We all know about the records of those well-known universities like Alabama football or Florida State baseball. They get all the national headlines. How about the small Wabash College Track and Field Program? It was run by legendary coach, Rob Johnson, for many years and he has the record for wins by any coach at Wabash College. Rob was able to do this at a college that does not give athletic scholarships but must rely on students who want to go there and can maintain their high standards of education and still play an intercollegiate sport. Rob is well-known in all coaching circles for his expertise in all areas of track, but especially relay teams. Even though he has retired from regular coaching, he is still helping with our Olympic program and is still in demand as a speaker at track clinics around the United States. Rob was able to recruit quality athletes who were top-notch in every aspect of the term. Many of them made their prowess known at the NCAA Championship levels. As I mentioned earlier, he was always one of the elite relay coaches in the United States. I have had the pleasure of

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Not everyone who ever runs track will be a sectional champion. Very few even become conference champions, so what keeps them going? What are their goals? I am sure all of them start out dreaming of those big wins, but reality sets in so they have to reset their goals. The good coaches need these kids to keep a program going, and they need these runners in reserve when someone is injured. Most of these young athletes will set a realistic goal for themselves and work their tails off to achieve that goal. In doing so, they may even go above that goal because they worked so diligently. Some of my fondest memories are of just such kids. One girl worked four years to reach a personal time record for herself in the 3200-meter run. In her last meet as a high school student, she not only broke the time she had set for herself but got a ribbon as well. I can guarantee that ribbon meant more to her than almost any other ribbon won that day or maybe that season. Not only did she run four years for me, but her attitude rubbed off on other runners

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I don’t know if you are aware that the IHSAA has rearranged sectionals in most sports for the 2013-14 school year. Locally, one of the differences is the basketball sectional at Greensburg. Batesville will now be in a sectional that is the repeat of their conference with Madison being moved. The other 5 schools will all be EIAC schools. This will include Greensburg, Rushville, South Dearborn, Franklin County, and Lawrenceburg along with the Bulldogs. This only begins the shakeup. Wait until you read about sectional 30 in football. Batesville and Greensburg will still be battling it out, but now they will contend with Guerin Catholic (Noblesville), Hamilton Heights, Indian Creek, Indianapolis Marshall, Lawrenceburg (no longer a 2A status), and Rushville. In sectional 39 where Milan resides you may have to get an Indiana road map out to figure where some of these schools are located. Besides the Indians, you have Clarksville, Crawford County, Eastern (Pekin), Manual of Indianapolis, Paoli, Providence (New Albany), and Triton Central. Hopefully, the bus driver will be equipped with a good GPS system! Space here does not allow me to list all the other changes that have occurred. You might ask, “Why so much

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Recently an incident in pole vaulting was brought to my attention. Sarah Hayhurst, granddaughter of Ham and Jean Struewing of Batesville, and a junior at Memorial High School in Evansville was vaulting in the city meet. Sarah had just broken the meet record with a vault of 10’9″ and the bar was moved to 11′. Everything went well in this attempt until she reached the top of her vault when the pole suddenly snapped sending her tumbling toward the mat. Before she hit the mat, however, the broken end of the pole smacked into her arm leaving her dazed and crying out of fear that something very bad had happened to her arm. Fortunately, an ice pack and some soothing words from her teammates made her realize that it was only going to be a bruise and she will be ready for her next meet. Incidents like this are what keep “do-gooders” hollering to ban pole vaulting from high school track meets. Today the poles are pre-bent and breakage is very rare. Seldom are the vaulters seriously hurt. It is one of the most beautiful events to watch, and the athletes are as graceful as you will

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Vickie Vaughn graduated from Lawrenceburg, Indiana, High School in 1981 and Illinois State in 1986 where she starred in basketball for both schools. At Lawrenceburg High School she has the record for career points at 1,062 while playing for Hall of Fame Coach Maurice Meyers. While at Lawrenceburg, Vickie was part of two sectional championships (Lawrenceburg’s only two) and its only 20-win season in 1981. She had a career high 42-point game and was a two-time all-state player. She was a 1981 Indiana All-Star along with fellow EIAC performer Donna Lamping Hoeing of Batesville. Vickie started for two years at Illinois State where she later coached. She also coached at several other schools before retiring. She was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame last month! She is the only female athlete who earned 12 varsity letters while attending Lawrenceburg High School. I remember some of those classic battles between Vaughn and Lamping during their 4-year careers in the EIAC. Both are members of the Indiana Silver Anniversary Basketball Team. I hope that Donna will make the Hall of Fame as well in a future year. Both were instrumental in putting

