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Ramblin' Man by Dan Sousa
About: LPS Editor Dan Sousa always has a lot to say ... just ask his poor wife and children. They have requested he start this blog and leave them alone! .. Read on, if you dare ...
July 4, 2009
Potomac Falls to Loudoun Valley Pipeline Continues: Panther Wrestling Coach Rob Puterio Reteams with Kris Kelican, New Vike AD, in Purcellville; Puterio Took Over for Kelican at PFalls Four Seasons Ago and Led Panthers to Back-to-back Dulles District Titles in 2008 and 2009.
We talked a week ago about all the new Athletic Directors in the county -- five of them started new positions on July 1 with Kris Kelican taking over at Valley; Rusty Lowery moving from Freedom to new Woodgrove; Derek Farrey moving from LC to new Tuscarora and Matt Oblas taking over at Freedom -- and that leads to the next round of movement as LCPS must fill five assistant Athletic Director slots.
The first news is a bit of a shocker but then again it shouldn't be as Potomac Falls High School varsity wrestling coach Rob Puterio, who has just led the Panthers to back-to-back Dulles District titles , has stepped down to take the Loudoun Valley assistant AD position under Kelican.
This reteams Kelican and Puterio as Puterio was the assistant wrestling coach under Kelican at Potomac Falls for eight seasons before Kelican moved west to become the LV assistant AD under Janeen Schutte, who retired after this school year. Kelican exited PFall and Puterio took over as head coach in 2005 after the Panthers had won four consecutive district titles.
On the eve of the July 4th holiday, this is what Puterio had to say when we asked him how tough of a decision it was to leave Sterling: "I found out a couple of weeks before school let out and the boys were the first students to know. Yes, it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but there was a window for opportunity that I could not deny. I will be working with Kris Kelican again, as you know he is the AD. We coached the pfalls wrestling program together for 8 years, so we both know what we are getting into."
We look forward to working with both Kelican and Puterio at Valley.
More assistant AD's are to be hired: first Ken Wright must replaced Farrey at LC and then Oblas must replace himself at Freedom. Later, the new schools opening in a year, Woodgrove and Tuscarora, will need assistant AD's so stay tuned for more changes ...
And have a Happy and Safe (every year my neighbors try to burn down my house by shooting off fireworks that might be, ahem, purchased out of state!) July 4th Holiday!
June 24, 2009
Athletic Directors Make Changes: Freedom's Rusty Lowery to Take New Woodgrove job in Purcellville; LC Assistant Derek Farrey Moves to New Leesburg School Tuscarora and Eagle Assistant Matt Oblas is Promoted to Freedom AD Spot
Well, I often don't root for organizational changes as that seems to mess up all the groundwork that is laid in building relationships at the schools but the new athletic directors named the last several weeks has to make the LPS Monkey smile as the "new" AD's are all great people we have been working with since Day One.
For those of you keeping score at home, here is what we have now: Freedom AD Rusty Lowery, who opened the school four years ago, takes on another new assignment as he moved to the new school in Purcellville (yes, Virginia, some day a new school will be opened in the western end of the county ... even in our lifetime!) Woodgrove. Lowery's assistant, Matt Oblas -- who I have had the pleasure of covering when he was the cross country coach at Heritage -- is now the new Freedom AD. Opening up the new Leesburg school, Tuscarora (again: why oh why would LCPS name a new high school Tusarora when there is a Tuscaroar High School just across the border in Frederick, just 30 minutes away ... even Leesburg High School would have been better ... ah, the Lancers!) is Loudoun County High School assistant AD Derek Farrey.
LC AD Ken Wright released this statement today on Farrey: "It is with great excitement (and some sadness) that I relay to everyone that Derek Farrey, Asst. AD at LCHS for the past 5 years, was named to be the first AD at Tuscarora HS (new leesburg HS opening in 2010) Tuesday night at the school board meeting. Derek will assume his duties on July 1. Derek has been instrumental in all of the gains and successes that we have made as an Athletic Department and will be sorely missed. But he is very deserving and this is long overdue for him. The Asst. AD position at LCHS has been posted, and we hope to have someone in place by mid-July."
It should be noted that Tuscarora and Woodgrove won't open for another year but there is a lot of work for the new AD's to do as they have to put together programs and facilities from scratch (and with our budget woes in LCPS, I do mean scratch ... $200 for a parking space for my senior next year ... really?!? Why don't we charge a small parking fee for events, especially for groups that aren't associated with the schools instead of balancing the budget on the backs of 17-year-olds! The new parking rules say you can't decorate your space ... ha ... I've told my son to install a smoothie machine in his space and sell drinks in the morning to make enough money to be able to afford the space).
With Kris Kelican taking over at Loudoun Valley ... the county will have four new AD's starting July 1 ... Good luck to all ... we can't wait to keep working with you!
Summer coverage: After taking off a few days (several family members did not recognize me after the long spring ... no, son, daddy was not running with the Hell's Angels as part of the undercover ATF program but covering Broad Run, er, spring sports ... sometimes the same thing after another super Spartan spring.
Tomorrow I will kick off our Camp of the Week feature that takes a look at a local camp (email me if you want your camp featured at dsousa@digitalsports.com) and look for a major update on our www.loudounyouthsports.com site as I have plenty of info. in the inbox ... we are missing Alysia Deem (Our former Gal Friday) who did such a top-notch job of keeping that site fresh but the LPS Monkey had his summer blender rights taken away until the site is updated ...
We are also going to start a countdown to our most popular stories, photos and videos of the 2008-09 school year ... as voted on by ... you! Well, you didn't actually vote, but in our system I can see which stories, photos and videos were viewed the most so I thought it would be fun to start a countdown ... look for that to start tomorrow!
And swim season is in full swing ... if I can find my water wings, I will cover some meets ... if anybody has some SPF 98 I can borrow ...
See ya around ... Dan
July 4, 2009
Potomac Falls to Loudoun Valley Pipeline Continues: Panther Wrestling Coach Rob Puterio Reteams with Kris Kelican, New Vike AD, in Purcellville; Puterio Took Over for Kelican at PFalls Four Seasons Ago and Led Panthers to Back-to-back Dulles District Titles in 2008 and 2009.
We talked a week ago about all the new Athletic Directors in the county -- five of them started new positions on July 1 with Kris Kelican taking over at Valley; Rusty Lowery moving from Freedom to new Woodgrove; Derek Farrey moving from LC to new Tuscarora and Matt Oblas taking over at Freedom -- and that leads to the next round of movement as LCPS must fill five assistant Athletic Director slots.
The first news is a bit of a shocker but then again it shouldn't be as Potomac Falls High School varsity wrestling coach Rob Puterio, who has just led the Panthers to back-to-back Dulles District titles , has stepped down to take the Loudoun Valley assistant AD position under Kelican.
This reteams Kelican and Puterio as Puterio was the assistant wrestling coach under Kelican at Potomac Falls for eight seasons before Kelican moved west to become the LV assistant AD under Janeen Schutte, who retired after this school year. Kelican exited PFall and Puterio took over as head coach in 2005 after the Panthers had won four consecutive district titles.
On the eve of the July 4th holiday, this is what Puterio had to say when we asked him how tough of a decision it was to leave Sterling: "I found out a couple of weeks before school let out and the boys were the first students to know. Yes, it was the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but there was a window for opportunity that I could not deny. I will be working with Kris Kelican again, as you know he is the AD. We coached the pfalls wrestling program together for 8 years, so we both know what we are getting into."
We look forward to working with both Kelican and Puterio at Valley.
More assistant AD's are to be hired: first Ken Wright must replaced Farrey at LC and then Oblas must replace himself at Freedom. Later, the new schools opening in a year, Woodgrove and Tuscarora, will need assistant AD's so stay tuned for more changes ...
And have a Happy and Safe (every year my neighbors try to burn down my house by shooting off fireworks that might be, ahem, purchased out of state!) July 4th Holiday!
May 27, 2009
News: When it Rains (and it has this Spring!), It Pours ... Starting with Jay Raines stepping down with Dominion Baseball; Kris Kelican to Take Over as New Loudoun Valley Athletic Director; Plus Wrestling, Broad Run Baseball Alum, Football D1 Walkons, Camps and More News!
Breaking news: Tonight's Region II girls soccer semifinal scheduled for Broad Run High School has been shifted to Park View with 6 p.m. still the start time. The Spartans are hosting Charlottesville but BR's field was torn up a bit in Monday's boys soccer match and there are still two lacrosse matches and maybe a soccer game or two left to be played at BR later this week.
Let's just start with the fact that it has rained so much this spring and that photo on the cover of this week's blog is my actual notebook which was chalk full of news and notes that I wanted to put in this column. I hid my notebook under the scorer's table at Potomac Falls High School on Monday figuring it would be safe from the downpour ...
Guess again, little did I know that when it rains at PF, there is a river (Panther River I believe) that runs right under the scorer's table. Hey, Panther boys soccer coach Dave Gryder knew it, because he took advantage of my notebook and put his coaching bag (yes, this is where J. Rufner of the Loudoun Times-Mirror would say that Gryder gets his tricks from ... but I'm not gonna say it) on top of it ... At the end of the 7-0 Panther win over Orange, I believe Dave's bag was dry and my notebook ... well, let's just say I'm doing this column (kids: us old-timers used to call blogs columns) from memory.
Where to start ... how about Dominion baseball coach Jay Raines stepping down from the Titan program. The only coach since the school opened in 2003-04. The LPS Monkey wanted me say it was a case of "Jay Walking" but I shushed him. We will miss Raines here at LPS as we enjoyed covering his program these last four spring seasons.
More news: Loudoun Valley assistant athletic director Kris Kelican confirms that he will be taking over for departing Janeen Schutte on July 1. We are looking forward to working with Kelican and over the summer we are going to sit down with the new Viking sports chief and do a video interview with him.
Broad Run baseball alum news: Pat Cassidy not only got his team back to regionals but he has had some good news from former players including the fact that Saint Peter's College shortstop Conor Mullee has been selected to the 2009 All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) First Team. Mullee was a two-time all-district shortstop for the Spartans, graduating in 2006. Click here to read more on his honor. And there is more good Spartan news as Lynchburg College senior pitcher Joe Devlin was recently named the 2009 Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) Co-Pitcher of the Year. Devlin graduated from Broad Run in 2005 and is currently training in hopes of being selected in the June MLB draft. Click her to read more on his honor.
How about some wrestling news, Joel Caruso (wonder if his parents toyed with Robinson as a first name?) reports that over the Weekend the Ranger Wrestling Club competed in the 10th annual National High School Coaches Association Duals (NHSCA Duals). This was the Rangers first year that the team participated at a national event, let alone a highly competitive one such as the NHSCA. The Rangers went 0-4 for the weekend, but gained valuable experience. The first day the Rangers wrestled two good teams: the first team, Iowa Style Wrestling, beat the locals with the same moves ... sweep single, tight waist tilts, and cradles. For many of the Rangers, this was their first national event, and Caruso said that most of them were just taken by the moment. The second team wrestled, Wayne Danger from PA, just out wrestled the Rangers. Caruso said: "They were a very good team, that took third in the Tournament. They were more aggressive, more skilled, in wrestling shape, etc ... they just flat out beat on us. From a team stand point, not much to take from this, except, we want to wrestle more like those guys ... (we) saw what good wrestling is and hopefully will apply it in the future."
