Tigers put damper on DL Homecoming

Homecoming trappings were in place at Detroit Lakes Friday when our Tigers came to play. Detroit Lakes is a community with about 10,000 population. Thief River Falls sits at around 9,000. "Undaunted" we were. We played like we were oblivious to any population disparities. 

In the case of the Thief River Falls game I theorized that maybe in Thief River Falls the parents had chosen to de-emphasize football. On the grounds, of course, that it is not a healthy game to play. Shall I offer the theory again in regard to Detroit Lakes? 

I spent the summer of 1973 in Detroit Lakes. I learned that July 4 is a huge deal there. 

The football Tigers of Morris Area Chokio Alberta put a damper on the 2024 DL Homecoming. This we did with a 28-10 victory over those Lakers Friday. Man, we're kind of a steamroller now. And we're doing this while scoring lots of points. 

Thief River Falls with its population of about 9,000 fell to our Tigers 42-0. Holy cow. That was a long trip for our players and fans to make. Too long IMHO. On Friday we were road warriors again. Can anyone stop the Tigers? Are we on our way to ever more glory? I just hope the players all stay healthy. 

We entered Friday ranked No. 9 in state AAA. Fine, but I just hope all the players stay healthy. If not, no amount of success is worth it. 

At DL the football is played at Mollberg Field. Do you suppose the Stevens County Times newspaper can be troubled to put anything on its website this weekend about the game? Such a significant season for MACA football. Certain people need to get off the schnide and that includes the radio station with its website. Brett Miller used to handle that. I was certainly pushed to deliver when I was with the paper. 

Sue Dieter wanted high standards for the paper's website. The winds can blow every which way with this stuff, these priorities. One minute there's management that says things have to be done a certain way, and the next? It doesn't have to be done at all! Well, for what it is worth, I am happy on this Saturday morning to try to do some justice journalistically to the Friday game. I do it because it is fulfilling. 

I have access to game info this time - the first time all season. Let's get into it. The Tigers pounded away with their ground game. The momentum started quickly for the orange and black: a 14-0 lead at the end of one quarter. Initially we scored with a 77-yard drive that included 14 plays. Grayson Gibson carried the football into the end zone with a run from the nine. 

DL on the ensuing possession had disaster strike with an interception that had Jonah Huebner clutching the football. Huebner picked off Caden Strand. Huebner was promptly off to the races and found daylight all the way to the end zone: a 27-yard return for six. The scoreboard showed us up 14-0 less than seven minutes in. 

Strand got hurt on the Lakers' second possession. It was a shoulder injury and it sidelined him for the remainder of the game. I found during my newspaper career that when I wrote about an opposing athlete being out with an injury or illness, I risked being attacked by Morris fans who suggested I was taking some luster from the Morris victory. A major instance of this happened with cross country! An opposing runner - Paynesville actually - was rumored to be ill and would likely not run in section. 

How did I find out about this? The Morris coach told me. I thought nothing of incorporating this background in my writing. And I had no thought of taking anything away from Morris. But I was targeted in an absolute crucifixion attempt. It was a Morris dentist. That individual is gone from this community, thank goodness. We're all better off for it. 

It is common for sportswriters to pay attention to injuries and absences on all teams. It adds to the intrigue. Hey, it's just sports!

 

Lone DL touchdown

Once Strand was sidelined Friday, Elijah Wyckoff was called upon as DL's signal-caller. Wyckoff hooked up with pass-catcher Tyler Bye for a 51-yard completion that netted six. This would prove to be the Lakers' only touchdown. The score at halftime was 14-7. 

DL got an opportunity thanks to a fumble recovery. The opportunity had good field position. But DL had to settle for a field goal that was kicked by Nick Buboltz. 

The Tigers got a good kick return. A sustained clock-eating drive developed. Drew Huebner passed to Riley Asmus, the latter in the corner of the end zone. The Tigers climbed to a 21-10 advantage. We scored again when Drew Huebner found the end zone from the four. 

So interesting to see our Tigers on the winning end over communities with a much larger population, like double the population. We appear to prioritize football in Morris. But is it a fading sport?

DL on July 4 in the summer of '73: Alas I must report that my generation was prone to engaging in way too much foolishness: alcohol, drugs, late-night partying, ear-splitting rock music. Why? Kids whose grandparents are boomers should ask them about that. But I don't think they'd wish to say much.

The Morris newspaper

A friend sent me an email that included a downer note about the Morris newspaper:

I assume you saw this week’s fishwrap with the huge Hancock Homecoming photo across the top of page 1 (but smaller MAHS photo down below the fold), and another big article about the Hancock city council on the front page. Hmmm.

 

So it continues: the strong emphasis on Hancock in our Morris-based newspaper, the "Stevens County Times." Through most of it history, the paper of course identified with "Morris." The "Morris Sun Tribune." We took some flak even then for how we covered Hancock. But these days? 

I have to believe the Morris paper management has to answer complaints about this often. Unless the Morris community is just too apathetic to complain. Hey, don't rule that out. 

Next week is the Morris Homecoming. I spent years being very generous with how I covered the Homecoming, lots of spreads and photo collages to excite our readers. The paper today only comes out once a week and there's no comparison in terms of the space available to cover things. 

No one is ever going to match what I did, or even come close. 

