RANDY DICKSON: A wonderful nine-year ride, and counting
As I look at the calendar I find myself in deep reflection as I think about the year that will end a few hours after this issue of the News Bulletin hits the street.
Like many of you, I take time at the end of the year to recall the events of the passing year as well as other years gone by.
On Dec. 28 I celebrated my nine-year anniversary with Florida Freedom Newspapers. Part of those nine years was spent with the old Hub, the insert in the Daily News that focused on the concerns of this part of the county. In a couple of months I’ll be marking two years at the News Bulletin.
The Class of 2010 was in the third grade when I arrived at the Daily News. And I don’t even want to think about the fact that the Class of 2013 had yet to enter the first grade. I don’t want to think about it because it makes me feel old, and the truth is in May I hit 52, so maybe I am old.
But this job has a way of keeping me young, just like the kids I cover.
Things might not have gone the way every coach, player and fan had hoped for in 2009, but it has been a good year in that there haven’t been any young people lose their life in this part of the county in a senseless accident. That’s something for which all of us can give thanks.
As is the case with every passing year, teams have experienced the thrill of victory and the emptiness of defeat.
Sometimes the names, faces and games that I cover rush past me like a roller coaster on a waterfall. There are times I want to hold on to a fleeting moment while trying to take in the beauty of the ride.
The canvass of sports are hardwood courts, asphalt tracks and grassy fields. The strokes of the sports we follow are painted by the players and coaches that we cover throughout the course of the year.
If my memory is correct, Crestview track and field coach Ernie Martin is the only high school head coach left here in the north end of the county that was on the job when I arrived on the scene in December of 2000.
Baker has had three football coaches, three baseball coaches and a couple of boys’ basketball coaches. And, as of this year, a second girls’ basketball coach.
I won’t even try to count the number of coaches that have called the shots for different sports at Crestview.
The most recent additions to local coaching staffs have seen Keith White take over as the Crestview boys’ basketball coach, Donald Campbell step in as Crestview’s girls’ coach and Ron Panucci replacing Jeff Fowler as the man in charge of the football wrestling program.
A year after stepping down as the Baker volleyball coach, Kathy Combest hung up the whistle as the Gator girls’ basketball coach. Baker graduate Brian Wagner answered the call to take over the team.
In the fall of 2001 Jacob Cosson was the Bulldog quarterback. Blake Ritchie, this year’s Bulldog quarterback, was in the fourth grade during Cosson’s senior year.
Vernon Jones called the signals for the Gators in 2001. Logan Wagner and Christian Mainor, two of the three Gators that split time at quarterback this year, were in the third grade that year. The third quarterback in the group, Vada Moore, was a second-grader way back when.
One of the beauties of sports is the simple flow from one generation to the next. Athletes come and go, but a part of them are forever etched in our collective memories.
Only time will tell what 2010 will bring, but you’d better buckle up. I have a feeling it’s going to be another wild ride.
This column wil run in the Dec. 30 edition of the Crestview News Bulletin.
