Today at Marshall University the Golden Bears 🐻 Baseball team will look to play THREE on Joe Goddard Day at Jack Cook Field

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Dedication Celebration: The Group Photo !!!

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Strasburg Express Night 2025 through the eyes 👀 of OneofUs.Care

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : How does one lead into a decade of non-stop FUN with Chris and Crystal Graham ? Maybe go with that day in Annapolis, Maryland, where freezing to death was in play.

   Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Introducing Travis Knight and, by extension, Chris Dodson.

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : In a word, Alan Knight is fanatical about the level of commitment involved with his Softball program.

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Panther Palooza 2011 – Got Fence ?

   Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Introducing Travis Knight and, by extension, Chris Dodson.

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend ;  Baseball ⚾️ is a business that requires way more money 💰 than one would think, and Gastonia is a great example…

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Our Night 🌙 at Cavalier Park the hard working duo of Carter & Nester (alphabetical) had themselves an outstanding 👏 evening ! Kevin Burress was Awesome and Macie Adkins made her debut, Paul Nester was celebrated and Velvet Creed Leonard captured images as did Donna Nester…

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend :  Long before Cavalier Park, even before Orcas Island 🏝, their was a little place called Shenandoah, Virginia and we spent a decade there. While it was great to be back for a visit with four of our nine grandchildren, I sure did miss Kevin Burress!

Allen Worrell takes his turn at Honoring the Late Mr Jeff Tobler. 💘

Trying hard to invision Carroll County Softball without Coach Tobler is hard to do as Jeff shined a very bright light on all of us each and every moment of each and every Day.

A Special Night 🌙 surrounded by Special people ! 2025 Hall of Fame Induction ceremony

Lady 👩 Cavaliers Softball team prepares for a season of L.O.L, beginning Wednesday afternoon at Bassett High School 🏫

Welcome 🙏 to Monday morning, a day that will begin in Beckley, West Virginia at Linda K Epling Stadium 🏟 and end at Cavalier Park on The Hill

Saturday will have a definite Softball theme and include a stop ✋ at Southwest Virginia Community College. RUNNING FOR THE DAY

Later today we plan to turn Cavalier Park into a Military Base as the Lady 👩 Cavaliers salute seven Veterans during a special edition of First Pitch !!!

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls 👧 Best Friend : The Lady Cavaliers were locked 🔒 in and could Dance 💃. Thank You Tammy Tobler!

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : When did the Lady Cavaliers and the Lady Panthers Softball teams first realize that they had a shot at winning it all ?

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : The Legend of Little Ricky…and the makeover of Big Rick.

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Welcome 🙏 to Rebel Park in New Market, Virginia – the Birthplace of the 💺seating area at our Cavalier Park !

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Welcome 🙏 to show, Hannah Dalton (Bourne) ! Head Coach Rick Nester knew he had one special young Lady from the Get-Go

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend :   Coach Alan Knight didn’t accumulate 1,100 wins by being warm and fuzzy, making today a true test of endurance !

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Greetings from Bridgewater College : Shenandoah District Softball Championship [2009]

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Bill Meade, John Galle & Rob Sisk were busy today, but McGill & Company went the extra mile.

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend : Coaching in the Neighborhoods surrounding Page County High School 🏫 could fill a Book on its own. Alan Knight and his Lady Panthers Softball program have some Impressive lists of accomplishments by other locals…

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2023/11/time-to-list-folks-that-we-believe-in.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2008/09/vbl-update-we-need-lawrence-big-picture.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2023/03/quite-night-in-big-city-with-our.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2021/06/dynamic-coaching-duo-cross-paths-at.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-just-in-jim-critzer-to-step-down.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-in-days-work-name-gm-visit-little.html

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blogspot.com/2009/03/spending-some-time-with-luray-high.html

Diamonds 💎 are a Girls Best Friend :    Let’s call 📞 this one about clutch Baseball ⚾️, Candy 🍬 and Big Brothers !

More from the Desk of Shorty

The top one is the logo on a golf shirt, and the lower one is an oversized version of the artwork of Rebecca.

For one Atlantic Coast Conference football season, we combined the love for scripted wrestling that Chris Graham has with my desire to copy the writing style of Aaron Sorkin on any of his four television shows and rolled it into what the ACC season would look like if it was pre-scripted. We had a great deal of fun with it and carried it through the entire season !

There were a couple of times that we had guest stars make cameo appearances to add a twist. Naturally, Shorty and I had some fun with the logo, and we practiced merchandising. We created something out of thin air, and I feel pretty sure that it wasn’t done before or since.

Chris Graham is responsible for an online newspaper, which means he is obligated to report on death, political issues, and criminals. The dude has a serious job while I write a feel-good blog that is full of fluff and encouragement. We live in two completely different worlds, but back in the day, we were capable of meeting in the middle !

https://aroundthevalleyin60days.blog/2025/07/19/diamonds-%f0%9f%92%8e-are-a-girls-best-friend-craig-worrell-shares-the-proof-photo-term-we-will-focus-this-morning-on-the-faces-at-the-bottom/

When you are trying hard to trim down 5,000 stories to maybe 200, it gets difficult, to say the least. The search is for ones that connect multiple dots, and the frigid night in Charlotte does just that.

Duke University Football had not qualified for a bowl game in almost two decades, a record at the time for Power 5 schools. It was during the preparation for this game that I stumbled upon the fact that Duke had only played in three bowl games in my 49 years, and I was at all three of them. Hence, this is how I came about the proud fact that I’ve seen every bowl game in my 63 years in person.

We were heavy underdogs against a Cincinnati team that tied for first place in their league, and we were just happy to be there. The picture above shows just how cold it was in Charlotte that night, and we bought everything available to try and stay warm.

The game was in the closing minutes, and the score was knotted up. We were at the Cincinnati five yard line and on the cusp of a great victory. Yet, in a span of just six plays, we not only lost the game but lost it by two touchdowns !!!

For the next 10 years, Scott Van Pelt of ESPN leadoff his segment called Bad Beats with this particular game. I haven’t seen the segment in a while, so I’m not sure if it still holds the top spot. It reminded me of the poor guy who wiped out on the slopes and then spent decades being the example of ” The agony of defeat ” on the hit series, The Wide World of Sports “.

My father was there that night as was our three youngest children, Pappy Meade, Coach Knight, one son-in-law ( Josh ),1 daughter-in-law ( Christina) and 1 grandchild ( Noah ). It had been a long, long time since Duke reached the promised land, and we wanted to enjoy the glory of the moment.

While on the subject of Bad Beats, I offer up Alan Knight as exhibit A. Most people don’t have the opportunity to get to know Coach on a personal level, but over our 25 years, he has become very much a part of our family. I only wish that more people could have seen the side of Alan that we were blessed to know.

Yes, he is a very serious ball coach and has been closing in on 50 years now. But Jeff Burner and Jerry Walters, along with that Dodson, fella over at Spotswood are all equally intense while coaching. Walters could be considered borderline frightening at times but lovable away from the game.

Knight stays away from social media and refuses to talk about his personal accomplishments, but wow, give him the window to discuss his players and his programs and buckle up.

The partnership between the two of us only works because of his complete lack of ego. He doesn’t want to talk about himself, not even a little, so this sets me up to have fun with that fact.

Yes, he looks like he’s 8 feet tall, and where’s size 25 shoes ,  doesn’t try to be the life of the party, so he’s perceived to be aloof or arrogant. He doesn’t take credit for anything that happened on Magic Mountain / Lady Panthers Softball Complex. He knows that he coached and coaches a program in a community that is a throwback to the olden days.

There was room for Ralph Viafora, Dennis Zimmerman, Lori Mongold, Roy Cardin, Big Daddy, Arthur Campbell and a host of others to play their part in a phenomenal story that began almost half a century ago. Coach just wants to coach without having to explain his methods and is always trying hard to advance his / our program without stopping to get you to like him along the way.

Picture a circus 🎪 and then look for the ring leader, the guy with the funny hat and loud voice. Yeah, that is not Alan Knight, it’s the guy typing this story. But like Coach, the guy we call ” Warm and Fuzzy “, I don’t have the spare time to get someone else to like him or me. There are things to do and challenges to face that are more important.

Yes, the media doesn’t appreciate him either because he stays away from the things that sell newspapers. It’s about the greater good of the team, not the stats of a single player.

The fact that more people don’t know the Alan Knight that my family and I do is another terrific example of a bad beat. Just not one that I will have to watch over and over and over again. Five yards away from winning and six plays later, down 14 points…..only my beloved Duke University Football team.