By Myra Bean
Sports Editor

High school sports is officially over in the state. Seniors have graduated. Last year’s junior class is the new senior class. The baseball championships were completed over the weekend. Now there are mostly community sports of some kind going on.

It is also the time to plan for the upcoming fall season, which is played mostly in the late summer sun of August and September.

Still, they are considered fall sports. I was thinking back on how well the local teams did in sports this year.

Many made the playoffs and advanced before the first round. Always a tip of the cap to the State Championship South Panola football team.

Some of the basketball teams did extremely well as well as the softball and baseball teams. Can’t forget how well the North Panola track team did this year, bringing home some medals from state competition.
The sports which seem to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the three bigger ones had some notable moments from the North Delta Golf team which placed third in the state, the North Panola track team which brought home some second place state medals and tennis and other track teams.

In sports there is always some type of controversy going on. Just heard Thursday morning on the radio that the Cleveland city teams that are t-ball and coach pitch will not keep scores in the games.
As one radio announcer was saying, competition is the backbone of sports. If you do not know where you are going, how do you know where to start?

Whether they officially keep score or not, somebody’s going to be keeping score, guaranteed.
I usually love the NBA playoffs, but have had a hard time the last couple of years of buying into it. I do enjoy watching the Grizzlies, but my favs are not my favs anymore. I got more joy out of watching high school and college than the pros. Oh, I guess it is just a change of attitude I am going through.
I wonder if I would still enjoy it if the Grizz were dominating like the Heat.

Mainly now, I am trying to find things to keep a 5-year-old happy in the summer since school is out and she misses it.

Since there are others around here in the same boat, I know they are looking for things for their children to do also. I hear about the “I’m bored” calls, but if we made them go to school all-year long, we would hear complaints about that, too. Oh, well, we can’t win for losing.

One bit of news in the NFL was that the Chicago Bears’ Brian Urlacher retired after 13 years with the same team. I first remember Urlacher when he had a stroke a few years ago and returned to play the game. Though I have never paid much attention to the Bears, I always wanted Urlacher to have good seasons. And he did. Though it was kind of a shocker, he made a great impact in the game of football.
He will be looked up as a role model for many years to come.

As I said, I have to get to planning as the fall sports season will be here and we will be up and running.