When I added up the numbers and see that Baker running back Wyatt Straight gained more than 300 yards rushing against Freeport I could only shake my head.
Straight’s effort was as close to heroic as one can get on a football field. It was gutsy and well-earned. At some schools, a 300-yard effort might have a sports writer scrambling to figure out what the school rushing record might be.

The older I get the better I become at putting winning and losing a game or match into perspective.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m one of the most competitive people you will ever meet. I’ve been known to keep playing online games such as solitaire until I won or won several games in a row.

It seems I get older, metaphorically speaking, if not physically, every week.
Baltimore Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson died Sept. 26. Dick Butkus, perhaps the most menacing linebacker in the history of the NFL, died Oct. 5.

There are certain rivals in sports that put a snarl on my face just thinking about them.
As a University of Tennessee graduate, Alabama and Florida are two of those rivals. There is only one high school team that still sends this old Gulf Breeze Dolphin into mind numbing rage and head-spinning episodes straight out of the Exorcist. That team is the Milton Panthers.

History of sorts was made Sept. 23 when Shenandoah University’s Haley Van Voorhis became the first woman to compete in an NCAA football game at a position other than kicker.

The Baker and Crestview football teams are off this week. That doesn’t change the fact that we have yet to reach the end of September and this is week five of the high school football season.

I wasn’t born Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, throwing the United States into World War II.
And although I was 5-years old in November of 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I really don’t remember that day.

I’ll be the first to admit I seldom, if ever, understand the workings of the Florida High School Athletic Association. And honestly, that might not be a bad thing.

I believe it was the poet Jon Donne that is first credited with saying, “No man is an island unto himself.” Anybody that has been fortunate enough to be a member of a team understands the value of being connected to teammates, coaches and even fans. The connections can often last long after the team time has passed.

Congratulations, we have officially survived the football offseason. Tonight, Aug. 24, the high school football regular season opens when Crestview hosts Rickards at Jack Foster Stadium. Tomorrow, Baker gets to turn on the lights at Doug Griffith Memorial Stadium as the Gators welcome South Walton to town.