Folks it’s that time of year again for our adversaries in Chapel Hill. UNC had another stellar regular season just to come up two wins short of the title. But think of what it must feel like for Roy, Corey or Horace - whatever you want to call him. Horace is the guy on the right. He was on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Roy looks a lot like Horace if you ask me. He also has the Kansas sticker going for him. He’s caught a lot of flack over that the last several days. I’m sure he’s thinking…15 years and I couldn’t get it done. Bill got her done in 5.

For the third time in four years we won the tournament championship for the church league in Four Oaks. It was a trying season at times. We added four new players and all of us had never played together before. We had to figure out who was going to do what. Several nights there were only five players present. We ended up losing five regular season games including one we had to forfeit. Kenly FWB church had swept us during the regular season and we met them in the championship game. We came out a little sluggish but quickly caught fire thanks to Jayme and John. Lots of three pointers and pretty good defense gave us a huge lead near twenty points. We never gave up the lead although they came back and cut it to a one point lead. John nailed a huge three late in the game and a key deflection by yours truly sealed their fate. It was a sweet victory and a great way to end the season. Congrats to all the team an awesome season.

I know this is old news. I thought since the last article was called “Looking for a New Coach” that I needed to follow that up before I posted anything else. So here you have it. Tom O’Brien will be the next football coach at NC State. He coach at Boston College for a number of years posting 8, 9 and 10 win seasons. He was in the armed forces. State fans will be looking for some of that discipline in the years to come. I guess overall it was a good choice considering the options out there. Let there be no doubt he will have the full support of the Wolfpack nation behind him. But I also hope he has seen what can happen in Raleigh when the results are bad. Good luck Tom.

Chuck Amato has been fired as head coach at NC State. He had a losing record in the ACC over 7 years. His overall record and conference record are both worse than his predecessor Mike O’Cain. He lost 3 straight games to UNC and finished the season with 7 straight losses. He had arguably the best quarterback ever in ACC history and could never finish any higher than 4th in the conference.

He has done a few good things. He motivated the fan base to give all their money to build some state of the art facilities. He recruited some highly talented players. We have 2 of the best running backs in the ACC and if they were at another school they would probably be leading the league in rushing. Hopefully whoever is hired to replace Amato can turn the the situation around. There have been some candidates mentioned such as Paul Johnson of Navy or possibly Norm Chow. Maybe this coaching search won’t be a circus like the basketball search.

So I’m hooked on Fantasy Football. For the most part I have never followed NFL football my entire life. I’ve always followed college football and basketball. Chris has been doing FF for a few years now. In my mind I always thought it was crazy how he came in from playing ball on Sundays and had to see what was going on with his players. Well there are some smack talkers at work and if you know me you know that’s all it took for me to get involved.

There are 22 teams in the league and I currently sit in 4th. This is a salary cap league. Some leagues are draft leagues and they keep pretty much the same players each week. We are able to trade each week depending on match ups. The player’s value changes week to week depending on performance. I’m losing ground to the leader but should move up a position this week. The reason for LT’s picture is because if you don’t have him in FF you are losing out. He’s a touchdown machine. Only seven more weeks until the season is over. I’ll let you know how I finish.

North Carolina finally has a major championship in hand as the Canes defeat the Oilers in an exciting and entertaining game seven in Raleigh. I’m not much of a hockey fan myself. Ok, I never watched it before the playoffs this season. However, I found myself somehow drawn to the sport. Maybe it was the contact and rough nature of the sport that lured me in. I’m not sure.

I don’t know what I disliked the most. NBC’s obvious biased coverage of the finals or the little twerp head coach for Edmonton, Craig McTavish. There were 20 seconds to go and all the commentators were talking about was how close the Oilers were to tasting victory. “Oh, they are so close.” Does anyone but Duke get a fair shake when it comes to sports team from North Carolina? Maybe NBC should hire Dickie V. You know Raleigh is close to Durham and Chapel Hill.

Alright, enough of my ranting. Congratulations to the Carolina Hurricanes winners of the 2006 Stanley Cup. I hope all the Canadians are enjoying the sight of the southern celebration. Note to McTavish: If at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking ’til you do succeed.

