Brian Out Loud Archive

Three of the greatest athletes in Navarre history signed their national letters of intent shortly before Christmas five years ago.

Michael Carter, Nick Brahms and Emily Madril all opted to graduate from high school a semester early to get a jump on life as a student-athlete in college.

You can drive your self crazy seeking redemption. Emily Madril never got to that point. And now she’s a national champion.

Let it be known that the former Navarre soccer standout wanted redemption more than anything else in the world after the way last season ended. Florida State’s women’s soccer team lost in a penalty kick shootout to Santa Clara. Madril missed one of those kicks.

A parent reached out the other day to ask me where she could find photos of past sporting events.

She’s in the process of putting together a scrapbook for her daughter, a senior athlete at Navarre this season. It didn’t take long to give her an answer.

Nine wins. A No. 2 national ranking. A share of the Gulf South Conference championship. A playoff game at home as the road to a repeat began for the University of West Florida football team.

Those are all great accolades and accomplishments, but sometimes in sports, what shows up on paper doesn’t matter once you take the field.

Thanksgiving Day brings back a wide range of memories, and some of my favorites are those moments on a sandlot football field right down the street from the house I grew up in.

There would be a point late in the day when the sun would begin to set on a cold Illinois afternoon, and we’d decide it was time to go play some football.

No finger pointing. No excuses.

Navarre’s football team wasn’t playing the blame game after its crushing loss to one of its biggest rivals in the Beach Bowl two weeks ago.

Dansby Swanson sat in a dugout on one of those hot and humid summer afternoons here in Florida that leaves you feeling as if the planet is on fire.

It was 2016 and Swanson was in town with the Mississippi Braves for their series against the Pensacola Blue Wahoos. Prior to one of the games that week, the highly touted Braves prospect was made available to the media.

Must-win game. It’s all I wrote about and talked about when it came to the Navarre football team in the days leading up to its District 1-7A finale against Crestview last Friday night.

It might have been said and written more times than Merry Christmas is in December.

Glory doesn’t come easy in sports. It takes hard work and patience. Determination and a little luck never hurt either.

The Navarre Raider volleyball team understood as much heading into the 2021 season. The players knew back in the summer if they were going to take a trip on the road to glory, they were going to have to embrace every high and low along the way.

Winning was the only option for the Navarre Raider football team on Friday night.

Anything less than victory over Pace simply wouldn’t have been good enough. Not with the Raiders sitting three spots below the Patriots in the latest regional rankings.