 |
| Owners of Section 6A crown |
The MACA teams must go to Marshall once they start advancing in the post-season. And so it was "destination Marshall" for our baseball and softball fans on several days during this late-spring or early-summer.
Spring sports is unique because the most climactic phase of the season occurs after high school classes are done, graduations are done. Put aside the lazy hazy days of summer. At least put it aside until mid-June.
Morris had the privilege of hosting the closing stages of Section 6A baseball play. Our friends from BBE came here. They're the "Jaguars." Randy Olson is their newspaper guy. He sees to it that BBE school activities are represented in a dynamic and timely way online. I wish that kind of commitment was made for MACA. A whole lot of people might suggest this but it won't happen.
The norm has been for our newspaper website to be loaded with UMM Cougar headlines. I'm surprised the public puts up with it. Any fan of UMM can go to UMM's own sports website and get virtually all services for media attention - all the bells and whistles. It is nothing but a waste for the SCT to throw UMM sports material on their website.
Yeah, I know: the SCT needs to "sell" their weekly print edition. It was twice a week back when I worked for the paper.
If the MACA fans choose to be lethargic, that's something they will have to deal with. I can only express my views. I'm not forced to follow any narrow party line. Yes I will catch some brickbats. I always have. I probably lost my job because of fallout from the UMM goalpost incident, 2005. I wasn't even there when it happened. It seemed like UMM's own sports information director did a vanishing act. And yours truly was the one who was derelict.
I'm not sure to what extent the local paper should even apply its own resources to cover UMM. I always felt that the local high school sports were far and away our top priority. At the end as the walls were closing in on me - the year was 2006 - I had a superior at the paper put in writing that UMM sports coverage should be our TOP priority. And I guess his word was the law.
This was the same guy who wrote an editorial after I left suggesting that Neal Hofland was the leader (or you might say ringleader) of a regressive faction on the Stevens County board. I think the issue in play was the notorious proposal for a "Regional Justice Center." A big law enforcement place in Cyrus where there was still an active elementary school?
The paper seemed to pump up this idea of the "RJC." My past colleague Jim Morrison said that "any time there's a proposal for spending public money, the editor is all for it."
Bedfellows
The print media is known to be a partner with government. The government has a much harder time getting the electronic media in line with its wishes. Hence we see so much power with "conservative media," suffocating sometimes. Nothing like this ever happened in the 1970s.
I sit here now still with a vivid memory of the closing stages of my newspaper career. As a product of the '70s I was a little cynical. Maybe I could have overcome that better with time. I'll never know.
I would have loved covering the MAHS graduation over the last 19 years. And the Hancock graduation, C-A graduation and Memorial Day program. I used to do it all. The year I left, 2006, doesn't seem that long ago in my mind. But today's high school graduates were not even born yet. Sort of blows my mind.
The day I walked out of the paper, June 2, I had documents accumulating in my inbox for the next week's work I was all set to do. I was a master of "pagination." But I had to walk out the door one last time. No one in management wished me luck, no farewell type of message. It was totally cold. Well the management people had to do what they had to do, to satisfy their corporate masters. It was Forum Communications.
The goalpost incident had left me vulnerable. The effect or suggestion in my coverage was that the UMM football team as a group had a role in the goalpost shenanigans. UMM's chancellor described the incident as "students behaving foolishly." Well fine, I just wish I had stayed home that afternoon. Maybe did some yard work.
Eventually a very well-placed source with UMM told me the football team as a whole did in fact have direct involvement in the incident, which is why so many people wet their pants over my coverage. Remember it was just a vague insinuation or inference.
Yes, sometimes the truth really hurts. As a journalist I care only about the truth, not covering people's rear ends. To suggest that an official UMM program like football had misbehaved or gone errant was a cardinal sin I guess. I have had plenty of time to sit at home ever since. And so here I am today.
 |
| The runners-up in 6A |
Well, Randy Olson of Bonanza Valley can't be too happy writing about Thursday's baseball doings here in Motown. His Jaguars came mighty close to qualifying for state.
Just as with our high-flying Tigers, it was not to be. The MACA baseball and softball teams both had spectacular regular seasons only to come up shy in section. And fans had to make the long trips to Marshall for sections. This while BBE fans could enjoy our facilities here in Morris.
So on Thursday in Morris, Parkers Prairie walked away with #1 in 6A, 2-1 over the Jaguars. The difference came in the bottom of the seventh with a two-out RBI base rap by Parkers Prairie's Joseph Johnson.
I can hear the cheering from where I live. I was considering going over to say hello to Randy but I didn't want to pay the admission price. My friends accuse me of being cheap.
Parkers Prairie has a win skein of 16 going. Their overall record is 22-3. BBE closes out 2025 at 18-8. Looks like the Jaguars were over-achievers. BBE's lone run came in the third inning. An Ethan Mueller single scored Brett DeRoo.
 |
| Brett DeRoo of BBE |
The three BBE hits were by Brett DeRoo, Luke Illies and Ethan Mueller.
The BBE pitchers were Hayden Sobiech (the loser) and Brett DeRoo. The winning pitcher for Parkers was A.J. Woodworth.
Addendum: The BBE band director is Brystin LaMont, a product of UMM who spent a year directing at Hancock. I appreciated her talents when she directed the Hancock pep band at a playoff football game at Big Cat. I was so impressed by what she added by playing the electric bass herself as she led the band. But oh shoot, I was informed later that Hancock's principal actually reprimanded her for doing that! I further had it explained to me that the principal tends to micro-manage people. I remember writing about him when he was a basketball player under Dave Schoeck at Hancock.
I hope things are going well for Brystin. Is she playing electric bass at BBE? I don't know.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment