TigerFan2709

Once again I agree with the part about the best guy might be an airhead / head case who can't do anything and shouldn't play. I was going from the assumption that the best player would do what you want him to do. Play the guy who gives you the best chance of winning and doing what you are supposed to do on the field / court. Even if he has had to miss because of another sport. If the guy has sat on the couch all summer and blew off stuff then don't play him. He hasn't earned anything. If a kid is playing a sport and has to miss A LITTLE (not saying he can get away with missing everything or a lot of it) then don't hold it against this kid. As for the vacation part there are so many variables it's to hard to say this is right. I would have done the same thing as you - stay with someone so I could play / practice. In fact my family stopped going on vacation because of me playing sports. But that was a choice my family made. Some families won't make the choice - the kid is being punished for their parents. I can't see that being fair. With divorce happening at an alarming rate what if just after the dead period is the only time a kid can see their other parent who lives in another state? This kid might miss a week at most. Do you hold it against them for seeing a loved one they haven't seen in months? Something like this happens the kid has to tell the coach - "hey I have to go on vacation / see my parent on this week and I won't be able to make practice". Then the coach is well within his / her right to say "well have a good time but when you come back little Johnny may be ahead of you on the depth chart because he is going to be here. You will have a chance to win it back when you return though". Those few words solve the problems but some coaches are not willing to do that. That is what creates the problems.

Under the Lights that is a good point that the kid probably didn't tell the coach and I wish I would have put that in my original post. That comes back on the parent being at fault for not teaching the kid something about responsibility. Or sitting down with the kid and saying that this is a full schedule and you need to work this out. Parents fault completely. What if the parent(s) cannot take vacation until after the dead period? Then you are punishing a family for having a certain job. Where is the fairness in that? Now if little Johnny shows up for everything and works harder than little Ricky that is fine. Johnny should be given the first CHANCE at the position when the season starts. But if Ricky is better then you might want to play him instead. That's one reason for scrimmages - to reward the kids who are not very good that show up all the time. Let them get their start. I guess you can say I am contradicting my originial point about this being high school verus college / pro but it's still valid. No matter the level you put your best out there at game time.

We are all forgetting that this is high school and not college or pro sports. Everyone is forgetting that around 90% of ALL high school athletes will NOT play a sport in college (nationwide). Why should any coach pressure a kid to specialize in one sport? Yahoo83 please stop posting anything about baseball because it is obvious you are a football person. That is fine and nothing wrong with that but you have made so many uninformed posts about baseball. I'm not trying to criticize you nor offend you. You are just wrong on your facts. Let's remember that high school coaches can endorse their athletes all they want but a college coach PROBABLY won't listen to the vast majority of high school coaches. College coaches could be fired for the skill level of kids they bring in so they will want to see the kid themself. They may listen to an established high school coach who has won many state championships - Bob Redman at Male football; Bill Miller at PRP baseball; some guy at some school basketball (sorry couldn't think of one). Do you honestly think the football, basketball or baseball coach at Kentucky Wesleyan College will take the word of the football, basketball or baseball coach at East Ridge High School in Pike County? Not a chance. All college sports run camps and showcases for 2 reasons: 1) to see kids and 2) to make money. It's easier / profitable for a college to run a camp and bring in 100 kids and see them. If they find a kid they like then they start to watch him. Football and basketball coaches in college can go to high school games to recruit because of time and number of coaches. They are still limited in where they can go though. Football coaching staffs run around 10 coaches (give or take 2) and basketball coaching staffs will run around 5 coaches (give or take 1) but baseball coaching staffs will run around 3 (there usually isn't much give or take here). University of Tennessee had a very successful run under head baseball coach Rod Delmonico but he only had 2 coaches. Also, football and basketball in college will usually have a bigger recruiting budget than baseball. On the college level baseball is getting shafted really hard by the NCAA but that is another topic all together and it has nothing to do with other sports other than the NCAA is not letting baseball grow and prosper like other sports. Now let me get back on topic - ALL sports in high school have become year round regardless of what you think. Football will lift weights and run and have 7 on 7 passing stuff. Basketball will have open gym and team camps. Baseball has summer teams and fall ball. Each sport will take you year around if you concentrate on one. Is that good or is that bad? I say both. It will help your skills but only if you truly have a love for the sport which most kids do not sadly to say. The bad part is that a lot of kids will get burned out because they concentrate only on one thing all the time. Remember this is high school and not college / pro. These are kids and not adults and they get NO compensation for this. They may be trying to GET compensation (scholarship) but during their time in high school they get nothing tangible. The problem is jerk head coaches who think too highly of themselves. They are the ones who tell kids "if you go to such and such sport then you might as well not come back to ours". These coaches have to remember that their team is a part of another bigger team - the high school they represent. If an athlete plays a sport that means they are on two teams - the sport they are playing and the school they represent. But some coaches think that they are the only thing that matters. I have seen some coaches get onto kids because they went on a family vacation during the summer and missed something. I have seen a basketball coach get onto their kids because they went to a summer baseball game instead of coming to open gym PRACTICE. When a coach won't let a kid miss practice to actually participate in a game of another sport is ridiculous. You can still teach a kid about hard work and dedication if they play more than one sport and that is through being part of the school team concept. Also, you can teach them much more about scheduling time, talking to adults about scheduling time and other things like that. There is no reason to get on here and say that this sport is at fault because they all are and I am a huge baseball guy (literally and figuratively). Let's remember these are kids and they will probably never play college sports - let them enjoy being young.

