The year before Fike High School won the first of three straight 4A State high school football championships the team was 3-7.
Joe Robinson told me that after the second game that season ( a 0-40 loss ) he wondered how the new coach would react? Coach Henry Trevathan’s response:
” Coach- now we’ve got them right where we want them!”
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Joe said that Coach T had convinced him to assist him at Rocky Mount saying “…it is the best football job in the state!”
So as they travelled east and Henry took 264 to Wilson , Joe said ” Coach–Rocky Mount is on 64, that way!”
Coach Trevathan- Oh- I took the job in Wilson.
??? But you said the best job was in Rocky Mount ???
” They moved that job to Wilson!”
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Russell Rawlings’ book, CYCLONE COUNTRY, told the full story.
A new film is soon to debut–remembering great moments sixty years ago.
I started writing this blog in 2008. Topics range from the easter bunny to Bob Dylan. “Hits” or visits to the site are recorded. The last pickleball article had a daily total that was three times more hits than any one single day. There was still the fear that pickleball will damage tennis.
Good News 2—The pressure from Pickleball enthusiam will build more tennis courts the next 10 years than tennis only facilities! NOTE : School facilities were built for 6 singles matches. Boy’s !. There were no girls teams. Admnistrators, school boards, athletic directors—build a minimum battery of eight courts. Line them for pickleball too. Teach pickleball the first half of the semester, tennis the second.
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Not to belittle our current conflicts, a surprise portends. WW III will not be men vs women, or east vs west, black vs white, or even Israel vs Arabs. With Americans leading the way, it may be tennis vs pickleball!
NEWS FLASH: Tennis and pickleball should not fight each other. They have a mutual enemy, video games!
HINT,HINT–The two games are not mutually exclusive.
My guess is the links between pickleball and tennis and not only many new players, but some very talented players,will emerge.
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Good news 3 –Pickleball , handled properly, can add a new base to the USTA. For years minority kids have been a target for growth. Pickleball is so easy to learn and inexpensive, the opportunity is a DUH? Tennis courts lined for dual use (about 100$ ) At public schools, municipal recreation courts, empty condo developments and other unused courts.
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Pickleball & Co. is not just focused on Black people playing pickleball. It wants pickleball to be a catalyst for friendships, business relationships, and enrichment for participants. “Come in your bright colors, come with everything that you are, and you are welcome in this space,” said Brooks.
The USTA has never sold a leadup game that can match pickleball’s potential.
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My guess is the links between pickleball and tennis and not only many new players, but some very talented players,will emerge.
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Having observed attempts to teach tennis in public school physical education classes, maybe a switch to pickleball might be wiser. It is so much easier to learn (save the scoring system*). And, while the pickleball people will argue that their game can stand on its own merits, perhaps there would be a “carryover” from mastery of pickleball to the more complex and expensive tennis process. And attract some audiences that shun tennis no matter how hard we try?
Once kids have fun and realize a tennis court”ain’t a bad place” –wouldn’t tennis garner some recruits?
Unfortunately pickleball also adapted a scoring system much like badminton. And, while this idea can be applied to colleges, I would go ahead and grant a degree to any college student who can master the scoring.
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And let’s face it, if new people never play tennis , won’t new pickleballers be better off. Than Video addicts, other pitfalls? ADULTS TOO?
[Verse 1] Well, if you’re lookin’ for purpose in the current circus If you’re seekin’ respect and attention If you’re in need of a gig that’ll make you feel big Come with me and put some folks in detention
[Verse 2] Just last week was kind of tough, I put a kid in cuffs I zip-tied a lady to a van We can sneak around town, hunt workin’ folks down I hear they got a great benefit plan
[Chorus] Join ICE, boy, ain’t it nice? Join ICE, take my advice If you’re lackin’ control and authority Come with me and hunt down minorities Join ICE
[Verse 4] I got picked on at school, I never felt that cool There’s a hole in my soul that just a-rages All the ladies turned me down, and I felt like a clown But will you look at me now, I’m puttin’ folks in cages
[Chorus] At ICE, we’re respectin’ power Join ICE, I hear they got great hours There’s a sign-on bonus of 50 grand They’re in need of you needin’ to feel like a man Join ICE
Look at ’em go!
