PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) -Wednesday began the early scholarship signing period for high school student athletes, and several seniors in our area taking advantage to sign on day one of this period.
The folks at Arnold watching nine players in four different sports sign athletic scholarship offers, well over 400 family, friends, students, coaches and administrators on hand for this event. That list of 9 starting with three in softball. Outfielders Justice Taylor and Kaylie Mellies both signing with Reid College, a juco in Evergreen, Alabama. Pitcher Breanna Clark, who owns the strikeout record at Arnold, going Division One with Southeastern Louisiana University. Four baseball signings, the first two, outfielder Austin Hendrix and infielder Josh Lindsey both signing with Gulf Coast, so they’ll stay local. And two pitchers, Eli Blair and Cooper Moss both headed to the SEC, signing today with the University of Florida. Zoey Vandel, coming off her senior season in volleyball, signing with Jacksonville University. And Delaney Sieber, a star swimmer at Arnold, signing a rowing scholarship with Saint Mary’s in California. She’s actually getting a scholarship in a new sport for her. All in all, a big day indeed for these student-athletes their families and beyond! Arnold A.D. and head softball coach Rick Green said this shortly after the signings.
”It’s special for Arnold high school too in that it’s historic, it’s the largest signing class we’ve had, I know in the last 17 years. And looking back, it looks like the last 25 years. And to have five Division I athletes in that group of nine it’s amazing to me. And what I’m so happy about is it’s over a wide spectrum of sports. We’ve got nine athletes in four different sports today. We’ve got more coming in December.”
Meanwhile over at South Walton High School four more signings taking place in the auditorium there Wednesday afternoon. Those four all in baseball, starting with Cameron Tipton-Thomas, a pitcher who signed with Troy. Next up, Frank Wells the Seahawks shortstop, who signed an offer today with Georgia Southern. Then comes Charlie Willcox a pitcher who is off to Georgia Tech come the summer. And number four on the list there Braxton Varnes, another pitcher headed to the ACC, Varnes is off the Florida State University. So a big day for South Walton baseball, four Division One signees who all have their senior seasons ahead of them.
“It’s definitely special for South Walton High School you know to have just four commits from one team.” South Walton A.D. Phil Tisa told us. “Yet alone four D1. And it’s a special day for these young men. It’s the culmination of a decade plus of an athletic career.”
One more signing taking place at Bay Wednesday afternoon. Emily Rollins, a senior striker on the Bay girls soccer team signed a scholarship offer with Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida. Emily a four-year starter for the Tornadoes who already has 8 goals in just three matches this season.
Tough TV judge Simon Cowell was seen in a commercial during Friday’s Yankees-Cubs on YES endorsing Domino’s Pizza. As if … What money can’t do, it will.
EXHIBIT A: Hey, you Jets financially faithful fools, how are your “good investment” PSLs doing under the buy-’em-or-get-out stewardship of Roger “It’s All About Our Fans” Goodell?
Between now and Dec. 1, the Jets are scheduled to play only one Sunday home game in either the 1 p.m. or 4:20 late afternoon slot.
Goodell and his minions of TV money droolers have determined that Aaron Rodgers, bless his anticipated shelf life, has established the Jets as a prime time team, thus ticket purchasers, and especially the double-suckered who bought Jets PSLs (long-term timeshares), can, again, go to hell.
Roger Goodell looks to the crowd after the Eagles’ 34-29 win over the Packers at Neo Quimica Arena in San Paulo, Brazil. Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Yep, once you’ve exited around the NFL stadium-requisite drunk and disorderly — another profit center — enjoy the weeknight rides home after midnight.
And then wake up to the compliant, bashful silence of a sports media that once was relied upon to protect fans from the likes of a Goodell.
Or you can call Goodell in his office Sunday morning. Offer to take, say, 25 cents back on every dollar you still owe on those “good investment” seat rentals.
EXHIBIT B: Someday, and I hope it’s sooner than later, our sports commissioners are going to be subpoenaed to testify as co-conspirators in some of the deals they’ve certified and profited from.
Last week, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s Gaming Division — “gaming” can be used as the honest title as in consumers being “gamed” by bad-odds gambling, or as a term of obfuscation as if bad-odds gambling is no different from playing no-risk Parcheesi — fined TV-saturated DraftKings $19,000 for what reasonable people would rate worth many more thousands of dollars in punitive sanctions.
Here’s the deal: More than 500 Connecticut customers playing a DraftKings online slot machine tried roughly 21,000 spins for a payout of exactly zero. That’s right — 21,000 spins and not a nickel returned. DraftKings pocketed every cent over what was estimated to be an entire week.
