Month: April 2020

By Jon Franklin:

On Friday, April 24, 2020 at approximately 2:00 pm, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) and the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA) formally canceled all outstanding sporting events that had been previously postponed. The basketball state championship games and all spring sports were caught in the crossfire after Governor Roy Cooper canceled all in-house classroom activities.

Since the March 15th announcement from Governor Cooper and the NCHSAA / NCISAA that postponed all activities until May 15th, I began to see that all of the remaining athletic competitions were facing a very grim situation. Even if sports started the following day on Saturday, May 16th, there would be almost no time to acclimate the athletes to season form, play a modified season, and then play a modified form of state playoffs. Even the basketball state finalists would have scurried to find a way to return to top form, just to complete their quest for a state championship.

The problem with all of this was not figuring out how to stay in shape, how to learn electronically, receive e-mails of plays, or to balance all of that with all of the craziness we’ve seen in the news.

The problem was the WAIT.

To paraphrase the line used by the late Gloria Stuart (portraying Rose Dawson Calvert, the elder Rose) in the 1997 film “Titanic” – student-athletes, coaches, and fans had nothing to do but wait. Wait to play, wait to practice, wait for an absolution that would never come.”

My issues during this period of abeyance was that it appears that no guidance or direction was issued by the NCHSAA about any potential ideas on how to resume. While we all realize that the COVID-19 situation has been very fluid and ever changing, one would have thought that there would be been some hints about how these events could have resumed.

Nick Stevens, managing editor of HighSchoolOT.com, on the other hand, was very proactive in suggesting ideas on how the NCHSAA could resume activities once an order was issued or rescinded. Perhaps the NCHSAA administration could have utilized some of his plans to at least have people prepared.

Imagine if you’re head coach Allen Byrd and the players and assistant coaches making up the Cedar Ridge softball team. You’re poised for some great things. Last season, you won the Big Eight Conference championship, won two state playoff games, and ended the season to the eventual state champions in the third round. This season, you’re 3-1, batting a sterling .450 average, churning out a tremendous .711 slugging percentage, six of eleven recorded batters are averaging over .350, Takia Nichols has crushed five home runs in four games (one damaging the scoreboard), and a new scoreboard was installed.

Now enter the world of COVID-19, and all activities are suspended.

What is a student-athlete, coach, or an athletic director to do? You can’t play or practice, meetings now are by Face Time or Zoom, and any ideas of independent activities are shot due to governmental rules & regulations. So for now, it’s a wait and see situation to see if any future high school athletic competition will resume.

So how can a student-athlete use this period of inactivity to their advantage? Here’s a few ideas.

1) INSTRUCTION

Since the suspension of in-house scholastic instruction, online education has flourished. If all academics is now online, coaching can be performed the same way.

One tool that has helped athletes remain in shape is MaxPreps. This site, more known to finding out schedules, scores, and stats, has been a home to finding ways to stay in the groove from certified trainer Katerina Kountouris. Each workout also gives a link to Kountouris’ personal website where she offers encouragement as well as meal guides for proper nutrition. Best yet, it’s all free.

Another free coaching option is Class Central. This site offers tutorials in sports management, coaching, nutrition, and psychology.

I can’t speak for all student-athletes, but if I’m going stir-crazy in my house, I got to do something to keep myself occupied. What a better way to keep active that to learn ways to stay fit, eat clean, and even learn some things you didn’t know.

2) INSULATION

What I mean by this point is taking time off to let an athlete’s body heal, both mentally and physically. Think of this as a “reset button”.

With the amount of wear and tear young people are continually putting on their bodies, perhaps this break in the action could be exactly of what their doctors’ ordered.

In July 2019, ESPN published a scathing, two-part article detailing the weathering of youth in basketball resulting in catastrophic injuries. While not just related to basketball, many of these injuries are occurring at much younger ages to where their ability to do basic things are impacted – let alone acquire the scholarship to a fancy D1 school and making big bucks playing professional (insert sport).

