The most wonderful time of the year, part two
Ah, springtime!
The days are getting longer and warmer and the grass is greening - and growing!
As a matter of fact, I just cut the grass Friday afternoon for the first time this year.
And this week, all the trees have sprouted flowering buds. Somehow every year it seems to almost always coincide with the Infernal Revenue Service's April 15 tax deadline.
I don't know about you, but I despise winter. I've long maintained that the only good thing about winter is basketball season. Well, that and Christmas.
Yet another harbinger of spring, and the world re-awakening, is the advent of spring sports season. And the baseballs, softballs, golf balls and tennis balls have already started flying, while on our area tracks, the runners are running, the throwers are throwing and the jumpers are jumping.
At the college level, most spring sports at most institutions are referred to as non-revenue sports. Some of these sports have had scholarships reduced or eliminated and some schools have even dropped some sports entirely. They once were called "minor sports."
Well, they're anything but "minor" to the coaches, athletes and their parents.
Almost of necessity given the smaller enrollments our area schools have, we will see quite a number of multi-sport athletes on area spring sports roster. For some, their main sport may be football, volleyball or basketball and the spring sport they participate in is their "fun" sport. For others, their spring sport is the one they excel at.
Having become acquainted with many of these athletes from covering their other sports, I'll be interested to see how they perform in their spring sports.
Let's start with baseball. A generation or two ago, before the National Football League exploded in popularity, baseball was considered our national pastime. Any long-time Chicago Cubs fan will tell you there's nothing like baseball in the sunshine. And as Harry Carey always said, "You can't beat fun at the old ballpark."
The sounds of the crack of the bat and the pop of the ball into the mitt are two more signs that spring is here.
You don't hear the "crack" of the bat anymore - at least in amateur baseball as it's been replaced by a "ping."
Girls softball has come a long way over the years. Linton-Stockton Lady Miner coach Ruan Fougerousse was one of the first group of female high school athletes, as girls sports had just started to be offered when she was in school. When Ruan played at Shakamak in the mid-seventies, the softball was slow-pitch. Teams had softball shirts but not full uniforms. The girls wore blue jeans and tennis shoes on the field.
Now they play fast-pitch and the skill level has increased exponentially.
And they've got uniforms and everything! (Sorry, I couldn't resist throwing that line from Tom Berenger as Cleveland Indians catcher Jake Taylor in the 1989 movie "Major League.")
Golf too has changed. Another sound you don't hear anymore is the solid "thwack" of persimmon meeting balata. Yes, some of us remember when "woods" really were made out of wood. Some of us are even old enough to have played with them.
And a generation or two ago, golfers weren't necessarily athletes. Today they are.
Tiger Woods and his workout routines were largely responsible for that paradigm shift. Love him or hate him, Tiger revolutionized the game. Players had to follow suit or be left behind.
I've seen some of the preseason workouts our area spring sports athletes had been doing in the past couple of weeks and all I can say is, they're pretty intense.
To all our area spring sports athletes: Have fun this spring!
Terry Schwinghammer is a sports writer for the Greene County Daily World. He can be reached by telephone at (812) 847-4487, ext. 27. He can also be reached via email at tschwing32@yahoo.com.
Posting a comment requires free registration:
- If you already have an account, follow this link to login
- Otherwise, follow this link to register