Duke versus William and Mary, with a graduate 🎓 of W & M…
Kickoff at 3:30 !!!
Duke scores twice on its opening drive 🚗, first Nate Sheppard with a 25 yard run but a holding penalty wiped it out. No worries, a passing TD followed shortly!
10:42 (1), 7-0
Nate for 19 yard TD, 14 – 0 [6:03]
William and Mary answers back at 2:58 (1), 14 – 7…..
4:15 pm – end of 1st quarter….
Duke University adds a field goal, now 17-7 with 13:20 left in the first half.
29 – yard TD pass by our #10….
24-7, [10:42 (2) ] – only problem is that Nate only has 5 touches so far……
31-7, 29 yard TD pass, [7:58 (2)]
2: 00 – warning ⚠️, W & M facing a 4th and short from the Duke four.
Sometimes, my world 🌎 moves too fast for me, and my mind is built for too fast. So, every now and then, I slow 🐌 down and try to explain why a particular story appears.
This story is brought to us by Mrs Joi Ogle, and that group shot is full of some top-shelf people with ties to Carroll County, Virginia.
The link above will take you over to the swim 🏊♀️ meet results from the meet today. I encourage everyone who is interested in swimming to check it out.
The reason why I created the Saved by the Bell 🔔 portion of our efforts was I had and have plans to provide start to finish coverage of Alyssa Ervin and Furman University. If you have to practice what you Preach and my message is about equality, across the board.
If I have space and time for Miss Ervin, then I should have space for ALL former Cavaliers that are playing college sports. Elijah Cox and Callie Harris are two great examples of others this year.
But like everything else I do, coverage is a choice that each family should have in regard to both high school and college. The next level is at the high school, it’s a coach to coach decision, and I respect their wishes.
It is actually easier for me where college is concerned because it removes the choice that a high school 🏫 coach has to make, which is, do I see any benefit in letting this ( fill in the blank of what you wish to call me) anywhere near my program???? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes it is No, and then there is a third answer that I can not use because this is a family thing, rated G.
Today, one mother 👩, who I happen to admire a great deal, attended a swim meet that included her Kiddo. She had double duty as both his mother and his swim coach. Today, Joi has double duty as Wyatt’s Mother and biggest fan. She shared with me the thought process of not being his coach today.
Sure, I could spend hours searching college websites or, worse yet, looking through other people’s social media. I barely have time to create content for the people who want to share their terrific news about their pride and joy. It’s just that simple…
When I circle back on a storyline from time to time, it’s to help other readers. We have reached people in 50 different countries around the world now, and some folks want to understand.
Circle Back 🔵 – Mrs Joi Ogle lives in a place that I labeled ” The Hill.” She is as kind 😇 of a soul that you could ever meet. Her and her husband both coach at the school, and together, they raised two impressive Kiddos.
Today, Joi attended a swim meet with others from The Hill, and she had a choice, one that everyone has – do I want to take three minutes and send something to Around the Valley or just put it on Facebook ?
There are many people who love Joi Ogle and her family, but they don’t live on social media.
I will add that my non-social media effort, which is designed to protect the people that I care about from bullying, I miss out in interaction with folks like Danny Dean.
Sacrifices happen in life when you are fighting for a cause.
Now, here’s the final proof of what I stand for – I’m not going to click on the link above myself, I don’t need to know if he finished first, second, or last.
My story is about a Mother’s Love ❤️ and her little boy 👦, who has grown into an impressive young man. I should add that Mr Ogle displayed a level of parenting at the banquet last year that made me smile. He shared it with Kris Richardson that night. Why is that relevant to this story ? Because you can not produce a Kiddo the level of Wyatt Ogle by yourself…
Joi, Thank You for everything you do and for sharing part of it here ! See 👀 you on Tuesday night, I hope !
Yesterday afternoon was fun and fellowship with some awesome people, but if you don’t know those people, you might not truly care about that story.
That part is okay because I don’t write for clicks or money, I write to bring joy to others.
I sent that story to eight people. I sent it to the people involved in it ➕️ Marion Harris and Mr Chris Dodson. The last two because they know most of the people that were part of the story.
There’s an inside joke 😃 there about the relationship dynamics between Alan Knight and myself, and it stems from an old Kevin Bacon movie 🎬 about degrees of separation.
Alan laughs at the fact that with six steps or less, I can find a way to laughingly take credit for anything good that happened. It’s fun because if you break it down, all I am trying hard to do is bring light to positive people who are using their God given talents for the betterment of others.
