By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. As another day of chipping away begins, I am relieved that perhaps Debby won’t be as much a downer as was thought. Staff meteorologists tend to get a bit giddy. But my heart bleeds for Thursday. If the weather outside is frightful, it might cost some scrimmages …
Tag: Laurens County Sports
County Signs: Raiders go for the rebound
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Down in the soccer holler, where the Raiders practice football, it’s exciting. Greg Porter and his staff are agitating a bunch of kids previously aggravated. A whole lot of shaking was going on, not to mention grunting, yelling, cheering and that inimitable sound of pads popping. Porter …
County Signs: Olympics or laughs or both?
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Based on my experience, some athletes belie their public image and others reflect it. One of the better examples is Bill Elliott, whom I like. Elliott, though, is far from his Huck Finn image. He is one of the moodier athletes I’ve ever known. Sometimes Elliott would …
County Signs: One day at a time
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. It wasn’t hot … yet. It wasn’t yet 8 a.m. when the varsity Red Devils joined the JVs out on the practice field Saturday morning. By the time it ended, sweat was prevalent, even for guys walking around with cameras. They needed to wash their shirts, anyway. …
County Signs: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Sometimes I judge television shows on the basis of how well I can work with it in the background. Sports watching isn’t efficient, but it’s convenient. Just bear down on the words until announcers start yelling. Take a break to watch the replays. A writer develops a …
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County Signs: August sweat breeds autumn success
(Monte Dutton photo) Click here. The summer sports doldrums are ending. The football teams are hitting the practice fields. Scrimmages begin in a week. Laurens Academy gets a head start with a game on Aug. 16 against Cambridge Academy in Greenwood. The Laurens and Clinton seasons begin a week later, both at home in big …
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Hope springs, comparatively speaking …
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. When Steve Englehart arrived at Presbyterian College, in the spring of 2022, amid the ruins of the Year of Living Dangerously with Kevin Kelley, about 30 football-playing warm bodies greeted him. On Wednesday morning, Englehart greeted his third team of Blue Hose, now numbered 117. None of …
County Signs: Legends of fall begin with August work
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. Practice makes perfect. Doesn’t it? It’s not without its hazards. Injuries happen. An ancient television show known as Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In used to hand out the “Fickle Finger of Fate.” My view is that luck intervenes only in the short term. It all evens out. Click …
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County Signs: Memories of absent friends, etc.
By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photo) Click here. For no particular reason, I awakened reminiscing on Sunday morning. It wasn’t Christmas, New Year’s or the Fourth of July. It wasn’t Thanksgiving, Memorial or Labor Day. It was just Sunday morning coming down. Or waking up. The great sportswriter Red Smith once wrote a book, Absent …
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County Signs: A lot about a little
By MONTE DUTTON (Pixabay photo) Click here. Things kids don’t do anymore because there’s so much else to do: I’ve never read about it or seen a film, but when I was in college, I discovered that almost everyone had played in their youth what I knew as ‘thump football.” Kids could play it on …
