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Show commentary dave wigham Let's Talk About Bad Timing Athletes are always talking about their timing tim-ing being a big factor in their lives and play. Let me talk to you a little about the bad timing I've noticed in the past few weeks. FIRST OF ALL this all came to a head last Monday night when the NCAA final game was on the old tube. The power went out where I live at 8:00 p.m. and didn't come on again until 3 a.m. Can you imagine how I felt, the television televi-sion set wasn't safe around me, I went on safari and the tube was to be my prize bag. I don't envy the power people that had to go out and work that night to restore the power, and I thank them for a job well done, but talk about your bad timing. THE DUMB power should have known that there was only about 11 minutes left in the game. It could have waited for the battle to be settled, but it didn't. This got me thinking about all the bad timing situations I have encountered in the past few weeks. ONE OF THE biggest is in the area of high school sports. Baseball, which seems set on having perfect weather or they don't play, starts their play at the end of March and concludes con-cludes the first week in May. Now it doesn't take a brain to realize that the weather in May is supposed to be better than in April, although nowadays no one is really sure. Yet the baseball base-ball people only play one week in the best month for weather. There have been more high school baseball games canceled in the past few weeks due to the weather conditions than there ever would be in the month of May. Why don't the people in charge figure out to start at a later time and utilize the best weather conditions in May. "THEY REALLY should start later, say near the end of April and run the season through the first week in June" noted View-mont View-mont coach John Edwards. The main concern over this idea is that the seniors would have graduated at that time and there is a certain fear that they might not be able to play since many of them would have summer employment. A valid point but something has to be done with the status quo. That's basically all the games in March and most of them in April canceled and the season consisting of playing twenty three games in a one week span to determine who goes to the state tournament. ANOTHER SO called bad timing situation that could be cleared up involves track and baseball. Many times these two teams have to share some athletes yet in the big track meets many of the baseball players are missing due to their own games. The logical solution would seem to be to have the baseball games scheduled sche-duled for Tuesday and Thursday, that would leave Friday open to run in the big track meets. Baseball coaches probably wouldn't like to see this change but I know several track coaches that would like to utilize some of those ball players. AND FINALLY ON another bad timing note consider the plight of Ben Poquette, a Bountiful Bounti-ful resident, the power forward for the Utah Jazz. Ben was working on a consecutive game steak, he had played in all 321 games the Jazz have played since moving to Utah. He also played in 44 straight for the Detroit team giving him a total of 356 consecutive games, which ranked him third in the league. The problem came to light last Friday when Ben fractured his little pinky on his left hand, he shoots right handed. The doctors have advised him not to play anymore this season which would end his streak. PHYSICALLY BEN can handle it but the problem comes in the mental area. First of all there are only 8 games remaining in the season. Secondly Ben indicated he wouldn't have any problem ending the streak with a broken ankle or something, but a broken pinky is hard to accept. The coaches indicated to Ben that they would dress him, and put him into each game for a couple of minutes to keep the streak alive but Ben isn't sure of that idea either. "It would bug me not to contribute. If I dressed I would want to play more than a couple of token minutes." mi-nutes." IT'S THE TYPE of injury that if he did play and hit the finger again it could result in surgery. Ben wants to play but not if he can't contribute. contri-bute. He also doesn't want to jepordize his future, but the streak is something to be proud of. But so is a professional athlete that is concerned con-cerned with contributing rather than his own personal streaks. |
