SP basketball score brings forth other game stories

When the sports reporter told me about South Panola’s lopsided loss to Columbus 48-15 Tuesday in high school basketball action, it made me wince. Nobody really likes to see that kind of trouncing at any level of youth sports, and especially on your home court.
But, it did remind me of another basketball game about 50 years ago in the Delta. When I was editor of The Leland Progress and helping at the local Chamber of Commerce, we once hosted Archie Manning for our annual banquet.
Archie does a great job with his personal appearances, and always has good stories and motivational points. Mississippi’s famous native was at home at the Leland banquet that night, and knew more than half of the people in the room by name or association. Everyone was anxious to hear about Peyton (playing at Tennessee at the time) and about the youngest boy Eli, who was doing quite well at his New Orleans high school.
When the Drew native was introduced after dinner, Archie had everyone’s ear. He began with, “First of all, I want everyone to know that we wanted to run the floor, and we only slowed down when we thought ya’ll were going to stall the ball.” The room erupted with hoots and catcalls, and the old-timers in the crowd had a big laugh.
Seems that in the late 1960s, when Archie was a Drew Eagle basketball player, they were matched against Leland for the North Half championship, in Leland’s gym, if recalled correctly. The game ended in a 4-2 win for Drew, drawing much criticism and ill-will from the Leland fans.
Apparently, Archie and his teammates went into half-court stall on offensive and ran off great portions of the clock. Leland only got to take a couple of shots because they simply couldn’t get their hands on the ball. Drew scored two buckets, and Leland just one.
Archie and the folks in the room who either played in that game, or just watched, had a good time remembering that night’s action. Archie couldn’t convince the crowd that Drew had indeed come to Leland hoping for an “up and down” affair, but we all had a good laugh.
Back to Batesville this week. It’s certainly no laughing matter that SP was on the short end of such an embarrassing score. The team has won just a couple of district games in the past two or three years, and have suffered a couple of close losses this season – two overtime losses to Oxford and a near victory at Tupelo.
Hopefully, coach Charlie Howard can right the ship soon. Basketball is certainly not football at South Panola, but surely it’s better than 15 points on its home floor.
We were all (again) stunned and distressed to watch the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday. Some 17 lives taken, and a heap of questions to be answered. Interestingly, I read Thursday that a bail bondsman from Gulfport actually called his local law enforcement officers several months ago when he read some disturbing posts on the accused shooter’s social pages.
The F.B.I. even came to interview Ben Bennight on the Gulf Coast, but he never heard anything from their investigation. It’s easy to point fingers after such an incident, but one has to wonder if the murders could have been stopped with a little more diligence from the officials.
And, finally, we learned this week that McDonald’s will soon remove cheeseburgers and chocolate milk from their famous Happy Meals. The iconic fast food joint has fallen on hard times of late, suffering several quarterly losses, all while enduring the slings and arrows of the radical food police who have hounded the fast food industry relentlessly the past few years.
McDonald’s has made great strides in reducing sugars and carbohydrates and the such from much of their menu, especially with the popular Happy Meals. Children are now urged to take juice and fruits, and less soda and fries with their little meal and toy in a box.
Of course it’s good to have our children eating a little healthier every chance we get, but it sometimes seems we are pushed a little too far. Maybe kids need a cheeseburger and chocolate milk now and then.
Ostensibly, McDonald’s should be a treat for children (not a regular dinner destination) and in those cases I just can’t see the harm in taking an occasional break from vegetables and whole grains to have a cheeseburger and some chocolate milk.
Maybe McDonald’s can install scales near the checkout counter. Kids could stand on the scales, have their weight recorded, and a menu customized for them would be displayed – cheeseburgers and chocolate milk for the lean ones; salads and juice for the fat ones.
Don’t expect McDonald’s to make that change any time soon.