I’ve said it about the girls when it comes to weightlifting, and the same can be said about the boys. When it comes to this corner of Northwest Florida, the athletes here dominate the sport.

It’s a start. That was my initial thought when I learned that Santa Rosa County is dipping its toes into the middle school sports game. Starting this coming school year, the county will finally offer what we’ll call an appetizer menu of sports for junior high athletes. Cross-country, track and 3-on-3 basketball are the options those athletes will have an opportunity to compete in.

I’m going to say for 364 days of the year, most of America could care less about women’s college basketball. Most of America doesn’t put it on its list of sports to watch on a Tuesday night in late January and no one is racing to fill out women’s basketball brackets for an office pool.

Heaven still doesn’t have a newspaper subscription. I know. I can’t believe it either. I also can’t believe it’s been a year since my dad passed away. 365 days have come and gone.

There appears to be a lot of transferring going on lately, and not just among college athletes either. We’re talking a lot of movement among high school athletes as well. One coach in particular to the east of us seems to be working extra hard to bring in athletes from Navarre.

For the most part, politicians need to leave sports alone. That includes Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He and lawmakers in the state have these big dreams of trying to reshape the FHSAA.

I received an email the other day from one of those companies in the middle of somewhere about NCAA basketball. Call it good timing, especially with March Madness getting rolling this week with the NCAA tournament. It lists the top 10 best cities for college hoops fans and the top 10 worst cities.

Alabama freshman basketball star Brandon Miller is the biggest story in college basketball right now. And for all the wrong reasons. Innocent in the eyes of the law, he’s drawn unwanted attention in the national spotlight because of his connection to a murder.

The climb to the top certainly wasn’t easy for Pace’s girls weightlifting team. There was a time where the Patriots were a long way from being a contender in the sport. But the climb reached the pinnacle on a Saturday in Lakeland in the middle of February, with the Patriots celebrating their first state title in program history.

A new name. A new school. The same story. You want more than anything for the cycle of young people dying by suicide to end. There just doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.