These are two things that I tickle. It’s been HCR and bball up to my eyeballs the last few months. But I don’t have anything else to do so it keeps me occupied and busy. Our CD is available for anyone that wants one. I think they look excellent thanks to Jayme and sound excellent thanks to our musicians and singers. We ended up selling all of our first shipment one Sunday morning when we played at church. We ordered 200 more and just about half of those are already gone. We’ve also been getting some airplay on WPYB 1130 AM in Benson and WMPM 1270 AM in Smithfield. It’s pretty cool hearing yourself on the radio :)

Of course what would the winter be if we didn’t have church league basketball. It seems nice to get back out there and play after watching the championship game from the sidelines a year ago. I think we have an 8-1 record so far this season. We only have a few games left. Come on out and cheer us on. Only other thing happening is Jennifer and Woody’s wedding next weekend. Crystal and I are singing It’s Your Love and Bless the Broken Road. They are pretty challenging, but I think we’ll do a good job. I almost forgot the ski trip to Snowshoe, but that is a month away. Anyway, that’s it for now.

NC State advanced to the Sweet 16 for the first time in 16 years. The Pack enters this weekend with a legitimate shot to get to the Final Four which two weeks ago no one would have imagined. After getting past the Huskies, Hodge and company now face a Wisconsin team with a similar style of play as the Pack. As much as everyone wants to look past the 3rd round and to a possible matchup with Carolina, I think State will keep doing what it has done to thus far and remain focused on the task at hand. I’m not a big Herb fan, but I’m not a Herb hater either. You have to give the man credit where it’s due. He’s got his team playing as well as anyone at this point. And for him to continue to lead this program out from the depths of disappointment is to be commended. Critics can attack his offense, but right now it looks like it’s pretty effective. All it takes is two wins and it might be 1983 all over again.

Thursday’s championship game will be on ESPN Classic starting next week. Early on it was back and forth between the PFWB and Burnell. At times Burnell’s quickness and stamina proved to wear on our team tremendously. However, losing two years in a row to this new team on the block gave us enough drive to reach down and pull out one last run. With not much more than one minute to go in the game, sparks began to fly and Jayme nailed two quick threes. A foul and a couple of free throws on the other end were followed by yet another three by John Parker. A few defensive stops and a few layups later we were all tied up. Burnell comes down with less than 10 seconds and drops one in to take a two point lead. With no timeouts we quickly inbound the ball and Dewayne takes it all the way to the hoop only to have it knocked out of bounds with only 0.6 seconds on the game clock. It seemed like it was all over at that point. The whole season had come down to this one play. Chris, inbounding the ball was looking for anyone who might be open seemed like he stood there an eternity before finally finding a cutting James Stevens on the left side of the goal. It was like a perfectly scripted ending to this back and forth game. James caught the ball and shot in the same motion as the final buzzer sounded. Not only did the shot go down to tie the game, but a foul was committed and now time had expired. Just one point is all that was needed to seal the deal. Stevens stepped up like Mr. Clutch and drained it for a one point victory. Do I need to say anything else? Oh, I’m ready for next year.

Tonight’s Benson/Four Oaks Church Basketball League got underway with three games at Four Oaks Middle School. We’re coming off our second championship season looking to repeat as tournament champions. This year began with a 35 point thrashing of Bethel Baptist Church. I think the score was 69-34. It was a real team effort and we want to thank all of our fans that were there to support us and all those that weren’t there. Once I get a schedule I’ll post it and keep it updated with the scores and our record. Tomorrow night we play at 9pm. Come on out and cheer us on.

2005 Schedule
1/10 69-34 PFWB vs. Bethel
1/11 53-45 PFWB vs. Stone’s Creek
1/13 54-48 PFWB vs. Banner Chapel
1/20 26-36 PFWB vs. FO Baptist
1/24 59-30 PFWB vs. FO Methodist
1/25 50-43 PFWB vs. Oliver’s Grove
1/31 8pm PFWB vs. Burnell
2/03 9pm PFWB vs. Banner Chapel
2/07 9pm PFWB vs. Bethel
2/08 8pm PFWB vs. Stone’s Creek