Talking sports when there are no sports to talk about
Published 7:55 am Thursday, May 16, 2019
This is a tough week to be a sports writer. How, after all, do you write about sports when there’s not a lot of sports being played?
The high school season is effectively over, at least as far as our local teams are concerned. The summer workout season is still a couple of weeks away.
There are some coaching moves happening. A couple of them even interesting. Most of them aren’t quite official, though, since they still need to be approved by the school board.
College baseball is winding down its regular season. We’re still looking ahead to the good part, the conference and NCAA tournaments, however. There’s not even a lot of drama in the Southeastern Conference standings.
There’s the NBA playoffs. The Sixers-Raptors Game 7 finish was one for the ages, and perfectly timed to boot. I switched over at 8:30 from an episode of “Family Guy” just in time to see the last few seconds. The best part was how the crowd got quiet enough to hear the ball bouncing on the rim before it dropped in.
The Pelicans got the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft. That’s cool. Now they can finally trade generational talent Anthony Davis and start rebuilding around generational talent Zion Williamson.
The PGA Championship is this weekend, but it’s golf. Check back with me on Sunday and let’s see if Tiger is in contention again.
I hate to admit I’ve never seen an episode of “Game of Thrones” — too cheap to subscribe to HBO — so I’m missing out on this particular pop culture phenomenon. Near as I can tell it’s something about dragons and zombies and fighting over the worst item in the La-Z-Boy catalogue. Does the Iron Throne even recline or have a drink holder?
I did see “Avengers: Endgame” on opening night. It was a disappointment — not because of the movie, which was terrific, but because of the crowd. During several obvious geek-out moments they were dead silent. A big reason to see a movie like that on opening night is to enjoy the reaction from a hyped up crowd. Mine sat on its hands. I felt cheated.
High school graduations are this week and next. Congratulations to all of the seniors on making it through. Now go get a job.
Hey, look, we made it through another week. How do you talk about sports when there’s no sports happening? Just start rambling about almost anything else. Stream of consciousness FTW.
•
Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com