Brian Out Loud Archive

As I walked around Beyer Stadium in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, a couple of weeks ago, I thought about the Rockford Peaches and what it must have been like to play here in the era that they did here in this Northwest Illinois city.

They began playing in Rockford while America was still at war, and they continued to play here nearly a decade after World War II ended.

Four years. It just doesn’t seem possible.

But, yes, it really has been that long since DJ Deas, a promising young athlete who seemingly had the world at his fingertips, died by suicide shortly after the end of the school year.

I came across a blank Father’s Day card the other day while cleaning off my desk at home.

I can’t tell you when I bought it or why it was never sent. Perhaps it was an extra card that I planned to send out for Father’s Day down the road.

When Jon Moon reached out a couple of weekends ago to let me know his wife’s battle with cancer had taken a turn for the worse, it hit me hard.

Not just because I know how much Daphne Moon loved her children, and how well known she was for being a kind and sweet person, but also because it’s been only a couple of months since I lost a parent.

I’ve been running between all three newspaper locations, and I’m often in Navarre, Milton and Crestview in the same day.

At the first of the year as I was visiting all of the properties, I decided that it was very difficult to drive carefully and pay attention to the road while also paying attention to everything in the three organizations.

Chris Williams is out after three years as the head coach of the Navarre baseball team.

He has stepped down to spend more time with family.

A lot of people point to how important the rules are until those rules are no longer important because they aren’t convenient.

If the FHSAA is going to have a rule that a player ejected from a game must sit out at least the next two, then there shouldn’t be any doorway that can be opened to change it.

You all remember Quentin Randolph.

Especially in 2019 when he took NCAA Division II football by storm and helped propel the University of West Florida football team to its first national championship.

Devin Wright was 12 the day he walked into the Navarre Press office on a summer morning with his mom to talk about his experience at the Ripken Futures Game in Baltimore.

Some days, it seems like that interview took place just yesterday.

We need a new rule book written on how certain things should go when it comes to sports.

Things that need to be off limits simply because they serve no real purpose.