A check of the SCT website this morning for sports reveals the 100 percent predictable: total UMM. This just goes on and on. Someone at the paper could just "riff" a little on Tiger sports and get an item on the website to share the excitement. 

I have not been able to type the name of an MACA volleyball player all fall. The info is just not available in a timely way. I am able to blog about Minnewaska Area. Below is the link for my current 'Waska post from my companion blog "Morris of Course." Let's appreciate the Lakers anyway.

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/minnewaska-girls-surge-to-10-2-record.html 

 

Oh, and also from my companion blog, a background post about the Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton school nickname/mascot controversy. This controversy has nothing to do with Native Americans.

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/what-does-rebels-mean-for-d-g-f-school.html 

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Watch power on the school board

Is there a candidate for school board who is in place to represent the interests of the teachers? I have my suspicions based on observing yard signs. I will admit my "sample size" isn't very large. But clues can be surmised - well, sometimes. 

We know the Morris teachers have been very sensitive of late. You might say this sample size is not small. A routine check of the Morris newspaper every week had something begin to stand out. A chorus of "woe is me" from the Morris teachers. I will agree that life may not be perfect for these people. Life has its challenges and anxieties for everyone. 

Teachers have an advantage of being able to act as a group. It's good old union power. I have seen public school politics become very disruptive to this community, even getting to the point where businesses were boycotted. By the teachers, I might add, with some of their friends thrown in. Social networks can take over with these things. We begin to sense that certain "personalities" have clout. I'm thinking back to the 1980s primarily. 

I have seen the unpleasant underside of teachers' thinking and behavior. It reaches into the paranoid sometimes. 

We have a current school board that I do not think has been co-opted by the teachers. The teachers usually don't do this directly but we can see teachers' spouses get involved. That's just as bad. So I have experience from seeing this in a past time. Two very good examples jump into my head and there were probably others. 

The synergy of social networking in a small town can be insidious. I cannot overstate this. 

The worst of the 1980s slowly faded to where today, I look at the board of education and feel fundamentally good about it. This is regardless of how teachers can show up one after another, not dissuaded by redundancy, and bellyache. That's exactly what it was. "Woe is me," or "us." 

So I was amused when the board demurred a little and a member took it upon himself to remind teachers that "preventative health care" is important. Teachers can have the same problems managing their health as the rest of us. They apparently aren't satisfied with their health care package. I have definitely seen overweight teachers. I think a prime one has left the staff: I believe he requested a leave of absence and was turned down? And then he just resigned? 

I'm not as familiar with all the teachers as I once was. One of them came to a school board meeting and accused the board of lying. It got reported in the media that way. Board members are elected by the public. They deserve a modicum of respect that way. But I have seen teachers show such an arrogant attitude all my life. We have been through quiet and pleasant times and then things can get nasty, really nasty. 

And teachers have space in which to assert themselves that the rest of us do not have. Often they are sanctimonious in ways that can be like fingernails on a blackboard. They have power that sometimes must simply be acceded to. That's because at a certain point the show simply must go on. 

Teacher strikes and threatened strikes were all over Minnesota in the 1980s. We were negligent for a time in not pressing our legislators to fix this. In Morris we had to lick our wounds a while. No there was no strike per se. I as newspaper photographer did photograph two teachers with strike signs they had prepared in case that eventuality arrived. 

And then we'd hear the teachers say - cue the fingernails on blackboard again - "we don't want to go on strike but we will if we have to." The teachers in my photograph with the picket signs were (Mr.) Kern and Tschetter. 

The end of the '80s was an absolute tumult in Morris. And it was really over nothing, I would argue. It got intense because certain people's toes were being stepped on who had social group capital in Morris. 

People who were part of the problem would laugh at me for writing this. They'd laugh at everything I'd write and that's part of the problem. They just want to roll over everyone who they think is in their way. So they strive to discredit those who are critical of favored members of their group and not because those targets are necessarily exemplary in the education profession. 

Eventually our school board as part of a recovery process decided that spouses of teachers should not be hired. Wait a minute, don't jump on me with the accusation that this was a mere rumor or suspicion. I remember a teacher/coach who was highly thought of for his work, a UMM product, who became distressed when his wife Jana was eyeing a job in the district but "couldn't even get an interview," the guy told me. It was because of her marital position. 

Do I think that policy was fair? Unfortunately I do, yes, although in the case of the Courts I would say there would have been no problem. They were collateral damage of a problem that was not of their making. I hope they're doing well these days wherever they are. I think Paul left here for Cold Spring. 

I can definitely think in terms of who the "bad actors" were, married couples who got too big for their breeches. And it's not as if I object to teachers asserting themselves if their motives are pure and sincere. Not at all. Too often their motives are not that way. They want more money, "better health care package" (in spite of maybe being overweight), more job security, and a whole lot of things that I guess we'd all like. Stress the money. 

There has to be a limit to how much a school district can drain us. We just had another school district referendum that only narrowly passed. Referendums always passed routinely when I was in my journalistic prime with the Morris newspaper. Dave Holman told me that even though there was some sharp criticism of my work sometimes, "you're probably doing some good just with the amount of attention you give the school." 

Believe me I can remember long-ago times where referendums were like pulling teeth to get passed. 

There are other government entities besides the school that want their own budgets filled out. I once read that your typical residents of an outstate Minnesota community view their local public school as a "money pit." But we passed our referendum narrowly. So, whistle past the graveyard a little maybe? 