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The Indianapolis 500 will be run in a couple of weeks, and they will still sell it as the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing”. It is not even close to what it used to be. First of all, the qualifications have been cut back drastically, and there are usually only enough cars to fill the 33-team field. Bumping has lost most of its luster. “Bump Day” was almost as popular as race day in the 50′s and 60′s, but now it is hard to even find it on TV much less it being an event that attracts hordes of people to watch it in person. It still does draw quite well on the actual race day, but again, the crowds are much smaller than they used to be. I think at one time the crowds were as high as 3 or 400,000. The year I went in person I was so far away from the track that I had to use binoculars just to see the cars. Now, I understand you can get tickets right up to the day of the race. The popularity of NASCAR and their 600-mile race on the same day have cut

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Recently at the Ripley County Hall of Fame Banquet I was able to relive many memories from the days when I was coaching basketball at Batesville. John Galle was inducted into the Hall, and I sat a the table with John’s family which included Bill Wanstrath. John is an accountant and works in Indianapolis. John barely made the basketball team as a freshmen and sophomore, but he was all-conference his junior and senior years. We saw something in John and we felt it was worth keeping him on the squad until his skills became evident. He more than paid us back for our patience. It was a good thing that in those days you did not have to choose your team in June so they could play all those summer tourneys. John would have been cut and who knows what might have happened. Bill, of course, was born with a serious birth defect that left him with only one useable arm. In Bill’s case, no one told him he was handicapped. He always played like a player with both arms working. Some kids would have stayed at home and felt sorry for themselves, but Bill went about

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How many of you remember going to practice in high school with your clothes and shoes in a white cloth bag or pillow case? If you were “rich”, you might have had a crude gym bag. Most kids’ practice gear included a plain white T-shirt. We did not get those fancy practice outfits you have today. Shirts and skins was the “go” word in boys’ practice, not blue or white. I carried my baseball bat to practice with my glove hanging by its strap to the bat and the shoes hanging on top of the glove. I now see T-ball kids with fancy bat cases and gym bags that would have carried all my sporting gear for a year inside of it. Today it is backpacks and expensive grips that house the equipment. Can you imagine Michael Jordan or LeBron James walking into the gym with their white bag hanging over their shoulder? When I ran track, I had one pair of black shoes which I used for running and high jumping. Now kids have a pair of shoes for every occasion including practice and for meets and for every event. At a track meet today, I will

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If you can figure out what goes on in the mind of a teenager, you can make a mint by writing a book about the process. Why can some kids go to the line in the last 10 seconds of a game and write beautiful music with the rippling of the nets while another kid with just as much talent goes to the line and throws up a brick. Most of it occurs above the shoulders and between the ears. Any coach with any kind of talent can make the x’s and o’s work, but the real winners can get inside a kid’s head and make him/her believe they are world beaters. Selling a kid on his/her ability is the real art. John Wooden cornered this market, but many less known people work tirelessly in high schools all over the USA and do the same thing in lesser known programs. Coach Bader did this for years at Harrison Ohio High School with his baseball program. He won more games in his career than most of those high profile private schools in Cincinnati. The wrestling program at Milan is another one of these programs. Coach Durham

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There has been a lot of talk recently on the mass exodus of Indiana basketball talent from the state’s high schools to out-of-state colleges. I have been quite vocal on this exodus. It really grips me that Purdue and IU get most of their star players from states other than Indiana. IU did have a few good Indiana players as well as Purdue, but either could have won a national championship if all those players who played for Duke, Michigan, and Ohio State had stayed home. I think most of it is image. IU is starting to get its image back, but still lacks the “I need to go there to be seen”. Purdue had it a few years ago, but lately it seems to be “I would go anywhere but there”. This is really a shame because Purdue’s track record in education takes a back seat to no one, and the IU business school is rated as high as any place else in the USA. I know one problem Purdue has is that the athletes are not only expected, but are demanded, to be in class. Not all schools do this. If some stories are

