PARENTS always adorn their children with so many words of wisdom as they’re growing up, especially when it comes to sports. Some concepts are easy to grasp. Father: “Keep your eye on the ball, son.” Son: “Thanks, Dad. How many years of baseball school did you take to learn that ...
The last 100 meters lie directly in front of an area athlete. A second-place competitor is closing fast. Who crosses the line first? The allure of being a track and field state champion is like no other. This May 31 and June 1, some area athletes have a great opportunity to be high atop the ...
The irony was amazing. In the Tribune Chronicle sports department we keep stacks of our sports sections, piled by year — each stack includes 365 (or 366 for leap year) different issues. Each day we pull the bottom issue from each stack and put it on top of the next stack. It gives us an idea ...
Not many coaches are put in the type of predicament of a high school baseball coach in northeast Ohio. With unpredictable weather and a season that’s basically a month and a half, coaches are practically preparing for the postseason from Day 1. Sure, coaches and teams in all sports have one ...
Don’t tell anyone you heard this from me — I don’t want to be accused of jinxing things — but the weather for the high school spring sports season in 2019 has been downright decent. That has made for some busy evenings in our sports department, but we are OK with that as we try to ...
While waiting for my grandson Carter’s baseball team to get their photos taken on Saturday, I got to thinking about how much effort — not to mention expense — goes into providing organized sports opportunities for youngsters in our communities. As we start another baseball season, while ...
IN the professional world, it’s one of the four major sports, but in the high school realm, baseball seems to be further back on the list — for whatever reason. Blame Mother Nature. Blame the slow pace that seems to irk some people, or maybe blame the fact that a lot of times, people ...
One of the more nauseating quotes fans and media hear from coaches is the old “we need to change the culture” line. Yeah, and I need to change the inordinate amount of time I spend scouring meaningless social media posts on my phone, but that’s not happening either. However, the ...
The Major League Baseball season finally is upon us after a long offseason of talk about speeding up the game and making it more exciting. Apparently, the pace of the game is not fast enough for some viewers, whether they be watching in person, on television or on a handheld device. I don’t ...
Longtime Champion baseball coach Bill Thorne always liked to schedule as many games as possible in March each season. His reasoning was that there often are stretches of three to four days in late March when the weather is nice enough to get a game in. Invariably, most if not all of the ...
THERE was a recent article on Yahoo.com that reported the average salary of an NBA referee is between $150,000 and $550,000 per year. Impressive, huh? Yeah, well, they deserve it. As a sports reporter for the last 15 years, the ignorance and outlandish criticism I’ve heard spewed toward ...
THIS is the look you want your program to have heading the NCAA Tournament? Bradley University, you just disgraced your fans who have waited since the 2005-06 season to return to this pinnacle. Your players, who have given everything they have each and every practice and then some, are ...
Sadly, Las Vegas is a destination that has escaped me over the years. It really is sad because “the city that never sleeps” and I could be a beautiful duo. Or maybe not. It could be like crossing the streams on “Ghostbusters” and possibly lead to the total destruction of the universe. ...
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s Wednesday morning and I’m driving down Schenley Road near Youngstown, heading to a Wednesday morning mass. It’s Ash Wednesday and I’m trying to think of what to give up for the 40-day Lenten season. Hamburger, hot dog and sub buns. That’s my plan. Hopefully it ...
Horizon League teams figured out a trip to the Beeghly Center meant nothing more than 40 minutes of pain and misery. The Youngstown State women’s basketball team hopes to inflict some more of what its done for the better part of the previous two months, going 9-0 against the rest of this ...
Three consecutive losses. Wright State, Northern Kentucky and Cleveland State. Sound familiar? It should. The Youngstown State men’s basketball team was losers of three straight before heading to Oakland (Mich.) University for a Jan. 30 regular season game on the Rochester, Michigan ...
One of the most unforgiving days of the season is nearly upon high school wrestlers. The goal of every wrestler who steps on the mat this weekend at their respective district tournament is to qualify for state, but only the top four in each 16-man weight class advance. It’s when the numbers ...
YOUNGSTOWN — The crowd started to fill the Beeghly Center earlier than usual on Saturday afternoon. The Youngstown State University pep band was more than doubled in size with area high school band members a part of the merriment in the loudest area inside the nearly 50-year-old venue, the ...
THINGS never seem to come easy for Niles, regardless of the sport ... or politician, fiscal situation, levy, coach, etc. A city known for a blue-collar work ethic and football stardom back in the 1950s and ‘60s has endured some black eyes in recent years. Basketball certainly hasn’t been ...
With area girls basketball teams having started tournament action on Saturday and the rest getting into action this week — to be followed next week by the start of the boys’ tournaments — it’s time for the debate regarding the location of games during the first two rounds of the ...