman Trophy in 1989 whilst playing on a 5-6 Indiana University Football team. Had he not been tackled from behind on the punt return late in the 4th quarter and had scored against Purdue, he probably would have. He should have won. The guy that did win was playing on an 9-2 team that was on probation and inflated his stats with a victory over the newly reformed back from the death penalty SMU Mustangs. Houston scored 95 points on SMU and their QB threw for an obscence amount of yardage and TD passes. And to think that the Northeastern curmudgeon, Dick MacPherson, said at the time that Anthony Thompson being a front-runner for the Heisman was a joke. Shame on him.
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson