Upon Further Review

OK, just a few (OK, maybe plenty of) questions for Fort Defiance principal Larry Landes and AD Jack Tucker.

Mainly, why?

Why would you fire wrestling coach Terry Waters? Seriously, why?

Seriously, I’m sick of sitting in this office doing my “other” duties which, let’s be honest here, usually involve me sitting at my desk in my office (yes, I have an office. Jealous?) staring at my computer and trying to look busy whenever my boss walks by.

“Sacco,“ he says. “What are you doing in there?“

“Um,“ I reply, hiding my 12 Mountain Dew of the day and quickly closing whatever recreational Web site I’m looking at. “You know, boss. Working.“

When they tarp the field one last time and the boys and girls in whatever color your favorite high school team saunter off the field (pitch, diamond, floor, whatever), us sports writer (columnist, blogger, whichever) types feel a little empty inside.

You know, kind of like you do when your son or daughter asks you to wash the jersey for the last time. (“Wash it yourself,“ you say, instilling a life lesson they’ll no doubt take with them to college along with the wizard like scent magic that is Febreze being sprayed on the arm-pit area of pick-your-favorite wrinkled T-shirt.)

High school sports always throw them at you, these things we call “great stories.“ Some get put into print and placed on the Internets. Others go untold to the general public, only talked about amongst those who know.

So let’s keep it our secret, OK? Let those hoity-toity big-city papers keep high school box scores buried on B10. Those guys have bigger fish to fry.

Let them opine on how the return of the Lakers and Celtics to the NBA Finals is the greatest thing since bread and its eventual slicing.

We’ll disagree and point over to Pickle Nuckols’ return to the Buffalo Gap football field in 2007 and say, “Whatever. Beat that.“

Back in May I asked if it was OK to start using “state contender” and “Waynesboro baseball” in the same sentence. I mean, the Little Giants had just swept the season series from the Valley’s Evil Empire (Turner Ashby) and were looking pretty darn good while doing it.

E-mails soon were shot my way and, well, let’s just say I was called a “homer” and a few other things that, let’s be honest here, are not true. (No, I dress myself in the morning; Yes, I do shower, but thanks; Of course I go to games, that’s my job; No, I didn’t buy my wife online and sorry, but my mother does not wear combat boots, anything else?). Nobody said it as clearly as one message-board regular on VirginiaPreps.com who simply said, “No.“