I feel one of the biggest dangers that could befall us, seriously, is representatives of the teachers getting onto the school board. And when I say "representatives" I mean in the narrowest, most parochial sense. The kind of people who have been calling our school board members "liars." I believe the football coach is in that category. 

The worm could turn and people could start becoming skeptical of the school board. It can happen. 

Do teachers have a "hard job?" I think it's in their interests to try to make us all believe it's hard. Maybe it depends on how you define "hard." Mark Dayton told me in a one-to-one conversation that "being a teacher was the hardest job I've ever had." I think that in a sense he's right. But that qualifier is important: "in a sense." 

 

Be advised

Are we really starting to see school board candidates who will represent teachers in not the most wholesome way? I remember Jim Morrison characterizing the teachers' basic attitude as "us against them" all the time. It's correct in spades. 

We don't ever want to see the day return where Morris businesses get boycotted. 

Dennis Rettke took over in administration in the most stressful time of the Morris school's history. I think it was hard on him, maybe shortened his life. We had an activities director who just "had to go." And for that we went through so much suffering? Was it Switzer's fault? The board at the time? It's hard to take your focus away from the board. It had teacher spouses on it. 

Back when I got a very nasty anonymous phone call at the newspaper - from the days when you could make an anonymous phone call - I told a friend later about it, to which he replied "was it a coach's wife?"

 

Addendum: Be advised that when teachers' interests seep onto a school board, one of the casualties can be co-curricular. And then we'll get the lectures that co-curricular is less important than academics. I will add that when I was forced to try to learn algebra in the ninth grade, it probably destroyed me.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Tigers defeat DGF in triple-overtime!

A peaceful Saturday morning here on the plains of West Central, a den of Trump support. 

At least the signs got taken down that were out along the highway on north end and the service road. It took a while but they got taken down. 

I imagine that Trump loyalist Michelle Fischbach is a shoe-in for re-election. Because, she's a Republican and she openly embraces the God of these people, Donald Trump. "Pro-life" all the way. Women are dying because they cannot get access to abortion services in certain places. Dying. 

I can point these things out but it does no good our here on the prairie. There are reportedly places where, if you have a Harris/Walz sign in your yard, you could get "reported" and then contacted by law enforcement. I don't think we're in position for that yet. 

An old high school friend visited me Saturday and we drove around Morris: I was heartened to see quite a few Harris/Walz signs. I think it would be futile for law enforcement to go after all these people, but you never know. Most of our county churches are filled with Trump/Fischbach supporters. 

Football: hugely exciting win! Last night (Friday) saw quite the excitement at our Big Cat Stadium. Happy to say I was there for a portion. I was able to get inside the grandstand area in time to get a burger basket. A decent meal for just eight dollars! That is getting rare: a decent meal for eight bucks. Thanks to whoever the promoters were. 

I just now got back from DeToy's Restaurant, Saturday morning, and man the place was doing land office business. Just as much of a rush as on Sunday afternoon. DeToy's recently printed new menus with (of course) higher prices but it isn't bothering anyone. The restaurant could go ahead and raise prices some more. More inflation is on the way because of actions by the Federal Reserve. 

Our U.S. stock market is built 100 percent on what "the Fed" does. It used to be about productivity and profits. The U.S. economy is now being held up completely by interest rate cuts and money-printing by the Fed. I don't see this as a reliable foundation or formula at all. But if in the time being everyone is happy, well then I must share in the happiness, n'est-ce pas? 

Everyone is excited about the MACA Tigers' triple-overtime win over Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton last night. How about that: a 34-32 final score at big Cat. 

It is 10 a.m. Saturday as I proceed along with the first draft of this post. I cannot find any game details from online sources. There was a time when we could expect Brett Miller at the radio station to give us 6-7 paragraphs about the game, including individual stat leaders, along with a photo. It appears those days are gone. And radio station management isn't beating down doors to replace him with this function. 

I guess we'll always have "DeeDee." She gives us the score. I'd like to see a little more. What do y'all think? 

The Stevens County Times website has been a total non-player with MACA sports coverage for a long time. Why do we the public accept this negligence? And then they add insult to injury by having their "sports" link filled with UMM Cougar stuff. As if that's the only sports we care about. Has about as much logic as supporting Trump/Fischbach so fervently. But that's who we are. 

Be sure to go to church tomorrow and build up your Trump support. My own church is not like that. You are fools. "Nationwide abortion ban." Call the cops on people with "Harris/Walz" signs. Well I guess it's not quite that bad here. Can you believe it's actually worse in other places? 

Detoy's was full of people who unreservedly pay the higher prices. I asked the gentleman next to me along the counter why people are so nonchalant. He said "credit cards." So it's that easy? Just get a piece of plastic and eat to my heart's content? Fascinating. And now interest rates are lower. We must have been fools in this country once when we thought profits and productivity led to stability and prosperity. Now it's the Fed cutting rates and printing money. It's that simple! Who would have thought? 

I'm so old-fashioned I "put my money in the bank." 

I vote for Democrats which I imagine maybe I should not disclose. It's risky.

