The Locker Room

The cream of the cream of the crop

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:10:17 -0500

The East-West games are always interesting to cover - a remarkable amount of talent playing with the right mix of intensity and light-heartedness. They're also a reminder of just how competitive it is to advance athletically. Glenn's Kendall Smith, the Piedmont Triad 3-A player of the year, passed on the chance to play basketball at schools like VMI and UNC Asheville in favor of the Parks Scholarship (full academic) at N.C. State. (See audio slideshows of Smith and Grimsley's Trumae Lucas here.) Thomas Driver and David DuPont of Grimsley, both first-team all-area soccer selections for a team that advanced to the state finals, won't be on scholarship come fall. DuPont will attend UNC, and Driver will try to walk-on at UNC-Wilmington. Even the Alderin-Fleagle soccer twins from East Forsyth - Kristin and Ashley - said they said they still hope to play somewhere bigger than Limestone College, where they'll both be this fall. The lesson: If you pin your hopes on the NBA, it helps to have a winning lottery ticket in your back pocket. Other thoughts from the last two nights: -Man, Lucas is fun to watch. She was really the only player in the East-West Game who could create her own shot off the dribble, and she did it unflinchingly with the game on the line. She's about as fearless a point guard as you'll see. -Secily Ray of Thomasville will be a very good player at Wake Forest. A first-team all-area selection for us this season, she's got a long body and very good control of it. She's 5'11" and can operate inside and outside, so it'll be interesting to see what position she settles into in college. -West guard Cameron Sealey, who's headed to Lenoir Rhyne via East Gaston, was the most impressive non-local player in the girls game. She was flying all over the place like her scholarship depended on it. -I still can't figure out why the boys soccer game had to end in a draw last night. It seems these players, parents, coaches and fans invest too much for as anticlimactic a final score as nil-nil. Can't we arrange a sudden death shootout or a game of musical chairs? Give me some closure here!

Falling forward

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:44:36 -0500

Not to crash your summer vacation or anything, but have you realized that fall sports are right around the corner? We're two weeks away from the first day of football practice, at which point the pads get strapped on, the popcorn machines get fired up and marching bands everywhere start rehearsing "Rubberband Man" again. All other fall sports can start practicing a week later on August 8. Help us get ready. Who are the players and teams to watch?

It's a small, eerily small world

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:37:39 -0500

I just got off the phone with new Eastern Guilford boys basketball coach Dion Lansdale, who I'll have a story on tomorrow. I introduced myself and asked him how the move from San Antonio has gone. Eventful, he said, what with a wife, five kids and a dog in tow. "I know how that goes," I said. "I just moved here from Detroit not too long ago." "Oh, really?" he said. "Where in Detroit?" "North suburbs," I said. "Near Grosse Pointe?" "Yeah, I grew up in St. Clair Shores." "I spent two years near there." "No kidding." "Yeah, and my best friend still coaches up in Macomb County." "No way. That's where my family is now." "He was with Chippewa Valley Schools." "That was my district." "He was the coach at Dakota." "Adam Demorest! Are you kidding me?" It was the basketball coach from my high school, a guy who opened up the gym for me countless times. Lansdale said they met in fifth grade, were college roommates and talk pretty much every day. How weird is that?

It's downtime for high school sports...right?

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:00:37 -0500

Summer. Sunshine. Swimming pools. And enough hot dogs to make you forget about your lack of exercise. (Running after the ice cream truck doesn’t count.) Uh huh. Try telling that to the kids who play a sport. They’re competing in organized scrimmages for their school. Or traveling around to AAU events, Colt League games and tennis tournaments. Or going through tailor-made workout programs, as my colleague Robert Bell wrote about last month. In the ever more competitive world of sports, the term “off-season” is becoming less and less relevant. What do you think about that? Is it a good thing that student-athletes stay so committed to their crafts? Or are we pushing them to sacrifice too much of their free time? A little bit of both, I’d say. While you ponder that, I’ve got a Sno Cone to chase after.

Best of the best

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:38:08 -0500

Do you smell what we've got cooking? (No, I'm not referring to the apple crisp I baked all by myself last night, even though my mom is so proud.) I'm talking about our All-Area teams for the three spring sports - baseball, softball and girls soccer - set to run in the paper this Sunday, June 29. The voting is all done by coaches, so please direct any complaints toward them. If you're pleased with how things come out, though, I'll be happy to take the credit.

Gone fishin'

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 11:51:42 -0500

If I were to tell you that a U.S. state is about to become the first in the country to host a bass fishing tournament sponsored by the state high school athletic association, which one would you guess it is? Probably not Illinois, right? But indeed, it is the Prairie State that will crack the nation's seal on varsity high school fishing next spring, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. I'm no fishing enthusiast - my head nearly exploded once when I interviewed a professional fisherman and he told me his equipment of choice was a "green-pumpkin Zoom Super Chunk trailer" - but Illinois seems a curious place for this sport to make its national debut. This site lists 104 freshwater lakes in Illinois - isn't Minnesota supposed to have, say, 8,896 more than that? And as our esteemed photo editor Rob Brown commented, "How did Illinois do this before North Carolina?" But perhaps I shouldn't be wondering that too loudly. If we had to put together an All-Area Fishing Team, I'd be dead in the water.

