Brian Out Loud Archive

Major League Baseball tends to stick to tradition. It doesn’t embrace change the way other pro sports do, sometimes avoiding it like a plague.

That is until two weeks ago when commissioner Rob Manfred dropped the hammer on Atlanta by pulling the 2021 All-Star Game out of the city.

My dog got a hold of my press pass the other day and brought it to his pit of death, which is a cooler term for under the dining room table.

He put a few bite marks into it, but luckily, the pass lives on, which means more opportunities are on the horizon for me in the world of covering sports.

Millions of fans from around the nation are soaking in the excitement of the madness of March.

And you can’t blame them. The NCAA tournament is three weeks of win-or-go home basketball, with joy and heartbreak and everything in between all rolled into one.

Maybe it was the fact that it had been nearly 15 months since that memorable night in Texas ended with the University of West Florida football team winning its first NCAA Division II national title in program history.

Or maybe it was just as simple as the sun was shining and it was a picture-perfect day for college football at Pen Air Field.

All too often decisions made by the Florida High School Athletic Association make little sense.
This time, the state did the right thing.

It was announced Monday that the FHSAA has officially wrapped up the reclassification process, and it did so in sprinter-like fashion.

To the parents, I understand your frustration with the school board and the schools themselves over the quarantine rules in place.

To the athletes, I know how tough it can be on you to miss practices and games because of the quarantine.

I watched a lot of bad basketball four years ago during Abby Fogg’s first season as the head coach.

Don’t get me wrong. The Raiders competed hard that season. They just didn’t win very often. They won only seven times to be exact.

Name that bridge. It just sounds more fun than name that tune doesn’t it?

I think so. I hope you do as well.

Ian Lockwood has been gone for 10 years, but the former Navarre Raider’s legacy remains alive and well.

I personally didn’t know Ian. I wasn’t working here when he was going through his difficult but brave battle with brain cancer.

The names change and the accomplishments vary but what has remained consistent through it all is a run of success that is seemingly unbreakable.

Navarre’s girls weightlifting team is headed to state this weekend. Again. Those words have become as much of a guarantee as death and taxes.