Category: 1

Here’s what Thursday will look like for the 100 of you that wake ⏰ up and read about the adventures….

Some stories are designed to focus in on just one thing and they end up on Facebook with the person who needs to know its there being tagged.

Other stores are designed to just share a thought or two about what a Day is going to hold. Today is going to be a Day !

The Varsity Boys 👦 and Girls 👧 Cross Country Race 🏁 story has been finished !

Next up will be the Middle School 🏫 Cross Country Race story.

Another Volleyball 🏐 Player Profile will follow that.

Then its off to an early Morning Dentist appointment down in Mount Airy. Everyone loves 💘 being in a Dentist Chair 💺, right ?

Second appointment down in Mount Airy that will fill a couple of hours.

Just after Lunch, I get the privilege of meeting up with Dr. Oliver McBride once again! We are set to visit with some of the Families who are currently living in the homes 🏡 built here in Carroll County. I truly appreciate 🙏 the passion that Dr McBride still has about the things that are important to him.

Next stop ✋ will be the High School 🏫 for the Junior Varsity Volleyball 🏐 match and eventually the Varsity match.

Kris Richardson is going out of his way to grab Linda for me and bring her to the High School 🏫 so that we can leave together from there to get down to Greensboro by the end of the night as a Friday morning meeting awaits down there.

Then the focus will become on getting those three stories written.

Piece of Cake 🎂….. You Got This….

Says the voices inside my Head !!

Have a Blessed Day !!!!

So it turns out that UNC – Chapel Hill can lay claim to more than just one 🐐 G.O.A.T

Sunday afternoon in Boone, North Carolina was memberable to me for a trio of reasons and #3 was experiencing the Erin Matson effect.

Matson, standing just a few inches taller than 5 feet (5’4), is the Head Coach of the North Carolina Field Hockey 🏑 program. Before that this impressive young Lady 👩 went from High School to UNC-CH and calmly led the Tar Heels to four consecutive National Championships. This would make Matson the Bre Stewart (Stewie) of the World 🌎 of Field Hockey 🏑.

After capturing four straight Natty’s in a team sport, Stewie left UCONN and went on to the WNBA, playing for the Seattle Storm and now the New York Liberty 🗽.

Matson took a different approach in that immediately after capturing Natty #4, she went from being the Top player on the Top team to being the Coach of said Top team. Quite the transition but Matson won 🏆 Natty #5 last season and I wouldn’t bet against her winning a 6th straight here in a month or so.

Here are the two Squads (UNC & App State) just after I introduced them before our match yesterday in Boone.

Captains meeting prior to first touch.

Reason #2 for the Day being special was that after 46 years of holding a 🎤🎙🎤 I was calling a game that included the #1 team in the Nation. Reason #3 is the reason for reason #2 and the #1 reason that October 13th, 2024 will stick with me for a spell is that we re-opened the campus of Appalachian State University.

Hurricane 🌀 Helene pounced on the Greater Boone area just over two weeks ago, leaving part of the Campus and City under flood waters.

Classes are set to resume here in two more days and the sign leading up to our Stadium 🏟 shows how high the water reached.

Boone and a large portion of Western North Carolina will be recovering from the Storm for months, if not years.

For a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon things felt normal on The Rock and its just the first step 🚶‍♂️ on a long road back to normal.

Here’s our Coaching Staff that have been doubling up as Care Takers since the storm. Emily Dinsmore and her two Assistant Coaches, Azure Lokos and Pima Iturraspe were all great players in their time and are excellent recruiters. They have traveled the Globe 🌎 to bring people to Boone and I’m fairly confident that the recruiting brochures didn’t include any possibility that one day you might have to swim out to your car.

Our Marketing promotion team passed out miniature Field Hockey sticks and Ice Cream 🍦 Bars. It was a great day to be back doing what we do after a long couple of weeks !

In a week FULL of Super Bowl 🏈 level events, Sunday afternoon will hold a special place in my Heart ❤ for two reasons…

I’ve had October 13th circled on my Calendar 📅 for quite some time. I’m in my 3rd season of announcing Field Hockey 🏑 down at Appalachian State University and Sunday will be the first time in my 46 years that I will announce a NCAA contest that includes the #1 Ranked Team in the Nation.

The University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill is coming to The Rock and the Tar Heels are the dominant team in the World 🌎 of Field Hockey 🏑.

I won’t hide from the level of excellence I have about this, pre- Hurricane. Boone, North Carolina was one of the hardest hit cities / communities during Helene. The University has been in shutdown since the storm and will resume Classes on Wednesday.

The Football team had to cancel their Home game vs Liberty University the weekend of the storm and have played on the road the past two weekends. In fact they are playing as I type.

On the Field Hockey side we found home away from home Campuses in UNC – Charlotte and Davidson College before playing on the road at Liberty University and Miami of Ohio.

Tomorrow morning 🌄 we will gather around at 10am ahead of the Noon start. It has gone from a game against #1 team in the Nation to the rebirth of the public side of Appalachian State University. The community, the City and the University have been through so much in the past weeks. Obviously Boone is not alone as we have witnessed a long list of places that are still trying hard to return to the point of normalcy.

If there has been any form of a bright spot here, its been the way folks have rallied around each other in a time of need.

Tomorrow morning 🌄 was already going to be special because it’s the Tar Heels 👠 but now its the First Step 🚶‍♂️ in showing that while Boone was hit hard, it will live on to continue Fighting the Good Fight !