The next day, the Rangers settled down and wrestled better. Still going 0-2, but very much in the hunt to win both matches. Said Caruso: "If we did not have an injury at 152, the last match, we would have won the dual. The wrestlers settled down and the national atmosphere didn't consume them that day."
Bottom line from Caruso: "We need to work on getting up from the bottom ... 2-3 moves together to get up. If your first move doesn't work keep going, you'll get out. Improvement: bottom, cradle def, leg def, finishing shots, close the distance before shooting, more pressure on top, & set-ups." LPS is glad to see the local wrestlers getting this valuable mat time and it can only pay off next winter in the prep season.
More Wrestling News! Freedom wrestler and member of the Dulles South Wrestling Club Steven Marquina finished third in the state in Greco Roman Wrestling and has qualified for Team Virginia to wrestle at Nationals in Fargo, ND this summer! Good luck Steven!
Football news: On Saturday, May 16th, the Heritage High School Football program held its second annual Strongman Competition. The competition is modeled closely after the World's Strongest Man Contests that many have seen on ESPN. The Heritage team competed against some of the areas most competitive programs in Broad Run, Battlefield, Robinson, Centreville and Westfield High Schools.
Events included
Tire Flip - 500 pound tire flipped for time over a distance of 30 yards
Yoke Walk - Weighted yoke carried for time over a distance of 25 yards
Truck Pull - Ford F-250, donated by Koons Sterling Ford
Farmer's Carry - Done for ime ove a 60 yard course 930 yds out - 30 yds back)
Lightweights carried two 110 pound tanks
Middle and heavy weights carried 150 pound tanks
Sled Drag - weighted sleds pulled for time over a distance of 20 yards
loading event - athletes had to lift, carry and load 4 objects onto barrels
Team Champion = Robinson
Runner Up = Heritage
Third Place = Battlefield
Lightweights 1st Kevin Kim (Robinson)
2nd Cody Phillips (Heritage)
3rd Josh Nappier (BR)
Middle Weights 1st Brad Vaughn (Heritage)
2nd Connor Riley (Robinson)
3rd Joe Walter (Broad Run)
Heavyweights 1st Jake Fowler (Heritage)
2nd Nathan Davison (Robinson)
3rd David Risoldi (Battlefield)
More football news: A few former athletes have walked on to NCAA Divison I colleges and made their teams! Former loudoun valley star running back and 3-time all-Dulles and National district selection Brian Oden walked on to the University of Virginia and made the team as a running back. Oden redshirted last year and is a redshirt freshman this upcomming football season. Also, Ryan Sheehan, former Valley standout, who commited to Notre Dame for track, also walked on to the Notre Dame football team and made the final 105-man roster as a special teams player for now. Last, but not least, Nick Caldwell, former Heritage defensive star, has the made the final 105-man roster at West Virgina. Congrats to all ... are we missing more? This list is very impressive as these are three serious football programs.
Finally, there are some very impressive camps in the area ... please let us know about your camp and we will help get the word out for you. Courtney Cornwall at Potomac Falls is director of a track and field camp at Claude Moore (June 29 thru July 3) that looks top notch. It is for ages 13-18 and priced very competitively at $150 for the week. And Mark Alexander, taking over for the Loudoun County High School basketball program is getting the word out on the Raider Basketball Camp this summer which will be held at Smarts Mill Middle School from July 13-17. Register thru LC Parks and Rec and call Alexander at (703) 309-0992 for more infomation. We are sure there are more camps .. but they were on that yellow legal pad lying in the mud ...
Apr. 29, 2009
Loudoun County Goes In-House for New Hoops Coach; Virginia's (Typical) Rotten Spring Weather; Former Spartan with NFL Dreams; Above the Fold Tenorio; Raiders Clinch a Tennis Title; and Why Child Services Will Investigate Me ...
Loudoun County High School Athletic Director Ken Wright announced today that Raider assistant coach Mark Alexander will take over the reigns of the basketball program. This was a "slam dunk" (sorry, couldn't resist that ...) hire for Wright as Alexander helped Brian Blubaugh build the program into a playoff contender over the past four seasons ("The Joe Bushrod era" the LPS Monkey likes to call it).
Alexander, previously a head coach for the Stone Bridge boys, even stepped in for Blubaugh this season when the coach had to be with a sick child at the hospital.
"I'm very excited," said Wright via phone this morning. "We felt like we had two head coaches on staff all these year. Mark and Brian were an unbeatable team. I don't see us missing a beat."
I'm a big fan of Alexander's as my oldest son attended his basketball camp when he coached at Stone Bridge and I've gotten to know him as both of our younger guys play in the Dulles Youth Basketball league in Ashburn. It will be nice to cover the Raiders next year with Alexander in charge.
Spring Stinks: All 48 Hours of It
Honest ... I've lived in California and Texas ... two states that know a thing or two about spring weather (hello, it should be weeks and weeks of 70 and sunny) ... Virginia has had a typical spring this spring considering that last week I was wearing ski cap and gloves on Wednesday while covering girls soccer at LC (memo to DigitalSports folks complaing about the shaky videos: people, my teeth are chattering what do you think the camera is gonna do?!?) and then by Saturday morning I was covering boys soccer at Park View and it was so dang hot it might as well have been the Gobi Desert 5K. Year in, year out, winter stays far too long (Global Warming Mr. Gore ... then why in April am I freezing off my Ashburn (can I say that in a family blog ... you betcha!). And then after a teaser or two of what life is like in Southern California, we have heat, humidity, and did I mention the gnats that go with it. Someday, mark my words: www.malibuprepsports.com for this reporter ...
Former Spartan with NFL Dreams
I had NFL dreams ... they died in sixth grade when not only did I peak athletically (I was the Jim Thorpe of Hort Elementary School) but I stopped growing ... but for former Broad Run High School player Alex Field the dream is a reality as the former Spartan and UVa product signed a 3-year deal with the New York Giants as an undrafted free agent. Check FOP Carl Lukat's story in the Loudoun Times-Mirror here! FOP ... Friend of the Monkey of course.
More NFL News: WashPost Loudoun Scribe Tenorio Goes Above the Fold for Daily
OK .. this is real inside print stuff but I'm just an old newspaper guy at heart ... As a political science major one of my dream jobs was to cover politics for the Washington Post ... heck, I read "All the President's Men" not once but twice!
I wanted to be Cary Grant in His Girl Friday (movie version of The Front Page) ... shoot, I wanted to be Cary Grant in any of his roles! I love newspapers even though they appear to be rapidly headed the way of the telegram, horse travel and high school kids actually using school locker rooms to clean up.
I ramble on (thus the blog title): My real point is I was happy and excited to see Loudoun's own (OK, he doesn't live in Loudoun because the WashPost has a rule that all staffers must live inside the Beltway ... I just made that up) Paul Tenorio of the WashPost Loudoun Extra with an Above the Fold lead sports story this week on the unveiling of the Redskins top pick ... I think the player's name is Arapahoe or Arachnid (dudes: don't email, I know the guys name ... I'm just protesting all this silly season NFL Draft coverage ... way, way, over done ... I saw more of Mel Kiper Jr. the past two weeks than my wife). It is not every reporter that can land the lead story in the Redskins sports section and it shows you the trust the WashPost has in young Mr. Tenorio (a big-time soccer player at Mount Vernon High School I hear ... was his nickname the Mount Vernon Mastodon? I'll investigate).
Above the fold, by the way, are those stories that sit above the fold when the paper is folded up (big deal since some people are too lazy to flip the papper over and read the other stories!) ... And while I'm talking WashPost, anybody notice how the sports section has gone on a diet ... six pages of total coverage on a day with NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, MLB and NASCAR ... lack of ad revenue = fewer pages. Simple math in this economy ... Of course this will force people to go to the Internet for their news which I have to do since the Lakers playoff coverage thus far has been limited to 47 words total! Sorry, didn't mean to go All Kurt Rambis on the WashPost.
Anyway, congrats to Paul, another FOP my friends, and here is the story link!
Raiders Clinch a Tennis Title
Believe it or not but we have the first Dulles District title of the spring as the Loudoun County High School girls tennis team is 12-0 and three games up on Broad Run with two to play for LC. We haven't had much coverage on the Raiders because they frankly haven't supplied us with any information this season but congrats to the girls and hopefully we can get some background on them for the playoffs. The Broad Run boys will also clinch with a win in their last three games.
Child Services: I'm Step Ahead of Them
That photo I'm running today is my poor third grader at yet another spring sports event and having his 300th slice of pizza since March 1. With my oldest on his own schedule with Stone Bridge boys soccer and my wife working long hours for her corporate paycheck provider, I have no choice but to drag Ryder (Stone Bridge class of 2017 or wait is that Briar Woods class of 2017 ... or Heritage Class of 2017 ... the school district says it is a straight shot down Sycolin Road to Heritage from where I live ... 37 seconds away from Stone Bridge! I'm so close I can hear Mickey Thompson on the sidelines on Friday evenings from my front yard. Yet the school district is trying its hardest to come up with a plan that buses my son away ... If it happens, I'm charging for room redecoration as he has Stone Bridge football towels hanging up over his bed!
Night in, night out, Ryder is a child of the sidelines ... enjoying pizza at Broad Run ... pizza at Stone Bridge ... pizza at LC ... pizza at Dominion ... Oh, and Dominion, is where he threw his trash away Monday night (while I covered boys lacrosse) and threw away all the change from the $20 I bill I gave him. He asked: "Dad, what do I do?"
"No problem kiddo," I said. "If, however, you don't fish that money out ... well, lets just say, start walking down Route 7 and you might be able to make it home in time for school in the morning."
So the trooper ... went to work ... click here to see him on his recovery mission!
Of course, if he gets Swine Flu or something ... I'm tracing it back to this trash can at Dominion. Speaking of the Swine Flu ... do we know how to schedule vacations or what ... we have a week planned in Cancun with the family in July ... first my wife was worried about the drug cartel wars going on in Mexico and now the Swine Flu ... obviously all of this is of minor concern compared with the the hurricane which will hit upon our arrival. We could cancel but we would lose big bucks and, come on, I just sent my third grader into a trash can for $13.75.
Apr. 12, 2009
New Spring Arrivals! Broad Run Baseball Cassidy and Loudoun Valley Girls Soccer Coach Davidson Welcome Babies to their Households ... and Jason "Choppy" Burke as the Wedding Planner? It's an Easter blog!
Happy Easter! Taking a break from raiding my third graders Easter Basket (I believe I may be going into Chocolate shock) I thought it would be a good time to catch up on some Spring Arrivals news.
Sometimes when coaches don't report in their scores ... we wonder what is going on? The Loudoun Valley High School girls soccer team has been having a spectacular season but we hadn't heard much from coach Kerry Davidson ... well, it turns out for a great reason! Davidson is the proud mother of a baby girl delivered March 9.
In fact, she sent us a note which was typed "with baby in hand!". And she has a 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter already at home so you can imagine how busy Davidson is with the newest arrival but she updated her on the Vikes hot start.
