Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
Serving proudly since 1873 as the beautiful Nebraska Panhandle's first newspaper
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LINCOLN, Neb. – It always seems when I’m in Lincoln or Omaha for a state basketball tournament, there’s some movie on the TV box that takes my attention away from this task. When the Leyton Warriors were in Lincoln last year, my focus was divided between filling this space and watching the “Maltese Falcon” with Humphrey Bogart. The final line of that movie is Bogart’s, “That’s what dreams are made of.” It seemed appropriate to somehow incorporate that notion in with the Warriors own dreams. Last month in Omaha, what could have been a more...
Congratulations to the Sidney High School boys’ basketball players and coaches. They’re going to the show. The Peetz Bulldogs boys’ are also alive. They’ve made it to regionals and are two wins away from earning a berth in the Colorado dance scheduled for the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland next week. First the Raiders. They go in as the third seed with three games standing between them and a state championship. First up is sixth-seeded Scottsbluff at the Pinnacle Bank Arena one week from today at 9:45 a.m. Nebraska Panhandle Time. I know....
Grover Cleveland Alexander was born, raised and died in Nebraska. If you’re a baseball fan with just a rudimentary knowledge of the game’s history, you’ve heard of Alexander. In honor of today being the 128th anniversary of Alexander’s birth, this space revisits the great Nebraskan right-hander. He is rated third by the Omaha World Herald on its “Nebraska’s Top 100 Athletes” list. Only great’s Bob Gibson and Gayle Sayers are ahead of him. While there are lots of other great athletes on the list, maybe none were so gritty or tortured as Ale...
It’s Wednesday night in Omaha. There are less than 24 hours left before all of the 896 qualifiers for 2015 NSAA Wrestling Championships will have already had their first bout. With the temperatures about 35 degrees colder here than in Sidney, the heat is on full blast. It’s freezing cold with temps somewhere in the teens. The high Thursday was predicted for 23 degrees with single digits in the morning. In Sidney, the mercury is expected to rise to 58. It snowed some last year. I hope it doesn’t snow this year. On the tube, AMC is running “Glad...
The Nebraska high school sports post season opens Friday and continues almost every day for the next five weeks. First of all, congratulations to the Leyton girls’ basketball team for earning the top seed at the upcoming Class D2-11 subdistricts which are slated to open up on President’s Day in the Cabela’s Athletic Facility at Sidney High School. The Potter-Dix girls have had an outstanding season with 14 wins and have earned a second seed in D1-12. The young Creek Valley Storm are the fifth seed in D1-12. Though no brackets are out yet for C...
There are certain dates when everybody could tell you where they were. If you were alive on Sept. 11, 2001, you could remember what you were doing and where you heard the dreadful news of that day. Same with the hour Kennedy was shot or the morning Pearl Harbor was attacked. There are probably other days you might remember what you were doing if they had some particular meaning to you personally. Your wedding day or the birth of your children. My parents told me I was born during a blizzard 15 minutes after my mother’s arrival at the h...
Just a few more days and the calendar gets turned over to February. It may be too early to start thinking about spring, even though the mercury climbed past 70 earlier this week. But February reminds us that the winter sports season is fast heading towards it's dramatic conclusion. There are just 15 days until the competition begins at district wrestling in Chadron. Three days later the girls of class D basketball get started with subdistricts and the boys a week later. Before President's Day...
I played softball with Craig Swan in the summer of 1986. Maybe you never heard of Swan, but he pitched in major leagues for about 10 years. As a national league hurler, he struck out a lot as a hitter – but he could smack the daylights out of softball. I haven’t crossed paths with too many famous athletes in my time, but they always seemed to be memories that stick with me. Funny how they never remember me though – even on the rare occasions when I have met one for a second time. On Friday night at 7, the Sidney High School boys’ basketb...
While coaches are always insistent on their players taking it one game at a time, it’s not so for press and fans. We can look forward all we like. With that in mind, we can’t help but look ahead as the Minuteman Activities Conference and District tournaments creep ever closer. Now that we find ourselves at about the halfway mark of the 2014-15 season, using the term “big game” becomes ever more meaningful. There are several such contests on the hardwood in the coming week. With the MAC Tournament set to begin Monday, a possible preview of the...
Not even three weeks have passed since my return to Sidney and much of that time was occupied by the lull of the holiday break. I haven’t seen much basketball and not until I get to Hemingford today will I see any wrestling. Nevertheless, with just a few basketball games under my belt, I have already noticed some impressive teams and performances. From the distance of the sidelines, it’s hard to tell from one season to the next how teams may suffer or benefit from the off-season changes. It’s a fact of life that players graduate and fresh...
I trust you’ve all had a pleasant and relaxing holiday break. If you settled down for a long winters nap with the children nestled all snug in their beds, get ready because the alarm clock is about to ring. The blank spots on the sports schedule are few over the next couple of months. The action returns to the hardwood this afternoon with the opening of the abbreviated two-day Cabela’s Holiday Tournament at Sidney high and middle schools. Previews of the Sidney teams path to a hopeful championship appeared in Wednesday’s edition of the Sun-T...
“Fellow countrymen: At this second appearing to take the oath of the presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at the first.” In other words, I’ll be brief this go around. Also I’m afraid, whatever follows in this space – on this day or any other day – will never be near as brilliant as Lincoln’s second inaugural address. Fortunately, since I am only entering my second term as a sportswriter in Sidney and not as the head of a nation in crisis, it doesn’t need to be. It can be reasonably surmised that one...
