sixcat

I should also point out, Georgia has just as many titles over that span of time than traditional powers Centre, Lafayette, Detroit, and Washington & Jefferson!

Georgia doesn't have the football tradition most would expect them to have based on their over-inflated-self-valuation. Georgia has 1 National Championship in 1980 and played for another in 1942. That's in 113 years of football. They weren't playing for titles before Richt! Richt took them to a level they had never reached before in terms of consistency and recruiting. As I said earlier, a matter of perspective! http://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/schools/georgia/

The Richt argument has never made sense to me. Georgia won 10+ games eleven times from 1902-2000. They won 10+ games ten times under Richt from 2001-2015. Seems like a lack of perspective to me!

I have been shaving with a Merkur safety razor since 1989. I have also used virtually every blade on the market at one point or another. Absolutely nothing compares to a Feather blade!!!!!!!!!!!! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AGG3MNU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

My brother and a close friend of ours use Dr. Carvers from Dollar Shave Club and like it a lot. I haven't tried it though. I have tried Mickey Lee and Stirling but not Soap Commander. I liked them but not much more than Barbasol. I guess my grandfather has had a lasting impression on my life. He passed away 13 years ago and I still find myself doing all of the things he taught me.

My grandfather gave me a Merkur 34C and a box of Feather blades when I was 15. It was stolen from my footlocker in the military a few years later. After a few months of using over-the-counter crap like Gillette, I had my pharmacist, who happened to be my future father-in-law, order me another. Now, they are readily available on Amazon but this was prior to the internet being commonplace. As for soaps, I have tried Proraso, Taylor of Old Bond Street and several others but found a very thin coat of plain old Barbasol works best for me.

Asking me to simmer down implies I am somehow upset, which isn't so. Far too many kids in SWVA peak in high school. Kudos to this kid for not wanting to be one.

Not sure I follow!?!?! Dime a dozen? Most 17 year olds can't decide to get college application paperwork submitted in a timely fashion. Here, we have a young man showing drive and initiative. Neither are very prevalent with the millennial generation. Athletic motivation or not, he is motivated. Something else not common with the millennial generation. And he is getting shit for it on a message board! Perspective, I guess!

My former boss was an early enrollee at VT in the mid 90's knowing full well he would likely never see the field. He was ridiculed by kids and adults alike in his hometown, mainly for his choice to not play basketball as a high school senior. He used the additional semester to prepare himself for the rigors of the math associated with an engineering curriculum. Statics, Thermal Dynamics, Strength of Materials and Accelerated Calculus among others are no joke!!!!!!! Nor can many high schools prepare you for what those classes entail. This is the main reason freshman engineering students are called "Pre-Business" majors. He was on the team for five full seasons, rarely seeing the field and graduated with honors a few months following a national championship appearance. His stature as a former player has opened doors for him as a professional engineer that otherwise would have been closed. His career has been greatly enhanced based on the choices he made as a 17 year old kid. Cut this kid some slack and lets see where his dreams take him!

I am interested to see the team Galax fields this spring. The basketball teams, girls and boys, have had an abnormally high number of players quit who have been multi-sport athletes for years. That can easily be seen in comparing last years basketball rosters to the rosters this season. The varsity boys roster consists of 9 players while JV features a roster of 10 and that is after adding players who had previously been cut. Pretty sad for a program that won back-to-back state titles just a few years ago. The girls program has been decimated after firing the varsity coach following last season. He spent 11 years as an assistant at Oak Hill Academy and was a GA at VT before that. It's hard to fathom Galax could hope for much better for a girls program. He is now the head boys varsity coach at Ridge View in Columbia, SC. They won the Farm Bureau Insurance Classic in Spartanburg over the Christmas holiday. The Galax girls basketball teams currently have 9 varsity and 7 JV players. Doesn't bode well for the future. An injury or two away from not even being able to field a team. Rumor is, the player revolt will continue come baseball season. The baseball coaching staffs for varsity, JV and middle school are in turmoil as well following the debacle at Honaker last spring. It's still not entirely clear who is still on the coaching staffs.

I agree, just offering insight from a former neighbor that worked for one of those stations for a long time.

The Friday night highlight shows generate viewership that local news outlets desperately need and want. They have petitioned for years to have the games played earlier to give them additional time for a better production. It also gives them added time to cover a wider footprint. This isn't the only reason games are being played earlier but it is a significant contributing factor.

