Honoring high-school athletes
Summer’s kicking in for all of us, but at The Vindy, it’s among our busiest periods — starting with today.
On today’s sports page, we honor the top high-school athletes for the just-completed spring seasons.
It’s the final Vindicator salute to the 2010-11 high-school seasons, and we will salute it all in Monday’s paper with our top boy and girl athletes for the entire season.
Each community gets behind their school sports teams for various reasons.
I always enjoy the tales of perseverance and adversity within sports because I think it does so much for students’ future lives.
For most of us, nothing in life comes easy, and from today’s honorees come life lessons from their various travails.
Miles Dunlap was coming down to the final hurdles in his last race as a high schooler, and he was watching four others lead the race. He kicked it into gear, stretched across the finish line and fell to the ground — a state champ.
Springfield High School’s Ron Bovo started high school as a shortstop because that’s what the team needed. This year, he switched to catcher because that’s what the team needed. And a state finals game was the result.
Poland High School pitcher Erin Gabriel and her teammates made state finals before, and were defeated. The last loss was a 1-0 game, with Gabriel giving up a home run. From that, she went to school, so to speak. And she returned this season with a state title.
Lakeview High’s Lauren Schattinger admits that she was bad at just about every youth sport. One day, she brought home a flyer for track and field. Her parents asked if she really wanted to do this, too. And this spring, she was a state champion in track.
The stories like that continue. Check out today’s sports page and the work of reporters Joe Scalzo and Tom Williams.
And then follow us on Monday when, from all the athletes all year in the Valley, we honor two as athletes of the year.
Who would you pick? Sure, we are picking two.
But when you read tales of triumph like above, and you realize there are many more like that out there, both in athletics and in academics, many winners exist.
We are glad to showcase them — on and off the field, but always in the pages of The Vindicator, and on Vindy.com, where you can check out video interviews with the students.
High-school football
Though in some ways, high school sports is over for us with today’s honors, all this really means is that it’s time to start working on the 2011 high-school football season.
Work on the preseason Blitz projects begins in earnest after July 4. We will showcase the start of high-school football training camps with the annual Blitz — Coach’s Corner. The section forecasts all the Valley high schools’ needs and plans as they head into August practices — and it comes straight from the coaches.
Coach’s Corner will be in the July 31 edition. The Blitz preseason guide — the bigger of the two guides — will appear Aug. 21.
Golf projects
Joining those sports projects is our two-pronged golf lovefest — the 18 Greatest Golf Holes of the Valley and the Greatest Golfer of the Valley.
We are in Year 2 of this project, and it is exciting to watch this explode.
The weekly golf holes feature continues Tuesday with a booming par 5. Guys at the course still talk about the club champ’s stunning double eagle on the hole. Check it out Tuesday — including chatter on the rare double eagle.
Fittingly, that club champ will be part of our Greatest Golfer tourney. We have seven divisions for men and women of all ages. Players will compete for two days Aug. 26 and 27, with the best advancing to the finals Aug. 28.
But before the adults square off, our Greatest Juniors take to the links in July.
With three courses hosting juniors play — Diamondback, Tamer-Win and Tam O’Shanter — there are plenty of places to get in for Valley boys and girls.
But for adults, you’d better sign up soon. The divisions are filling up quickly. I expect the top-3 men’s divisions will close out in the next 10 days or so, based on the trends.
All you need to know — the holes, the juniors and the adults — is on Vindy.com/golf.
The Greatest is brought to you by great golf supporters — Farmers National Bank, Superior Beverage, Mark Thomas Ford and Cole Valley Cadillac.
Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on Vindy.com.