February 20, 2014
NEW DIGS
The Denham Springs HS Athletic Hall of Fame is now situated in the lobby of the Grady Hornsby Gymnasium, Denham Springs HS’s basketball gym. A ceremony to commemorate this new home for the DSHS Hall took place this past Tuesday night prior to the DSHS—Zachary HS basketball game. This will be a temporary home for the Hall, until a permanent building to house the hall can be located.
No word, yet, as to when there will be a Broadcasting wing added to the Hall of Fame. Surprisingly, this does not seem to be a top priority of DSHS officials.
THE CENTRAL SHOW
The Central Sports & Business Report airs tonight, 5:30pm—6:30pm, broadcasting live from Me Pa’s Diner in Central, on WPFC, 1550AM, Baton Rouge and on the Internet at JonFineProductions.com. Host Steve Johnson will be joined by CHS Basketball coach Ron Lewis and Senior players Malik Odom and Jivon Wade. Also, CHS Lacrosse players Roy Chavalaleikha and Terrell Stubbs will appear on the show.
The Sponsor of The Week is Ian James of Capital Financial Group.
SOME IMPROVEMENT: JB did return one phone call this past week, but has not returned many subsequent phone calls. If anyone should be in contact with St. John HS/Plaquemine HS play-by-play announcer J. B. Barker, please have him get in touch with me again… if it is not too great of an imposition on JB. Thanks
BROADCASTING SCHEDULE:
Thursday, February 20: 5:30pm—6:30pm… with Steve Johnson … broadcasting live from Me’ Pa’s Diner in Central
WPFC, 1550AM, BR
Internet: JonFineProductions.com
SportsRadio 1310 Radio, Lake Charles Programming of Interest (also heard on KEZMOnLine.com:
Saturday, February 22: 9AM—10AM: All Things Football with Scott Holtzman
Monday, February 24: 8AM—10AM: The Locker Room with John Goodman and Jim Gazzolo
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THE WIZARDRY OF OS
Assistant Basketball Coach and Head Swimming Coach at Central High
It looks like March Madness will once again lack Louisiana flavor. At this point, LSU will either have to beat Florida and Kentucky on the road or win the SEC Tournament to make the big dance. Neither scenario is likely, since the Tigers look shell shocked away from the PMAC.
The hope at the beginning of the year was that the veterans (O’Bryant, Coleman, Hickey, Stringer) would lead the talented youth (Mickey, Martin, Quarterman) to create a team that learned how to win. At home, the Tigers have achieved this blend.
On the road the opposite has happened. The veterans have either made freshman mistakes or haven’t been able to lead the freshman. Veterans should take extra care of the ball, stay out of foul trouble, attack the goal, and rebound. The Tigers have failed in most if not all of these keys in their road losses.
In college football, the whiney side of football coaches was on display this week. Apparently, Nick Saban is being credited with a push to change the rules to slow down offenses. Offensive coaches are offended by the attack on their style of play.
I don’t think a rule that limits teams to only running a play once the play clock reaches 29 seconds will make a substantial difference in the pace of play or the total number of plays in a game. It will give the defensive coaches a little piece of mind that they can make a quick substitution without having too many players on the field.
Nevertheless, the offensive teams can still run plays in quick succession. From the time a player is ruled down, players have to get up, the ball has to be spotted, and the players have to line up. I think all of that can get done in 8 seconds if the circumstances are ideal meaning it is a short gain between the hashes. Consequently, I think the offensive coaches need to relax.
This discussion does allow me to make a proposal I have continued to suggest (I feel like Dick Vitale and his jump ball crusade). One of the bullet points defensive coaches have used in their argument is player safety. They argue that the increased number of plays increases injury. Instead of limiting substitutions, college football simply should let the clock run after first downs.
My guess is there are at least 40 first downs in the average college football game. I’ll save you the math, but you can imagine the extra minutes and number of plays that rule adds to a college football game. I promise you those number of plays dwarf the number of plays that are added on because a team snaps the ball in less than 11 seconds.
HEY REF
How many parents are scratching their heads trying to figure out why their children’s behavior has hit rock bottom? Maybe all they should do is look in the mirror. I’m referring to some parent’s behavior at their children’s ballgames.
