Dear Santa Rosa County School District, I saw some pictures of Pine Forest’s new track and it looks beautiful.
It’s a rubberized track that will be ready to go for the spring. I wish we could say the same for schools in this county when it comes to tracks in the area.
Congratulations to the Florida Department of Education (FDOE). It had its “useful as a lifeguard at the Olympics” moment a couple of weeks ago when it officially approved Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) for high school athletes.
For anyone out there saying things like ‘Division III football isn’t good enough for me,’ ‘I’m so much better than that’ or ‘those dudes don’t really even know how to play football,’ you might want to reconsider that faulty line of thinking.
Because if you’ve heard of Quinn Meinerz of the Denver Broncos, then you know he is a former D-III player who just got paid a whole lot of money to keep playing football.
No matter where you live in Santa Rosa County, you have to be proud to have someone representing this area on one of the biggest stages.
In this instance, we’re talking about Navarre alum Emily (Madril) Sams, who is in Paris this week for the 2024 Olympics. She’s an alternate on the United States Women’s National Soccer Team.
We have a football all-star game and a basketball all-star game. We also have all-star games for soccer, baseball and softball. Those are the typical sports you’d expect to have a game for simply because they are the high-profile ones in this area.
Good news for Navarre. The Raider baseball and softball programs now have their coaches in place.
I’d like to think everyone is happy with the two who have been chosen to fill those roles, but this is high school sports we are talking about, so maybe not.
Some athletes are clear-cut, no doubt about it Division I type of athletes. You look at one of them and you are like ‘that kid is going to be big-time special at a place like Alabama, Florida State, LSU or Georgia.’
I’ve seen a handful of those athletes over the years.
Both sides in the Pensacola Sports Association All-Star Softball Game earlier this month were missing players. I think I counted nine missing in action from the East and about half of the 24-player roster unavailable on the West squad.
I wasn’t at the baseball all-star game, but word is the East had to give up some of its players so the West could have enough players to fill out a team.
Sports is serious business at times. Check that. Almost all the time.
We rank teams, athletes and way too often we project the odds of a young athlete being the next big thing at the college or pro level.
We already live in a world, at least here in Florida, where athletes can transfer freely thanks to the free agency style set-up here in the state. We are about to live in a world high school athletes can get paid.
Never did I think I’d be typing those words out in a column at any point in my lifetime. Just goes to show you to never say never.