Davidson said that LVHS is 6-0 (8-0 if you count scrimmages) and that "we have outscored our opponents 23-1 (only allowed 1 goal, against County off a direct kick). In our district, the Cedar Run AAA, we are 3-0, having defeated Liberty 3-0, Stonewall Jackson 8-0, and Osborn HS 2-0. We play Battlefield HS on Tues April 14. That game will be our biggest to date. Our top scorer, junior Ashley Manning, already has netted eight goals for the season (13 if you count goals in scrimmages), and freshmen Tabitha McHale has netted five so far - we expect these two to continue to lead in goals for us and the district. Leading in the backfield for us is a junior transfer from Notre Dame Academy, Amber Cook. She is sweeping and along with senior goal keeper Shelby Hall, keeping other teams scoring opponents at bay! Hope this brief update gives you enough to work with for now. The girls are aiming high this season, and we just found out we ranked #10 in the Post's Top 10 area teams!! Hope to send you continued winning scores!"
Davidson says she has been able to attend all the games thus far and made it through the tryouts and first scrimmage before going on maternity leave. We hope to keep reporting those winning scores as well and congrats on the new baby!
Davidson isn't the only coach juggling high school sports and new babies as we spoke with Broad Run baseball coach Pat Cassidy yesterday and he said that there is an 8-day-old at his house ... having arrived just prior to his team heading to the Virginia Beach area for a spring break tournament. Unfortunately the Spartans were hit with a rainout and then faced a college-bound pitcher who blanked them 8-0 on Tuesday.
The Cassidy household already has a pair of girls -- proud big sisters -- 8 and 7-year-olds. Cassidy reports: "Its just been chaos."
Speaking of chaos, we reminded that Tyler John, the new baby, only has four years until t-ball. Congrats to the Cassidy's and Davidson's. A sure sign of spring!
New babies ... OK, we give that as an excuse for not report ... but how about wedding planning! We were teasing Heritage boys lacrosse coach Jason "Choppy" Burke the other day about his lack of reports this season. Burke is one coach who not only reports his scores and a scoring summary but he is nice enough to report his opponents scoring as well, even when they happen to beat his Pride ... which doesn't happen often we might add!
Burke pled guilty to being slow to report this season as he is in the midst of preparing to get married ... move over J-Lo we have Choppy as the Wedding Planner (sorry, an old movie reference ... at least before any of these high school kids hit the multi-plex) ... Congrats Choppy on the impending nuptials and good luck the rest of the lax season.
Babies ... weddings ... part of the fun of covering the teams, players and coaches in the community in which I live is to get to see the personal side as well ... And I wish you and your family a great Easter ... It's back to sports coverage on Monday!
Got a baby, wedding or other news we should report ... drop me a line at dsousa@digitalsports.com ... the LPS Monkey will thank ya.
Apr. 3, 2009
Talking "Old School" as Dan Sits Down with Former Park View High School Baseball Coach Mike Nunnally who Led the Patriots to the 1984 VHSL AA State Title
Often times here in Loudoun we have a poor sense of history. That tends to happen when a county doubles from five to 10 high schools in just six years as did happen to our area between 2000 and 2005.
There was a time, however, when Park View High School (now the fourth oldest school in the system) was the new kid on the block and for the next 21 years Loudoun remained with four high schools and the rivalries, as you can imagine, were intense.
In baseball, Mike Nunnally shifted over from Broad Run in the spring of 1977 to start the Park View baseball program and the Patriots became a power in the Northwestern Disrict. The apex of the Patriots run came in 1984, a year before anybody expected them to peak, when the team captured the VHSL AA state title. That is just one of three state titles in Loudoun baseball history, joining Loudoun Valley's 1972 crown (Nunnally was an assistant to Bootsie Leonard on that team) and Broad Run's in 1991. (Yes! It has been 18 years since a state title in baseball for Loudoun!).
Nunnally and his team -- just 13 on the roster that season -- will be honored at 5:30 p.m. Saturday April 4 prior to the Patriots baseball game with Bishop O'Connell as part of the spring break tournament hosted jointly by Freedom and Park View.
Nunnally is admittedly an "Old School" type of guy and that was more than enough reason for me to visit him at his place on King Street in Leesburg earlier this week. We sat in Nunnally kitchen and he brought out some of the old treasures from that season ... clippings from the Loudoun Times-Mirror and other papers, rosters and even the old scorebook.
While Nunnally had won two disrict titles in three years at Broad Run, moving to the new Sterling Park school was easy for him as at the time he was teaching at Sterling Elementary.
Believe it or not ... when Park View opened they didn't even have a baseball diamond and at first the Patriots had to share the old Fireman's Field in Leesburg with Broad Run. The team would drive to Sterling Elementary for practices.
"We didn't even have grass infields until the 1990s," said Nunnally.
What he remembers most about the early years at Park View are long trips (they played teams such as Clarke County, Handley, Liberty, James Wood) and tough competition. And the Patriots won a lot as they were first or second in district for nine straight years. And there were a lot of good athletes, in 1984 alone, Park View finished first or second in 15 of 18 varsity sports offered.
A key to the success of the Park View baseball program was that many of the players were also football players and Nunnally and Patriot coach Ed Scott had a good relationship with Nunnally assisting under Scott in the fall. Nunnally knew his players well as he also coached a local Babe Ruth all-star team in the summer of 1983.
Yet Nunnally and assistant coach Elmer Fox -- now assistant AD at Briar Woods -- could have expected a state title in 1984 as the team was young with just one senior on the roster and only five upperclassmen.
It was a team, however, that was built for the Park View baseball park which didn't take a lot of muscle to put out with the deepest part of the outfield then at about 342 feet and it was a cozy 315 down the lines.
"We hit for power," said Nunnally. "You didn't have to be a man to hit a home run at our field."
In 1982 the Patriots had eight different players put one over the fence and accounted for 24 home runs total in 18 games.
While there was only one senior and just four juniors on the 1984 team, the squad did have two great junior pitchers in righthander Randy Boyer and lefthander Ron Griffith. They finished the season 19-2 after a state title run.
"We had two No. 1's that season," said Nunnally.
Boyer was the school's quarterback in football and had a great arm and could throw a super curverball and was a reliever at the University of Iowa. Griffith was the son of Wayne Griffith, a longtime administrator in the county. They would neeed both in 1984 as weather pushed the state semifinals that season from Tuesday to Thursday with the finals just two days later.
Griffith picked up the win -- at home no less as Park View got to host the state tournament -- on Thursday over Bluestone and then Boyer, who had earned the win the Region 11 title game over Turner Ashby the week before, brought home the state title on Saturday against Abingdon before a crowd that Nunnally said was three deep standing around the outfield fence.
The 1984 team also had an athletic force of nature on the team in future NFL football player Jeff Lageman. A Washington Post All-Met first baseman that season, Lageman's true position was at catcher but he didn't go behind the plate until the playoffs due to a bad back. It is interesting to note that the 1985 Park View team with all the state title players save one back including Lageman, Griffith and Boyer, didn't even go to the playoffs as just one team advanced in that era from the district and Warren County had a future MLB pitcher in Dana Allison and Allison stopped the Patriots twice that season ... both by 1-0 scores!
Nunnally says that Lageman could have easily had a pro baseball career as scouts were following him his senior year.
"He had all the tools. You could hang wash on the line of his throws to second base," said Nunnally.
There were only 13 on that 1984 team and Nunnally didn't mind a small squad as he said "everybody got more reps and everybody was more focused."
Lageman was a natural leader and a third of the way into the season, the team named him captain in 1984.
"Jeff never slacked off and he wouldn't let anybody else slack off. You have to love a leader like that," said Nunnally. "It was a great bunch of guys."
It was an intensely hard-working group with players meeting at 6:30 a.m. in the school's aux gym where Nunnally had set up a batting cage. For five or six weeks prior to their first game the team took BP, practicing the short powerful swing advocated by Nunnally. All the better to swat it out of PV's bandbox.
To put it mildly, this was not your milk-and-cookier, everybody wins, we-all-get-participation trophy's-era and Nunnally liked to win as much or more than most. His team carried an attitude from the moment it arrived at the park and in some games, Park View was already ahead simply by its showcasing warm-ups.
For the record it was 9-5 over Bluestone and 6-4 over Abingdon. The Abingdon crew was very good and while Nunnally never told his team this, the attitude after watching the out-of-towners on Friday evening was "dude, we're gonna get crushed!". But Park View was at home and had their Hank Williams, Jr., and other country tunes playing before the game. You see, the uniforms were of the disco era (red tops with blue pants ... blue!) but the music was certainly Nashville and not Studio 54.
When did Nunnally know they were going to win ... maybe after his team gave up a leadoff home run to start the game. The gameplan had been to "keep the leadoff hitter", a hot shortstop bound for UVa, off the basepaths and after Boyer allowed a home run to start the game he came off the mound laughing and told Nunnally: "Coach, I kept him off the basepaths."
The Patriots were loose and that was fine with Nunnally as he knew they would play their game and the power game finally came through in the bottom of the sixth as the Patriots trailed 4-3 but junior shortstop Brian Paugh hit a 2-run home run that just cleared the fence and then Lageman followed with a home run that may be the longest in Park View history. Nunnally swears that the ball went at least 420 feet and David Hamlin covering the game for the LTM said in his account of the title match-up that the Lageman shot looked like something out of Robert Redford's "The Natural".
Boyer finished the game with six strikeouts, even though Abingdon made it interesting with two runners on and the potential go-ahead run at the plate. Nunnally visited Boyer as Griffith was ready to go but Boyer said "coach I got him" and sure enough, a 3-2 fastball was taken at the knees to end the contest and the celebration was on.
"I was so happy for the kids. They worked so hard for it," said Nunnally.
For the only senior, Dennis Quinn, it was quite a way to exit as he started the season at a new position, second base, and in the playoffs he was moved up by the coaching staff to the No. 2 spot in the line-up and he ability in that spot to move runners over and put the ball in play (he hit over .400) was key to the state title run.
The infield that season: Mike Menapace and Boyer at third, Paugh at SS, Quinn at 2B, Lageman, Griffith and Steve Moran at 1B. At catcher that season was Tim McClain most of the year and then Lageman. In the OF were Eddie Popek in LF, Tim Rounsley in CF and Moran and Steve Cave in RF. Chris Latka and Billy Lightkep provided the bench depth.
On Saturday night in Sterling the old team will be back together again with their coach to relive that championship season.
Check back to LoudounPrepSports over the weekend as we will cover the ceremony on Saturday night with photos and videos.
Mar. 24, 2009
De Plane! De Plane! Boss! De Plane! OK ... It's Not Fantasy Island (sorry kids ... ask your parents about this Pop Culture reference) but There Was a New Arrival Here at DigitalSports this Morning ... Check it Out but Have Patience!
DigitalSports launched this morning a nice redesign of the team pages ... guess, what? They look more like the old LPS site as we have moved scores and schedules out front. Hopefully this change will come down the road to the LoudounPrepSports.com home page as well but for now, it is much easier to follow your favorite school and team.
(And I should say we had a crack team of designers that did this in an amazing short turnaround time ... they make Danny Ocean and his crew look like a bunch of whimps ... we basically kept them locked into the "DigitalSports coding cave" for the past two months ... tossing in cases of Red Bull and frozen taquitos ... and they were able to make the new team pages shine ... I guess we can let them see the sun now ...)
When you click on Broad Run (Dan: is it true the LPS Monkey now sleeps in This Is Sparta PJs? Heck, no, I can't get the the Little Guy to take off his favorite Hannah Montana sleepwear!) for example, you will see the latest scores on the top left and the latest schedule on the top right. Click on the sport in the scores heading and you get right to the team page for that team ... that should could out a couple of steps in the old system and I think a lot of people haven't gone down the Rabbit Hole to check out all the great stuff we have on team pages for each team ...
