High school coaches don’t have it easy. Most of them try to do the best job that they can, but often, they are in a no-win situation. I’m not saying coaches are perfect. They get things wrong. We all do. It’s called being human.

There is something special going on when it comes to athletes in this area. And often, those athletes will find their way to the pro level.

I made a trip home to Illinois last month. My baggage from the airplane didn’t, kind of like the way the Dallas Cowboys never seem to make the Super Bowl anymore. But that’s a column for another day.

I really could have written this column with one emoji. You know the one where the person has the hand slapping the face. That really would have covered all you need to know about the district set up for cross-country for the teams in this area.

It’s been maybe 20 years now since I covered a high school baseball championship series in another state. Some of the memories are a blur. Others are lost forever. I’m pretty sure the team I covered won the title, but what I remember for certain is that it was a unique set up in that a best of three format was used to determine a champion.

Politicians could learn a thing or two from sports. And they could learn a thing or two sooner rather than later. In sports, there is no fighting over which party is right or wrong and we don’t ever hear stories of an athlete not being qualified to play a certain position on the field or court because of his or her political affiliation.

Father’s Day hits differently when your dad is no longer with you. I lost my dad last spring, and this will be the second year in a row where I won’t be able to call him, send him a card or take a trip home to see him like I did four years ago, which happened to be the last Father’s Day weekend we spent together.

It’s going to hurt for a while for Pace. Losing a state championship game typically does. The Patriots seemed to be on the brink of winning a title in softball for the first time in 16 years when they took the field two weeks ago against Bartow on a hot and sunny afternoon in Clermont.

Five innings came and went. No score. Jay still was very much alive in its quest to repeat as state champions as it battled Branford in a 1A state semifinal last Monday in Clermont. Then came the sixth. Branford scored two. The Royals tried to rally. They poured their heart and soul into it. But this was one of those days where the hits and the runs just were few and far between.

Rewind to the 2020 spring sports season. It seems like a lifetime ago in some ways because of how different the world was then in the midst of a pandemic. The current seniors who will receive their high school diplomas this week were only freshmen at the time. Their spring seasons were cut short just a few weeks in.