Volleyball success Tuesday

The Tigers swept the Montevideo Thunder Hawks at Monte on Tuesday. This match inspires my current post on my companion blog "Morris of Course." I'd be real happy if you could check it out. Here's the permalink:

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/win-with-sweep-flair-over-montevideo.html 

 

Now, let me emphasize that I would much prefer sharing game and match details in posts like this, like I have done so often in the past. In the past I could often get details from the West Central Tribune online and Brett Miller's kmrs pieces. Then I'd proceed to have fun in doing something which was all in my own words, actually with a flair that you wouldn't find on my source sites. My critics would question the latter point. Many of them are probably Trump supporters. 

Republicans today consider women to just be "breeding stock." They are expendable. I suspect Fischbach even knows this, because I do not think she's stupid. But what would be expect her to do? Be pro-choice?

  

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Church bells for the Fed announcement?

Jerome Powell (PBS image)

Happy "Fed day." The central bank is revealing its interest rate move today (Wednesday). Jerome Powell has already telegraphed this basically. Oh, he did not pre-announce the exact extent of the "rate cut." I put "rate cut" in quotes because it's not just some sort of sterile move in our financial system. 

When I was young such matters were the height of boring. The TV network news broadcasts had a little "financial news" or "business news" segment that was obviously boring to nearly all. It was obligatory. I can pat myself on the back for remembering the NBC person who handled this. It was Irving R. Levine. 

What a sea change today. The "rate cut" is not some obscure routine decision for keeping our financial system on an even keel. Business news today is totally "sexy." We have "celebrities" in business news. No one knows the meaning of caution any more. It's damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with interest rate cuts. 

Does anyone pay attention to the news? Is our attention span that hopeless? I swear it was just recently that Chairman Powell talked about how "inflation hurts poor people." I did a double-take because I thought it was fascinating that the Fed chair would act like it's his job to guard the welfare of everyone in our country. I thought the Fed was supposed to be this boring and routine organization that made carefully weighed adjustments at times. 

No, the Fed is this be-all and end-all for our future now. The Fed absolutely holds the keys. Or at least we have allowed this system to develop. A system where we salivate going into each "Fed meeting." 

We have been through abnormally low interest rates for so long, including the whole "QE" thing which I never heard of when young. "QE" was supposed to deal with the "financial crisis" of 2008. The "financial crisis" was not an at of God. 

We as a nation must have decided that we did not want the "crisis" solved through standard checks. The problem with that approach is that too many "big fish" with the "deep pockets" would have had to suffer. And you know how that goes. Then the media gets intimidated. 

The people you see on TV want to keep their jobs as much as anyone. They learned to suddenly "shut up" during Hurricane Katrina rather than begin suggesting strongly there was negligence in our national leadership. The adjustment was swift and obvious. And when it came to the 2008 "financial crisis" we saw exactly the same phenomenon. We seemed to hear in effect that "pointing fingers isn't the answer." Well sometimes it is. 

And how disingenuous! The same people who cackle and crow about how we need unfettered freedom in our USA financial system - where people rise and fall and accept consequences for bad decisions - suddenly clear their throat and start speaking a different language. We all ended up just getting confused. And then we just had to proceed with our own lives as we always do. Hey, the people of New Orleans were left largely on their own as a result of the hurricane, right? 

And that's the American way, to be self-supporting? But not when it comes to Wall Street heavy-hitters who might be on the hook for big consequences. If some of them were to lose their shirt, well so what? Maybe they'd be forced to go out and get a common job. Oh, we can't allow that? 

Hank Paulson (Nature Conservancy)

And then we got the sad sight of Hank Paulson holding those three sheets of paper (for TARP) with his hands trembling! Maybe he was wondering if the broad masses would get wise to what was happening. I think someday we will. It might take a nasty blast of inflation, so bad that we cannot overcome it this time. And then what? 

World history shows what can happen when the masses get truly aggrieved. We don't want that to happen here. But we in the USA are not immune from the drastic things that might happen. 

What happens when all the Trump supporters realize they've been had by a flim-flam man? I have known that for years. I am just speaking on what might happen. Christianity won't mean much anymore if a large share of the American people can no longer get enough to eat. Christianity has gotten so invested in Trump and MAGA. It may lose a lot of its footing. 

Christianity has a lot to offer - it's just that ministers have become scared to quote Jesus Christ from his "sermon on the mount." He sounds too liberal. And ministers want to keep their jobs. So let's disrespect Jesus Christ Himself so we can keep waving the flag for Trump who has been found responsible in legal proceedings for sexual assault. 

We have a congressperson here in western Minnesota who sympathized with Trump's effort to prevent certification of the 2020 election results. She cites "pro-life" as a top priority of hers. What exactly does that mean? Are we losing our senses? 

The following is a comment I posted to Yahoo! News a couple days before the "big" Fed meting of today. This is bigger than announcing a new Pope. Here's what I wrote:

For much of my life the Federal Reserve was very obscure and certainly boring to hear about, and I and my friends could not have told you who the Fed chair was. I wonder why we have had this sea change. Can the Fed really lead us to the promised land? Powell speaks like it's his job to take care of the American people, but isn't the Fed's job just to manage the money supply? It's our elected representatives who are supposed to take care of us. Unless they want to abdicate that?

 

"Lazo" responded:

You have hit the nail on the head...We are now HEAVILY relying on the Fed and their monetary policy...because Congress has absolutely FAILED with respect to fiscal policy over the last 2 decades. Ironically, many members of Congress in 2008 (financial crisis)...are still there today.

 

"MaDaLo" responded:

I wonder the very same thing. There were no big Fed meetings in times past. The Fed would simply raise or lower rates at their discretion with no announcements or press conferences. It has gotten ridiculous. Everything is sensationalized now.