I suppose Sidney Girls Head Basketball Coach Tyler Shaw said it best. In fact it made so much sense to him - and to me - he said it on multiple occasions. “They make good humans in Sidney,” he said. Right you are, coach. No arguments from me. They import good humans, too. Perhaps it’s something in the air that affects whoever graces this area of western Nebraska. I don’t know that anyone deserves to receive so much kindness as I have over the past 13-plus months, but I’m grateful. It’s not just since I’ve made it known that I’m moving on from...
With state golf underway in four different Nebraska cities, the official end to the 2013-2014 NSAA sports season is fast coming to a close. It would be difficult to recount each dramatic moment of every team over the past school year - there were just too many. But there were certain moments and games that won’t be forgotten for a long time by many. Employed to document the local sports scene I was privileged to go along for the ride on several trips to state tournaments. I don’t think I would ever bother trying to distinguish one great mom...
I guess I'm like at least a few others going to the 2014 NSAA State Track & Field Championships in Omaha this weekend who are a little obsessed with the coming weather out east. I've been visiting the Weather Channel website on a daily basis now for the past 10 days. I don't suppose the report from 10 days out is especially accurate, but I've been looking anyway. For the record, the reports have been pretty consistent. The latest report from the Weather Channel indicates a 50-50 chance of...
“What a stupid I am.” That’s what Roberto De Vicenzo said after the 1968 Masters Tournament. “I’m such an idiot.” The words of Phil Mickelson following the 2006 U.S. Open. I don’t remember what Colin Montgomery said after his final round that year. Nor do I remember what Jean Van de Velde said after the 1999 Open Championship. But they were stand-up guys at least, I remember that. But for the first 13 and most of the past four years I’ve played golf all my life. Most of that golf has been recreational. But I’ve played enough competitive golf...
I’ve hesitated to bring up this topic lest the subject of it be put at risk because of these words. I’ve lived in big cities and small towns and just about everywhere is the unfortunate reality of homelessness. I didn’t think it was an issue in Sidney until I came across one so unfortunate being last summer. I felt bad for him and hoped that he could pull himself together before long. Or at least that he could find the help he needed. I saw him occasionally throughout the fall and winter. But sightings became increasingly rare as the tempe...
There are a lot of cliches in sports. One of the oldest is that “records are made to be broken.” But there are also those records which many or even most of us think will never be touched. Baseball seems the most numbers crazy of the four most popular American professional sports. Baseball fans love the numbers. Me too. When I was a little boy I would pour through almanacs and record books scanning the statistics. A lot of the records I came across then still stand today. Yet after seeing a number of records fall over the years, I consider no...
Happy New Year. Not exactly. Not according to the Gregorian calendar anyway. Or the Chinese calendar. I think it’s the Year of the Horse and we’re now in the year 2565. As for the Jewish New Year, that’s not until Sept. 25-26, which will mark the beginning of the year 5775. Kind of reminds me of an old song by Zager and Evans. They had a one-hit-wonder called “In the Year 2525.” They’re from Lincoln, by the way. Bottom line is everybody can have their own calendar, and I have mine. At least for the purposes of this space. It was just about a ye...
As I walked under the highway overpass I first noticed him. Scruffy looking with an unclean beard, unkempt appearance and tatoos all over his body. But that’s not why I came to dislike him so much. We’re in between sports seasons now. Winter season is over and spring sports are just getting started. Maybe this space should be occupied by a “best of” or some kind of a rerun at these times of the year. Instead, I’ll just take a departure from sports for the day and recall that con man and a few other characters I met while hitchiking across th...
We made it! Today is the first day of spring, and even if the weather sometimes doesn’t reflect it winter is done. As President Gerald Ford once said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” OK, so it’s a bit strong to say that winter is a nightmare and I think Mr. Ford had something else on his mind back in August, 1974. Come to think of it, if you’ve ever spent a sweltering August day in Washington, D.C., you just might not mind a little touch of winter. But still, I think most everybody’s favorite season is spring. Pro...
Another Lincoln hotel room the night before a championship bout. There's an eastward view of the city from the third-floor window of this room. The sky is clear, the moon bright and the city lights more than strong enough to blot out the stellar constellations above. But at ground level in Lincoln this weekend the big arena lights at several venues will serve to illuminate the stars of Nebraska high school basketball. My quarters are three floors above the front desk - near the elevator. It's...
Somewhere in these sports pages are the results of the Sidney Red Raiders efforts against the Grand Island Northwest Vikings in the 2014 NSAA Girls State Basketball Championships. They'll be photos and a story detailing as much as can be told in the space and time allowed. But as these words are written the game has yet to be played. It's Wednesday evening and I've just arrived in Lincoln. Like the players, coaches, fans and other media I expect to be prompt in my arrival at Pinnacle Bank...
The NSAA sure knows how to throw a party. At least it may have seemed like a party to the thousands who were in attendance during the three-day 2014 NSAA State Wrestling Championships. This particular event was held at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha. Though capacity can fluctuate depending on the event, CenturyLink lists its capacity as 18,300. It’s a big place. When the evening sessions were underway, with all four classes wrestling at the same time, it was hard to spot an open seat from the floor. From the cheap seats, the view is even m...
It’s been a while now - I don’t know how long. But I came across a list of the 10 greatest sports speeches ever made. The top one on the list was a poem by Muhammad Ali he read before fighting George Foreman in Africa - “The Rumble in the Jungle” they called it in 1974. Right away I knew it wasn’t a list to be taken seriously. I can only remember one sports speech in my lifetime that was especially memorable - at least for me. The March 3, 1993 ESPYs speech of Jim Valvano. Sure Valvano’s speech was on the list, but somewhere in the middle. For...
