By MONTE DUTTON

I’m so excited. I just can’t hide it. It’s only Monday.

Woodruff and Clinton played opening night for about a half century. Hillcrest and Laurens have played on opening night for as long as I’ve been back from the NASCAR wars.

For years, Clinton was always Class 3A, and Woodruff was 2A. This is the first time in as long as anyone wrote it down that the reverse is true. The Red Devils are now Region 1-3A; the Wolverines are Region 3-3A.

For 24 years, it was Willie Varner versus Keith Richardson. The first game Clinton ever played at Wilder Stadium was against Woodruff in 1960. The first game the Red Devils played when it was rebuilt was against the Wolverines in 1975. This year the yard has been refurbished again. Guess who?

Clinton was 10-3 last year, while Woodruff, then a Region 4-3A rival, was 4-7. The Wolverines, now coached by Brett Sloan, have not enjoyed a winning season since 2020.

I have never seen Laurens defeat Hillcrest. I won’t see it this year. I am going to be in Clinton in part because the Woodruff game is personally important – I had two of my worst nights in a uniform back when the woolly mammoth was still wandering the plains – and in part because I’ve made a photo trade-off.

Hillcrest (10-3 last season) is in Region 1-5A, Laurens Region 1-4A.

What do I know about the Raiders?

I know they are bigger, faster, quicker, more talented, more motivated and more confident.

Climbing out of a 2-9 ravine is still tough. The enemy is perched on the rim. It’s going to take a daring raid.

The new head coach, Greg Porter, is daring.

The Laurens County Touchdown Club’s first Player of the Week was the best player in the only game, Laurens Academy’s 56-20 victory over Cambridge Academy.

Garrett Murphy rushed for 107 yards and three touchdowns as a rusher and made three tackles including a quarterback sack.

The county’s high-school coaches — the Crusaders’ Jolly Doolittle, Clinton’s Corey Fountain and Laurens’ Porter — are the guest speakers.

The meeting is at The Ridge in Laurens, beginning at noon.

Also to be honored is Tommy C. Stribble, a District 13 official who is calling his 700^th game at Wilder Stadium on Friday night.

Admission is $15 at the door – The Ridge is at 301 Exchange Road – with catering this week provided by Dempsey’s Pizza of Clinton.

Laurens Academy (1-0) visits its closest opponent, Newberry Academy, which it has beaten nine consecutive times, most recently, 32-20, last season.

It’s the Eagles’ opener.

Now to what I watched on TV, on account of, unfortunately, I’ve little other life.

Informal rules of televised sports:

If it’s raining at the race track, and they switch to a replay of last week’s or last year’s race, and it’s lap 37 of 400, it’s going to be a while.

If they don’t show the radar, it’s going to rain. If the radar is shown, it’s good.

If banners cover all the seats in turn three, the crowd is going to be sparse. This is also true if all the aerial shots are of the back straight.

If golf coverage comes back from commercial, and the first golfer they show is 11 strokes off the lead, his shot is going in. It’s the same way when they show replays of the outfield bleachers of a baseball game. Either a mom or a dad or a kid is going to catch something, preferably not contagious unless it’s baseball fever.

When discussing the GOAT (greatest of all time), the “expert” is referring only to an athlete he has watched, and very few experts saw any home runs Mel Ott hit in the Polo Grounds. He (or she) might suggest Tris Speaker couldn’t hit the pitchers of today. Seldom does he offer the opinion that Jose Altuve couldn’t hit Carl Hubbell.

He says the linemen of today are bigger, faster and stronger than they were in the 1950s. They wouldn’t be bigger, faster and stronger if they were in the 1950s.

Just be honest. Call the modern player the GOMM (greatest of my memory). I didn’t see Ott, Speaker or Hubbell, either. I read about them and watched old newsreels. It takes knowledge to make such calls.

I had a diverse Sunday. With the NASCAR race rained out till Monday, I watched On Golden Pond.

NASCAR does a rotten job of starting races even when it doesn’t rain.

Watch a ballgame. If it comes on TV at noon, it starts within five minutes. If the race goes on at noon (though it never does and won’t unless NASCAR runs a race in Spain or it rains*), it doesn’t start until around the bottom of the hour.

*Note that the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.

Make the prerace show a real one, not a social circle of chats with pro wrestlers and the star of a new sitcom. Do a genuine preparation for what is going to happen. Deal with issues fans care about.

The Monday NASCAR lead-in was Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. It was an improvement.

Baseball continually leaves managers with little reason to exist.

The game has adopted pitch clocks (remember when there was no timing in baseball?), zombie baserunners in extra innings, a limitation on shifts, and now mad scientist Rob Manfred is considering forcing starting pitchers, with some limits, to toil for at least six innings.

Sometimes it’s best to let baseball be baseball.

It’s still better than NASCAR, where the informal rule is, Feel free to try something new, as long as it doesn’t work.

I just got my first direct contribution in a while, and the ads are almost paid up.

As Merle Haggard sang, “If we can make it through December, everything’s gonna be all right, I know.”

Advertising alone will not keep me going, but there’s room for a few more. Every ad is inset in every story.

You can support my site in several ways.

Support the advertisers. They are all fine people who my efforts, not to mention those of the kids, coaches, parents and fans.

Please donate whatever you consider appropriate via Venmo at DHK Sports. You may also reach me by mail at 11185 Highway 56 North, Clinton  29325.

If you choose, make a monthly donation via Patreon. The Laurens County site is here. The Furman site is here.

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

Thanks for putting up with me.