Now, here comes the patience part ... things are really, really slow this morning on load times for the pages as the system works out the kinks ... you may have noticed that the LPS homepage was slow to load its carousel of articles (trust me, it will appear if you wait!) and some article pages ... perhaps this blog! ... may take 90 seconds to load ... this will be worked out but lets be safe and say that for the next 24 to 48 hours experience a little delay at LPS ... think, Dulles Tollroad at 8 a.m. heading into the glaring sun!
While I have you: More from Alba Creus, Broad Run High School softball player and her U.S. Citizenship ... she said the ceremony was really nice and that she moved to the United States when she was 11 years old from Spain ... Congrats again to Alba!
And more from Brian Blubaugh on his stepping down as Loudoun County High School boys basketball coach. I spoke with Blubaugh yesterday and he said the biggest factor is that at age 35 he felt it was really time to use his administrative degree and he is looking at different education jobs to shift into from teaching. What he didn't want to do is get hired in a new job and have to step down as Raider basketball coach at the last minute and leave the kids and program in the wind.
Blubaugh has been coaching for 13 years, first at Park View and then Potomac Falls and finally LC.
"The parents were fabulous at County, they let the coaches coach and the players play," said Blubaugh. He also spoke highly of the Raiders administration, especially AD Ken Wright, and his staff, especially assistant Mark Alexander.
We here at LPS are selfish and never want to see a coach good to the media move on ... and Blubaugh has been a pleasure to work with ... but we wish him well and think that any school smart enough to hire him in an administrative position will have done a great service to its students and community.
Mar. 22, 2009
The Dulles Airport of Spring Sports Coverage ... on a Foggy Morning
Let's start with some "breaking news" ... I just confirmed with Loudoun Valley High School Athletic Director Janeen Schutte that she will be stepping down at the end of this school year from her position in Purcellville.
Shutte is finishing up her fourth year as the Valley AD and her eight year overall at the school as she was assistant athletic director under Bob Myers who served from 2001-02 thru 2004-05. Myers took over for Lawrence "Bootsie" Leonard who had been the AD at Valley since 1966! Wow ... 35 years as the Vikings athletic director.
Valley had an amazing record of continuity: from 1976 thru 1998 the same four men were in position at Athletic Director (Leonard), football coach (Mike Barton), basketball coach (Scott Douglas) and wrestling coach (John Schnable). Schnable left in 1998 after 27 years as wrestling coach, the next year Barton exited after 23 years, then Dougals stepped down in 2000 after 33 years and finally Leonard left in 2001.
There is sure to be a stampeded of resumes to take over the Viking AD job and we will keep you updated on the search .... now back to the blog I was writing!
So I asked for all your spring sports coverage and boy did you let me have it! The response has been great especially during the first full week of spring coverage and with the Dulles District kicking off its regualr-season games already on Friday.
Those that didn't get the memo, send all results/reports/write-ups/photos/Tips for Better Living to me at dsousa@digitalsports.com and send the score after each game to dcmetroscores@digitalsports.com as well.
Of course all of that means I have to work to get the information up and currently the results -- not to mention plenty of photos and videos! -- are backed up in my in-box like airplanes at Dulles Airport on a foggy morning. This is the captain speaking: "Folks, trust me, we will take off at some point ... have a little patience!" ...
OK -- so call me the Jet Blue of high school sports coverage but I just kept going out last week and shooting events with my little p-shooter of a camera (Size doesn't always matter!). My belief is that the more schools, teams and athletes I can see, the better I can cover but now I have to go through apx. 2,000+ photos shot since last Wednesday and more than 500 videos ... so here is what to expect to be posted on LPS in the next 48 hours:
Wed. March 18: I covered the boys-girls varsity soccer doubleheader at Stone Bridge between the Bulldogs and Ashburn rival Broad Run. There is a photo gallery of the girls game (won by BR, 2-1) already posted and you can view it here! I've got a game story to write from that DH and video highlights as well to post including an amazing goal by Spartan Valerie Powell (even though the program lists her as "Val" ... Valerie says "my dad hates that!"). I also had DigitalSports intern at Stone Bridge Brandon Wooten helping me that night. Brandon shot some photos at soccer and at softball, where Oakton came from behind to beat SB in the seenth inning. Brandon did a nice job interviewing SB boys soccer players Zach Miller and Chris Kamara after the game as well as Bulldog coach Randy May (SB won 2-1 after giving up a goal in the first minute). I can't wait to post the interviews! I did post a photo gallery from the introductions at the SB-Oakton softball game. View it here! And did I mention that boys tennis was going on as well! Click here for photos of the TJ boys at SB.
Thurs. March 19: This is one night we already have covered and up and running ... just wanted to remind you that there are photos and videos from the dedication of Freedom High School's athletic stadium as Eric J. Olsen Memorial Stadium. Very nice night. Click here for more!
Fri. March 20: You call this Global Warming ... then why can't I find my toes! I froze on Friday but was able to shoot photos and do video interviews as host Broad Run swept Briar Woods in softball, baseball and boys soccer. Check back for photo galleries and the video interviews. And congrats to Spartan Alba Creus who prior to the game officially gained her United States citenship!
Sat. March 21: Now at this point, so far behind ... I know to stay home but Broad Run and Park View had to go and schedule a noon baseball game and then the Spartan boys were playing lacrosse against Brooke Point ... well, you guessed it, more photos and video interviews (baseball including a quad coup ... four baseball coaches were in attendance, Pat Cassidy of BR and Mickey Leap of PV, of course, but I also was able to track down Ryan Price of Heritage and Chris Bourassa of Freedom in the stands for a little scouting. I also spotted Dominion and Potomac Falls staff and/or players in attendance ... there might have been others! Well, check back for those galleries.
In addition to all these games, I will put up a March 17-18 Round-up and then a March 19-20 Round-up ... that should get us up-to-date ... What is missing? Previews ... I just don't see the point of taking time to do previews, especially when the season is now two weeks old and district play as already started ... I know some of my collegues are putting a lot of effort into previews and not covering any spring games yet but that is a bit once the games start, the previews are a little dated ... sort of like continuing to read the menu in a restaraunt after the food has arrived.
Oh, and I took some time off his weekend. My wife is finally back from her Euro vacation ... er, business trip and we went to the movies on Saturday. I wanted to see "I Love You Man" and she wanted to see the newest Julia Roberts flick ... Who won? Come on, I've been married for 23 years ... that was one good Julia Roberts flick!
When I remarked Saturay night about having "taken the day off" my wife reminded me that I had spent three hours at Broad Run (the Spartans are like the Sultans of Spring ... my regrets to Dire Straits ... having won district titles in six of 10 sports last year ... I spent so much time at Broad Run last spring that they reserved a special parking spot for the LPS Monkey's little go-kart, gave me all the $2 hot dogs I could eat for $2 a hot dog and Broad Run AD Jack Kirby invited me to be his canasta partner on Thursday evenings ... OK, I made up that last part ... I don't even play canasta but I used to play duplicate bridge in England in an entirely other life) but you know it didn't feel like work ... and that is why I love this job ....
See you around the fields this week ...
Mar. 11, 2009
Spring Sports: Coming in Like a 10-Headed Llama ...
Attention all Spring Sports Coaches, Players and Fans ... LoudounPrepSports.com needs your help to make 2009 a great season to remember.
First of all, our spring sports this year will kick off late due to the great playoff run of the Freedom and Loudoun County girls basketball teams. Never in Loudoun history has a team won a VHSL state title in basketball and on Saturday, I (and the LPS Monkey riding shotgun) will be in Richmond at VCU to see if the Eagles and Raiders can make some history! Either way, this time last year, we had been done with winter coverage for two full weeks as no teams advanced out of the regionals semifinals.
This blog is partly a Cliff Notes way of letting coaches know that we are going to be looking for your preview stuff next week, even though we know the Spring Season (Ready or Not!) opens offiically tonight with 12 local teams in action from softball to soccer to lacrosse to tennis. On tap tonight is a nice match-up in girls soccer as the defending AA state champion Broad Run girls host the AAA runner-up Battlefield at 7:30 p.m. I will be covering this nice match ... say hello!
New this season: We now have a call-in number dedicated to scores. Coaches (as well as parents and players if they don't see their score updated here on our schedules page) can dial in and leave their results on this line: 703-401-4016.
Also New this season: When emailing your results, please not only send them to me (dsousa@digitalsports.com) but we have a dedicated email now for reporting scores and stats: dcmetroscores@digitalsports.com
So when your game is over tonight ... call in or email the result and that way our standings will always be up-to-date for your enjoyment!
DigitalSports is also proud to offer coverage for each of the 100 spring sports teams in Loudoun (10 high schools x 10 sports! Wow!) on a team level. If you go to your school homepages and then click "Teams",. you can choose a Team page that has a full schedule, results, stats (if provided) and roster (once we get them). Be sure to check out these pages often ... and coaches can take advantage of using this pages to put up team information themselves ... contact me if you want a user name and password into the system ... we had several basektball teams take advantage of our software that allows a coach to not only input his game stats quickly into our system but then hit a button and shoot a notice to their own media list to let the media know that their stats have been updated. Jeff Hawes at PF and John Costello at BR both used this and it worked nicely!
More changes at LoudounPrepSports.com: We are sad to say that Alysia Deem (BFF of the LPS Monkey) is no longer doing coverage of events. Alysia is now helping all the DigitalSports areas in the D.C. area get schedules, scores and rosters as up-to-date as she has done out here in Loudoun. We are going to miss her great photography and videos. What does that mean for spring coverage? Well, we are going to get to less events (though, I have a patent pending to clone myself), so we will need your help to keep our coverage chugging along.
Dan: I've been a fan of the LPS Monkey since he was a little guy in primate Huggies ... how can I help? Glad you asked. Photos! We always need photos during the spring season. If you snap 'em, we will put them up. Contact me and I can instruct you on how to use our FTP system for large batches. Also, write-ups and summaries ... not all coaches have the time (or inclination) to send us a summary. If your team is lacking, ask your coach to handle the duties ... the more summaries we get ... the better our nightly round-ups will be. If you know a student who wants to be a DigitalSports Intern, drop us a note as we want to have students, interested journalism or broadcast media, help us with our spring coverage. Finally, if you see me at an event and my blood sugar looks low ... toss me a Chick-fil-A sandwich or something ... it's gonna be a long spring ... but it should be a blast!
More! More! More Hoops Coverage: You are in luck ... we have more photos to put up from Tuesday's semifinals. We have videos from both games and press conferences. Look for multimedia updates all day Thursday and Friday ... adding to our crazy coverage this season of these two fun teams ... Plus I'll be putting up Live! updates on the website here starting Sat. morning at 10:30 a.m. on the two title attempts!
Mar. 6, 2009
You Say Prague, I Say Purcellville
My wife and I have different ideas of travelling for work. She is in the middle of a two week trip to Prague and Brussels (kids: those are cities in Europe ... now back to your texting!).
Of course, who needs Prague when you have Purcellville or say you can have Brussels, but I'll take Brambleton any day.
You might laugh but I do get to do some foreign travel ... just last week I was in Culpeper ... um, Dan, time out ... Culpeper is still in the United States ... OK, but I felt a bit like an ex-pat when I was running through the aisles of the Wal-Mart desperately seeking a replacement battery for my video camera while the tipoff for the regional finals basketball game was just 30 minutes away in Orange County.