I was working some USSSA games with my cousin in Charlotte several years ago. This particular game happened to be my rotation off so I was enjoying some shade, water and a hot dog. My cousin was behind the plate. Delino DeShields was coaching the team in the field and his sons were on the team. His pitcher bounced a ball to the plate and Corey Seager hit it 400 feet over the scoreboard in right-center field. Damnedest thing I ever saw! DeShields immediately began arguing with my cousin that a pitched ball that bounces cannot be hit into fair territory legally. I guess he thought everyone was supposed to be "star struck". He kept screaming "do you know who I am". He would eventually use some colorful language and not get to see the remaining 4 innings of the game. A shame really, Seager put on a freakin show.

I should clarify, not all players wear pants and socks the way Altuve does in the photo. I have never used clothing as a barometer. In my mind, if the top of the ball crosses the bottom of the knee, STRIKE. Same situation horizontally, if I see the right side of the ball across the left edge of the plate, STRIKE. Most guys I worked with would want to see the entire ball within the confines of their zone. I only needed to see a portion of the ball within the zone.

I would consider Altuve to have a conventional batting stance, the other guy, not so much. Using his picture above, my zone would be between the bottom of "Astros" to the contrast between his pants and socks. May be slightly larger than most but like I said earlier, I was always pitcher friendly.

Is that while standing upright, squatted in a batting stance or while changing posture during the process of the pitch?

I never played "travel" baseball and had surgery at 17. Pitched every other game and played short when I wasn't on the mound for the better part of 8 years. I agree travel ball contributes but doing nothing is still a choice, a poor choice at that. Change has to begin somewhere.

VHSL must adapt a pitch count rule to meet NFHS guidelines. VHSL has had an innings-based rule in place for a number of years which NFHS will no longer permit. I agree with the policy, personally. Far to many coaches have abused the innings-based rule through the years. See Galax-Honaker from May for further example. In my opinion, a contributing factor is the lack of quality umpiring. I have worked games in the past with guys who have a zone the size of a frisbee. Those guys ultimately cause pitchers to have to throw more pitches. I get some kids are wild, especially at the high school age and level. But a lot of umpires squeeze the life out of these kids and reward the hitter as a result. The biggest compliment I received as a plate umpire was when a coach would tell me his pitchers loved having me behind the plate. I never felt I rewarded the pitchers unfairly but I certainly didn't reward the hitter, like many do. But, as with a lot of things, the strike zone is subjective and open to interpretation.

We were fortunate in Fries. The baseball stadium was first class. Once I got to Grayson, not so much. The old field at Grayson was terrible. We played a small school from North Carolina that had no fencing in the outfield. The school building itself could be a very abrupt destination for outfielders though. I hit two homeruns in high school. One there that landed on top of the school and one at Carroll. The best player I faced in high school was Kelly Dampeer from Northside. He was drafted by the Cleveland Indians and spent several seasons in the minor leagues before a major knee injury ended his career in 1999. Extremely talented and a hell of a nice guy too. Got to know him well when I lived in Roanoke.

Galax lost to Pulaski 72-20. Failed to score a single point in both the 2nd and 4th quarters. Galax trailed 43-4 at halftime.

So, two football teams from the MED reached the final 4 from 1993 to 2011? Thanks for back-door proving my point!

Watched a few minutes of basketball practice at Galax yesterday afternoon while waiting for my daughters band concert to begin. They may not win a game! I didn't see a single player over 5'-9" tall and no seniors. I honestly believe the JV team could beat the varsity head to head.

Not the MED of my youth, that's for sure. The MED could easily have been the least competitive district in Virginia from 1993 to 2009. Not a single program was competitive outside the immediate area in virtually every team sport with the exception of Grayson baseball. It has experienced a complete 180 degree shift since Fort Chiswell and Galax have become competitive on a state level. I believe the addition of Graham is, at least in part, a significant factor. Graham forced others to raise the bar. I look forward to what becomes of the new look MED. It will be a gauntlet for sure.

I was at Galax High School yesterday afternoon to pick up my daughter. The student parking areas were full of vehicles with North Carolina license plates. Much more so than I would have believed had I not seen it for myself.

Gretna, William Campbell and Altavista have been stacking rosters for years. Salem has a rich history of recruiting Glenvar, Cave Spring, Hidden Valley and Northside. In recent years, Galax has robbed Carroll, Grayson and Alleghany, NC blind. When I lived in Roanoke, I witnessed Glenvar go get the better players from Eastern Montgomery and William Byrd get the talent from Staunton River. It's nothing new but fun to use to stir the pot a little.