[Verse 5] Well, if you’re lookin’ for purpose in the current circus If you’re seekin’ respect and attention If you’re in need of a gig that’ll make you feel big Come with me and put some folks in detention
[Verse 6] See I failed the academy, the cops weren’t havin’ me The Army didn’t sound that fun So I found me a paramilitary operation That was keen to hand me a gun
[Chorus] Join ICE, boy, ain’t it nice? Join ICE, take my advice If you’re lackin’ control and authority Come with me and hunt down minorities Join ICE
Fleming will forever be remembered as the Newsweek reporter who was photographed after being severely beaten in the Watts riots of 1966. In this memoir, he recounts the long road that led to his reporting on race relations and the incendiary social issues that exploded that day. He was born in 1927 in a poor, bleak North Carolina community and raised in an orphanage when his mother could no longer afford to take care of him. Fleming left college early to begin life as a reporter with a small-town ( WILSON, NC ) newspaper, covering the police beat with a cynical police chief who mistreated blacks. It was Fleming’s first hint that, having grown up in an orphanage, his sympathies were with the underdog. He went on to cover the turbulent racial changes in the South, including James Meredith’s enrollment at the University of Mississippi and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers. In this stunning memoir, Fleming offers the perspective of a poor white boy witnessing the racial turbulence that changed the U.S. Vanessa Bush
Review “A harrowing and brutally honest account of Fleming’s experiences on all sides of the civil rights battle.” — Publishers Weekly, April 25, 2005
“A rich and absorbing book, a window into a time and place that defined America.” — Washington Post Book World, June 12, 2005
“Incredibly rich in history, in bravery and brutality, Karl Fleming’s Son of the Rough South is so beautifully written.” — Anne Lamott, author of Traveling Mercies
“It makes for a tense, harrowing, utterly gripping journey.” — Newsweek, May 23, 2005
“Karl Fleming knows how to tell a story.” — Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis
“Their story will take the reader on a trip not soon forgotten of spirits unwilling to be broken.” — San Antonio Express-News, June 19, 2005.
“a vivid, often painful memoir…” — David Halberstam
“offers vibrant portraits of the most harrowing incidents of [the civil rights]…” — Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2005
…recovers for us a brace period of our recent history, and delivers it with all the sharp…edges perfectly intact. — Barton Chronicle, October 2005
FFFlemingsssssssss craft soars to a level of artful elegance with blunt, unsentimental language full of casual grace notes — The Nation, August 15 and 22, 2005.
In its inaugural year, the four-team doubles and four-player singles playoff was created to increase the number of American collegiate tennis players who earn wild cards into the U.S. Open. Previously, only the NCAA singles and doubles champions received a main draw wild card, while the other NCAA singles finalist received a qualifying wild card. This season, six wild card entries were up for grabs.
While I support more scholarship money for American tennis families and players, this move is indeed encouraging.
My guess is the USTA IS WELL HEELED TO THE POINT THEY DON’T FEAR A LAWSUIT. This eliminates the long held fear of a discrimination suit.
Too, the timing of relaxed amateur restrictions will make college tennis more attractive as a significantly better route to professional possibilities. College tennis will gallop toward the hands down “Minor leagues of tennis.”
Probably some will resist change. Internationals hopefully will recognize that
Americans are footing their bill for a much better developmental choice, particularly the financial positives.
The ultra elite American juniors will now command significant college deals.
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“Your perseverance is paying off.” ( James Haslam )
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Robert Bayliss
Sun, Jun 22, 10:05 PM (5 days ago)
to me
Tom,
Great observations. In today’s world of college athletics, any good news is welcome. The folks running college sports for the last 10-15 years should all be brought together and turned over to Islamic terrorists for punishment. I don’t think anyone knows how things will settle, but I certainly am glad that I didn’t have to deal with the likes of NIL, the transfer portal, and everything else that has been filtered into college tennis.
I played at Richmond, graduating in 1966. In my 4 years of college tennis ( actually 3, as freshmen were ineligible then), I strung every one of my own rackets. I got to use gut my junior year and thought that was a big deal. My sophomore year I rode in the back of Coach’s station wagon with the gear and spare tire, as the other players rode 3 in the front seat and 3 in the back. Complain…. heck no; I was a varsity athlete! We had no strength coach, academic advisor, dietitian, or any of the amenities available to today’s players. I am not jealous and don’t regret a thing. In fact, I believe that I got much more out of my experience than today’s athletes because I had to do it all myself. I was much more prepared for the real world.
Sorry for climbing on my soapbox to force my opinion on you, but I imagine it found a receptive audience. Stay well, my friend. We can keep trying to confuse our detractors with logic!
In 2015 I put together a script/photo booklet, NEARLY FIFTY, described below “
HISTORY
(From Play is where Life is by Tom Parham)
Wilsonians provided me with a lot of laughs. I guess it’s just out there, but Wilson I think is special in the humor world. No one was better than Stephen Earl “Country” Boykin.
Our best joint venture was the “River Trip”. It began with a new event in 1967: The Super Bowl. We hosted clients of Earl’s Sportsville Sporting Goods Store at Happy Valley Golf course. We held the beer blast in the “Sugar Shack”in the middle of the course. Mostly coaches from Wilson, only one got arrested. He drove his Pontiac up the downtown Courthouse steps.
In 1968 Earl bought a “camp”to duck hunt. It was located on Back Creek, near rural Bath, NC.
We held the “River Trip” there for about a dozen years. Then we moved to my beach house at Emerald Isle, NC. We have run over one duck, as far as duck huntng goes. The appendix-Summarizes some highlights. We don’t want you to know everything but this s”chronology” will give you the “gist”.
Most of us were from Wilson, NC , home of Atlantic Christian College, now Barton College. And from eastern NC. Barton recently posted THE BARTON PROJECT which similarly recalls the “neighborhood” from 1960 until 2024.
“The Barton Project” is available through Hackney Library’s Special Collections. For access or more information, visit https://barton.libguides.com/special_collections/home or reach out to technology and grants librarian Naija Speight at nispeight@barton.edu.
Phillips Seafoood ( Swansboro, NC ) has a sign in the front window: “Local As It Gets”!
The Little Green Book of Tennis 