You can push the pile but you cannot touch the running back. Also, if the pile is stopped then forward progress is stopped and the play will be whistled dead. The part about pushing the pile but not the runner is what lets refs not call this as much as we think it should be called.

If the WV teams beats the KY team then it helps out a lot but if the KY team wins then the WV team gets no points at all. In WV if you play a solid team that you can beat and get you bonus points then schedule them. But if you play a team you probably won't beat then it hurts you to play them. You get X number of points beating a AAA team, X number of points for AA and X number of points for A. Then if the teams you beat go on and win you get bonus points. If you beat a team that will not win many games it will hurt you.

New school that will open next school year - does anybody know who might be the new coach? Looks to be a great opportunity for someone.

So Paducah and Bowling Green don't have school starting soon? I agree with Wild Thing that academics need to come first but school is getting crazy with how early it's starting. Academics need to come first but you also need time for summer baseball and preseason football practice.

So how does a school qualify for these Division of Facilities Management monies? It's great that they got the field but what does a school have to do in order to get money for this? How do they determine who gets what money?

Thanks SCbaseball 08. Good luck with them. They are a good team.

Where will Shelby and E-town play at?

I have no idea who is even in the 1st district and those teams may actually be horrendous but can you use overall record as a good indicator to whether a district is good or bad? Look at the 11th district - all three teams have losing records but I don't think you can call any of them an easy win. Look at what they did during the regular season. Hancock County finished last in the district but has one of the best players in the state in Mike Mosby on the team Breckinridge County finished second in the district and beat 4 teams in the top 25 including Owensboro Catholic who was #4 at the time Meade County won the district and they finished with 6 total wins so that means they beat Hancock and Breck both. Yes all three have lost games they should not have lost but they have beat some pretty good teams. I am sure there are other districts out there who are like this.

Go to a team that is very good and go to a team that is not very good - ask both of the older players about having talented younger players (7th / 8th / 9th graders) in the starting lineup for varsity games. The good team's older players will say there is nothing wrong with it and want the younger kids to contribute and will help them. The bad team's older players (and parents) will say it is wrong because the team is about the Seniors and older guys. The younger guys should wait their turn. Sports is not like other activities at the school. It comes down to wins and losses and there are some coaches who are fired because they do not win enough. We don't live in a nice world that allows people to do the job because they are older - businesses want people who are going to make them money and they could care less about age.

I guess nobody cares about this one.

