Word is the baseball players and Major League Baseball are drifting apart in their effort to negotiate a way into the 2020 baseball season. Owners are mourning the loss of every game not played so far because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and are staring at the massive loss of revenue from not having fans in the stands of any of the games that are played.

Jennifer Stichter, general manager at The Bowling Alley, 1535 N. Detroit St., announced on Wednesday the establishment will reopen, with new social distancing guidelines, on Tuesday.

Monday was my six-year old son’s “Gotcha Day”. If you aren’t familiar with the term, it’s the day we met Oliver in China. It’s the first time we got to see him with our own eyes and hold him in our arms. “Gotcha Day” is sort of like a second birthday. Hannah and Oliver get to pick what we do and where we eat on their special day.

Seven members of Grace College’s women’s and men’s golf teams were given academic honors.

Grace College volleyball star Alexa Hill added one more honor to her illustrious career on Thursday. Hill was named the winner of the 2020 NCCAA Game Plan 4 LIFE Award. T

With the passing of Memorial Day Weekend, we are now officially into summer. I think we can all agree that summer couldn’t have come soon enough. Swimming pools are opening, golf courses are buzzing again, and people are outside doing … “outside things.” And thus the topic of conversation today.

After playing big-time college basketball, first at North Carolina State and finishing his master’s degree at Kentucky, Julius Mays finds himself going from playing in front of thousands of fans in Lexington’s Rupp Arena to being the new athletic director at Whitko. The population of the entire school district is somewhere around a fifth of Rupp’s 23,500 capacity. The Marion native has had a long and winding road so far in life, but it’s about accomplishing goals rather than reaching destinations. “I never had a written plan. Obviously, I have goals and there are stepping stones to achieving those goals,” Mays said. “I was welcomed with open arms at my alma mater (Marion High School) and I was greatly appreciative of that opportunity.

Two members of Grace’s baseball team were recognized for their excellence in the classroom. David Anderson and Houston Haney were both honored as NCCAA Scholar-Athletes. To achieve that status, student-athletes must reach upperclassman status and have a GPA of at least 3.40.

It’s one of those weeks where there are a lot of things to talk about but only so many inches to do it in. So I offer a buffet of subjects for your consideration today.

The Crossroads League placed 11 student-athletes on the 2020 CoSIDA NAIA Baseball and Softball Academic All-District Teams recently. Taylor led the way with six combined honors, with Mount Vernon Nazarene collecting three awards and Grace and Indiana Wesleyan each claiming one.

The Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference has announced the spring honorees for Tom Bohlsen Academic All-HCAC.  18 Spartans earned Academic All-HCAC honors this spring.

The National Federation of State High School Associations has released guidance for its 51 member state high school associations to consider in re-opening high school athletics and other activity programs across the nation. The guidance document was developed by the NFHS Sports Medicine Advisory Committee, a 15-member advisory committee composed of medical doctors, certified athletic trainers, high school coaches and officials, research specialists and state high school association executives that regularly develops position statements related to medical aspects of conducting high school athletics.

Whitko Community Schools approved the hire of Julius Mays as the new athletic airector Monday evening during the Whitko School Board Meeting.

Tippecanoe Valley School High School announced at its Thursday board work session that an E-sports club is in the works for the 2020-21 school year. Valley would join the Indiana High School E-Sports League (IHSEN).

After four seasons as boys basketball coach, Mark Underwood was fired by the Manchester Community School Corporation’s Board of Trustees this week, a move confirmed by Squire Athletic Director Eric Screeton Thursday.

The Class of 2020 Academic All-Northern Lakes Conference team was announced this week. Winners were:

Last week, the IHSAA announced that they have a plan for the fall sports season — and that plan is to have one. Hoosiers rejoiced!

HCAC announces the spring Christopher M. Ragsdale Sportsmanship Team CARMEL, Ind. – On Tuesday, May 12, the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference announced the spring Christopher M. Ragsdale …

With Gov. Eric Holcomb’s announcement Friday of a plan to start opening up stuff to us step-by-step, there are a lot of people with mixed feelings on the stages of the plan. This is not a political column and so you will not read my thoughts on Holcomb’s plan or my predictions on its ultimate success.

I watch parents and grandparents working with their young kids on sports-related skills all the time. Most of them have the best of intentions. Either way, over my nearly 50 years of playing sports and watching others play, I have come to some conclusions about how to get young people off to good starts and pointed in the right direction for later in their sports lives. I want to share with you today some of the things that I have discovered.

Tippecanoe Valley Middle School recently presented its winter sports awards via a conference call. Winners were as listed below:

Wawasee recently issued its winter sports awards, highlighting its six varsity sports as well as cheerleading. Wawasee’s winter season had girls swimming qualify for four events at the IHSAA State Finals and two of its wrestlers make the IHSAA State Finals along with the team achieving its third consecutive sectional championship. Additionally, one gymnast was used as a baseline scorer at the IHSAA Gymnastics State Finals.

As the result of a concerted effort to accommodate the growing number of female wrestlers, the 2020-21 high school wrestling rules changes are headlined by significant adjustments to weigh-in protocol and appropriate hair length requirements. The National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) Wrestling Rules Committee met April 5-6 and recommended 11 rules changes to take effect next school year. In accordance with current health safety guidelines, the rules meeting was held in an online format. All rules revisions recommended by the Wrestling Rules Committee were approved by the NFHS Board of Directors.

Matt Moore met the media Saturday afternoon for the first time as boys basketball coach of the Warsaw Tigers. Of course, he met them via a video chat because, well, you know, that’s how we have do things like that these days. Moore was officially announced as head coach Saturday morning, and he saw the faces and heard the voices of those who would be covering the team and many of the other Tiger team coaches later that afternoon.

Sitting here in my home, one foot on the living room carpet and the other on the dining room floor, I can’t help but think we’re a long way from fall sports ... much farther than we normally are on April 21. And after reading Kyle Neddenriep’s article in Monday’s Indianapolis Star, we all need to take a closer look at the priority we place on high school sports.