I kid of course and I have to say the hospitality at Orange was top-notch (thanks to the Athletic Department) and the Field House was unlike anything in Loudoun (school district's motto: We Aim to Built Every Gym the Same: Septic Looking).
So, my boys think that my wife is convinced that we can't fend for ourselves. How else do you explain that she left us three (four if you count the LPS Monkey) with 12 gallons of milk and a half dozen loaves of bread. It is like were expecting the biggest snowstorm of all time! Sans TP.
Anyway, please ... we know how to fend for ourselves ... we have even tried to mix up the meals ... Pizza Hut one night ... Domino's the the next ...
But my wife can keep in touch with our good work here at LPS by simply following us on Twitter (it's easy, sign up at www.twitter.com/LPSMonkey) ... What gems can you learn, Ha! Read my last text:
Sleeving in orange gonna be a long trip home
Loudoun DigitalSports's Profile | Create Your Badge
What else ... I have to give a shout out to my Third Grade Basketball team ... Amy! Libby! Joey! Jackson! Matt B.! Matt L.! Eric! Mitchell! Ryan! Ryder! .... You guys are awesome ... 11-0 and playing in the title game Saturday of the Dulles Youth Basketball league's Shooter Division.
Ryder (Goggle Boy!) is my son and happens to have his first travel soccer tournament of the spring in Maryland tomorrow, so he will miss the title game but that is fine ... more playing time for others ... and win or lose tomorrow, we already had a great get-together Thursday night at Fuddruckers (advertiser alert! Come on Fuddruckers ... the LPS Monkey loves ya ... advertise on our site!) and everybody had milk shakes and got trophy's ... though we might have concerned the manager a bit when we did our very loudoun "three keys" ... Hustle! Defense! Team! 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... Red Flames (that is our team name, not the name of a bar in San Francisco) ...
Anyway, I told Ryder to go play soccer ... it's third grade ... nobody will remember who won the "title game" a year or two from now ... they will mostly remember making some good friends and having a fun time at Fuddruckers ... heck, if I think back to half of my youth sports experiences, the first thing that comes to mind is the team party at the end of the year, the second thing might be some of the fun on road trips, the victories and defeats are mostly fuzzy ... of course, that could just be my fraternity days catching up to me (Omega Phi Alpha! Shout out to my UOP frat!)
Wow ... this entry is Ramblin ... Ramblin ... Ramblin ... my wife called and said she had to buy a prepaid 15 minutes calling card, no problem, I said, she asked about my week, I started talking and soon ... it was (beep) (beep) (beep) ... your 15 minutes is up ... hmmmm ... never did find out how my wife is doing ... I didn't know I could talk so much (Ha! My neighbors are calling me a liar right now from the safety of their own homes!) ...
Anyway, Sharon, if you read this ... everything is fine ... plenty of bread ... little low on milk ... but if we do run out ... refresh my memory ... I'm pretty sure it doesn't come from a cow these days but you get it at a store? Not really sure ... as each week ... it always magically appears, no matter how busy my wife is! (psssst ... that was a Shout Out too ... gotta keep the marriage peace ... I'm much too old for e*harmony and the LPS Monkey is just not cute enough to be adopted!) ...
So ... tomorrow ... follow our State Quarterfinal coverage ... Live! here on the website as I update you from Robinson High School on how the Loudoun County girls are doing in their 1 p.m. game against Courtland and how the Freedom girls are doing against James Monroe in the 2:45 game ... I'll even let you know how the Red Flames do at noon in Ashburn! (Peter from Heroes is giving me a lift so I can get from Ashburn to Fairfax in less than 1 minute!) ...
Enjoy ...
Feb. 19, 2009
Bloggers for Good Tonight at O'Faolain's in Sterling ... Rare LPS Monkey Sighting
Meet me tonight at the first ever meeting of "Bloggers for Good"!
Bring your canned good donations or direct donations for Loudoun Interfaith Relief (not required but a nice gesture!).
Seriously, we need at least a couple of LPS fans to represent or else ... the LPS Monkey might be crying in his Irish Coffee. And here is the bonus, Erica Garman of the Washington Post and Tammi Marcoullier of InsideOut, real big-time bloggers are going to be on hand to "meet-and-greet" ...
Which leads you to ask: um, Dan, how in the heck did you get invited to this event?
Well it was either this or hang out with the Raider Riot! in their pup tent before tonight's Dulles District boys basketball semifinal games at Freedom ... and it is a bit cold to be roughing it.
Seriously, the only thing I can think of is that they need something really heavy to bring in from the car for the event ... thus my invite, but, hey, if they had seen me attempt a halfcourt shot at Loudoun County the other night ... well, it was pathetic. No muscle tone left at all. Honestly, I'm about two boxes of Girl Scout cookies away from Jabba the Hut status.
Here comes the part where I bribe somebody to show up tonight ... in a previous blog (for those of you scoring at home in the Ramblin Man Home Edition Blog Game) I tried the pity route and now I'm desperate ... it's full on bribery ... I am bringing with me a real DigitalSports black baseball cap complete with nifty blue and red logo ... brand new (not even the kittens have gotten ahold of it!) and the first person that mentions the magic phrase to me (LPS Monkey, natch) ... is walking away with this baby (and probably listing it on ebay later) ... don't tell my boss, he thinks I wear the ballcap to events but I'm already a walking billboard with my DigitalSports sweatshirt (logo on front and back ... I look like a Euro soccer player) and I love my "Life is Good" hat and thus I wear it ... plus, maybe the hat will seep through to my brain ... "Life is Good" ... "Life is Good" (Note from "Boss"..."Dan: just read your blog...Life WAS good"...;)
Oh and if nobody asks for the hat, I'm leaving the Bloggers for Good event early to head to Freedom to cover the hoops ... Raider Riot! vs. Maroon Crew! ... whichever group is showing the most fan support ... well, I'm throwing the hat into the stands ... but if my halfcourt shooting is any indication ... you better be in the front row if you want the hat!
Feb. 12, 2009
LPS Monkey Makes His Bold Basketball Perdictions (Hint: Nine Teams from Loudoun May Make Region II Playoffs!)
Previously we provided you with the formula for the Region II D3 and D4 basketball playoffs ... and many of you reported back with the following:
Dan: This is more complicated than my taxes
Dan: Do you believe I really won the Netherlands Online Lottery (just send banking by clicking here!)
Dan: Will as many as nine Dulles District teams get in the playoffs?
Dan: If the coffee is free at McDonald's this month ... why am I still paying $6.50 for a breakfast sandwich
Answers:
#1: You must be using the 1040-EZ form. Pesonally, I use the Turbo Tax Sitcom Edition ... everytime I enter data about how much money I made during the year, a TV sitcom laugh track kicks on my computer speakers.
#2: Yes ... you are a winner and three Nigerian Princes want to talk to you about where to put the money.
#3: Not only that but by the LPS Monkey's calculations ... Tuscarora High School in Leesburg will also make the playoffs ... of course the high school is slated to open next year.
#4: Them are Golden Eggs that those sandwiches are made from ...
Seriously, the LPS Monkey went into the Top Secret Region Basketball Playoff Lab and emerged with singed eyebrows, a beaker full of Red Bull and the following predictions:
As LPS Monkey currently sees seedings:
Clinched as Regular Season Champs:
D3 boys: Handley, Dominion
D4 boys: Charlottesville
D3 girls: Millbrook, Freedom, William Monroe
D4 girls: zip
Tournament Champs and Runner-ups will jump to the front of the line to get in next ... all unknown
7th criteria: Untied 2nd place: Skyline D3 boys, Brentsville D4 girls, Charlottesille D4 girls, LC D4 girls, BR boys D4 if they win Friday
8th criteria: Tied 2nd place: WA and WM boys both D3, BR with PF and/or LC all D4 boys if BR losses and PF and/or LC win
9th criteria: untied third: BR girls D4
10th criteria: TIed 3rd: MB and Central Boys D3, maybe LC and PF? D4 boys, JW D4 girls and Handley D3 girls, Fluvana D3 and Orange d4
At this stage:
D3 boys: Handley, Dominion, Skyline, Western Albemarle, William Monroe, Monticello (14th criteria ... trust me)
D4 boys: Charlottesville, Broad Run, Potomac Falls, Loudoun County, Orange (12th criteria), Sherando (14th criteria)
D3 girls: Millbrook, Freedom, William Monroe, Handley, Fluvanna, Briar Woods (13th criteria)
D4 girls: Brentsville, Charlottesville, Loudoun County, Broad Run, James Wood, Orange, Park View (13th criteria)
caveats ... I could be wrong ... all the low criteria teams are out the window once the No. 5 criteria (tourney champ), No. 6 criteria (runner-ups) and No. 11 criteria (tournament semifinals) get in but it is safe to assume that those with 10th criteria or better, are in postseason ...
Gives Loudoun a possible 9 teams in playoffs ...
D3 boys: Dominion
D4 boys: BR, PF, LC
D3 girls: Free, BW
D4 girls: LC, BR, PV
whew ... LPS Monkey now needs a nap ...
Don't see your favorite school on this playoff list ... don't fret ... if they make it to the district tournament finals ... fire up the bus as they will most likely make The Show ...
Do you have Dulles District tournament perdictions? Email me at dsousa@digitalsports.com and I will share with the class.
D4 boys: Charlottesville
D3 girls: Millbrook, Freedom, William Monroe
D4 boys: BR, PF, LC
D3 girls: Free, BW
Feb. 6, 2009
Know When to Hold Them, Know When to Fold Them, Know When to Walk Away ... When Your CEO is Putting Her Kids to Bed
I know everybody thinks that all I do is cover games each and every night ... but once in a Blue Moon ... it is time for something else.
As most of you know, our little operation here in Loudoun was acquired by DigitalSports last summer and one of the perks of being with a bigger company happened last night as our new President and CEO Liddy Manson -- she came aboard late in 2008 -- was gracious enough to host the entire company at her house last night for dinner and some friendly "no stakes" Texas Hold'Em poker.
We stress "no stakes" as Liddy's husband is a judge and we didn't want him making a citizen's arrest on the winner as they headed to their car. Though, we do believe that the new beard that Paul Frommelt, our Prince William content editor, is sporting, is at least a punishable offense in 37 states. He looks like a cross between an animal trainer and somebody who studies bugs for a livining ... You can read his blog, Paul Monitor, here! ... now back to the story ...
So we got to meet the Manson family (OK, if you are as old as me and from California ... well, you know, that sounds strange!) and they were very nice ... and I'm not just saying that because she signs my checks. It was great to find out that her husband coaches their third grade daughter's in basketball as I am currently coaching my third grade son's basketball team (ask me sometime about Mickey Thompson's daughter Amy ... THE Defensive stopper in our league and as good as her brothers are in sports ... she truly could be better when it is all said and done. Trust me as I've had the pleasure of coaching her for two seasons now!).
I'm not the biggest poker player but I like to watch it on TV ... and hey, I know enough to muck a 3-8 and to play suited ace-king.
Well, we started knocking people out ... Andy States went early and despite his blog being called Altered States ... it was just a run of bad cards.
I have to say that the toughest player to read at our table was Chief Technology Officer and company co-founder Carlos Escaffi ... you see Carlos would bet kdjgoihouiahsd736894098q4095nmlaskndlng ...
Woe! What was that ... OK, so Carlos had a 4-9 and he bet 84yupt98hg;assnfgalksmdfnbma e3uihp'asdombgaknfkn;lafgmaks ...