The facts in this report told me what many already know: Student-Athletes are playing too much in a specific sport and are overworking their young bodies towards injury.

Back home in Marion, I remember watching kids as young as five play football. These players would play all the way up from youth league to middle school. As their freshman year at McDowell High approached, many didn’t want to play as they were tired of continually getting their heads beat in day after day.

I knew many of these athletes. When asked about why they stopped playing, the most common response I was given was that they had played so much football (or another specialized sport) to where they never knew what it was like to actually be a kid. So by the time they reached the ninth grade, they stopped playing competitive sports – all to become normal.

It’s ok to be a teenager. It’s ok to enjoy hanging out with friends, experience love, and overall take care of yourselves. If you have to take a break (whether forced or unforced), use it to your advantage. Sports will be back when you’re ready.

3) IMPROVEMENT

When I was a kid, my dad would always tell me, “If you get comfortable upon the stool of ‘Do Nothing’, will never be motivated to get up to walk on the path of ‘Do Something’.”

My father, as usual, was right. None of the previous two points actually mean anything if one is not willing to improve themselves.

So instead of playing video games, Tik Tok or Face Time with friends, or do whatever kids do these days, the time is yours to actually improve yourself – athletically and academically. While I don’t want to sound like I’m contradicting myself in saying, “Enjoy the break … Now get to work!”, but student-athletes have to have a restart point.

Imagine that school was able to resume and your sport was cranking back up, would you currently be in a position to be an asset to your team, or would you be a liability? The absurd amount of time off can be detrimental to an athlete, especially if they’re not staying in shape and are out of practice in their disciplines. But imagine if their time was managed wisely, how good can a team be full of prepared athletes?

As this period of athletic dormancy continues, the clock continues to tick down towards the next sports season. Despite the wait, every student-athlete has much work to do to make their team, and themselves better. What you do with the wait is your business. But use your waiting time wisely so you can be the best at what you do.

This week on the Rodcast, we’re joined by Kyle Snipes. Kyle is an Orange High graduate who grew up in Orange Grove. He went on to Wake Forest, where he was a member of Dave Odom’s staff during the glory days of Wake men’s basketball. Kyle is now the women’s coach at St. Pius High in Atlanta, where he has coached several state championship teams. Kyle discusses his time in Winston-Salem, in Atlanta and his days serving as an umpire with the Hillsborough Youth Athletic Association.

Cooper Hench had a big day as Orange edged East Chapel Hill at Wildcats Stadium in March 2019. Hench had nine assists at third base, delivered the game-winning hit and came on in relief of Luke Riley to earn the win. Listen back to the game here on Hillsboroughsports.com.

Loyalty requires a certain amount of stubbornness.

As a freshman, Braxton Mergenthal was a starter on Cedar Ridge’s football team.

By the end of his sophomore year, he didn’t have a varsity football team.

In the summer of 2018, the Orange County School System announced that Cedar Ridge wouldn’t field a varsity squad the following August because of “safety concerns.” In a sport where quantity determines your quality, the Red Wolves simply didn’t have enough players.

Mergenthal would have had every right to transfer to neighboring Orange High. Five of his teammates did, and there were other defections by All-Conference-caliber athletes from other sports in a summer of torment at Cedar Ridge.

Six weeks later, his coach, Scott Loosemore departed for Scotland County in order to secure an elusive full-time teaching position.

In order for Mergenthal to return to Cedar Ridge, it meant he had to go back to a program that had hit the reset button on football. After two years at the highest level, he would spend his junior year playing junior varsity, the only team that Cedar Ridge could possibly deploy. He would be surrounded by freshmen and sophomores learning on the job, just as he did in prior years.

Still, Mergenthal stayed. So did Braedon Thompson, K.J. Barnes, Jaikel Gibbs, Matthew Hinton, Brandon Poteat and Zach Holmes.