Everyone who knows me in Carroll County knows how much respect I have for both Vickey Ritchie and Greg Bolen. Take those two and add them to Alan Knight, and it gives you the idea 💡 of the workload that this Dodson fella carries every day.
Right now, Dodson is adjusting to life after being a full-time teacher ( following the career path of that Knight fellow) but he didn’t search for a fishing hole somewhere, he just added the next challenge and this one he can tackle with his Bride.
There will be a day when his life slows 🐌 down, and when it does, I hope that he will stop by my nursing home 🏡 and we can reminisce about the life he has led.
Back to the inside joke, because I might not still be around when Dude slows down, I will connect the dots on how this works…
I am the Public Relations Manager who takes care of people like Alan Knight and Lawrence Nesselrodt while working with anyone who can tolerate me.
So, being that Alan is under the umbrella 🌂 and the highest level, the fact that Alan taught a young Chris Dodson as well as gave him someone who he could look up to as a high school student, means that I have already ” taken ” credit for everything Chris Dodson has accomplished…….
But seriously, you are my daily inspiration, and I look forward to the day when you catch your breath. It will mean that instead of grabbing a slice of pizza 🍕, you will have to ask my nurse what flavor of pudding 🍮 you should feed me during our visit.
Circle back part of the story :
The comparisons –
Like Alan Knight, Dodson has seven rings 💍
Like Greg Bolen, Dodson could just run around and beat people up that bother him but he knows that there is a better way.
Like Vickey Ritchie, Dodson had a built-in reason for it, he has spent his entire life dedicated to folks with special needs.
While this might be a solid read in one of my places that I was never from, it will have the opposite effect in the current place I’m not from. In Carroll County, Chris Dodson is Darth Vader because of the history between the girls’ basketball programs as each school might have one more State banner if not for the other.
Dodson is a Home Town hero, and I’m honored 🎖 to be “not from” where we works all of his magic
The funniest line from lunch yesterday afternoon came from Quentin as I was telling the story about the time that Frank Comer was heading into the season finale with an 0-9 record. I consider Frank Comer a big part of my story because he shared an office 🏬 at the High School with Alan for decades.
On game day, I went to school with Frank and stayed with him from 7am. until the final gun sounded. People were going to come after him, and I wanted to be standing next to him when they did. In my world 🌎, it’s not about how much you win, its about what you do with your success or lack there of.
Quentin, who I hadn’t seen since High School, adds I don’t know what season that was because we didn’t win a single game while I played. He added that even though he won 🏆 a State Championship in baseball ⚾️ and won ZERO games in his time at Page County High School, that his time in football was more fun.
Win or lose, Friday Night Lights is THE REAL DEAL in high school 🏫.
Everyone who reads my work knows that I bleed Duke Blue. I am sitting here outside Wallace Wade Stadium typing this story, but the one thing I don’t write about is Duke Men’s Basketball, and that’s because it would be the very definition of overkill.
This winter should be exciting because there are seven or eight storylines to follow. One of those will be can Chris Dodson break the tie 👔 of 7-7 with Alan Knight in regards to rings 💍. Know this, whichever one gets to eight first, I will take credit for it !
Ephesians 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.
Today will be a trickier day for balance after a phone call we received from one of our kiddos last night as we were checking in to our hotel 🏨 down here in Durham.
Life is full of challenges, and my family has more than it’s share but when you are trying hard to give others hope and encouragement, one has to follow the Joel Osteen path by only preaching out of one side of the Bible.
I can still remember the last time that my late Father and I discussed religion. He shared with me that issue with Joel Osteen was that he only preached about Heaven, and Dad wanted him to let people know about Hell.
Yesterday, one of my children experienced something that made my heart ache as it would any parent. When you add in the distance, it removes the ability to hold them.
Now, there is absolutely no reason for sharing what happened because of the amount of pain involved in others’ lives right now. Yes, I could tell the story in the manner that I’m capable of, but it’s not my story.
Yesterday, I wrote about not telling a story if you can not reach the end of it without demeaning another human being in the process. The back half of the thought process is don’t tell a story that isn’t yours to tell.
Now, Thursday night in Martinsville is a story to tell, and I will absolutely do so here before too long !
Thank you to Kevin DeHaven, Bill Gallimore, and Travis Osborne for taking a second of their time to keep me in the know about the latest conquest of our 5-0 🏈🏈🏈🏈🏈 ( one ball for each victory) football team last night 🌙 in Stuart !