OK, I get it ... cut that out Carlos! Let's just say, kudos but Carlos went out to leave just yours truly, Trey McCray, our Prince George's County content editor, and Ryan Mink, our Montgomery County content editor.
They had different strategies, for sure, as McCray tried his hardest to get out of the game as the Lakers-Celtics was starting and he wanted to see MY Los Angeles Lakes whip those Boston "babies" ... sorry, old hatreds die hard and I grew up a member of the 7-11 Laker Fan Club in California. I still won't forgive Boston for trying to behead Kurt Rambis in the 1980s.
Mink on the other hand ... folded his hand 97 consecutive turns ... waiting out everybody as Trey and myself did all the dirty work, knocking people out. Finally, Trey, went down ... which made Andy happy as he was riding with Trey and he had been waiting patiently all night after that early exit.
So, Ryan and I went heads up and I had the chip stack that looked like the Trump Towers and Ryan's chips weren't even Motel 6 quality. But Ryan won a hand and I went down and then I won a hand and went back up and he won a hand and I won a hand.
Hey, we could have done this all night! Only ... well, third graders got to get to bed (trust me, I know this!) and somewhere I heard Kenny Rogers singing "you gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them, when to walk and when to run away ..."
Only, I figure if your CEO is putting her kids to bed ... good time to at least jog away ...
So I offered Ryan a winner take all ... cut a card from the deck ... high card wins. I felt lucky, very lucky ... until I drew a 3 .... Ryan, to add insult to injury, drew a 5.
Oh, did I say, that we had all agreed that the losers would have to give a "shout out" to the winner in their next blogs. Here goes: Ryan Mink ... you are a siiiiiiiicckkkkkkkk poker player.
More Recruiting News: I spoke with Nick Savage this week, who many will know from around Loudoun, for his involvement with Mercury Speed. Nick is doing a blog now and he had some interesting things to say about recruiting ... so I thought I would give him a "shout out". Click here to read Nick Savage's blog on Coach Nick's Bloggershop.
Do you have an interesting local blog that our LPS readers might like? ... share it with us be emailing dan at dsousa@digitalsports.com.
Time to go to the Potomac Falls at Dominion basketball ... give me a shout out at the game! And tomorrow, look for me at Loudoun County High School covering wrestling all day and the finals at night!
Jan. 30, 2009
Emotional Freedom Community Pays Tribute to Eric Olsen's Inspirational Life
It was an emotional and inspirational afternoon Friday at Freedom High School as the entire Eagle student body packed the school's auditorium to pay tribute to teacher and coach Eric Olsen who passed away on Sunday and was buried on Wednesday after a four-year fight with colon cancer.
While more than 800 turned out Wednesday in icy conditions to pay their respects to Olsen, Friday was a chance for the Eagle students and faculty to say an emotional good-bye with music, remembrances by students and a moving slide show presentation.
I covered Olsen's lacrosse team at Freedom for three seasons and his cross country team for four years, but I didn't know Olsen that well. It was incredible Friday to watch the students and faculty react and you could tell how many lives Olsen had touched.
There was humor, especially when it was related that one of Olsen's favorite sayings to his athletes was "I love you ... but not in a weird way" and there was beautiful music provided by the school's choir which opened the tribute with sweet voices and by the school's orchestra which closed the program.
In between there were speeches by students who Olsen had coached and taught. These were some brave young people to speak in such a situation. Maybe even more impressive was that in a room full of 1,000-plus teens, you could hear the heating system humming it was so quiet.
Freedom principal Christine Forester had a quiver in her voice when the program started and at the ending, while she had managed to hold it together for the entire hour, she let her emotions get to her as she closed the program. Olsen was more than just a staff member. He was part of a family and it was a family missing him dearly.
The slide show brought tears to my eyes ... watching a man grow from a young boy ... there were some classic photos of him in Halloween gear and on Christmas mornings. You could see the love of his role as big brother and his brother and sisters were on hand Friday. As were his parents. He was a son, a big brother, a husband and a father.
You could see how proud Olsen was of his own children. It was also a shock to my system to see how strapping and stout Olsen was in photos from his days as the Park View boys lacrosse coach before moving to the South Riding school when it opened. It reminded me I had only know Olsen since his battle with cancer had started and clearly had sapped some of his size.
The illness, however, hadn't dented his stature and resolve to teach and coach and mentor and be a friend to those in need. He continued to touch the lives of those around him, right through the finish of the last cross country team, even when the illness was gaining the upperhand each day.
For some reason, in the darkened room, I was reminded of the classic "footprints in the sand" poem that my grandfather so loved.
Over the years, when I would visit him, he would always slip me something headed out the door. It was often some bills to help a struggling student and sometimes the bills would also include a copy of the poem. He had made many copies of it and loved to hand it out.
My grandfather was of the theory that a "rich man" was counted not by bank account, but by how many friends he had and how many people he helped in his life. My grandfather barely balanced his insurance agency books in the end but he was the richest man I have ever known. I still struggle to live my life as half the man that he was.
I think my grandfather would have liked Eric Olsen. They were kindred spirits. I'm even betting that if you looked back over the lives of those around Olsen, you would see some times were there was only one footprint in the sand ... and it was on the broad shoulders of Olsen that these friends and loved ones got through these times.
Now Olsen is gone and there is a very large footprint in the world to fill ... judging from those lives at Freedom that he touched, there may just be enough people to carry on the inspirational work Eric Olsen started.
He was only 38-years-old when he passed away Sunday ... but Eric Olsen was the richest of men ... and Friday was the ultimate tribute to that fact.
The Freedom student body will hold a dance in honor of Olsen's life on March 14. Tickets are blue awareness bracelets that say "We Love Olsen". The $15 donation for the tickets will go to the Eric Olsen Caring Fund.
Jan. 22, 2009
The Real Basketball Secret Forumula Plus This and That
First, before we get to the basketball secret formula, the LPS Monkey would like to plead with his faithful following to show up at an event coming up in February, the inagural Bloggers for Good meeting in Loudoun.
Bloggers For Good (BFG) is a new, grass-roots group that sponsors local meetups for people to meet, greet, and give back to their communities. Meetups and other events provide a chance to gather in a fun, social setting with a common interest and a bigger purpose.
The first ever meetup will take place on Feb. 19 from 6-8 p.m. at O'Faolain's Irish Restaurant in Sterling. Bloggers, blog readers, and the general public are invited to attend. This event is free and open to the public. Proceeds will benefit Loudoun Interfaith Relief, the area's largest food pantry. Others bloggers, such as the Washington Post, will be in attendance.
Some disbelieving DigitalSports.com staff, from other areas, made fun of the fact that yours truly has been invited to this event and predicted that nobody would show up to meet the LPS Monkey's handler (Mr. Sousa to you!) ... well, ha, little do they know of the love of the monkey here in Loudoun (er, now, that didn't really sound right, did it?) ... anyway, if we could have a couple of LPS fans show up at this worthy event, it would make the monkey feel good!
Click here for more on Bloggers for Good.
Well, as promised, we tracked down the real forumula for putting teams in the Region II Division 3 and Division 4 basketball playoffs and it looks like something written up by Dr. Strangelove.
For the record, here it is:
Region II- Basketball Tournament Seeding Criteria
Qualifying and Seeding
Assignment to Division 3 or 4 will be based on the VHSL criteria for assigning divisions for football. Schools will be assigned to the same division in basketball and football.
All teams in each division will be ranked based on the criteria below. The top 6 teams in each division will qualify for the Region II tournament.
1) Regular Season and Tournament Champion
2) Tied Regular Season and Tournament Champion
3) Untied Regular Season Champion
4) Tied Regular Season Champions
5) Tournament Champion
6) Tournament Runner-up
7) Untied 2nd Place Regular Season
8) Tied 2nd Place Regular Season
9) Untied 3rd Place Regular Season
10) Tied 3rd Place Regular Season
11) Tournament Semi-Finalist
12) Untied 4th Place Regular Season
13) Tied 4th Place Regular Season
14) Untied 5th Place Regular Season
15) Tied 5th Place Regular Season
16) Untied 6th Place Regular Season
17) Tied 6th Place Regular Season
18) Untied 7th Place Regular Season
19) Tied 7th Place Regular Season
20) Untied 8th Place Regular Season
21) Tied 8th Place Regular Season
Teams that qualify on the same seeding criteria line will be seeded according to the criteria that follows:
1) Regular Season Winning % in District Games Only
2) Head to Head Results
3) Region Point Scale for District Wins (explained below)
4) Winning % versus common opponents
5) Winning % in games versus all Region II Tournament teams (both divisions)
6) Overall winning %
Region Point System
For regular season contests, Region Schools will be awarded the following points:
7 points for a win over a Regular Season District Champion
6 points for a win over a Regular Season 2nd place team
5 points for a win over a Regular Season 3rd place team
4 points for a win over a Regular Season 4th place team
3 points for a win over a Regular Season 5th place team
2 points for a win over a Regular Season 6th place team
1 points for a win over a Regular Season 7th place team
0 points for a win over a Regular Season 8th place team
In order to figure out the above: LPS is hiring an MIT grad, a magician, a contract bridge player and the Geico lizard to go over the fine print.
This and That ... (A Little Larry King for you Old Timers ...)
Catching up on some issues we have been covering:
Team Joe Charity: A total of $25,000 was raised for Inova Farifax's NICU unit. THat is a total of $50,000 in two years. Denny Petrella of Cheers Sports says that in addition to the gol tournament held the last two years, a tennis tournament will be added this spring, and a motorcycle “poker run” in the summer. Click here to visit the Team Joe website and consider donating to this worthy cause!
Coaches vs. Cancer: On December 19th, 2008 the Freedom and Briar Woods communities came together in a Coaches vs. Cancer Event to raise cancer awareness and money on behalf of the American Cancer Society. On this evening, these two rival high schools went head-to head on the basketball court with the theme… Beat Cancer Black and Blue! Briar Woods won an exciting boys game in overtime and the Freedom girls won the opener. The evening consisted of a pre-game benefit dinner, silent auction, and several halftime fund-raising events. The total donations on behalf of these two schools to the American Cancer Society was just under $1800.00.
Blubaugh Back: Loudoun County High School boys basketball coach Brian Blubaugh had to miss several games with his youngest sick in the hospital but Blubaugh reports that his son is back home and while he still has a cough, he has bounced back really well. We wish the entire family well!
Last Word: Finally, speaking of monkey's ... the LPS Monkey was a topic of conversation on another local blog, DullesDistrict.com by Dave Scarangella ... check it out here! But only if you have eaten already!
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More feedback on our earlier post on the proposed athletic budget cuts in Loudoun (email me if you want to comment at dsousa@digitalsports.com):
Dan,
Home run! Outstanding article breaking down the absolute mess they are proposing for our county when it comes to local high school sports. I attended the first meeting at the county board of education last Thursday and spoke for three minutes to the board to plead what a mistake these cuts to high school sports would do to the student athletes. I have to say we do have our work cut out for us on this but I feel very strongly that this is a matter of great importance and we need to get the message out to the community about what they are proposing. We are going to have to get all of the county booster clubs involved to organize a counter to this or I fear we will lose this battle.
Thank you for your article and continue to press this or it will go unnoticed and they will make these cuts.
Thank you,
Roger James
Proud member of the State Champion Broad Run chain gang!
