PEA RIDGE — The 2011 edition of the Pea Ridge High School football team will wrap up their season this Friday with a final game at home hosting the Berryville Bobcats.
To date, the ’Hawks have won three games this year, a 300 percent improvement over last year with a chance to be 400 percent better with a victory over the winless Bobcats.
Though the ’Cats may be 0-9, they threatened and even led several teams this season only to fall apart in the late going. For folks who remember last season, the Bobcats were 0-9 when we visited their stadium to wrap up the season. They beat us in a narrow upset which only proves the old adage that any team can be upset on any day, especially if a team takes their opponent too lightly.
There shouldn’t be too much chance that the ’Hawks will take their last opponent too lightly as head coach Tony Travis will remind them of 2010.
The Blackhawks should win this game and will win this game if the players play like they are capable of playing. The game will be Senior Night, honoring the players who will be suiting up in the black and white in pads for the last time.
There are only six seniors, meaning that 2012 will hold a lot of promise with so many starters and productive players returning next year.
I caught up with coach Travis in the locker room a little while after the defeat against Farmington last week. Coach was a bit down, about losing the game and also about losing any hope of making the playoffs. Though a win this week will give the ’Hawks a 4-6 mark, best since 2007, it still won’t be good enough to get into the playoffs, a definite team goal that was within reach this season.
Travis believes in his players and is turning things around, little by little.
While the starting team has many productive players this year, the depth isn’t there yet, so when injuries and illness strike, the team’s game ability suffers.
To get better in 2012, it would help if more students became players and that these same players begin preparing in the winter of 2011-12 for the fall campaign of that year.
Another critical component to success in 2012 is developing team and individual speed. In the game against Farmington, we weren’t fast enough to keep up with their receivers and our receivers weren’t fast enough to get away from their defenders. It’s much easier making completions to wide open receivers than it is trying to feed a pass to someone who has a shadow.
For as long as I have been in Pea Ridge (14 years), Ihave been a football fan, reading all the pre-season news and hype. Every year, while sports pundits would change their assessments of the schools talent and size and outlook, they would always cite “lack of team speed” as a reason for doubting the success of a particular year. I have sometimes asked athletes every once in a while, on all levels of athletics, how fast they were just to see what kind of answer I would get. Most often they would say something like “fast enough.”
There is no such thing as “fast enough.” No matter how fast anyone may be, they can always get faster.
I remember when Dave Van Horn became coach of the Arkansas Razorback baseball team, he ran his players so much in that first fall that some of the players complained thatthey were running more than the track team. He reminded his players of all the times that they were out at first by half a step, or were thrown out at second by half a step, or how they just missed a fly ball by half a step. He said that they were going to beat the throws and make the catches like never before and he was right as the Hogs have had some pretty incredible teams the past few years.
Recently hired head coach Mike Anderson of the Razorbacks basketball team has had his team, as one player put it, running their legs off. They have been running repeat milesover some of the worst hills around the university campus. The best shooter on the team from last season, quit the team over the summer due to his dislike of running. But, if anyone remembers the glory years of the Richardson era which included a lot of league titles and a national championship, his teams ran with the track teams of John McDonnell in his desire to build fearless athletes. Richardson’s team lost some games but never because they were tired.
Richardson once said “fatigue makes cowards of us all.” In team sports such as basketball and football, the team that can go full bore all the time will rarely lose.
Watching those Arkansas games when the opponents were bent over in time outs with their hands on their shorts while the Razorbacks were just standing there calmly listening to their coach, you knew the game was over.
Of course, when I tout running as way to improve an athlete’s chances for success, I am not talking about jogging. Jogging is plodding down the road or track with your head bouncing up and down with your heel hitting the ground first with every step. First of all, excessive “jogging” will lead to a variety of leg ailments and it won’t do much for you.
Running is moving fast.
Running is staying on your toes and moving smoothly with an efficiency of motion. Running like someone is chasing you.
Athletes who do only what is required of them can usually have an alright career, not too bad, not too good. Athletes who excel, so more than what is required, do more than what is expected. True athletes do all they can to be as good as they can be, so that when their game or season is over, they can be proud that they did all they could.
Who’d a’thunk it?
I know, I am a teacher and should never talk or write like this, but really, “Who’d a thunk it?” The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series!
Having been a Cardinal fan since 1964 when the Cards beat the Yanks. I was even a bigger fan in 1967 when they came back to win again. I bought my first transistor radio so I could listen to Cardinal games when I road my bike or was in my room in the evening.
I remember vividly opening night in ’67 when the Cards beat the Giants 6-0 with Gibson pitching, and Kurt Flood and Lou Brock in the outfield. I listened or watched to most of the games that year.
I admit that I thought the Cards were out of it when they were down by 10 games going into September. Winning the wild card on the last day of the season is movie stuff.
Beating the Phillies, the league’s really best team in the first round, then taking out the Brewers in the league championship game was really exciting. The World Series game No. 6 was epic with St. Louis native David Freeze sending his team into extra innings and avoiding conceding the World Series title to the Texas Rangers with a game-saving triple. When Freeze won the game with an 11th inning home run was even more epic.
While I hated to see it at the time, I was worried about an injury that sidelined Holliday, one of the Cards’ top players. His replacement. Roger Craig, got a key hit to help send his team to a game 7, then was the catalyst in winning the title in that final game.
Today I heard that longtime manager and coach Tony LaRussa was retiring and rumors were swirling that the greatest player in the game, Albert Pujols, was probably going to sign one last pro contract and it won’t be in St. Louis.
However, the Cards are the Cards, every once in a while, in different eras, in different times, they pull off the big one. The title this year was their 11th, second most to the Yankees, of course. They will win again, perhaps with different players, coaches and owners but they will always have the same fans. Fans who are fans for a long time.
Fans like me.
◊◊◊
Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.
Sports, Pages 10 on 11/02/2011