 

"Mildly irritated Max" responded:

I agree, but I don't feel like our elected representatives are taking care of anyone but themselves and their big-dollar donors. 

"Schumard" responded:

We have never had a 35 trillion dollar national debt before. Watching people flounder in the seas of uncertainty is what we are watching. One thing is certain, taxing more to spend more is not a viable option.

 

"John" responded:

Obviously you weren't investing in the '90s when Fed Chair Greenspan would make his cryptic announcements and dramatically swing the markets.

"Michael" responded:

Because we are a nation and government of debt. FakeMoney.

 

"Big Pimpin" responded:

The Fed's job just to manage the money supply, correct which...now hear me out...helps take care of the American people.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

A 1-3 volleyball outcome vs. NL-Spicer

Fans might not have been real optimistic for the Monday home volleyball match. The opponent was New London-Spicer. The Wildcats have a particular reputation for superiority in girls basketball. I'm not so certain about their volleyball credentials but I think it's safe to say there would be a carryover. 

The Tigers have not had a great start to their volleyball season. So like I said at the outset, we might not have been optimistic. Sure enough we were denied victory. However the Tigers did win one of the four games played. Nice consolation? Maybe. 

Well, our one win was in the opening game so this might have fueled upbeat expectations. The Tigers downed the Wildcats at the start 25-12. Fans cheered lustily I'm sure. But NL-Spicer got it together for the remainder of the match. They won the succeeding games 25-21, 25-15 and 25-20. The cheering subsided. 

NL-Spicer gets a bigger test this evening (Tuesday) as they'll host top-ranked Albany (MN Class AA).

 

A void, again

The West Central Tribune has "stats not available" for MACA from the Monday match. So again I ask: Does this mean the paper wanted or expected our stats and didn't get them? That seems sort of implied. I take it as fact that we are not in the normal coverage area for the WC Tribune. But hey, we used to be! 

Is Forum Communications bitter about their failed venture of owning the Morris newspaper? And the Hancock newspaper? Forum forced the Hancock paper out of existence. Thanks for nothing. And the Forum was reportedly set to close the Morris paper according to a very good source I had. 

Today the Morris paper has been salvaged but it puts itself forward as also being the Hancock paper. So you might suggest that the Morris community is short-changed by having their (own) newspaper have the dual loyalties to Morris and Hancock. I know there has been a chorus of complaints over the last few years about Hancock being over-represented in the Morris paper. To the extent that the Morris paper has received these complaints directly, it has chosen to be unresponsive. 

I think last week's paper was a good example of what I'm talking about. 

Nothing against Hancock of course. Any community with its own K-12 school system should still have its own paper. We're out of luck here in Stevens County. So Hancock news and photos come swarming at us all the time from the Morris paper. And a lot of the photos in the Morris paper look at least a little "muddy," some of them very muddy. You know the better alternative to this? To have the photos on an online forum. Photos look totally sharp there. 

The Morris paper does not harness its website at all for MACA sports interests. Check it out: click on "sports" from the website. I haven't checked this morning but I don't want to bother. Typically the material is almost 100 percent UMM. Why have we allowed this to continue? Are se really that apathetic as a community? 

We should have had the opportunity to admire some photographic representation of the big Friday night event at Big Cat. What a community spectacle including the grand singing of the National Anthem by Emily Hamm. The first appearance of our pep band for a football game this season. 

On Saturday through Monday, people should have had the opportunity to go somewhere online and appreciate all this. When Brett Miller was at the radio station I'm sure he would have done something. Brett is gone and Marshall Hoffman is gone. Now we have "DeeDee." 

The Tuesday Morris paper will have coverage, hopefully with photos that are not muddy. but I would push for more timeliness. There is nothing preventing the Morris paper from using its own website for publishing photos on a timely basis. No roadblock at all. Sue Dieter was pushing for a dynamic newspaper website when she was at the paper. The dreams have been dashed. 

I don't care about the profit margin for the Morris paper. I would just like to see the community, especially the kids, served better. 

The WC Tribune this morning has no coverage of the MACA volleyball team. But it does share stats for the winning NL-Spicer team in its coverage. I like to give attention to the student-athletes in my online writing these days, so here goes. 

Emma Madison went on the attack from the serving line to get three serve aces vs. the Tigers. Piper Barney and Taylor Munsch each got one. 

NL-Spicer had two players share the load in setting. So we see Hannah Nieland and Munsch getting 22 and 20 assists respectively. Here's the kills list in hitting: Ava Carlson 10, Ayla Caskey 9, Emma Madison 8, Katelyn Delzer 8, Barney 7 and Grace Peters 6. 

Barney had 4 1/2 ace blocks. Delzer followed with three, then we see Caskey with 1 1/2. Carlson performed one ace block. Madison and Peters each had 1/2. 

The digging specialist was Grayce Reigstad with 29. Four other Wildcats can be cited in digs: Abby Knudsen 9, Munsch 7, Caskey 6 and Barney 5. 

This is sad: I find that I can hardly ever type the names of the MACA female student-athletes any more. In the winter I have had some success with boys basketball. Not with girls. The boys coach has been making some use of the "Maxpreps" website for timely stats reporting. I really hope he continues that. Maybe his dad can give him a nudge or a reminder. 

