PEA RIDGE — With both the high school softball and baseball teams exhibiting some punch power, the Blackhawk squads have the chance to go deep into this year’s state playoffs.
While stats and results have been hard to come by, I have heard and read enough scores from other papers to know enough that that both teams have been shown to be potentially great teams. If both or either team makes the district semi-final tournament, they will automatically qualify for the 4A North Regional Tournament to be held May 4-7 in Berryville.
Should either team make it past the first game in the regions and into the semi-final round, they will claim an automatic qualifying spot for the 4A State Championship Tournament. For the boys it will be more of the same as Berryville is also hosting the state tourney as well with games set for May 10-12. The final championship finals game will be moved to the Razorback’s Baum Stadium May 19.
The girls squads making it through regions to go to state will be traveling a good bit further than their male counterparts.
The girls 4A State Softball Tournament will be held in Nashville on the same dates as the boys tournament. The 4A State Final will be moved to the Lady Razorbacks’ field in Fayetteville on May 18.
Youth runners to the line
Any local kids who wish to get in a little better shape and perhaps work for some awards will have a chance to do those things starting next week. On this coming Monday, the Little’Hawk track program will be partly revived with a fitness and health workout on the bus turn around spot behind the Primary building.
After reviewing the latest bad news about the state of kids health in America, I thought I would do just a little to maybe reverse some the downhill trend of kids health in general.
The program will consist of a walking/running program with attention paid to running mechanics and lessons on avoiding injuries. Having coached a lot of national medalists in track and field as well as high school medalists, there are commonalties among them all that helped them be more successful in sports that require running.
Another reason for youths to be in better shape is for their grade averages. Yep, I said their grade averages.
When I was a high school track athlete, mygrades were always markedly better in the spring that they were in the fall. I thought it was sort of odd that it worked out that way but it did. Running for National Hall of Fame Track and Field Coach Ted Lloyd in my years at Harding University, I found it that is wasn’t accidental that my grades did that.
I noticed that while I ran around 1,000 miles a semester at Harding, I tended to eat less that I did in high school. I also tended to be alert longer even during the hard days that college life can hand you, balancing finals, training, volunteer work and having a girl friend.
The great thing about being in great physical condition, is that you have much better blood flow than those folks that are not in shape. Anyone that has been in a science or biology class knows that arteries bring blood from the heart and the veins bring it back again. The little things that connect the veins and arteries are things called capillaries.
Capillaries control just how much blood can be pumped around your body.
The great thing about them is that you can grow them as they are not a finite number. Blood brings the fuel to the muscles for them to work. Developing more capillaries is like going from a two-barrel carburetor to a four-barrel one. The more you get your heart pumping for an extended time, the moreyour body will grow capillaries to meet the demand.
The more capillaries, the more blood your system can move and the better will be your stamina.
For getting in shape, it is far better to run at a slower pace to keep the heart pumping for an extended period of time than it is to run short spurts or all out dashes then abruptly stop.
Anaerobic training (short bursts) may strengthen muscles but it won’t do much for increasing blood flow.
Back to improved grades, numerous tests and studies have proven that increased blood flow to the brain will improve cognitive development, a person’s ability to think. It is no accident that the University of Arkansas’ highest grade points of all their sporting teams usually belongs to the cross country team. Inrecent years, coach John King’s cross country boys were awarded state honors for their academic achievement.
I could recount dozens of stories of athletes I have coached over the years who would ratchet up their academic success after getting physically fit. The ancient Greeks were the ones who first saw the connection between the physical and the mental as they taught their young that physical and mental greatness come in one package.
Once I was asked if someone could be really good academically while being in poor physicalcondition. That could be true, but the better question would be this. “Would a smart kid in bad physical shape be smarter if he/she were in better physical shape.” The answer is “yes.”
This coming May, there will be a youth walk/run in the Pinnacle Promenade.
It is a free event and a fun event to boot. More on that later.
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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 04/11/2012