Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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After 30 years working in the Ritzville School District as a PE and Health teacher, Athletic Director and Head Football Coach, Greg Whitmore will be the next Superintendent at the Entiat School District. In other words Greg Whitmore is going home. Greg was also an Executive Board member for the WIAA and served as board president in 2019-2020. I’m sure most years were much easier to contend with but starting March 16, 2020, school and sports were put on hiatus. Meetings were n...
Last week the EWU Eagle coaches came to Ritzville for golf and steak dinner hosted by the Ritzville Lions Club. This event has been going on for a long time and we only missed the June 2020 get together due to C-19. We all wanted to hold the event but higher powers said no way so it didn’t happen. The last time that I participated was 2019 and I believe that it was also the last time I golfed. It was great to visit with the new EWU coaches and there are a bunch of them. C...
There was some good news that we heard last week if you happen to be a Zag fan. Three starters are returning to Spokane to play for the 2022-23 Bulldog team. Yes, Rashir Bolton, Julian Strawther and Drew Timme will be wearing a Gonzaga basketball uniform again next season. Originally all five starters declared for the NBA draft but they had until June 1st to decide if their name was going to be submitted to the draft. So they worked out with teams and talked with others and...
The class of 2022 has graduated having endured the challenges brought on by C-19 like on-line school and wearing masks at school. There was a lot of experimenting going on at different school districts as to the best way to educate kids and be able to have sports competitions. As a substitute teacher I too experienced some of those rules that needed to be followed. I honestly had trouble dealing with those rules and was more than happy to not have to endure more than a couple...
We finally celebrated the class of 1970’s graduation from RHS this last weekend which could be called the class of 1970 is turning 70. The two year hiatus because of Covid didn’t stop class members from having a good time reminiscing about their retirement and other things that keeps them young and alive. We’ve lost eight members of our class out of 60 graduates. 27 class members returned between Friday night and Saturday. There are a few that live a long way away and have yet...
Okay so maybe you are wondering about the title today and rightly so. This Saturday is the RHS/LRHS alumni banquet. The last banquet was held in 2019 but because of Covid restrictions we couldn’t have a formal get together without the fear of another ‘Superspreader’ event near Ritzville. So what is the big deal about the class of 1970? It just so happens that this was the class in which I graduated. Because of a few absentees I have been afforded the duties of intro...
Last year the NCAA approved student athletes being able to earn money for their name, image and likeness or NIL. I think that a lot of fans thought this was a good idea since colleges and the NCAA were making huge amounts of money from the big time athletes showing off their talent in the playing arenas and stadiums. So if an athlete makes a few bucks doing a commercial, good for them. With the transfer portal in place, certainly an offshoot of the Covid-19 pandemic, there...
I’ve applied for several jobs during my long working career. For each job I was interested in I needed to modify the resume and get new letters of recommendation. Now that I’m retired and doing volunteer work or part time substitute teaching, having to prove myself or needing someone to vouch for me is something I don’t need to worry about. What if you are a former college and professional quarterback that happens to be a bit controversial, like Colin Kaepernick (CK)? We al...
There is an old saying: “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” When it comes to the Undeberg Invitational you could say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s back, and back it came last Saturday in Ritzville. With 28 teams and about 500 athletes this great track meet was a breath of fresh air starting with a little rain before the meet started and mild temperatures throughout the day with a slight breeze. The last Undeberg Invite was held in 2019 and there we...
Following every season coaches find themselves either fired, accepting a raise with a couple of years added to their contract or finding the next ideal place to go to. And in a few cases retirement is the best ending for a long career. I’ve had the opportunity to read about some of the history of assistant coaches that are new hires at the local colleges. Some of these people must be living out of an RV for as many different places they’ve lived. It’s one thing to be able...
This time of year gets interesting for a number of reasons, one of them being the transfer portal. For football you may see some guy that played in another part of the country and now during spring practice may be the next QB or offensive lineman at your favorite college. But the guy that was your starting QB is now at a rival college using the same transfer mechanism. The transfer portal has been a boon for some schools while others think of themselves as a farm club...
Each year during the NCAA tournament I get asked how my bracket is doing and I always answer I don’t do brackets because I would pick teams that I want to win instead of investing time figuring out which team matches up better against an opponent. That is really time consuming and I wouldn’t enjoy watching the games. I think one of my uncles had the right idea when he bet on a game. He would take the opposing team and let you take the team we both really wanted to win. He sai...