It is always a joy to write about MACA athletes. I just have a much harder time these days. 

I am staying abreast of Minnewaska Area volleyball in my online writing. Odds are much better of me obtaining individual highlights for the Lakers. I'll take what I can get. Here is the permalink for my current 'Waska post which is on my companion blog "Morris of Course." The Lakers swept BOLD. Previous to that they swept our Tigers. Thanks for reading.

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/dacia-fleury-has-12-kills-in-sweep-of.html 

 

Addendum: Just before clicking on "publish" I checked sports on the Stevens County Times website. Might I see special attention for the MACA football win over Little Falls? No. So what's the top story in the eyes of the SCT? "Solid defensive effort falls short in 1-0 home defeat for Cougar soccer." Clever ploy in headline too: say something positive about the "home" team before admitting we lost the game. I'm familiar with all this, believe me.

 

Addendum #2: I do not hate Taylor Swift.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

An electric night as Tigers win 50-21

Oh man, I wish that many years ago I'd had some nice high-scoring football games to write about. Most current fans probably have a short-term memory. Believe me there was a time when teams ran the football at each other all game and the final score would have low numbers. 

I remember coach Jerry Witt occasionally using the term "smash mouth football." Our society used to admire that or smile about that: suggested toughness in a "manly" way. Our thinking has advanced. Boys are no tougher than girls. And "tough" suggests danger of hurting people. There has never been anything good about that, not even "manly." 

But there was a time when the manly males were conscripted into military service and sent to Vietnam where unspeakably terrible things including death would happen to them. You would think that the people would have risen up. Unfortunately not enough did: our involvement went on for years, even with many people back here behaving like cheerleaders for it. Led by John Wayne. Oh, he was an actor. Hollywood is "the dream factory." Wayne gave us the movie "The Green Berets." 

So today our MACA Tigers are scoring so often, the "scoring summary" portion of a game report would be extensive. Man, do I ever remember when the opposite was true! It seemed almost pointless to sit down with coach Witt in an interview and start out with the "scoring summary." So minimal. 

I remember back in that time, the "9-man" game gave writers like me some relief: generally speaking far more scoring. Another trait that I noticed with the 9-man game was that one superstar could really take over a game. Neal Hofland really had impact in the 9-man game with his Spartans. It's the stuff of museum memories now. 

Great to see Neal still "at it" in athletics, his heart in it 100 percent. I endured times when the Morris-based athletic program had some issues with culture, philosophy and performance. Today? Man, I was at Big Cat for a portion of the Little Falls game last night. Everything is terrific. I'm a little saddened by how I recognize so few people among the fans now. 

The big news in my head coming out of last night is the re-emergence of cheerleaders for Motown! Looked to me like a real official group of cheerleaders and not an informally organized group. 

What do I think? Well, terrific! The more the merrier: This is a neat addition to the whole experience. If I were still with the newspaper - now, there's a reach for a hypothetical - I would push for a front-page article on that.

It's not just a new dimension for the experience, it is the re-starting of something that was once a staple. I would try to reflect on why it was phased out: I think for cultural reasons, reasons related to societal change. I don't know for a fact if Mary Holmberg felt it had to go, but it would not surprise me. I think the real progressive people of a certain time - like when Chris Voelz was women's athletic director at the U - felt that the sea change of true women's empowerment in athletics had to entail various things even if they were just symbolic. 

Cheerleaders? That whole concept could be seen as a vestige in certain people's eyes, vestige of less enlightened times when there were gender stereotypes. The boys were engaged in the truly serious activity that people paid to see. Yes like football the tough and manly sport. 

It was expected of cheerleaders that they be cute. Based on my experience observing, I would say the "cute" element particularly applied to the basketball cheerleaders. That's boys basketball. 

The wrestling/football cheerleaders never quite measured up the same way. If you're offended by that, that's unfortunate. 

I would hope that cheerleaders of today are not expected to be "lookers." And my, how would I define "lookers?" There's a daunting question in today's cultural environment. 

It has become so clear that females are the equals of males in sports, I do not think the Mary Holmbergs of the world have to feel defensive any more. Look what Caitlin Clark is doing now. We can enjoy cheerleaders as a simple fun element of the prep sports experience. 

How long has this hiatus been, where Tiger sports has been sans cheerleaders? Oh, a great many years. It's great to see gender equality and also great to see cheerleaders. I could not observe close enough last night to see if one or more of them were male. I would think males are eligible. 

 

Music, maestro!

I arrived at Big Cat midway in the first quarter. I wondered if the pep band was present. I had to ask around. I learned the band played but it was quite ahead of the game. And the band did not play the National Anthem. But the anthem had the delight of a recent MAHS alum perform. I heard part of this from YouTube. 

Featured was Emily Hamm who I still remember from her Christmas concert performance of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." That's a challenging song to sing with a wide vocal range. Speaking of wide vocal range, the National Anthem ranks at or near the top with that. Ms. Hamm showed her singing chops. 

Later when I was at the field, I heard the recording of the MAHS pep band doing our school song. I have a criticism to share with this. First off, the quality of the recording doesn't seem very good. Secondly, don't you think the band drags a little with tempo? I confirmed this by noticing that fans struggled some to slow down their clapping as the tune proceeded. 

