Into the Darkness

Two weeks from today could be the start of something big or just another day along the miserable path that is 2020.  The Fort Myers XC Invitational is scheduled for Friday, September 4th.  It should have been the third meet of Southwest Florida's cross country season.  Thanks to COVID 19 it stands to be the season opener.

I have no idea how they plan to pull it off.  I suspect in the end Fort Myers XC coach Yancey Palmer will be forced to downsize this meet, which is generally the largest meet every year in Southwest Florida.  It's a giant sized headache for Palmer, the administrators at Fort Myers High School and for the Lee County School District at large.  By the 4th we will be just five days into the 2020-21 school year.  A sudden COVID outbreak could bring it all to a screeching halt.

How many athletes can you congregate across the large soccer complex where the meet is run?  How do you control the parents who will want to come and watch their children compete in the first athletic event in our area since early March.  I was at the last road race in Lee County on March 7th which also happened to be the first day we learned that two local residents had died from COVID 19.  The death toll is nearing will be well over 400 by the time the cross country season starts.

So with grim determination I am setting out to size up the quality of competition we will see this season.  First, the boys, headlined by Fort Myers senior Liam Holston.  Illness took all of the pop of a monster season Holston was running through last fall.  A healthy Holston will be a pretty tough competitor to beat this fall.

Holston is fortunate to have a teammate that can push him through workouts.  Junior Colsen Palmer is capable of a top 10 finish at State.  The question for the Green Wave is whether they have the depth to compete against their rival Estero.

The Wildcats, as always, is loaded.  Junior Kolton Pickard stands as the biggest threat to Holston's dominance in cross country.  Estero will field a loaded team helped along by senior Brian Robinson.  Fellow senior Jared Olitsky came on strong at the end of the season last fall to put the Wildcats in a position to compete against Fort Myers. 

A quartet of other boys are on the radar to make a mark on the 2020 season.  First, there is SFCA senior Ethan Tank.  The lean blonde has been piling up the miles over the summer.  He should be the top small school harrier in Southwest Florida.  Canterbury sophomore Charlie Meagher will be a handful for Tank.  Both athletes could land in the top ten at State at the end of the season.

Two other runners that should compete for the top spots are a couple of juniors.  Lehigh Acres Evan Meyer was having a great track season before the virus shut everything down.  Dunbar's Ogler Bartolome shows a great deal of promise too.

On the girl's side one name stands above everyone.  Canterbury senior Jessica Edwards is a fine cross country runner with sprinter's speed.  She has the ability to put her name alongside cross country legends like Estero's Kacy Smith and big sister Emily, a cross country state champion for Fort Myers.  Can she emulate last fall's incredible running by Florida bound Stephy Ormsby?  I wouldn't bet against it.

Five other girls are on my radar as we head into the start of the season.  A pair of Fort Myers seniors, Anna Fischler and Sarah Laboda should keep the Green Wave atop the county for another season.  The top runner on that squad should be junior Amy Meng.

Bishop Verot would love nothing more than to take Fort Myers down.  The Vikings will need some strong running from sophomore Kylie Thomas.  Cape Coral should be competitive as well with junior Natalee Jones and senior Jenny Jacoby returing for the Seahawks.

Let the running begin.  Let it mark the end of this horrible stretch of five months of no racing.  Hopefully high school country can show the way back to some sense of normalcy.

If

If the University of Nebraska is bound and determined to play football this fall and if the Big 12 conference is bound and determined to do the same then I'm ready for the Cornhuskers to return to the fold.  Of all the schools from the original Big 12 conference, Nebraska is the one institution that I enjoyed competing against the most.  Oh, it really wasn't much competition for Nebraska when it came to football and the same could be said for the University of Kansas when it came to basketball but here's the thing.  I respect Nebraska and its fans.

My first college football game was watching Nebraska dominate the Jayhawks in 1967.  The wildest moment I ever saw at a Kansas basketball game was in the mid-70's when Cornhusker head coach Joe Cipriano lost his mind and picked up two quick technicals ending his frustration with his jacket thrown to the mid-court at Allen Field House.

Nebraska is one of three major college football stadium I've ever watched a game in besides the Jayhawks' Memorial Stadium and Arizona State's Sun Devil Stadium.  I will never forget watching the great Tommy Frazier dismantle a good Kansas team in the mid-90's.  I will never, ever forget watching Kansas end Nebraska's long football winning streak in 2005.  Even during those dreadful drubbings we took during the 70's and 80's... Nebraska fans were classy.

I loved going to Lincoln for the Big 8 indoor track meet.  The facilities in Lincoln were second to none 40 years ago and they have only gotten better through the years.  I miss Nebraska.  I want them back in the Big 12 conference.  I want a counter-balance to the overly immense power that the University of Texas welds.  Nebraska won't budge that balance of power much but it would be a start.

Completing the transition would to bring Colorado back into the fold.  It's ridiculous that the Buffaloes are so geographically out of sync with the rest of the Pac 12.  And no, I don't want Missouri back.  They turned their back on the best football/basketball rivalry in the NCAA.  The Tigers let money cloud history and now they are getting their payback.  Their football program can't compete in the SEC and their basketball is just as sorry.

Money ruined the conferences as we knew them.  COVID may ruin college football as we know it.  But if it gets Nebraska back into the Big 12 permanently, I'm all for it.