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Jan. 16, 2009
The Secret Formula to the Basketball Postseason Unveiled
There hasn't been a lot made of the fact that basketball postseason this winter will be split between Division 3 and Division 4 schools for the first time. That has big implications in Loudoun where we only have three Division 3 schools (Briar Woods, Dominion, Freedom) but the best two teams thus far -- Dominion boys and Freedom girls -- are both Division 3 schools.
So as great as the Potomac Falls vs. Dominion boys and Freedom vs. Loudoun County girls rivalry has been ... after the regular season and district tournament end ... they will be on separate tracks towards regional and state crowns.
It should be said here that no Loudoun team has EVER won a VHSL state basketball title. Two teams have made it to the finals since VHSL went to its current A, AA and AAA format in 1970 and they were both from Loudoun Valley: the Viking boys in 1988 and the Viking girls in 1994.
Interestingly enough, the Vikings boys coach in 1988 was none other than Scott Douglas, father of current coach Steve Douglas. And Steve was a 5-froot-10 senior guard on that 1987-88 Loudoun Valley that featured Chris Leonard and went 23-5. The Vikes rolled all the way to the state finals -- even demolishing Virginia High School in the state quarterfinals by a whopping 92-49 score. Leonard, who went on to become a standout 3-point shooter at West Virginia, averaged 27 points a game that season, facing a box-and-1 almost every night, and he scored 28 in the semifinal 64-58 comeback win over Gloucester.
The Vikes title dreams ended in the finals at University Hall in Charlottesville, falling to defending champion Brunswick, 64-39, which was led by future UVa star Bryant Stith, who poured in 31 points. Here is the box from the game:
BRUNSWICK 64, LOUDOUN 39
Loudoun Valley: Page 3, Leonard 11, Marcellus 12, Simms 3, Douglas 2, Allder 2, Carey 4, Kidwell 2. Totals 15 7 39.
Brunswick: Stith 31, Taylor 12, Gilliam 4, Jarrell 8, Burke 5, Harris 2, Cote 2. Totals 30 3 64.
Halftime: Brunswick, 29-12.
Three-point goals: Loudoun 2 (Leonard, Simms); Brunswick 1 (Burke).
The senior Douglas, who coached at Valley for 33 years (!) with a 393-312 record, can be found behind the Titan bench each game in the stands, enjoying the play of his son's team. Is it too far-fetched to think that the Douglas clan can once again find their way back to the VHSL playoffs?
First, how in the heck do you even qualify for the playoffs. Obviously district champions and tournament champions will get in ... then how will the brackets be filled? Several Athletic Directors are combing their notes to give me the details but I have a super secret Region II source (Shenandoah Sammy) who has given me the following:
Formula to Qualify for Region II Basketball Playoffs
1. Total Wins of Team (divided by number of hot dogs sold during the season)
2. Winning percentage of Team ... against opponents that feature mascots that can fly
3. Square root of all players on team ... named DeAndre (Yes! Dominion has the inside track here ...)
4. Subtract .75 for annoying pregame music (sorry, Loudoun, this might qualify for all 10 high schools!)
5. Add 2.25 for coaching staff in matching polo shirts!
6. Subtract 2.25 if school has PA people who can't pronounce opponents names properly
Now in case of a tie:
1. Consult Magic 8-Ball
2. All Athletic Directors in District with first name "Joe" ... meet for lunch at read fortune cookies ... adding the line "In the basketball playoffs" after each fortune (ie: 'Today is Your Lucky Day ... In the Basketball Playoffs")
3. Any School with actual mascot in constume at games qualifies automatically (go Panthers!)
4. If all else fails, give LPS Monkey large printout of district school locations, blindfold and darts ... stand back.
5. Final tiebreaker: consult school debate teams and have them face each other, debating the following topic: "Which school mascot would win in a MMA battle ... and why"
If these aren't right ... I'll return shortly with the actual guidelines! Enjoy your Friday and look for the LPS Monkey at the Super Quad tonight at Broad Run High School ... he will be the Little Guy in the oversized headqear with cauliflower ear ...
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Jan. 9, 2009
Just Say No to the Redskins and Yes to Assistant Athletic Directors
I was going to make this first blog entry of 2009 ... a cute entry ... cute as a kitten ... you know, talk about how my family is trying to kill me (no joke) by bringing home two new kittens to watch over my every move ... but then I started reading the newspaper this week and I just got steamed!
(Kids: a little background ... a newspaper is this thing from the past that is printed with ink and paper and they deliver it each day to your home. I know this because I asked Paul Tenorio at the Washington Post about it and he confirmed it!
The kittens will have to wait (even though one of them just pried off my "esc" key and hidden it under the couch in my office) ...
First I read that Loudoun has been thinking about some severe budget cuts with many affecting something near and dear to my heart and your heart: high school athletics. More on these cuts in a second.
Second I read that the Board of Supervisors is seriously considering giving the Washington Redskins $250,000 in marketing partnership money. Wait isn't this the same organization that can pay overpriced, aging veterans millions of dollars a season to not produce. They need Loudoun's money?!?
Third, I read that the Redskins because of the tough economic times are laying off some of the hardest-working folks they have at Redskins Park. Most of them neighbors to you and I. Oh, the Redskins do need Loudoun's money!
But you see ... as a Loudoun resident and taxpayer ... I want my money to go to education and public safety and transportation. And yes, even high school athletics!
But Dan: Don't you want the pride of knowing that the Redskins will refer to Loudoun as the Corporate Home of the Redskins in all communication ... um, frankly, not really.
So don't tell me that this Redskins money is going to come from a transient occupancy tax ... this money has to be legally spent on items that drive tourism and travel to Loudoun County ... But, thinking outside of the box, don't high school athletic events, big time wrestling meets like the Spartan Slam Duals that had teams from New York, Penn. and WV, last week, don't they count as travel and tourism initiatives? Surely those Brewster and Beacon New York parents spent some money in Loudoun over the two days of the tournament. Worth a thought to see if we can use occupancy tax dollars to support local high school tournaments with outside the area teams invited ... What about the Oatlands Invitational with all those cross country teams, some from New York, travelling here to compete ... that is tourism! Can't hurt to ask the lawyers at least.
Now to the real emergency ... the school district is thinking of messing with something really near and dear to my heart: Assistant Athletic Directors.
That's right, one of the school budget proposals calls for all 10 high school athletic directors to lose their jobs. I can't imagine how all the events would be run in this county without these important people on hand. And you can imagine the dread that Athletic Directors are approaching this issue with. Part of the reason I'm so upset about this is personal ... I really, really like these assistant ADs ... from Randy Trenary at Heritage to Ryan Young at Broad Run to Mike Skinner at Stone Bridge to Matt Oblas at Freedom to Chris Tully at Potomac Falls ... and on and on ... I could just name all 10! They are there day in, day out, helping the students, the parents, the coaches, the school, the community ... yes, Virginia, they even help the media!
If they really try to elminate the Assistant AD's ... well, the LPS Monkey has threatened to do some very ugly things ... and you don't want to see the Monkey Mad!
Here are the details of Loudoun's four budget scenarios:
With a no cut budget (and no increase ... those days are long gone!): Athletes would be asked to pay $50 per sport. (And student parking fees would go up from $25 to $150). Total cost to the Sousa household: $225. I figured it would be fun to let you know what it would cost my family as we have a two-sport varsity athlete at Stone Bridge, Cooper, a junior who plays basketball and soccer.
A budget with a 5 percent reduction: $100 per sport per athlete fee with all Assistant Athletic Directors eliminated! Plus parking up to $200! Cost to Sousa household: $375
With a budget of 10 percent reduction: $200 per sport per athlete fee. And all freshman sport eliminated (this includes football, volleyball and basketball as it may surprise many of you that currently those are the only freshman sports in Loudoun). And junior varsity lacrosse would be cut. Cost to Sousa household: $575
With a budget of 15 percent reduction: $250 per sport per athlete fee. Cost to Sousa household: $675 (memo to self: Ask DigitalSports for a raise today!)
I'm not sure how the schools would be able to coordinate and run events under the 5 percent reduction scenario, given that they are retaining all varsity sports but elimanting somebody who honestly is working 60-plus hours each week. If assistant principals in the county think they work enough night events now, watch out if this is approved.
Hopefully cooler heads will prevail ... hey, lets start by saying "No" to the Redskins ... there, I just "found" $250,000! Think of how many wrestling, soccer, basketball, lacrosse, swimming, volleyball, tennis, golf, cross country and other events we can now sponsor with that occupancy tax money!
Whew ... time for my blood pressure meds ... and back to the kitties!
I am alergic to cats and dogs (and vegies and working out but that is different) ... and my family, trying to collect my insurance money early no doubt brought home two kittens just after Christmas: a brother and sister ... now named, Sander (for Sanders Corner elementary school) and Bridgett (for Stone Bridge ... some people think I'm a "homer" for Broad Run but "Broad" and "Runny" just didn't make good cat names).
They are so ... (sneeze) ... cute ... honest (sneeze) ... look there is my "esc" key, right next to that drum stick that left the table last night when we weren't looking ... (itch) ... (wheeze) ... (gasp) now, where did I put my inhaler ... (gasp) ...
Could this be the last column ever written by Dan? Did he find his inhaler in time? Check back next week as he promises, if alive, to update this blog weekly
Your feedback: email me your comments and I'll attach them to this blog entry: dsousa@digitalsports.com (sneeze)
-----James Poplawski responds on Jan. 13, 2008 @ 1:10 p.m.
Dan,
Thanks for your comments on the school budget. I agree wholeheartedly with Beth's comments. Having my third athlete go through Park View, I know they have learned many of the skills that Beth mentioned. One question I do have is how do we expect to have a level playing field across all the sports when we start levying fees upon the students just to have them compete ? A $50 or $100 fee per sport per athlete certainly is not going to be a major hit to me, but I know there are a number of families who's children are active in sports that are working 2 jobs (sometimes 2 jobs each) just to make ends meet. When it comes to having to decide if you are going to have dinner on the table and heat in your home, versus your kid playing a varsity sport, you know how that coin is going to land. So those more affluent neighborhoods will now have bigger teams, that those with a larger "blue collar" demographic. Is that a level playing field at all?
What about the ripple effect to the schools on this? Let's assume that because of the athlete fee, the football team just isn't as good as it could be (or was the year before). So attendance drops off (school LOSES revenue), with attendance off there isn't as much traffic at the concession stand (school LOSES revenue again), the cheerleaders don't sell as many programs (school LOSES again), the kids that might have been on the team, getting positive reinforcement, learning time management skills, and becoming better students and better people in our community, now no longer have that positive influence and end up in more trouble, have lower grades and cost the county MORE in the long run (we ALL LOSE ! ) It just doesn't seem like the correct thing to do.
Now here's the real kicker in all these proposals that you didn't highlight. The only time that the "headquarters" staff (i.e. NOT the schools) get impacted is when they finally get to a 15% cut in the budget! The LAST of any of the proposals that were offered. Now I know that there are a lot of staff that work behind the scenes to make the whole school system run smoothly, but I simply cannot believe that there can't be some cuts done before that level. Here's some suggestions: How about Dr. Hatrick forgoing his raise for this year? How about the school board? (or God forbid, take a cut as well?) I'm sure there is staff (besides AD's) who can be downsized, or maybe they can job share? I'm sure there are a number of things that can be done, that haven't been added to the list. It seems like the idea is "Let's cut sports. Get the community to raise heck, then we the school board can deflect it up and then the supervisors will look like the bad guys".