You know what I think the band needed? I think it could have used last year's Hancock pep band director who played electric bass with her band. Man, she really pushed the kids - exciting. But later I heard this didn't win such approval from her own principal. Seems Mr. Pahl was disapproving of her work with this. "Unprofessional?" That's what I heard he said. 

I could not disagree more. I wrote about Tim Pahl for the Hancock paper when he was an athlete under Dave Schoeck and others. I also wrote a lot about Bill Kehoe for the Morris paper. Ah, these "kids."

 

Tigers 50, Little Falls 21

MACA won a terrific game over Little Falls 50-21. All that point-scoring! If I had only been blessed to write about games like this in a bygone time. I remember being at a typical game at Coombe Field when Minnewaska (or Glenwood) was hopeless and I swore that even if the ball got loose in the end zone and the Lakers had only to fall on it, the ball would squirt out of the end zone. Compare that to last night here.

 

Addendum: How is MACA cross country doing? Actually not encouraging. Take a look at the results of Thursday's Little Crow Invitational hosted by NL-Spicer. The MACA boys were 14th among 15 teams. The girls? We were 11th among 12 teams. 

What about volleyball? We did sweep Benson Thursday but Benson was a cupcake opponent. They're busy over there fighting to keep the "Braves" nickname. 

A friend informed me that Tiger volleyball has "struggled pretty consistently with just one winning season since the 2020 pandemic year." Back in 2017 we were tops in the West Central Conference and went 21-6 overall. A 12-1 WCC mark and then unfortunately fell to a juggernaut Marshall in the state qualifier. "The 2018 season was another great year for Tiger volleyball - but post-covid it's been tough sledding." 

The match before Benson was a 0-3 loss to Minnewaska at home.

 

Addendum #2: From an email I sent to a friend this morning (Saturday):  

Remember the school board member who wondered if the teachers were practicing "preventative health care?" This was a very important point to be made. These teachers with their Cadillac health insurance will go to a doctor who sends them for "tests" and then when a test shows something ever so minor that isn't quite right, well then all heck breaks loose with meds and follow-up testing to where the expense for everyone skyrockets. And of course many people create their own problems with not eating right, lack of exercise, overweight etc.

 

- BW 

Tigers turning on the jets so far

The Morris football team is not only winning, it is scoring points with frequency. Like over 40 a game so far. 

Of course we're "Morris Area Chokio Alberta." I remember the Chokio-Alberta Spartans coached by Neal Hofland. Neal is still very much on the scene with local athletics. More of us might have a harder time remembering when he and John Mithun led those red-clad Spartans into battle, always ready to deploy the "toss-sweep." I often remind Neal of that memory when I see him in DeToy's Restaurant. 

DeToy's is a nice place to hear lots of pro-Republican and pro-Trump rhetoric if that is your thing. Is the presidential race a matter of great concern? You might think it is, if you like the "horserace" aspect of it all. Like following football, maybe? 

Why might I express detachment? Let me ask you this: Does the president of the U.S. have the power to devalue our currency? No. The central bank a.k.a. "Federal Reserve" has that power. Trump says he would like to exercise power over it. Does anyone think he would ever use that power to influence interest rates higher? No it would be the reverse. 

The reverse would be a way for our elected leaders to get a "quick fix" and maybe ensure their re-election. Maybe Trump can talk about Haitians going door to door to eat your dogs and cats. I will assume that the usual roster of "talk radio hosts" is making hay of this. It's another day for them e.g. Mark Levin to keep their racket going. Surely there is a receptive ear for them here in western Minnesota where we have Michelle Fischbach as our representative. 

Her priorities? "Pro-life and Second Amendment." Well that's our choice. 

I'm not sure the November election will do much to lift our lot in life. That's because the Federal Reserve led by Jerome Powell has already promised a course of lower interest rates. Yes this is cheered by a great many. But you fools, don't you realize there's no such thing as a free lunch? People with interest-bearing  bank accounts will be totally screwed again. 

Worse than that, I think, will be inflation. Shouldn't people be bothered by inflation? Do people have some magical mystical way for adjusting to this? That I do not know about? I wandered the county fairgrounds last month and felt prices for concessions were disturbingly high. I can remember a time when Americans were more sensitive about this kind of thing. 

Was I just paying more attention when I was with the Morris paper and circulating out and around more? I can remember when the local public was complaining with a real bite about the single copy price of the newspaper going from 50 to 75 cents. At our county fair I just saw a sea of people so contented and apparently with wads of money handy to buy the various food items. 

It's good if people are happy. I just think there's a chance that the new big round of Federal Reserve "rate cuts" could bite us. I know Wall Street always cheers this. But as I asked a friend recently, if I put all my money in the stock market, how does that help me buy breakfast tomorrow morning, and the morning after that etc.? 

Chris Matthews broke down on MSNBC once when he still had his daily program, saying "are you always supposed to buy (stocks)? Are you ever supposed to sell?" It really struck me because you practically never hear this kind of skepticism about stocks in the MSM. It's as if MSM is part of a big conspiracy, which I will note with the understanding that I'm sounding like the kind of crackpots I often criticize. 

Money does talk though. Even if it cannot sing or dance or walk. Or as my old friend Jim McRoberts of this community once told me, "talk is cheap but it takes money to buy whiskey." 

Hey, there's a home football game at Big Cat tomorrow (Friday). How long has Big Cat been in existence? Where does the time go? I remember when it was totally new. Such a contrast with our previous facility of Coombe Field. A whole different atmosphere. 