The NCAA men’s tournament will be over next Monday and an old champion will once again be crowned as the best in the land. Well at least the best at the end of the season which is all that matters. The matchups for games dictate so much because each team plays a certain way and you need to adapt or else you will need to catch the next flight back home. As a Gonzaga fan last Thursday’s game was a real punch to the gut. I’ve been there before seeing a near perfect team strug...
The NCAA tournament has gotten to be my source for reality TV because it is real. There are no scripts to follow. Sure, there are game plans but the other team may mess up those really good ones and all of a sudden the team has to ad lib. And don’t forget the emotions. We’ve seen how being a high seed may not mean much. Kentucky, a number 2 seed gets beat in the first round by 15 seed St. Peter’s. It took overtime but overtime should have favored UK but it didn’t. By the way...
Sorry about not having a column for a few weeks. I’ve had last minute commitments on the day I normally write this column therefore I miss the deadline. Oh sure I could have written it a day early but that’s not my style. If you look at the March 16 date you might not remember that it was two years ago that the world shut down for two weeks to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now 104 weeks later it seems that this state finally has decided that we are safe aga...
I’m not sure if you saw the news this past week that showed some very young elementary school students in Nevada. These youngsters were told by their teacher that starting the very next day they would no longer have to wear masks in class. The kids started screaming with excitement and jumping up and down as if they were told that they would get to have a five hour recess and only two hours of education for the rest of their lives. There have been a lot of states that have lif...
Trying to find a great sporting event to watch on Sunday was not easy. Sure there were a few college basketball games that were televised but I can’t say there was one team that I hoped would win and to me that is half the reason for watching. The other half wants to watch great athletes play the game. I must have watched less than five minutes of the Pro Bowl which is the NFL version of an All-Star game. This game used to be played the week after the Super Bowl but since s...
Here we are almost two years after the country was supposed to shut down for two weeks in order to flatten the curve for C-19 and those impacted by it. Two weeks turned into two months and so on. I’m glad I live in the country where I can breathe fresh air. Can you remember a year ago when the schools in the state of Washington were getting ready to play football and volleyball instead of basketball and wrestling? We are back to playing sports in the correct season now but the...
The awards for outstanding players in the NCAA divisions have been announced. The FBS winners are told prior to the bowl games in early December. The FCS awards are announced the night before the national championship game in January. I think it is fitting to wait until this time and make it that much more special. The Walter Payton Award is the FCS version of the Heisman Trophy only without as much glamour but still very significant. The 2021 recipient is Eastern Washington...
I had some great ideas for a column this week which was a carryover from last week but because of some unforeseen circumstances didn’t get written last week. Now that it is a week later the column I was going to go with probably is just as well left in the back of my brain. So I will start with something that has concerned me for a few years and a topic I’ve mentioned on a couple of occasions I’m sure. On Friday the WSU Cougars played the Central Michigan (CMU) Chipp...
Fall sports have concluded with the football state championships determined last weekend. So let’s go back and give credit to our local teams. The girls’ volleyball team battled valiantly a few weeks ago at the state tournament in Yakima. A couple of injuries to key players made things tough to get to the placing round. But the girls did battle after a first round loss to Raymond the girls would get to Friday’s round with a chance for a trophy. I had a chance to watch this...
To say the least it was an amazing weekend. No, I didn’t do any Christmas shopping because I don’t want to start something I can’t pay for. No, the sports world gods decided that the traditional last weekend of the football season should have a new winner this year. It started on Friday late afternoon in Seattle when WSU defeated the UW Huskies 40-13. To be honest it wasn’t that close. The Huskies started another Huard at quarterback but the young freshman threw 4 interce...
On Sunday I was sort of watching a NFL game that had been long decided when the network switched over to a more competitive game which was actually in the early stages of overtime. The Detroit Lions and the Pittsburgh Steelers were tied at 16 apiece. Detroit was moving the ball and had good field position when their QB was sacked on third down. In the next 7 plus minutes of the game one had to wonder if the teams had actually employed professionals or if these were...
It has been a while since the volleyball and football teams qualified for their respective state tournaments. It was 2013 for the volleyball team and 2015 for the football team. Last week the girls’ volleyball team took second place in the NE 2B district volleyball tournament. The championship was won by undefeated and number 1 rated Colfax. The second place finish in this league is a real accomplishment. LRS volleyball placed two team members on the All-league team: Dakota K...
I would think that the whole world knows by now that WSU football coach Nick Rolovich was fired because of the Washington state governor’s mandate that all state employees would be vaccinated. Rolovich was hoping to get a religious exemption for not getting the jab. He was denied and around 5:00 on October 18th Coach Rolo was escorted from the campus by a State Patrol officer. He was not allowed to speak to the team or go back into his office. “Thanks Coach, don’t let the d...