In the future, whenever Cedar Ridge football rises from the ashes, those players should be remembered as the ones who laid the foundation for success.

“As long as you have seniors who stay all four years, you’re going to have something to build on,” Mergenthal said. “I think we’ll continue to have that.”

There was also an academic factor. As a member of Cedar Ridge’s International Baccalaureate program, Mergenthal had already spent two years taking college-level courses. A move to Orange would have basically reset that process.

It wasn’t easy to remain. As soon as Mergenthal finished junior varsity football season, he played center for a Cedar Ridge men’s basketball team that went 1-23. Nonetheless, he suited up for 23 games, including the season’s lone win over Rockingham County.

“Staying at Cedar Ridge was a great decision,” Mergenthal said. “It taught me how to face adversity and I’m going to need that in college.”

It took a lot of stubbornness to stay around for a 1-win basketball season and a 1-10 football season last fall, when Cedar Ridge returned to varsity action.

Where did that stubbornness come from?

Perhaps the answer is Dusseldorf, Germany.

After spending his sixth grade year at Gravelly Hill Middle School, Braxton and his younger brother Jake moved to Europe. Their mother, Jessica Adams, got promoted to project manager with Bayer-Crop Science, which develops crop safety products for farmers. It led them away from Efland and into a whole new world.

“It was kind of like vacation,” Jessica said.

Until it wasn’t.

Jessica arrived home from work one day to find that Braxton had his bags packed. He informed his mother he was ready to return to Efland. At the age of 12, he assumed his mother and Todd would surely follow.

The only problem was Jessica was six months into a two-year assignment.

“I tried to explain that to him what the situation was,” said Jessica, who now works at BASF in Research Triangle Park. “I told him that before we went there. He said ‘No, I’m going home. If you want to stay, you stay.'”

Things got tense. Jake, who was ten, also got upset and ran to his room. Jessica followed to calm him down.

In the meantime, Braxton vanished.

Jessica scampered around the house only to find the Euros the family stored in a drawer taken. When she went outside, the garage door was open and Braxton wasn’t there. Neither was his bicycle.

Since they lived only two miles from Dusseldorf Airport, Braxton had decided to get a head start on his voyage home.

Jessica frantically drove around the streets looking for her son.

“I had no idea where he went,” Jessica said. “He had just decided he was leaving. There was so many bicyclists around Dusseldorf on the streets, he blended in very easily.”

After about an hour, Braxton sheepishly decided to backtrack. He couldn’t returned to Efland yet because he didn’t have a passport and he was underage to fly back to Raleigh-Durham Airport alone.

But he didn’t come home empty handed.

As he peddled back home, Braxton stopped by one of the many lavish flower fields in Dusseldorf.

“He cut a bunch of flowers for me and brought them home,” Jessica said.

“OK. I’m sorry,” Braxton said as he handed his mom the tulips. “I can stay another year.”

Then he headed upstairs.

“That was the end of that,” Jessica said. “He’s kind of hard headed. But he’s a sweet kid. Once he works through it on his own, he’s all-in.”

In his final year in Germany, Mergenthal improved his tackling technique by playing rugby.

He even learned a little German.

“I lost most of it once I came back, though,” Mergenthal said.

After he came home, Mergenthal was a three-sport athlete at Cedar Ridge. In addition to football and basketball, he played baseball in the spring under former head coach Jamie Athas. In his junior and senior seasons, he played defenseman on the lacrosse team.

“I love football,” Mergenthal said. “Let’s just say I thoroughly enjoy lacrosse.”

“When he first came out he could barely pass and catching was an adventure,” said Cedar Ridge lacrosse coach Patrick Kavanaugh. “But he stuck it out and became a solid contributor.  I am sorry he didn’t get a full season this year to show how much he has grown.”

Earlier this month, Mergenthal signed to play football at Division III Hampden-Sydney College in Farmville, Virginia, in between Danville and Lynchburg.

