Rene’s Take

The Special Olympic Spring Games are set for Friday at the Gehrig Johnson Athletic Complex. Over 250 Olympians have registered for the annual event. If you have never been to a Special Olympics event you don’t know what you are missing.  I attended my first Special Olympics event 22 years ago and was very nervous about how to act around the athletes and what to do and what to say. But that one event got me hooked. I have been involved with the Area Management Team for Special Olympics since that time. It is one of the most rewarding things that I have ever been involved with. Our Philosophy is the event is a sport and we cover it that way. Not a News Feature story, but a true spoting event. The effort the Olympians put into the event, the sportsmanship they show, the smiles on their faces. it all makes it worth it. If you are looking for a rewarding few hours on Friday morning feel free to give me a call and let me know you would like to volunteer, I will find a job for you. It is something that you will not regret and I can guarantee that trying it once will get you hooked and you will be first in line to volunteer next year

It’s the end of era. Doug Flutie, the little man who showed he could play against the giants. The Boston College grad who is still rembered for the “Hail Mary” pass that beat Miami in 1984. I remember that pass like it was yesterday.  Flutie to Gerard Phelan what a pass what a catch… Flutie proved the critics wrong in college and also during his pro career. At 5′9″ he was deemed  too short to be an effective quarterback. Wrong Wrong Wrong. He wins the Heisman trophy in College and then had a 21 year pro career with stops in the NFL, CFL and USFL. During his 8 years in the CFL he won the Most Outstanding Player award 6 times and also won three Grey Cups. In the NFL he  ended with almost  15 thousand passing yards and 86 touchdowns.  He ended his NFL career with a drop-kick, the first in the NFL for an extra point since 1941. Doug Flutie will be missed on the sidelines and will have another exceptional career in the Broadcast Booth.

 

I feel that I am one of the luckiest people alive. I am doing what  I have always wanted to do. I was always a huge sports fan listening to the Red Sox on the radio every night and was always ready for a game of baseball, football, basketball. I grew up in Sheridan….or as i like to joke “the burbs of Ashland”. My parents were always very supportive of my sports addiction and they did everything they could to encourage me and my friends . My father is  my biggest role model and my mother my biggest fan. I remember when I was in fourth grade my father put together a town baseball team to compete against other small communities. The thing I remember most is my father and our catcher,Mike Baker, making the catcher’s chest protecter. Dad took Mike with him to the junkyard and cut padding out of the seats of the junk cars and made a makeshift chest protecter to start the season. By the end of the year we had all the catcher’s equipment that was needed. Our first game was in Eagle Lake and I still  reminisce with Lloyd Soucie the Eagle Lake coach about the games we had. My mother and several other parents were at every game from the time we were pre teens through our high school careers.

There wasn’t a day that went by that a yard full of kids were at my house playing a pickup game of some sort. As we got older the yard wasn’t big enough, but once again some  adults in town came through for us making a baseball field next to the Post Office on land owned by Reynold and Rella Caron. I still smile whenever i drive by and if I close my eyes I can still see us playing. It was a huge deal with kids from Ashland also traveling to Sheridan for a game of baseball.

In high school I competed in cross country, basketball and baseball. My senior year we made it to the Eastern Maine Championships losing to Narraguagus in the title game. Baseball was my game though as i made All-Aroostook two years in a row. I continue to be a huge sports fan and watch it all the time. My son AJ shares my love of sports. My dauthers, Angela and Amber, would tolerate my sports addition watching a few minutes of the games with me.

As you can see sports has always been a huge part of my life and I hope that my love and enthusiasm for the sport is passed along to the viewers in my sportscast every night

We are close to the midway point of the spring sports seasons and so far this year the weather has been very cooperative. I can’t remember the last time there have been fewer postponements.To compete in a spring sport takes a special athlete. You begin the season working out inside the gym or in the weightroom. You can work on pitching and running fundamentals in the gym, but you can’t work alot on hitting. You can get in all the weight training you want, but you can’t throw the javelin or work on pole vaulting. You can work on your serves, but you can’t work on volleys. The tennis ball skipping instead of a true bounce. Finally you are able to get outside and practice…. brrrrrrrr it’s cold can we go back into the gym where it is warm..Before you know it the season is here and for the St John Valley teams it might be your first   outside when you travel to Central or Southern Aroostook to play your first game.

Opening day is here and it is 32 degrees and the wind howling out of the north with a light drizzle. Not the perfect day for a game, but it’s time to play. For the next seven innings you are shivering in the field and when you do come to the plate you hope that you don’t hit it off the end of the bat and feel the sting on your cold hands.  On the tennis courts you toss the ball up for your first serve of the season and the wind blows the ball behind you. You pick it up and do it all again. On the track you are running into a 25 mile wind and wonder why there isn’t ever a tailwind to assist you. These are just some of the obstacles for the players.

The coaches also have several obstacles to overcome. Will the rain hold off and will be able to play today?? Who should I pitch? How many innings should I let them throw?? The pitching rule in baeball comes into play each and every time out. The coaches standing in the coaches box trying to keep the players focused. Knowing that they are cold and wet, but the game goes on. The umpires also are a special breed, standing behind the plate or on the basepaths waiting for that bang bang play.

It’s spring in the County and my hats off to  everyone who is helping make the spring season anothe great time of the year.

I am sure over the course of the baseball season there will be several Sox vs Yankees posts. Some will be because I am a happy Red Sox Fan and others will be from an unhappy Sox fan.

I know there are some tremendous rivalries in all sports. In the NBA the Lakers and Celtics, Magic against Bird. In the NHL Toronto and Montreal or the Bruins and the Canadiens. The original teams when they take the ice. Duke and North Carolina in College hoops. I spent some time in North Carolina the last couple of years and fans of the two schools are rabid their favorite team.

But in my eyes the Red Sox Yankees rivalry is the best one. From the Sox selling Babe Ruth to the Yankees back in 1919, so the owner of the Red Sox could finance his Broadway play “No No Nanette”,  to the bench clearing brawls,the owners trying to outdo each other in the Free agent market. On the field some unbelievable games. From Bucky “Bleepin” Dent’s home run in the playoff game  to Aaron “Bleepin” Boones walkoff homer to eliminate the Sox in 2003 to the Sox doing something that had never been done before coming back from a 3-0 deficit against the Mighty Yankees including winning the series on enemy turf in 2004.  I remember listening to games on the radio withmy grandfather who couldnt stand the Yankees. Whenever the Sox beat the Yankees there was always that special smile on his face.

Over the course of the season Sox fans will be having that special smile at times and at other times Yankee fans will be repaying the favor with the “grin” that says how many World Series Championships have you won? It’s a great time of the year!! Whether you are diehard Yankee fan or a Sox fan. it doens’t get better then this. Oh by the way LET’S GO SOX

Something happened to the  Caribou girls tennis team last week that hadn’t happened since 1992. The team lost a regular season tennis match. The Vikings successs is almost unheard of in the State of Maine. Stearns basketball teams of the 1960’s with George Wentworth at the helm, John Donato’s Houlton Shiretowners girls basketball teams of the 1980’s and early 90’s had long winning streaks and success in Regional and State Competition, but neither team went 14 years without a regular season loss. John Habeeb’s Vikings also had success in Eastern Maine and State Tournaments. The team won State Titles in four straight years from 1992 to 95 and also captured four other Eastern Maine Titles including the last two years. The success shows a committmet to the program from Coach Habeeb to the members of the team who strived to live up to the success of their predecessors. 

Congratluations Caribou on your success in tennis and here’s to many more tennis banners hanging in the Caribou gym.