It was a hot early-summer Sunday afternoon at Tate. Pace kicker Reice Griffith was getting ready to put in work with One on One Kicking, but before he did, he and I talked football for a bit.

I asked him about the life of a kicker, including the pressure that comes with it, and Griffith didn’t even blink when discussing it during our interview.

We throw around words like hero, courage and bravery so easily at times, often without thinking about just how big of a deal those words really are.

Sometimes they are appropriate. But often, they don’t quite fit the situation we are describing.  The words fit when we are talking about Gavin Peaden.

Meighan and I took our crazy, energetic, special in more ways than one chocolate lab to the Pensacola Blue Wahoos’ Bark in the Park night last week.

This wasn’t Greyson’s first rodeo at the special event the Double-A affiliate of the Miami Marlins hold once a year, giving canine companions, both large and small, a chance to hang out and watch a baseball game.

Deshaun Watson set sports social media on fire last week after it was announced his suspension this coming NFL season will last only six games.

The ruling was made by Sue Robinson, the league’s disciplinary officer, and it seems like a crazy light sentence to serve based on the accusations against one of the biggest stars in the league.

It’s 10:44 p.m. on a Sunday night in the middle of July. Five picks remain in the second round of the MLB Draft. Pace’s Walter Ford has yet to be selected.

He went into the draft as the 53rd best prospect, which in the baseball world, doesn’t mean a thing.

Fans lined the railing along the walkway leading from the tunnel to the field on a rainy Tuesday night in early July at Blue Wahoos Stadium.

They had hats, bats, gloves, shirts and cards. Someone even had a plastic shovel.

I’ve never really been a big fan of all-conference, all-region or even all-state teams.

Don’t get me wrong. The recognition for the athletes is great and well-deserved. I have nothing against that part of it.

Hiring a coach can prove to be tricky times. Like trying to pick the right door to choose in one of those game shows.

But it’s safe to say Navarre and Milton got it right when it came to filling the voids they had for the position of head coach of the softball team.

As I walked around Beyer Stadium in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois, a couple of weeks ago, I thought about the Rockford Peaches and what it must have been like to play here in the era that they did here in this Northwest Illinois city.

They began playing in Rockford while America was still at war, and they continued to play here nearly a decade after World War II ended.

Athletes are supposed to be tough. No questions asked.

They are supposed to play through physical pain. And the mental pain they might be dealing with should never be an issue for them.