12 The Patriot, March 21, 2012 PETER’S View From The Sidelines
Spring Sports
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Peter Coyle Let me tell you how my March Madness is going so
far. I had Missouri going all the way to the champion- ship game and I had Harvard beating Vanderbilt in the first round. I also had Duke advancing to the sweet six- teen. Even Duke’s coach, Saint Andrew Bobola, had no answer for that mighty Lehigh team that plays in the same conference as O’ Holy Cross. Talk about having no clue. Yours truly would get eaten alive in Las Vegas. I hope your brackets weren’t busted the same way mine were. By the way, what are we teaching these college kids anyway? If you don’t make the trip to the Final Four, there is the National Invitational Tournament or the best of the rest. If you don’t make the N.I.T. then there is the College Insider Tournament. I am not kid- ding. Everybody gets their little A.A.U. trophy so there are no hard feelings. When does the season end? Leg- endary UCLA coach John Wooden must be rolling over with all these alternative tournaments. How about the amount of INK on the basketball players’ bodies this generation? I thought the New Jersey Nets were the most read team until the road to the Final Four started. The INK/tattoos look like a painful process to me, but it sure beats the eyebrow piercing fad they had a few years ago. What are these college players going to do if they make the NBA? There won’t be any room left on their bodies to INK up. I don’t think the “Big Guy” wanted all that ink on us or He would have done it Him- self. Am I getting that old that I don’t understand what stylin’ means? Please correct me if I am wrong, but is the 2011-12
edition of winter sports in Central Mass. as bad as their showing at the DCU center this past St. Patrick’s Day? Not one team from Central Mass. qualified to play for the coveted state championship. I cannot remember when C-Mass didn’t have at least one team on the boys’ or girls’ side battling for the state crown. We were shut- out. Please don’t count Tyngsboro as a C-Mass team. It is very disheartening that Western Mass. swept all three boys’ teams and all three girls’ teams in three di- visions. I have been hearing so much about the AAU traveling teams and their successes with teams across the country that I thought C-Mass. teams could compete with teams in their own state. C-Mass. was eliminated from advancing to the state finals which, are you ready? Was played at the DCU Center in
C-Mass.Imagine be- ing the hostess with the leastess? Do we get a good host award for providing the DCU Center for all the State final games in basketball? I think all of us, including me, need a dose of reality. I like when the locals do well on any level and any sport. Maybe it was an off year for us folks in the heart of Massachusetts. The big ques- tion is: Are we advancing our student-athletes to the college level or are the kids burnt out from getting too many trophies on their journey from the midget league to the Clark Tournament? Less is more. Less games and trophies and more fundamentals. The games have to be fun. I am not sure if the kids are having fun anymore?
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$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ By Steev Riccardo, Patriot Staff Reporter NCCA Tourney, Don Cushing, and Tyler Mandeville!
What happened last Friday in the NCCA Basketball Tournament was truly amazing. You could not have imag- ined that two 15-seeded teams would beat two of the best two-seeded teams in the country, but it happened. Shortly after Norfolk State did the unthinkable and
knocked off Missouri, who at times this season were ranked as high as second in the country, Lehigh University did the same thing and beat a very good Duke team. If you play the brackets, chances are you are among the thousands who saw their dreams of winning flushed down the toilet. Still from a sports perspective, this was a truly magical night, unrivaled by any other first round in the NCAA tournament. Speaking of bracketology, yours truly is still alive on
Sunday morning, having taken the easy and predictable road for a change with Kentucky (eventually winner), Syracuse, Michigan State, and North Carolina going to the final four.
Tyler Mandeville: Bass-Ball Player?