DraftKings sports book in Atlantic City, N.J., Oct. 8, 2019. New Jersey regulators fined DraftKings $100,000 on June 17, 2024. AP
DraftKings, which claims that the 0-for-21,000 spins was caused by a computer glitch, is an “official partner” of the NFL, NBA, NHL, PGA Tour and UFC.
EXHIBIT C: As is both consistently and perhaps criminally clear, NFL rosters now increasingly include full-ride-plus recent college players who are functionally illiterate, semi-literate and socially malfunctional.
Last week, boastful Patriots rookie WR Javon Baker, former four-year full scholarship player with Alabama then Central Florida, received a traffic ticket for what was reported as having extra-dark tinted windows and an obscured license plate:
His Instagram-recorded response to the cop:
“You towing it ain’t gonna do nothing to me. Come on, bro. You got other s— to worry about. He wanna give me a goddamn ticket. … Why is you doing that, bro? I’m dropping somebody off at the airport …
Javon Baker dives to make the catch while defended by cornerback Kelee Ringo during the Eagles’ 14-13 preseason win over the Patriots. Anthony Nesmith/CSM/Shutterstock
“You ain’t yelling at me and thinking I’m not fitting to yell back. Who does you think you is? Just cuz you a police officer, that don’t mean nothing, bro. With my tax dollars, I pay you. Come on, bro, you work for me.”
After being mildly scolded by new Pats head coach Jerod Mayo, Baker said, “I don’t regret nothin’.”
Doesn’t much matter if Baker was in the right or wrong, his response, given his four years in college, was pathetic, truly sad. And there’s plenty more to come.
After all, if Baker doesn’t make it as a pro, what legitimate career, after four years of college, is he prepared to pursue?
So, as college sports grow further from anything that has to do with education — sick, isn’t it? — how do we fix this or at least treat it to have it subside?
Javon Baker tries to make a catch while being covered by Kelee Ringo during the Eagles’ preseason win over the Patriots. Eric Canha-USA TODAY Sports
First you’d need a real-deal, right-headed legislator who’d risk the wrath of rich alumni and 50-yard-line seats politicians and assorted yahoos to call for hearings that would subpoena college presidents to answer why full scholarship students have departed their colleges unable to clearly read, write, balance a checkbook or speak. Why are they leaving as academically deficient and disabled as when they arrived?
And remind them all that continued state funding for a college that spends insane amounts on those who have no reason to be enrolled or employed other than to win ball games — sick, isn’t it? — just might be placed in a binding referendum. Make it simple: Time to vote for education, or against it. Pro-fraud or anti-fraud?
Yankees skipper Boone can’t seem to manage disciplining the undisciplined
Aaron Boone continues to advocate make-believe as his master. Just as he believes he can have all his relievers in an assembly line — each ready to make 1, 2, 3 then exit for the next robot — he has excused Alex Verdugo’s career, cool-dude habit of not running to first as a matter of “picking his spots.”
But how can anyone “pick his spots?” How can he know that the shortstop won’t boot it or throw it away, or that the first baseman will catch it?
How does Boone continue to direct — be allowed to direct — fantasy baseball while managing the New York Yankees?
Aaron Boone Corey Sipkin for the NY POST
Just by tracking what happens next, all of us long ago learned that flags for selfish misconduct cost NFL teams games.
Yet, how many team owners, GMs and head coaches do you suppose have entered Week 1 having lectured their troops to insist — demand — they will not silently suffer unsportsmanlike conduct penalties? After all, how hard would it be not to taunt an opponent?
But your guess is as good as mine, thus we’ll both guess that such an important message has not been delivered. The self-defeating will continue.
And the pandering TV commentators again will make brief notice of such game-changing misbehavior, as they never want to offend the most offensive or be accused of being old fuddy-duddies or worse.
Ex-Giant Robustelli has book on his pop — ‘Pope of NFL’
Column penpal Bob Robustelli, son of No. 81, the Giants 1950s and 1960s great defensive end, has written “The Pope of the NFL: The Andy Robustelli Story and the Family That Loved Him.”
Andy Robustelli of the NY Football Giants on Dec. 11, 1956. AP
Robustelli was among my formative years heroes. Inducted into the 1971 Pro Football Hall of Fame, he was a 1951 19th-round Rams pick — a 19th round Hall of Famer! — from Arnold, a phys-ed college in Connecticut. The first pick of that draft was Giants star receiver/RB Kyle Rote. The third was future Giant QB Y.A. Tittle.
Edited by Peter Golenbock, the book is available on Amazon.
The game has changed … How would you have liked to have been Red Sox starter Tanner Houck on Wednesday against the Mets, when at 0-0, your third baseman, Rafael Devers, slapped five with Francisco Lindor after Lindor reached third?
Wanna play public pals with an opponent? After the game? Before the game? Within a rec league game? Fine. During an MLB game?
