All three of our wins were in the singles category. Catherine "Cate" Kehoe was a victor at first singles. Kehoe sure found her rhythm after a poor start. My goodness, she was on the losing end of the first set 0-6! Then she picked herself up by the bootstraps and won 6-3 and 10-7.
Congrats to Cate who is the grandchild of my former co-worker at the Morris newspaper, Janet Kehoe. I'm sure Janet is excited every time Cate succeeds. I gave Janet a personal phone call the day after Cate made four 3-pointers in a basketball game. We're all happy that Cate appears to have recovered so well from an injury.
The other MACA winner versus WDC was Ava Breuer who played fourth singles. Ava turned back Genevieve Pinnella of WDC 6-1 and 7-5. Our Lilia Asmus at third singles was on the short end against Claire Kapphahn, 1-6 and 0-6.
Let's look at the doubles category where we had Ashley Koehl and Nora Meek at the No. 1 position. Koehl and Meek were defeated by the Fiemeyer girls - Katie and Anna - 2-6 and 1-6. At No. 2 doubles we saw our Grace Hauglie and Izabell Hoffman defeated by Kelanie Oldakowski and Emma Weninger, 6-7 (2), 6-1 and 8-10. The No. 3 MACA doubles team of Heidi Seales and Molly Wayne fell to Ryann Schmidt and Chloe Leeseberg, 4-6, 7-5 and 5-10.
My neighbor up on Northridge Drive is tennis coach Britney House. The zinnia flowers in front of my house still look good with fall getting closer. Come on by and look.
Autumn sports beckons
We are eager of course to start getting the usual diet of high school sports news. Until the sport of football disappears, we'll have to continue paying attention to it. That includes yours truly with his local journalism. I should not second-guess the school board with its desire to continue offering the sport of football to our boys.
Why should any sport be boys-only? That seems inconsistent with our current social standards in America. Is this preferred treatment for boys? I could argue the exact opposite. We are learning more and more about the health dangers of football. Sometimes the effects take time to begin showing themselves.
You can dismiss people like me to your own detriment. I'm sure most of you think football is an activity to be taken lightly, to prompt a smile when the subject comes up. You will go on doing this at your peril or really the peril of the high school male population.
Boys who start playing football in the junior high grades are too young to make a responsible judgment about this. The worst thing is for young boys to "go out for football" because of peer pressure. This is such a danger, schools should put out formal advisories about this. But I'm sure they don't.
One of the best critiques I have seen of football over the last few years was a "suggested" release form for parents to sign. Parents confronted with such blunt and honest language would be fools to allow their sons to play. In the meantime, the American public has developed such a love affair with football from watching it on "the tube," they have become to a large extent blinded about how our young people should be protected from it.
I could be selfish here and say I am lucky: I had neither the talent nor interest to play football. At age 68 I do not have to worry about experiencing cognitive decline as a result of playing the sport.
That was then
I think that in a past time, football served the purpose of preparing young men to serve in the military in a foreign war. Football was supposed to instill such discipline: do as you're told. That's what it takes in the military where you have a gun and are supposed to kill other people while they try to kill you.
Remember when you hear the sanctimonious speeches on Memorial Day and Veterans Day: The veterans who are speaking are ones who survived. Many of them may not have been exposed to any combat risk. There is nothing good about war. Today we use economic sanctions and "special ops" in place of massive armies. Conflict is always bad.
Don't let anyone tell you that the WWII generation of men benefited from all the discipline of military service, or that they ought to be grateful for all the "benefits" they later got from military service. We would all be better off to have foregone military conflict.
How many of his own generals did Hitler have killed? You can look it up. Was that regime really going to stand up? The people's will can never be held down for long. I view our nation's military veterans to have largely been victims. The government leaders themselves would never put their lives on the line. Wars are not fought between people, they are fought between governments. Governments just use propaganda to get people behind them. The Japanese people were absolutely subjugated.
How much have we learned? Sometimes I wonder. But to cut to the chase here: it is not acceptable to continue having a boys-only sport in high school. Just stop and think about it: Any sport that is too dangerous for girls is too dangerous for everyone.
It is amazing the arc that has been followed, from a time when girls had almost zero athletic opportunities - like when UMM first started - to the present where girls have it better than boys. Girls sports are safer and more healthy than boys sports while being totally vigorous and challenging. In wrestling, boys are under too much pressure to lose weight. This can cause long-term physiological harm. Football? It should be made illegal.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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