I don't think playing 7th graders on varsity is that good of an idea but having them on your team to play Freshmen and JV ball is a good idea. In some places the summer Babe Ruth / Little League teams are terrible and do not teach the kids anything. By the time when a high school gets a player as a freshman they may have terrible habits that are very hard to get rid of. By getting 7th graders into your system you are able to teach them how to play your way and keep those bad habits from forming. A kid better be a STUD to play varsity at that age which could happen - remember Mac Whitaker at Harrison Co played one at second base several years ago and the kid got drafted when he graduated.

In a rematch where the Aces won 12 - 0 the Tigers got revenge behind FRESHMAN Tate Glasscock's complete game at O'Cath's home field. Both teams played great defense and Breck just got more timely hits. Also, the 12 - 0 game was a little misleading. O'Cath was only up 4 - 0 going into the top of the 7th when Breck's pitching fell apart. Overall a great game by both teams and both should be commended for displaying great high school baseball.

What makes cuss words so aweful? Why are certain words considered to be taboo? They are just words just like any other word. Look back through several of these posts... "This was taught to me by a professor of English at Highlands who could rip you up one side and down the other leaving you as small as a gnats nugget...ALL WITHOUT using a curse word OR raising his voice. " Using this one as an example this teacher accomplished the same goal as someone who cussed - punished, disciplined, embarassed, motivated, humiliated a student. So why is it OK for someone who has a bigger vocabulary to have the same effect as someone who does not have / use a bigger vocabulary? I played for coaches who had terrible language and my parents had terrible language - therefore I don't see the big deal because they are just words to me. I have a player who is in the same boat (remember I have not said whether I cuss or not) with his parents and cussing. When I got him as a younger player he would pitch a game and throw a ball in the dirt and then let cuss words fly at the top of his lungs - he had no earthly idea he was even saying them. I have got him to where he just cusses in idle conversation and not yelling at the top of his lungs on the field. Am I a bad coach because I haven't kicked him off the team yet - which this would the same case as firing a coach for cussing? What kids hear from coaches is nothing compared to the music and tv they are around. If a parent wants to hold a coach to a higher standard and not tolerate cussing then that same parent has to make sure their child is not exposed to the hip hop culture that routinely uses foul language like Dr. Suess uses rhymes. If parents are going to have this high standard they need to be consistent and not wishy washy with it. Someone said make up cuss words like rumplefeathers - do you honestly have any idea how bad the kids would make fun of you for saying something like that? I know an adult should never worry about something like that but using words like that then the kids WILL tune you out because they think you are a dork.

Pikeville was winning 20 - 5 in the 5th. Three outs from victory. I heard Pikeville issued 21 walks.

Congrats Adam Collins, Josh Adams and Nick Roberts. Also, heard Mackenzie Carter, from Pikeville High School, signed with Asbury. MSC Baseball -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2007 ALL - CONFERENCE TEAM COACH OF THE YEAR: Beauford Sanders -- Campbellsville University PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Daniel Guttridge -- University of the Cumberlands FIRST TEAM: Braidy Vance - 1B - SR - Lindsey Wilson College Marty Kaetzel - 2B - SR - West Virginia Tech Kerry Gorley - SS - SR - Lindsey Wilson College Javier Gali-Rodriquez - 3B - JR - University of the Cumberlands Andrew Carroll - UTL - SR - Campbellsville University Daniel Guttridge - OF - SR - University of the Cumberlands Nick Phelps - OF - SR - Lindsey Wilson College Chase Armstrong - OF - SO - Georgetown College Adam Collins - OF - SR - Pikeville College Robert Mills - C - SO - University of the Cumberlands Josh Adams - C - SO - Pikeville College Chris Curley - DH - FR. - Campbellsville University Alan Tungate - P - SR - Lindsey Wilson College Nick Roberts - P - SR - Georgetown College Anthony Williams - P - SR - Georgetown College Morgan Carlile - P - JR - Campbellsville University Adam Blakey - P - SO - University of the Cumberlands HONORABLE MENTION: Victor Wooldridge - 1B - SR - University of the Cumberlands Josh Konicek - 2B - FR - University of the Cumberlands Bryan Bonner - SS - SO - Georgetown College Jason Beale - OF - JR - Campbellsville University Temple Macdonald - OF - JR - Campbellsville University Matt Lepage - C - JR - Campbellsville University Mark Jurczynksi - DH - JR - Lindsey Wilson College Chris Lemay - P - JR - Campbellsville University Jordan Compton - P - JR - Pikeville College Mike Fiers - P - JR - University of the Cumberlands Marty Weisler - P - SR - West Virginia Tech Dale Kestner - RP - JR - West Virginia Tech ACADEMIC ALL - CONFERENCE: Bryan Fuller -- Campbellsville University Weston Jones -- Campbellsville University Jason Neufeld -- Campbellsville University Nathan Quesenberry -- Campbellsville University Justin Adams -- University of the Cumberlands Joel Dobney -- University of the Cumberlands Daniel Guttridge -- University of the Cumberlands Alex McDougall -- University of the Cumberlands Chris Short -- University of the Cumberlands Jon Silverman -- University of the Cumberlands Kyle Lucal -- Georgetown College Travis Pewwitt -- Georgetown College Nick Roberts -- Georgetown College Ace Adcock -- Lindsey Wilson College Bryan Gitlewski -- Lindsey Wilson College Mark Jurczynski -- Lindsey Wilson College Nick Phelps -- Lindsey Wilson College Tim Phoenix -- Lindsey Wilson College Jason Spear -- Lindsey Wilson College Matt DeBlauw -- Pikeville College Oscar Field -- Pikeville College Nathan Himes -- West Virginia Tech Chad Smith -- West Virginia Tech Ben White -- West Virginia Tech

