For Giantdom, it has been too long
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.“
To blazes with “Jordan over Ehlo,“ you can retort with “Phillips over Starks in a coliseum so small you could smell the elation.“
Let them speak of curses, we’ll toss their way heartache. Complete. Utter. Heartache. Watching a horse break its leg on TV will never be as emotional as seeing your daughter or son crying their eyes out on the Seigel Center floor. Watching another September collapse can not be as bad as driving home from the Radford baseball field with a Cougar holding a $2 second-place medal riding shotgun.
Let them utter words like “inspiration” when they describe spoiled pro athletes. We’ll regal them with the story of Kristen Moody, walking sullenly off the Riverheads pitch and hugging Marsha Dattilio—the widow of the coach they dedicated their season to—and sobbing how sorry she was after a regional loss.
Face it. Your stories are better, so we won’t tell a soul.
They’ll never know of the brother and sisterhood that forms on a team, especially one on a state-title run like Waynesboro baseball. They won’t hear to Jordan Weatherholtz seeing potential in a freshman call-up from the JV team who is saddled to the bench and not complaining one bit. They won’t hear how the senior picks up Jimmy Eavers and takes him to team breakfasts on game days at the Basic City Luncheonette. Eaver’s brace-faced smile says it all when he looks into the dugout at practice, content to not play much and cheer on the team he is a complete member of.
We won’t tell them of the online frag fests guys like Jay Thompson, Jeremy Hahn, Josh Craig, Drew DeMoss, Eavers, Joseph Lucas and Weatherholtz go off on while playing a little Halo on the XBox. Or how Craig, a kid who rediscovered his bat at the best time possible, looks you right in the eye when he says, “We’re a family.“
Or the assistant coach, Webber Payne, who says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his head coach, Jim Critzer, “and there’s nothing wouldn’t do for me.“
Or the other assistant, Gary Weatherholtz, who says that Waynesboro’s salty-old ball coach loves those kids. Evident when Wilson grad Stony Wine—a head coach that just led his Lenoir (Kinston, N.C.) Community College team to a second-place finish in the JuCo World Series—came to talk to Jay Thompson on Thursday.
“And I know he wants him. So hopefully we can get Jay to go down there,“ Critzer beamed, knowing full well all his talented shortstop needs is a chance.
They don’t have to know about the 12-year-old ball park rat they call Peanut (his real name is Collin Wade) who played catch with Will Freeman on Thursday, but can’t go to the game today (or Saturday, if the stars align).
“I would love to go,“ he said.
Don’t tell them of the heartache either, of watching a boys and girls basketball team fall just short. Or the 2007 baseball team’s dreams melting on a hot Friday a year ago at Calfee Park.
You’d be the happiest fan in the world if the Little Giants brought home a state title in checkers, so baseball wouldn’t be too shabby either. Oh, and what a story that would be.
You’re prepared, you’ve been here before. You know Powhatan can close the book today and it would still be on the bestseller list.
But your hoping to read a few more pages, aint’cha? It has been, after all, too long.