“I toured the school and it was just fit,” Mergenthal said. “Everything was perfect. Academics had a lot to do with it I felt this was the place for me. I’m attracted by their business program and they have a great alumni program. So hopefully after college I’ll find a job.”

He also had offers from Division II Mars Hill and various Division III schools.

After a high school career filled with uncertainty, Mergenthal will start his college career the same way. Filled with idle time recently, Mergenthal has worked out constantly since in-person classes shut down in Orange County March 16 due to the coronavirus pandemic. He’s already set for college football season, but has no idea when it will actually start this fall.

He’s not the only one.

Mergenthal finds himself set to graduate under the most unorthodox circumstances imaginable. As he departs for a destination not as far away as Germany, he’ll leave a lasting impact at Cedar Ridge by being, as late heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio coined it, the Last in Line.

“You could be the last, the strongest, and to me, it’s always been that,” Dio once said in an interview. “The perseverance that comes from going through challenges in life. And when you get to the end, and you’re the last one standing, and you ask yourself, ‘Was it worth it?’ you better say yes. That’s gonna be my answer.”

“I bet it’s going to come to me, knowing my luck.”

That was running through Grace Andrews’ head as she stared at a crowded grandstand at N.C. State’s Doak Field.

She wanted to be wrong because there was a state championship riding in the balance.

She wasn’t.

Andrews was a freshman playing 2nd base, which wasn’t even her standard position through her young career. The Orange softball team led Piedmont 4-1 in game two of the 3A State Softball Championships on June 3, 2017. The Lady Panthers were one out away from becoming the first women’s team in school history to win a state championship.

It was already so hot that Orange pitcher Christina Givens got lightheaded in the middle innings. She had to receive carbonated drinks and breath mints from Orange trainer Emily Gaddy in the dugout to finish the game.

Sure enough, the final out rolled Andrews way, and when she calmly touched second base, it set off a raucous celebration.

“It was so hot,” Andrews said. “But it worked out. I think about that team a lot. It was the most talented team I’ve been on. I wish I could have played with them longer and so many of them didn’t graduate right after that.”

Four years after that climatic finish, Andrews is winding down her high school career in the meekest way imaginable. With the hiatus caused by the coronavirus pandemic, her senior season has likely ended after only four games.

After starting for four years on the softball team, a ceremony to celebrate Andrews signing with a college team is richly deserved and standard. Of course, these are not standard times. School has been closed across Orange County since March 16.

Instead of a lunchtime gathering inside Orange High Gymnasium with hundreds of her schoolmates, coaches and teachers on hand, Andrews held a quaint ceremony to sign with Hickory’s Catawba Valley Community College at her family’s home last week. On hand was her father, Chris, her mother, Jeanne Stroud and her husband, Hal, along with grandfather Dennis and Orange assistant coaches Tonya Daye and Jennifer Batts.

It was an adjustment to benefit the greater good, something that has become customary for Andrews.

As a middle schooler on Barnes’ summer travel team, Andrews played catcher and first base. When she moved up to Orange in 2016, Panthers Coach Eddie Davidson wanted her in the starting lineup immediately, even if it meant rearranging his infield.

Andrews’ fellow freshman, Jaden Hurdle, was already penciled in at 1st base. Knowing that Andrews would be comfortable on the right side of the infield, Davidson asked senior 2nd baseman Abby Hamlett to move to shortstop so Andrews could be a regular starter.

Hamlett agreed.

“It made me really nervous,” Andrews said. “I didn’t know if I was going to do good. I did my best and worked hard. I had some good games and Coach Davidson was excited that I did well.”

It led to Orange winning the 3A State Championship. Andrews played 28 games for a squad that finished 26-3.

Andrews was also the last member of that championship team healthy enough to suit up this season. On March 10, she scored two runs as Orange rallied from a 7-1 deficit to defeat East Chapel Hill 10-8 in its Big 8 Conference opener.

