Fall is here. Well … for me it’s here. What are YOU lookin’ at? IHSAA official fall athletic team practices launched this week although conditioning and camps have been running since the IHSAA’s official “week one” in July. I share the same sentiments Roger Grossman shared recently in a Facebook live feed. My summer is over.

We went into this Olympics preparing to celebrate, and probably send off, the greatest Olympic gymnast we have ever seen. The last part of that last sentence gets your attention if you know me well, but I could not admit that the title of “greatest ever” could have been anyone but Mary Lou Retton. Mary Lou, Depuy hips and all, is still number two.

The Grace College athletic department continued to impress in the classroom for the 2020-21 year, achieving a record academic performance. For the fifth straight season, all of Grace’s varsity programs hit their academic mark by achieving a team GPA of 3.00 or greater. As a result, each team will qualify for the NAIA/NCCAA Scholar-Team award.

A Pair Of Aces Recorded At Grace Golf Outing

Manchester University Director of Athletics Rick Espeset has announced that assistant men’s soccer coach Chad Brooks has been elevated to head men’s soccer coach. Former head coach Corey Brueggeman recently stepped down from the position to accept the role of director of men’s soccer operations at Ohio State University.

The world is changing, and college football is changing with it. It’s a huge business, and recent events are turning the Big 12 Conference (for football in particular) into “the Mountain West Conference with humidity” as Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd put it.

When we were fishing in Minnesota earlier this month, the fishing was good in stretches but not constantly so. There were more than a few moments—more like hours—where our bobbers sat perfectly still in the windless water.

Recent news of two Northern Lakes Conference (NLC) schools unable to field freshman football teams triggered my annual ambivalence I have about Warsaw’s affiliation with the conference. Walk with me while I take you on my emotional NLC affiliation sine wave.

When I went to Butler University, I walked-on for the golf team my freshman year. At that time, the head baseball coach was also the golf coach (golf was a fall sport). Things weren’t working out for me, primarily because I didn’t have a car during my freshman year. That meant I had to get a ride to the golf course from someone else on the team every day, and they got tired of that. I missed some practices and the coach, who was aloof to say the least, didn’t remember my name by the end of the season and didn’t even give me an exit interview.

Ellie Hepler has done much of her homework in a car over the last four years. In a typical week, she eats most of her dinners on the road. Along for every step of it — more specifically, every one of the thousands upon thousands of miles — has been her mom, Chandra Hepler. It’s been a labor of love for both, now with a couple national titles to show for it, too.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, the NBA franchise Milwaukee Bucks star power forward also known as the Greek Freak, needs a shock collar. Giannis stands 6-foot-11, demonstrates speed, agility, good ballhandling skills, and power. He’s a terror inside, and in the current NBA finals versus the Phoenix Suns he is shooting 72.2 percent inside the three-point arc, mostly inside the paint to boot.

The NBA Finals are running about three weeks later due to the pandemic-driven revisions to the 2021 schedule. This isn’t stopping teams whose seasons have ended from their routines of summer tryouts. This year’s NBA summer tryouts have some local color to them. Warsaw basketball standout, Kyle Mangas, whose college career at NAIA program Indiana Wesleyan was even more impressive than his days with the orange and black, is NBA draft eligible, and he already has three teams’ tryouts under his belt.

Lee Nichols of Warsaw had his family by his side as he became the year’s final new entrant into the 50-Year Club at the United States Bowling Congress Open Championships.

Massive change is happening to the sports teams in the city of Chicago. You may remember that I wrote about the state of Chicago sports teams back in November, and the word I used to describe that state at that time was “unsettled”.

I hope each of you is enjoying a safe, happy Independence Day weekend! For folks in Indiana scholastic athletics, the end of this moratorium week is the IHSAA athletic “New Year”, so happy New Year to coaches and athletes among all sports. This week feels much different once you don’t have a dog in the fight for the upcoming high school football season. It’s usually a quick break to get a weekend at my sister’s and brother-in-law’s home in Ohio for some lake life fun before getting home and getting right back to the rigor of preseason football practice and conditioning.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to a peaceful and calm moment in high school sports. To be more accurate, it’s the peaceful and calm moment in high school sports.

Grace College is pleased to announce Michael Moffitt Jr. as the next head coach of Grace’s track and field program. Moffitt served as the director of track and field as well as cross country at Eastern University (Pa.) last year. In his first year, he coached 18 All-Conference performers, 3 conference champions and 1 NCAA national qualifier (who became an NCAA All-American).

Summer rain! I had different views of summer rain depending on the stage of my life and a particular activity I was involved in within that stage of life. We have been, since Friday morning, and we shall be the rest of this weekend, getting lots of summer rain. Heaven knows we need it, but we certainly don’t want it to pound away at crops and homegrown vegetable gardens. When I was a small child, until the summer after fourth grade, I didn’t like to be outside much. I read books, encyclopedias, newspapers most of the days I was home on summer break. I usually didn’t play outside with friends until after supper.

Brent Doty is the new athletic director at Wawasee. He is the right man for the job, in my view. Doty became the interim AD in August of last year when the athletics program at Wawasee was a difficult and tumultuous place. There were a lot of really unhappy people wearing forest green and gold, and most of it had nothing to do with the quality of the teams the Warrior were putting forward for competition.

MARION, Ind. - The Grace track and field team continued to set high marks at the Indiana Little State Championships.

The Warsaw Tigers baseball team picked up its first win of the 2021 season 7-4 over the Columbia City Eagles in the Tiger Athletic Complex, Friday.

Warsaw Black and Warsaw Orange golf teams finished fifth and ninth place respectively in the prestigious Don Dicken Invitational held at Stonehenge Golf Club Saturday.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. - Grace and Marian combined for a pair of memorable baseball games on Saturday in Crossroads League play.

PULASKI, Tenn. - Grace’s women’s soccer team fell in the 85th minute to No. 4 Martin Methodist on Saturday in the NAIA Opening Round, officially ending Grace’s season with a 1-0 scoreline.

Chip Shot: It’s Time To Rename The NBA MVP Award