Calling all college-bound athletes

Mon, 19 May 2008 10:52:11 -0500

We try to keep up with all the local athletes who are moving on to play a sport after high school, but with so many of you, some inevitably slip through the cracks. (If y'all would just stop being so talented, we wouldn't have this problem.) If we've missed you for whatever reason, leave a comment here or shoot me an e-mail so we can get caught up.

Lost behind the helmet

Thu, 08 May 2008 14:05:20 -0500

One anecdote that didn't make it in today's piece on new Smith football coach Rodney Brewington: As the story mentions, one of Brewington's uncles, Ronald Medlin, is the head athletic trainer for the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. Brewington spent so much time around the team growing up that he says he got on a first-name basis with many of the players. It wasn't always that way, though. Once, a teenaged Brewington was in the training room while his uncle was massaging a player's leg. Brewington's uncle asked him who his favorite player in the league was. "Oh, Terance Mathis!" Brewington said, spouting off the Pro Bowl wide receiver's statistics like his own phone number. Brewington had memorized everything about Mathis, it seemed, except one important detail. Before he could finish his recitation, the player on the trainer's table sat up. "Nice to meet you," he said. "I'm Terance Mathis." "You would be amazed the things I have learned over 20 years," Brewington says now. "I've never seen a game from a fan's viewpoint. It's always been from an administrator's role."

They've got a leg up

Mon, 05 May 2008 16:04:40 -0500

I was laid up sick for a few days last week, so I apologize for my disappearance. Back to business. When I was over at the marathon on Saturday, I was surprised how young many of the participants were. By my count, at least 35 runners between the half-marathon and 5K were younger than 20. A couple were listed as 9 years old, an age at which I was about as interested in distance running as I was in campaign finance reform. So, you young runners out there, what'd you think of the race? Do any of y'all run for your schools, too? And grown-ups, can anyone put into words what it's like to get passed by a pre-teen?

Does Toyota make a Prius bus?

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:58:54 -0500

Sat in on the semi-annual meeting of Guilford County athletic directors this afternoon. Lots of interesting stuff that we'll follow up on, but there was one tidbit I wanted to pass along here. Herb Goins, athletic director of the county, noted that it currently costs schools about $1.11 a mile to use a bus. With the price of fuel climbing like it's the Cliffhanger game from The Price Is Right, that figure is expected to reach $1.44 or higher by this fall, a 30 percent increase. Might we see football teams start traveling to games on bicycles built for 60?

Showcase rundown

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:35:37 -0500

Last weekend's basketball showcase at Northern Guilford was, by all accounts, a success. More than 100 players and two dozen colleges at a first-year event is a considerable turnout, and the fact that this is the only such program currently sanctioned by the NCHSAA makes it highly likely we'll see it again next year. Obviously, it's not yet the caliber of event to draw blue-chip players or programs, but it should help quite a few kids find a place to play at the next level. I had at least one parent call me that morning wondering if his son could still get a spot. Here are some video highlights:

Let's get started

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 22:20:03 -0500

Hello, friends. I'm Tom Keller, your high school sports reporter for the News & Record. Welcome to The Locker Room, the newest addition to our blogosphere. (For those of you who don't know, "blog" is a Latin term that means "guy sitting in his underwear telling the world what he thinks.") This site will be my outlet to provide insight, answer questions and lead discussion on prep sports in the Triad. It's a cool complementary piece to our print edition, and you'll often see stuff we do here wind up in the actual paper. To give you some idea of what has brought me to the News & Record, I granted an exclusive interview to the most talented, thought-provoking, tall, dark and handsome journalist I know – myself. Notice how I’m not afraid to ask the hard-hitting questions. Tom, first of all, let me just say what an honor it is to be interviewing someone as accomplished as yourself. I mean, five-time recipient of both the Nobel Peace Prize AND People Magazine's Sexiest Man Alive? Wow. Can you condense your background into 50 words or less? Grew up outside Detroit, oldest of four. Attended Michigan State University. Covered the men's basketball team for the student newspaper. Interned with the News & Record two summers ago. After graduating in May, covered the Florida Marlins for MLB.com. My heart was still in Carolina. Thankfully, so was a job. Did you play a sport in high school? Only the big ones, like quiz bowl and debate. (Cut me some slack, I had a late puberty.) I do have eight years of Little League under my belt, and I regularly join the pick-up hoops crowd at Our Lady of Grace and the Bryan YMCA. I'm fortunate to have found a job that keeps me close to the games that have brought so much joy to my life. What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever covered? It was a lot of fun getting to follow Tom Izzo's program through the NCAA Tournament for two seasons. But the thing I'll be telling people about forever was covering the San Francisco Giants the night Barry Bonds hit his 760th home run. I can still smell the HGH. If you were a Major League Baseball player, what would your at-bat song be? Tough choice. I'd ask them to rotate it: Bruce Springsteen - Murder Incorporated The Living End - Carry Me Home Kool & The Gang - Get Down On It And anything by Hannah Montana What’s your favorite meal? Baby back ribs, a sweet potato and apple pie. I'm free for dinner, if you're offering. What do you do when you're not winning Pulitzers? I try to break a sweat every day, and I do some work at The Idiot Box comedy club downtown. I also polish my Pulitzers. How can I tell you about something that's going on in my community? Call me at (336) 373-7034. E-mail me at tom.keller@news-record.com. Comment at this blog. As much as I’d like to be everywhere at once (think how much I’d save on gas!), I will need your help to keep on top of the area’s most compelling stories. Thanks for reading. Glad to have you on board.