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It’s better to be safe than sorry
By Kevin Travis, Sports Editor
It’s going on six years since I moved to North Carolina. While I still can’t get accustomed to some Southern ways of life, such as pig pickin’, sweet tea and every high school football team with a 2-9 record making the playoffs, I have embraced many others.
I often brag to my friends about the Southern hospitality and just how genuinely nice most people are in this area.
And I can’t get enough of this weather. Though the 40s or 50s this week may feel cold to some, trust me; it’s not. If it were 40 or 50 in Ohio at this time of year, they call it a tropical heat wave. December is all about wind chills in the minus-degrees, snow showers and, if you’re real lucky, ice storms.
I’m thinking East Carolina head football coach Skip Holtz will be much happier in Greenville than he would have been in Cincinnati.
Speaking of being happy, I am certainly glad some high schools are using metal detectors to scan for weapons at sporting events. I went through one before covering the Washington at North Pitt basketball games on Friday.
I emptied my pockets and proceeded to dump all my items into a little basket. There was still something on me or in me that set the darn thing off. An officer waved his little thingy-bopper (I think that’s the technical term) around me and the thingy-bopper went haywire while scanning my right side. I knew this darn fake hip would cause me some problems.
It’s not that I didn’t feel secure beforehand, but it’s nice to know some schools are taking the extra step to make sure fans are safe when they go to these games.
Had I known what happened at Jones Senior High School that night, when West Craven played at Jones Senior, I would have felt even safer. A former Jones Senior athlete was gunned down after the game.
Former WDN sports writer John Swartz, who is now working at the New Bern Sun Journal, was in the parking lot when he heard three shots ring out. Luckily, John wasn’t harmed, just a bit shaken up by the incident. Incident -- that seems a little light. By the tragedy.
Moving on to a lighter note, here a couple things to look forward to this week.
The Washington grapplers host the D.H. Conley Vikings tonight for their first home meet of the season. Without the school’s all-time winningest wrestler around, as Gerald Lawrence is now playing football at Elizabeth City State University, I wonder which wrestler will step up as the leader.
On Friday, the Plymouth Vikings play at the Williamston Tigers in basketball. Both schools have strong girls and boys programs this season. I’m especially looking forward to the matchup between Plymouth’s Whitney Stokes, our reigning Female Basketball Player of the Year, and Williamston freshman Katie Paschal, who will undoubtedly hold that title one day.
Kevin Travis is the Sports Editor of the Washington Daily News. You may reach him at 940-4217 or by email at Kevin@wdnweb.com.
I often brag to my friends about the Southern hospitality and just how genuinely nice most people are in this area.
And I can’t get enough of this weather. Though the 40s or 50s this week may feel cold to some, trust me; it’s not. If it were 40 or 50 in Ohio at this time of year, they call it a tropical heat wave. December is all about wind chills in the minus-degrees, snow showers and, if you’re real lucky, ice storms.
I’m thinking East Carolina head football coach Skip Holtz will be much happier in Greenville than he would have been in Cincinnati.
Speaking of being happy, I am certainly glad some high schools are using metal detectors to scan for weapons at sporting events. I went through one before covering the Washington at North Pitt basketball games on Friday.
I emptied my pockets and proceeded to dump all my items into a little basket. There was still something on me or in me that set the darn thing off. An officer waved his little thingy-bopper (I think that’s the technical term) around me and the thingy-bopper went haywire while scanning my right side. I knew this darn fake hip would cause me some problems.
It’s not that I didn’t feel secure beforehand, but it’s nice to know some schools are taking the extra step to make sure fans are safe when they go to these games.
Had I known what happened at Jones Senior High School that night, when West Craven played at Jones Senior, I would have felt even safer. A former Jones Senior athlete was gunned down after the game.
Former WDN sports writer John Swartz, who is now working at the New Bern Sun Journal, was in the parking lot when he heard three shots ring out. Luckily, John wasn’t harmed, just a bit shaken up by the incident. Incident -- that seems a little light. By the tragedy.
Moving on to a lighter note, here a couple things to look forward to this week.
The Washington grapplers host the D.H. Conley Vikings tonight for their first home meet of the season. Without the school’s all-time winningest wrestler around, as Gerald Lawrence is now playing football at Elizabeth City State University, I wonder which wrestler will step up as the leader.
On Friday, the Plymouth Vikings play at the Williamston Tigers in basketball. Both schools have strong girls and boys programs this season. I’m especially looking forward to the matchup between Plymouth’s Whitney Stokes, our reigning Female Basketball Player of the Year, and Williamston freshman Katie Paschal, who will undoubtedly hold that title one day.
Kevin Travis is the Sports Editor of the Washington Daily News. You may reach him at 940-4217 or by email at Kevin@wdnweb.com.
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| Plymouth picks up first win of the season |