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This is the day before the famous Kentucky Derby is to be run. I have been a race fan for a long time, and I still enjoy going to the track several times a year. I am one who is glad Indiana does not allow TV betting or I am afraid I would be tempted to get involved. Obviously, you can lose a lot of money this way before you realize it is gone. Just ask the lady in Southern California who went through a billion dollar trust fund betting on computer generated sports. What does this have to do with the Kentucky Derby? Most tracks in the United States are finding it very hard to fill their race cards each day. This has not hit Churchill Downs yet, but almost every other racing venue in the United States is hurting. The theory behind it is that people cannot lose money fast enough on live racing, so they take their betting money to the casinos and other similar betting venues. Even race tracks have had to go to OTB just to bring people to the track. This allows them to bet on any race going on in the United States

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It is becoming quite obvious that the Cincinnati Reds are going to have to overcome many more injuries this year than what they did last year in order to repeat. Ryan Ludwick went down on opening day and may be lost for the season. Johnny Cueto’s pitching problems are becoming a worry. He had one bout in the playoffs last year, and he already has spent time on the disabled list this year. His strange delivery has made him a better pitcher, but it may be contributing to his injuries. Votto is playing better this year, but he still seems to be holding back to protect his injured knee. Now Cozart has injured fingers. These have been the major injuries, and we are only one month into the season. No one knows what the secret to staying healthy is or they would obviously show ways to avoid it. Injuries today seem to be coming more frequent as players train at a much higher level than what they ever did in the so-called good old days. As is well documented, Babe Ruth never trained one day in his life, and look at his career numbers. Unfortunately, if you want

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Yesterday I gave you a glimpse of what the Ohio Athletic Association is dealing with in the area of private school enrollments. A few years ago there was a movement to totally take them out of the association and have a private vs. public dual system. In other words, Moeller could not compete against Harrison for a state championship. That proposal was soundly defeated. Moeller, Elder, LaSalle, Cincinnati Country Day, Xavier, Mount Notre Dame, Ursaline Academy, and a host of northern Ohio private schools have dominated the state championships in all major sports in the past 10 years. This has caused a rift in the state association in Ohio to the point that all of these proposals mentioned yesterday and today have cropped up. Indiana instituted a system that has been accepted by most of the schools because it treats the root problem of domination on a more equalized basis. Public schools can be forced to move up as well as private schools. Ohio does not seem to want to punish public schools from dominating any particular sport. However, in the state of Ohio only a very small handful of public schools have shown any tendency to dominate. As mentioned

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How many of you are following the Ohio Association of High Schools and their proposal to try to put private schools and public schools on level playing ground? This proposal figures the private schools enrollment based on the entire field of school districts where students come from to enroll in that private school. This would mean if you had students from 5 school districts, all 5 enrollments would be put in a formula and some compromised enrollment figure based on the total population of these 5 districts would make up the private schools enrollment. Small private schools could jump from the smallest division in Ohio to the second or even largest school division if this proposal is passed. This is Ohio’s idea of how to penalize a school for basically having no boundaries. In Indiana, the IHSAA rule makes a school move up in enrollment based on winning in consecutive years. This is how they propose to level the field. In Indiana, if this Ohio rule would apply, Oldenburg Academy would have to figure its enrollment based on combinations of South Dearborn, Sunman Dearborn, Franklin County, Batesville and Greensburg, among others. This would obviously move them from A to

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I was reminiscing about how it used to be when I was a kid growing up on a farm, and what it is like today. Most kids today either have a part-time job or they spend a lot of time on some electronic device. I spent my time doing farm chores and/or working at my dad’s farm store. I did not get paid for either of these! This job involved spending a bunch of time delivering fertilizer and other farm supplies. Some of these deliveries occurred at strange times of the day. I might be up at dawn or spending the night on the road getting a truck load of fertilizer. Between all of this, I had my practices, games, and studies. Somehow, I juggled my time and got it all done. My dad was quite lenient in helping to make both schedules work. One job I hated was the Saturday job of cleaning the stables during winter basketball season. Dad insisted we do this on Saturday morning, and then about 4 I would head out to play a ball game. Good thing I was young and in good shape. Now the ball teams have a shoot

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