Two days later, Coach Henry Horn informed the team that the season had been suspended after practice. It wasn’t supposed to feel final at the time, but it still did.

“I was upset,’ Andrews said. “We all were, but nobody showed it. I don’t think anybody wanted to think it was the end.”

Aside from her parents, Andrews’ biggest fan was her grandmother, who also played softball when slow-pitch was the main style for recreation and high school. Andrews called her “Maw Maw” and started her career at catcher, just as her grandmother did.

Andrews’ mother, Jeanne, played alongside Grace in a recreation co-ed league in Efland at Oak Grove Church.

When Maw Maw passed away in 2013, Andrews asked to move to 1st base on her travel team.

“Her Maw Maw also played softball and I think that was a big thing for Grace,” said Chris Andrews, her father. “She studies the game, she loves the game and is very competitive.”

While the short-term future for Andrews is unclear, the long-term future is more certain. Wearing a Catawba Valley jersey, she will compete in Region X of the National Junior College Athletic Association.

It also means she will compete in the same conference against Hurdle, her longtime teammate who signed with Patrick Henry Community College in November.

Andrews also played three seasons for the Orange women’s basketball team, where she was a regular rotation player on two squads that reached the state playoffs.

“When I think about Grace, I think about her toughness,” said Orange women’s coach B.J. Condron. “This year, she hit the floor hard in a game against Vance County. I went out to check on her and there was blood all over the floor. She chipper her front tooth. She goes to the bench to get some treatment from Mrs. Gaddy. I’m thinking she’s done for the game. Next thing I now, she’s ready to play. Grace is a ball player.”

Orange won 60-45. Andrews finished with nine points.

Grace also has a father and a grandfather who regularly officiate high school games in various sports. Dennis and Chris have officiated football, basketball, baseball and softball games. It’s not a path that Grace plans to follow.

“I thought about it, but I don’t think that’s for me,” Grace said.

“She is very quiet and shy,” Chris said. “I can see her as a coach one day after she’s done playing. She’s looking forward to transferring to a 4-year school after her time at CVCC.”

After winning it all as a freshman, Andrews is spending her final months of high school in her backyard, fielding grounders hit by her younger brother, Wyatt. It’s hardly the way Grace wanted to spend her senior season. Last season, Orange tied Cedar Ridge for the Big 8 Conference Championship, reached the 2nd round of the 3A State Playoffs and took D.H. Conley to extra innings before being eliminated 2-1.

At a time when the entire world is having to adjust to make things better for their fellow man, Grace Andrews is ending her time at Orange High the same way.

Except for her, it’s second nature by now.

Bruce Mitchell has been a pro wrestling journalist for over 35 years. He grew up going to the Greensboro Coliseum to enjoy shows from Jim Crockett Promotions. Bruce has traveled all over the world for wrestling shows. On this edition of the Rodcast, Bruce joins Jeff Hamlin and Jon Franklin to discuss the final edition of Monday Nitro, which happened 19 years ago this week. We discuss why WCW folded, how Nitro changed the industry and why wrestling hasn’t been the same since. Check out Bruce’s podcast and column at PWTorch.com. Thanks for joining us on this edition of the Rodcast!

It’s the second edition of the Rodcast. Today, we’re joined by Cedar Ridge play-by-play man Tim Hackett and Cedar Ridge’s public address announcer Tim Hackett. This is a unique time in American history and for the sports landscape. On this edition, Jeff, Tim and Jon will discuss what this inactivity has felt like, the spring sports seniors that we feel bad for, and what we’ll remember from this season. Plus, overrated baseball films, Northwestern basketball and much more! Enjoy this edition of the Rodcast, presented by C&R Ski Outdoor in Hillsborough! We’ll be back on Friday with Bruce Mitchell, podcaster and writer for PWTorch.com to discuss pro wrestling, in particular the final edition of Nitro from March 2001!