----Beth Cipriano responds on Jan. 10, 2009 @ 10:56 a.m.
Dan,
Thank you so much for the comments on the School Budget. It is totally outrageous for the School Board to consider eliminating Assistant Athletic Directors. High School Athletics could not be run without these gentlemen. They have had a hand in major athletic events, as well as district, regional, and state championships, which has brought pride to the Loudoun County community.
The Oatlands Cross Country Invitational is a major event for Loudoun County and as you mentioned teams come from all over the United States come to participate in this annual event. It has been coordinated and carried out by two Assistant Athletic Directors, Derek Farrey (LCHS) and Matt Oblas (FHS), since its inception. It has gotten bigger and better every year. Without them, the Oatlands Invitational will not exist. Because my children have attended LCHS, I know that Derek Farrey (LCHS) coordinates and carries out major cross country championship events at the district, regional and state levels. He also coordinates wrestling tournaments like the Raider Duals and the Santee Invitational. This year he will be running the Dulles District Championship Wrestling Tournament.
Both of my children have participated in high school athletics and their experiences have taught them not only the importance of teamwork and honor in representing their high school, but many, many life skills, too. The consideration of eliminating the Assistant Athletic Directors is unthinkable and the financial burden to parents in charging students to participate in high school athletics, that is being considered, will create undue hardships to so many Loudoun County parents.
High school athletic events build a community. We can all think back to our days in high school and remember either participating in sports or cheering on our team. Where would we be without high school athletics? On paper, this is just numbers, but the impact of these decisions to the Loudoun County community is far reaching. Unless these programs remain untouched, our community will be broken.
Thanks Beth for the comments! Derek Farrey is another of those assistant athletic directors that goes way beyond the job description! And that Oatlands Invitational certainly brings in the tourism tax dollars to Loudoun!
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July 28, 2008
Heritage’s Popular Coach Burke Back to Work after Heart Attack
(July 28, 2008) - Each year, about 1.1 million people in the United States have heart attacks, and almost half of them die. Heritage High School and the Loudoun sports community is breathing a sigh of relief that popular Pride football, basketball and lacrosse coach Jason “Choppy” Burke was one of the lucky ones.
Burke not only survived a heart attack on July 2, but he was back “at work” last week, helping out with a Pride basketball camp. The fact that Burke suffered his heart attack while working out at Heritage probably helped save his life as he was surrounded by quick medical attention.
Choppy is always there to lend a hand from his defensive duties in football to basketball where he has coached on the lower levels to lacrosse where he has built the Pride into a Dulles District power with back-to-back trips to the Region II playoffs. On July 2 it was others lending a hand to the man with a lot of heart.
“The great thing is that it happened where people were around,” said Pride athletic director Ron Petrella, who estimates that from the time the attack occurred, which was around 10 a.m, to his angioplasty at Fairfax Hospital, where he had two stents placed in partially blocked arteries, the entire time elapsed was less than three hours.
And my research tells me that is a good thing as minutes matter in heart attacks. Of the people who do die from heart attacks, half die within the first hour. I also learned that most heart attacks aren’t of the Hollywood variety where the victim falls dead away but are usually a gradual thing with most people taking up to two hours to figure out what is happening.
Burke, a Baltimore native who graduated from Baltimore City College High School in 1993 and from Salisbury State University in Maryland where he played two years for the Sea Gulls football team on the offensive line, comes with a family history of heart disease with his father passing away six years ago of a heart attack and his older sister then died three years ago with among other things heart complications and his mother is a survivor of a stroke.
Ironically, Burke suffered the heart attack while in fantastic shape, having taken off 80 pounds in the past year and kept most of that off.
Up at Heritage on July 2, Burke was going through a typical workout and was only a week away from fellow Pride football coach Steve Williams wedding where Burke would handle Best Man duties.
Burke jokes that he and Williams over the years tried to see if they could exist on a lifestyle of hot wings and hamburgers. The answer was no! (Those who know me, know that I have been trying a similar experiment but with tacos and burritos … earning my nickname from my kids as Gordo Papa).
In the past year, both have supported each other as they dropped weight and got in shape. On July 2, Williams was inside the building doing some paperwork when Burke had the heart attack outside on the track and as Burke became disoriented and started to feel unwell he said he had only one thought in his mind: “Make it back to Steve and he would make sure everything would be all right.”
“I had done a 90-minute workout before that and broke a good sweat,” said Burke who after his personal workout was with some Pride athletes on the track conducting a summer workout. “I started to feel like someone was sitting on me. It was a weird feeling.”
Burke tried lying down and then he sat in a golf cart. Heritage track and field coach Kate Cassidy was also in the area and she came over to check on Choppy.
“I guess I wasn’t really making sense,” said Burke.
The questions were coming faster than Burke could process them. Was he dehydrated? No, he had been sweating fine. Did he have asthma? No, he didn’t. Did his left arm hurt? Yes, but he had been lifting earlier.
Burke tried to walk back into the school but could only make it as far as the benches by the side entrances to the athletic area. By this time, everybody from Williams to the school nurse to Pride principal Margaret Huckaby were on the scene. An ambulance was called for.
“I wasn’t in a lot of pain, just numb,” said Burke.
And in this moment of crisis Burke was still thinking about the kids, especially worried that those he had been “horsing around with” would assume some responsibility for his heart attack.
“I told Steve to tell the kids I’m all right,” said Burke.
Burke was rushed by ambulance to the Inova Loudoun Hospital’s Cornwall campus. Williams was there along with Burke, playing the “Best Man” in a medical drama. Soon, Burke’s mother Anne and twin sister Ericka arrived.
His heart attack was quickly diagnosed and he was flown by helicopter to Inova Fairfax Hospital. He has 60 percentage blockage in one artery and over 50 percentage blockage in another artery.
“I kept thinking ‘what did I do?’,” said Burke. “I don’t have a bad habit. I don’t smoke. If I go to the Wing Factory you will see me with a soda in my hand.”
If anything, Burke kept his sense of humor during the heart attack. When asked if he could “walk” from the bench to the gurney after the ambulance arrived. He said “sure” and then proceeded to almost topple over after getting up. After being helped to the gurney he then quipped: “OK, not so much.”
At the hospital, they started to give him morphine for the pain and he claimed mock alarm to the nurse: “I’ve seen “Saving Private Ryan”. Am I dying here? They always give morphine to the guy dying!”
Turns out he was in good hands. He did spend July 4 in the hospital but by July 5 he was home and chafing at the instructions to take it easy. He couldn’t lift anything over 10 pounds for three weeks.
In that time, as word spread about Burke’s heart attack, the “get well” phone calls and emails started pouring in from colleagues, players and even opponents.
Burke had to end our interview as he was headed for a doctor’s appointment to follow up. He wasn’t looking forward to it as he has a little aversion to anything involving needles, but he may have to get over that in the coming months and years as his recovery continues.
I had one final question: “Are you coaching football this year?”
He gave me an incredulous look.
“They would have to lop off my legs to keep me from coaching,” said Burke.
Petrella and Williams sat in the Pride athletic office and wished Burke well on his appointment.
It turns out that Petrella was on vacation in New York when Huckaby gave him a call.
“She said, first, I want you to know that everything is OK, but the news is bad,” said Petrella, who ended his trip early to return to Virginia to be near Burke.
Williams talks about the day in almost hushed tones.
“He is like a brother to me,” said Williams.
Williams took charge on July 2 when Burke went to the hospital, calling his family, calling his girlfriend, getting Burke’s wallet and helping the hospital with his insurance information. He probably displayed calm but inside: “I was a wreck.”
The doctors may have said take it easy but Burke was not about to miss Williams wedding and on July 10, Burke had build up to enough stamina to stand up and be the Best Man at the ceremony held in Vienna.
“I felt kind of guilty because the reception food was not really “heart friendly”,” said Williams.
About the only thing that got scuttled was a planned bachelor party. That might have been a good thing because the days of hot wings and hamburgers may be over for Burke and Williams.
Petrella said he thinks of two things when he thinks of Choppy.
“No. 1, he’s a friend and family and No. 2, is his concern for the kids and fellow coaches.”
For this past month it has been our turn to have some concern for Burke. We can all say a prayer and be thankful that the coach with a lot of heart is back once again.
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Angioplasty with stent placement
Heart attack, stroke and cardiac arrest warning signs
July 24, 2008
Good Guys Do Finish First: Ashburn Heat Wraps Up 3-Year Run with Babe Ruth 14-Year-Olds Virginia State Title
When the Ashburn Heat baseball club faced elimination last weekend in the Babe Ruth 14-Year-Olds Virginia State tournament, the team representing Eastern Loudoun called upon the message delivered to them by their coaching staff for three years: don't worry about the winning, just repsect the game, do your best, and remember, the thing you can always control is your ... attitude.
In the end, that message delivered by manager Kyle Jessop and coaches Eddie Teal and Scott Logan paid off as the Heat, having already lost a game, and trailing 4-1 with two innings to go agaisnt Falls Church, rallied for a big 14-4 win and then kept on winning ... six straight times to capture the state title.
"They are great kids," said Jessop of his group that now moves onto high school sports at Broad Run, Briar Woods, Freedom and Stone Bridge.
Back-to-back wins against McLean left the Heat finishing as a club on top. With many of the players on the team getting ready for their first high school football season, the Heat will not travel to Alabama to play in the age group regionals.
Every thing you need to know about the Heat can be found in their goals that were established in 2005 when formed:
1. Create and maintain a passion and a love for the game of baseball.
2. Prepare these select kids, at a minimum, to make their high school team.
3. Create a bond among teammates that will last a lifetime.
Jessop said he modeled the team after a positive experience he had with the Ashburn Alley Cats, an AAU baseball team that his older son, Chris Jessop, a rising senior at Broad Run, played on with the likes of Michael Prince, J.P. Devlin, Patrick Murphy, John Bladel and Patrick and Zach Thompson.
"We really wanted to create a bond among the teammates," said Jessop.
No where can the feeling of team and unity be felt than in the inspirational story of Heat pitcher Alex Logan. Named team captain this year for the Heat not because he is the best player on the team but because of his dedication and drive to improving himself and the team, Logan was thrust into the spotlight when the Heat's top two pitchers were able to combine for just one inning in the state tournament because of injuries.
How did Logan respond? How about coming within one out of a perfect game in a 3-0 win over Lane. That no-hitter, only a walk was given up, was the emotional boost that fired the Heat towards the title.
"Alex is such the team player. His performance inspired everybody and fired everybody up," said Jessop.
Without the top pitchers available, others stepped up on the mound including Garrett Thomas, Connor Jessop, Blake Duncan, Dylan Chapman and Brad Baker.
"As a coach, I have to say it was truly a team effort," said Jessop. "We are done but I hope they stay close and it will be great to follow these kids in high school. I couldn't be more proud of the way they handled themselves."
Just a case of nice guys finishing first ... news we like to report!
EL's Scores:
Eastern 2, Williamsburg 1
Dinwiddie 13, Eastern 2
Eastern 14, Falls Church/Annandale 4
Eastern 3, Lane 0
Eastern 15, Glen Allen 3
Eastern 7, Dinwiddie 5
Eastern 2, McLean/Great Falls 1
Eastern 4, McLean/Great Falls 2 (Championship game)
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