By MONTE DUTTON

Growing up in Virginia, Todd Summers was forever watching sports on TV, which annoyed his father, who asked him, “How are you going to make a living watching sports all the time?”

At age 49, Summers still makes a living watching sports all the time. After stops in Knoxville, Tenn., and Bristol, Tenn./Va., Summers has been at WSPA-TV for 21 years.

Sitting in the audience at the annual Laurens County Touchdown Club banquet, where Summers was the guest speaker, I felt some common ground. My father would storm into the house and find me watching the baseball game of the week.

“The hogs are out. The fence needs mending. Battery’s dead on the tractor, and what are you doing? Sitting on your [rear] watching a [goldang] ballgame!”

He had not asked me to tend any of the aforementioned tasks. If my dad was of a mind to pitch a fit, a fit would be pitched.

Jimmy Dutton has been dead 30 years, and I’m still watching [goldang] ballgames.

I don’t think my old man was ever pleased with me. He died the first year I traveled all over the country, writing about NASCAR. He would have loved hearing the tales I collected in the garages and media centers. I think they might have pleased him.

Summers has been in the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market for more than two decades. He was a good choice. He made the young football players in the audience feel important. He knew of them and everyone they played.

The master of ceremonies, inspirational, excitable Buddy Bridges, also filled his role well. It took a while, but when Bridges introduced the members of the All-Laurens County team, he made sure he had something unique to say about every single one of its members.

The Voice of the Red Devils has his heart in all the right places.

Considering that Laurens County had one football team with a 10-3 record and four others (one being Presbyterian College) whose combined record was 11-31, the night was hopeful and uplifting. It was both good and good for you.

Steve Englehart has righted a slide of institutional ineptitude and turned PC football around. Laurens is looking for a new coach. Laurens Academy had a new coach. Thornwell Charter just got started at the varsity level, obviously, with a new coach.

If Clinton’s Corey Fountain is going anywhere, he didn’t sound like it. After three straight seasons of double-digit victories, he sounded as if his lads could take on Dutch Fork this Friday night, if need be. He believes a season really starts the day after the previous one finishes. That’s one of the reasons the Red Devils are good. Incredibly, they believe him.

There is room for everyone in the county to win. Clinton and Laurens are the only ones that play each other. I have seen them all win and do so abundantly, though, in Thornwell’s case it was as a private school many moons ago.

I would love few changes better than the Raiders rising again. Readers prefer reading about victory. Furman and Clinton High dominate the numbers of this site. Its biggest numbers were in May, when the Red Devils were winning the baseball state championship and the Raiders were coming close.

I’ve written before that I’m unqualified to hire a coach because I prefer those I like, and I’ve known some great coaches for whom, personally, I didn’t care. I mourn the loss of Daryl Smith at the LDHS helm because he is a fine fellow. I don’t have a clue why he didn’t win. I wish he had.

I’m not fond of recruiting news and coaching searches. Some recruits never take a class at the school where they “signed.” Coaching scuttlebutt invariably centers on whom the school wants, not who wants the school. I’ve been snooping around a little – I always say I’d like to know the truth even if I can’t write it yet – but I’m willing mainly to let LDHS hire the coach it wants. Then, to borrow an assessment of a long-ago major-league baseball manager, “Let them play and see what happens.”

The Raiders need to move forward, not just move.

The banquet had little drama. The all-county team had already been announced, as well as the FCA Character Award winners from each school. (To read the article, click here.) If anyone other than Fountain had been Coach of the Year, or anyone other than Kadon Crawford Player of the Year, The Ridge would have burned down, and not because anyone set a fire but by spontaneous combustion.

The night was enjoyable. The food was fantastic, like Christmas Eve. The affair gloried in Clinton’s triumphs and made it seem as if all the other losing seasons never occurred.

The slate is clean, just the way it ought to be.

I’m thankful for your support, whether by advertising, contributing or reading.

Thanks so much for the recent contributions. I’m aware that folks appreciate what I do.

I used to list an address to send a check (DHK Sports, P.O. Box 768, Clinton, S.C. 29325). I finally got it through my thick head that not that many people write checks nowadays. For example, me. A more convenient means might be sending a reasonable contribution to DHK Sports on Venmo.

Support the advertisers, and help keep the site – the game stories, the blogs, the photos – alive by making, if you choose, a monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

Another way I can make a little is if you purchase my books at MonteDutton.net. They’re quite entertaining in spite of the fellow who wrote them. Two of my novels, Cowboys Come Home and Lightning in a Bottle, are available in audio versions. The latest, The Latter Days, is about baseball.

Photo galleries are posted on Instagram @furmanatt and @laurenscountysports.