I think this makes 3 in a row for Pikeville. Hopefully the Panthers can get it turned around.

There is a wood bat company that could explode if more schools and conferences were to use their bats (ok I know I sound like a salesman but I am not). Baum Bats are the greatest wood bats out there. They never break and I am not joking. Last year one of my players was being recruited by Indian Hills Community College in Iowa and they use the Baum Bats during batting practice. My team looked into it and bought two. Every one of my players used them during BP and we still have our original two bats. They have yet to break or flake away. They are more expensive than a regular wooden bat - go for around $125 per bat but they last for a VERY long time. My team played in a wood bat tournament this year that provided three bats for the tournament. My guys never used those bats at all - they used the Baum Bats we bought last year. We bought the original two bats last year and are still using them today. Check out http://www.baumbat.com to see their products.

I am what you would consider a larger person and my team doesn't have any uniform tops that seem to fit me that well. Based on that I wear the pants and some sort of pullover - during cold games a long sleeve warm up jacket and during warm games a BP top. For comfort sake I would like to go to windbreaker pants or Khaki shorts in warm weather but then again that isn't baseball.

I wasn't fishing for anything negative. Just wondering about the program and if there was a connection to the coaching change. And sounds like from the other posters Pikeville is in a rebuilding year. Thanks for the input.

It was actually a good game though. Catholic was only up 4 - 0 going into the top of the 7th but Breck's Pitchers could not find the strike zone. Catholic was obviously the better team but Breck did put up a good fight for 6 innings. The faced 4 pitchers and two will play at U of L next year and another one will eventually play at a D-I school.

We need to stop using the phrase "just have fun". It is not a very accurate and becomes a misleading statement. Now before this goes further and people get all redfaced over what I just put let me explain I agree that sports should be fun. We need to take another path to getting to that and explain it better. By saying "just have fun" the players start thinking that joking around is what fun is. High school age kids are much more immature overall in today's society and they have a poorer work ethic. We need to stress to players knowing the difference between mature fun and immature fun. Both are good but they have their place and we need to teach when each one is appropriate. Immature fun is when you just joke around and tell jokes and not take things serious. There is nothing wrong with having this type of fun. It is wrong when you are in practice and displaying this type of behavior. Mature fun is working hard in practice to make yourself better. You take your skills both mentally and physically and improve them. It is fun to see yourself and your teammates get better and achieve a goal. Your work your butt off in the preseason, grind it out during the regular season and then you win the district title, regional title and whatever else you can win.

Thanks for the reply. I know Pikeville has been a force in 15th for years and kind of suprising to such a slow start.