The old field had its charms as a place where people gathered to socialize to an extent that the game seemed almost secondary. Remember that? A school board member reminisced by calling it a "town square" type of place. 

Big Cat was designed with the idea that the vast majority of people are there to seriously watch football. Many new football facilities with artificial turf have been constructed this way around Minnesota. What that meant was that high school football was going to have to be more marketable. Football is a product. It is entertainment. Boring games would diminish interest. 

The High School League went to work adjusting rules to try to encourage more offense, more scoring and probably more passing of the football. It worked. Look at the scores of the first two MACA games as examples. We beat Minnewaska 46-27 and Thief River Falls 42-0. We won 42-0 over a community with a population of close to 9,000. I wonder what the backstory is. 

Football is alive and well even though it should not be. We should discourage our boys from playing this sport which requires a helmet. Alas, the progress on this has been halting. We do have a soccer team now. That is progress. 

 

My priority

Now, on to the media coverage subject. This is always closest to my heart. I'll turn the writing over here to my old Bonanza Valley newspaper friend Randy Olson with whom I periodically correspond. (Look further down.) He is still fighting the battle of putting out a community paper. He really sets an example with what he does online to compliment his paper work. 

And - ahem - what a night-and-day contrast with our Morris paper which is totally derelict when it comes to online. Why doesn't the community rise up about this? I mean, you click on the "sports" link of the SCT site and it's all UMM. 

I'm almost inclined to suggest a profanity-riddled complaint to the Morris paper. I know people in Morris are capable of complaining this way, even people in professions like medicine and law. No aversion to the potty mouth here in Motown. Maybe this helps us understand the mania for promoting Donald Trump here. Are we really just uncouth and ignorant? 

The presidential race is really just kind of window dressing IMHO while the real critical issue affecting our lives is what the Federal Reserve does. 

Now I'll quote Mr. Olson on local media performance:

 

Hello Brian, 

I say that if you're in the media, you either hitch onto a new way of doing things. Example, here's a second blog post that I have from Week Two of B-B-E's football season.

https://bbejaguars.blogspot.com/2024/09/strong-on-both-sides-of-ball.html

I run the newspaper and operate a strong Internet presence for B-B-E sports. No staff. What is the excuse for newspapers who have staff? Why the lack of timely sports reporting? 

Media organizations who can't keep up with the times do need to hang it up and just turn sports over to the schools. You raised good points about this in past blog posts, how schools can do the sports reporting themselves. It's great experience for students, and they can utilize school websites, YouTube and social media to do it all. Plus, it does not cost that much money for the infrastructure. This is not a big expense for a school.

Schools already have video cameras, yearbook cameras...obviously Internet access too. The big issue for newspapers is labor - but that's free for schools as they have kids who need the experience anyway. The skills learned from sports reporting can be carried on as an adult even if you have nothing to do with sports in the workforce.

 

My two cents!

Randy Olson

 

Continuing conversation

Randy communicated to make sure I had access to (some of the) Tuesday volleyball match information: MACA vs. 'Waska. The info from the WC Trib only had 'Waska highlights. I blogged about the match anyway on "Morris of Course." Here's the permalink and thanks:

https://morrisofcourse.blogspot.com/2024/09/maca-volleyball-falls-to-waska-at-home.html 

 

I responded to Randy's considerate and thoughtful email. One thing we have in common is that we have a natural enthusiasm for this sort of thing. We'd never wait almost two weeks to share with the public about the high school football opener like our SCT did. We just couldn't. My email response to Randy:

Thanks of course. Lately I have noticed that the WC Trib has had its paywall down. I have noticed this maybe 4-5 times in the last few days. I don't take notes. But this is unusual. So I have to wonder if the paper is wondering what route to go in the future. Maybe the paywall model has more negatives than positives. They must be experimenting with having it down now and then, but this has been for several days now. Maybe it's a tough "sell." Complaints from some fans who can't find what they are expecting to find there?

I have wondered for a long time if the WC Trib can keep counting on coaches calling in. I have to believe this is stressful for coaches who may have been through a long night. And what if it was a heartbreaking loss? Of course the prizewinner for this was when Tiger football had a big comeback win at Paynesville and the coverage was so butchered the next day, Lyle Rambow contacted me to clarify some of the most obvious errors. I'd hate to admit now how many years ago this was. I had left the Morris paper. Jerry Witt was still coach.

Back when I regularly consulted with the Willmar paper when it published five or six days a week, I was surprised how often I found obvious discrepancies in game info. Anyone who blogged about any team using the paper as info resource would have noticed this. And I'm sure that processing game info can be an inexact science. The coaches have to do this so hurriedly on game night. I say just get something posted within 24 hours. Have some time to do some double-checking.

Hey, I wonder if the WC Trib ever appeals to school administrators to try to get more cooperation from coaches. I'll bet it has happened and I wonder what the response is, because the administrators would know this is not in the coaches' contracts. I would guess the administrators would be hands-off, but I'm speculating.

Looks like in Morris there is a school board candidate set up to represent the teachers' interests. You can tell by spotting signs in teachers' yards. I'm not familiar with this person. I would much rather have board members who do not answer to the teachers at all.

Again thanks.

- BW

 

Oh, and Randy responds: 

Oh my,  That is extremely suspicious and all I can think is what could go wrong with the teachers having a pet on the school board?????  Give me a break