I remember a thing called SPORTSMANSHIP, that thing fewer and fewer adults are bringing with them when they go to watch their kids play football, basketball and/or baseball. I remember the pure disgust that stirred inside my gut during a little league baseball game I was calling. The game was out of hand and the coaches were emptying the benches and giving everyone a chance to play.
This one player who happened to be the smallest on the team had struck out twice and was “on deck”. His mother came out of the stands and shakes the fence so hard it sounded like a wild animal trying to get out of its cage. At the top of her lungs she screams at him “If you strike out one more time I’m going to whip your (derriere)”! Just about every jaw dropped and as I called “Batter-up” he looked so terrified I thought he was going to run back into the dugout.
The first pitch was right down the middle of the plate and the biggest “STRIKE” I’d ever seen. I yell “BALL”. The next pitch was a clone of the first and again I called “BALL”. As you can guess the next two weren’t going to be anything but ball 3 and 4. Not a single voice of opposition was uttered. I saw his eyes get big as watermelons and after he got to first his bench erupted and the opposing coach asked for a time out.
After a minute went by I started the slowest walk to the mound in my 15 years of calling baseball. The only two things the coach said to me was “even if we didn’t have a 12 run lead I’d have to agree with you that every pitch was a ball and THANKS for doing what you did”. I didn’t know what to say and then we noticed the celebration at first as the opposing coach gave me a big “Thumbs up”.
I started calling games, both football and baseball back in ’79 and am asked all the time “what changes have I noticed most”? My pat answer most of the time is “well, the biggest change has got to be those sitting in the stands watching games”. It seems to me that many of those fans don’t have lives. Each game feels like I’m headed to an execution. In that I mean those on the losing side wouldn’t have anything to live for once the game was “in the books” so to speak. These amateur games are supposed to be where an athlete would begin to learn the game from the inside.
In football what seems to be happening are many parents believe this 9th grade game tonight is all that’s left in this world. Parents you’ve got to understand when officials try to help these young athletes line up and stay set before the snap it isn’t meant to help the other team beat your team. We strive to help youngsters when we can so that we don’t spend the majority of the game walking five yards this way then five yards the other.
And YES we can call holding on every play, hands down. But how many parents want the officials to do this? The only ones that do are the parents of the team with the ball. I wonder how many parents are living their lives through their child’s life. Well, all I can think it’s more than 90% just by their behavior during the games. Of course “little Johnny” never holds he always plays by the rules. It has to be the OTHER guys that are holding.
If you’ve never heard the term “PREVENTATIVE” officiating let me educate you. A simple example is when one player’s head is in the neutral zone we as officials will tell the player between plays to back up or get back depending on what side of the ball they’re on. One coach will thank you for not calling the foul on his team but as soon as the other team has the ball he goes ballistic if you tell the other team to back up a bit.
If I had my way each and every parent would spend an entire year working football games for nothing. This way they might actually learn the rules. There are so many experts sitting in the stands that I feel you are hurting the game by staying home or sitting in the stands trying to tell everyone the rules and how the officials on the field really don’t know what they are doing.
So, please do the game a great service, get off your butts and try to call a few games. Then everybody will see just how much you really don’t know! I’m not about to let the officials off the hook by no means. I spent nearly 20 years calling football in this area before a bad injury caused me to “retire”. Well, I’ve tried to return to the field but what I’ve found is scaring me to the core.
The quality of the officials calling games has drastically declined. So many of the best that have put on the striped shirt have left the game entirely. And I feel it’s due to the lack of respect given them by parents, coaches and the media. For whatever reason the games are suffering because so many good officials have hung up their whistles and aren’t returning year after year.
So, I’ll close by asking all the great officials instead of sitting in the stands please put on the uniform and help the sport you know so much about by getting involved and start at your earliest convenience and start calling real games and not those video games on your TV!!!
Till next week… …
Ivy, Where’s The Bull?
JON IS PROUD TO WORK AS A MARKETING REPRESENTATIVE FOR SPORTSRADIO-1310-KEZM-LAKE CHARLES, IN ESTABLISHING THE “DOLLAR A HOLLER” MARKETING PROGRAM AND HELPING SELL SULPHUR HS FOOTBALL BROADCASTS AND BARBE HS BASEBALL PLAYOFF BROADCASTS.