Brian Out Loud Archive

It seems to be trending more and more that young people are in a rush to get done with school and move on to the next chapter of their lives. Including athletes. They commit to a college early, passing up their second half of their senior year of high school, or they choose to reclassify from junior to senior so they can graduate a year ahead of schedule.

This is my last column of 2022. I’ve never been more thrilled to say goodbye to a year. It’s been a tough year to say the least. And that’s an understatement. Most of you know my dad died in early April. Meighan, who you often see recording my post-game interviews on the football field, lost her mom in late September.

Deion Sanders is good for college football. But not everyone sees it that way. The man best known as Prime Time is getting his share of criticism in the wake of his decision to jump ship at Jackson State and take the head coaching job at Colorado. He goes in hoping to restore the glory days of the Buffaloes.

There is a certain date on the schedule that needs to be circled this month. No, not Christmas. Santa Claus will get his night in the spotlight soon enough. I’m talking about Dec. 12. That’s round one of Navarre and Pace squaring off on the basketball court in the regular season, perhaps a preview of a potential showdown in the district championship game a couple of months from now.

Cold rain and chilly air made things less than ideal for the first ever NCAA Division II playoff game at Pen Air Field on the University of West Florida campus two weeks ago. But the result the Argos were able to get here a on miserable mid-November afternoon more than made up for the weather.

The hope was that a comeback was going to happen. It was the only option on a mild November evening two weeks ago at Bennett C. Russell Stadium. Yeah, Navarre trailed by 24 points in an opening round playoff game against Creekside, but no one thought it was over.

It appears the way some of the officials who help run high school athletics in the state is about as laughable as a night at the comedy club. The humor never stops. I’m no weather expert, but hurricanes aren’t a new thing to Florida.

Dear FHSAA, I know my birthday is still four months away and it’s not quite Christmas yet — even if the stores want us to believe it is – but if you don’t mind, I have a request. It’s not a big ask by any stretch of the imagination. I just want to make sure order remains in place when it comes to the district involving Santa Rosa County teams.

We live in a world where the mics are always on, and the cameras are always rolling.

Everything you say or do has the potential to end up on social media in one form or another. It’s not fair, but it’s reality.

Somewhere in the Volunteer State on a crisp fall morning I can see a scenario where an angler is sitting in his boat and hooks something. It’s a little heavy, so he’s thinking he is about to reel in the largest fish of all time out of the Tennessee River.

And then he realizes it’s just the goalposts that were carried out of Neyland Stadium and into the night by jubilant fans on the third Saturday of October.