Jack McDowell has a bunch of records out with his band Stickfigure and locally former Red Sox pitcher Bronson Ar- royo was known to show up at clubs in Boston and jam on a regular basis. One of my favorite baseball/music guys is former ma-
jor league reliever Scott Radinsky, who pitched for several teams, including the Chicago White Sox and the Los Ange- les Dodgers. Radinsky was the singer for the west coast punk band
Don Cushing and Gary Donahue, Toutellotte Camp Directors
Don Cushing: While working on a story at St. Joseph’s
School last week, I spent some time talking to with the great Don Cushing, who among many great feats, still holds the Bartlett High School record for most wins as the boys’ basketball coach. “Cuffy” told me a bunch of good stories, as he usually does,
one of which was how when he met University of Connecti- cut girls’ basketball coach Geno Auriemma and told him how he taught former Oxford basketball star Carla Berube to shoot. Of course, Geno found this quite amusing. He wasn’t really kidding, though, as Berube had attended one of Cushing’s very successful Bartlett Summer basketball camps while she was at Oxford High School, as did just about every kid that played basketball in the area. Tourtellotte Basketball Camp: Speaking of summer
basketball camps, Cushing co-directs the Tourtellotte In- structional Basketball Camp at the high school in North Grovendale with Gary Donahue every summer. This year’s camp, in its ninth year, will take place from Monday, July 9 to Friday, July 13, and is for boys and girls from 7-17. For additional information please call Cushing at 508-943- 8959.
Spring Sports: This past Monday spring sports were
scheduled to start tryouts and practices at the local high schools. Looks like the weather is going to be good and that should make for a fun week on the fields, tracks, and courts. Tyler Mandeville: Being both a big music fan and a sports
fan, it will be interesting to see if the two can mash togeth- er successfully at Bartlett High School this spring. Word around the school is that few kids can throw a baseball harder than Tyler Mandeville. Well, we haven’t seen him pitch yet, but we can tell you this, the kid is a great musi- cian and is one of the finest bass players in the area. We are hoping that Mandeville delivers the goods on the base- ball diamond because we love the crossover! Some inspiration for Mandeville is knowing that there
have been baseball players who have played music in the past, some are pretty well known in fact. Pitcher “Black”
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Scared Straight, who later changed its name to Ten Foot Pole. Somehow he managed to maintain both careers for some time and once leaving baseball resumed his music career with Pulley, who toured as an opening act for Green Day. So there you have it, Mr. Mandeville, it’s been done be-
fore, and here’s hoping for the sake of rockers like myself that you can pull it off this season because we love the crossover! Contact
steev@patriotnewspaper.com with any sports news that you would like to see in the View!
Two Open Practice Sessions Near at Thompson
THOMPSON, CT. The 2012 racing season will kick off
with two open practice sessions at Thompson International Speedway. These pre-season practices will be held on Sat- urday, March 31st and again on Saturday, April 7th. Vir- tually any safe race car is welcome to participate in these sessions that will run from 11 Am until 5 PM each day. Paddock area gates will open at 10 AM. These open practice sessions offer competitors a great op- portunity to get their race cars ready for the season-open- ing Icebreaker scheduled for the weekend of April 14th and 15th. This year’s exciting Icebreaker will feature the NA- SCAR Whelen Modified Tour along with Thompson’s own Sunoco Modifieds, Super Late Models, Thompson Modi- fieds, Late Models, Limited Sportsman and Mini Stocks. Race teams find these open practice sessions to be very valuable for them to have the time necessary to fine tune their race cars and to give newer drivers the valuable “seat time” that is so important going into a full season of racing. The format for these sessions is a “round robin” style by division and runs virtually non-stop for six hours. Icebreaker weekend officially opens another action
packed Thompson racing season and reunites fans and competitors after a long winter break in New England rac- ing action. Hundreds of race fans take advantage of the track’s free camping. Thompson’s huge parking is quickly transformed into a small city of RVs that make for great opportunities to renew old friendships and make new ones. The tracks ability to provide great fun for also comes from the Championship Golf Course, Driving Range, Restau- rant and Lounge which are all on the same property as the Speedway. Many new race teams, driver changes, color schemes and
more are unveiled on Icebreaker weekend. Much attention has been paid to some of the driver changes in the Whelen Modified Tour. The 2007 and 2009 WMT Champion, Don- nie Lia rejoins the Bob Garbarino Mystic Missile # 4 while the 2010 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series National Champ, Keith Rocco will fill the seat of the famous “old Blue” # 3 from the Boehler racing organization. John Lu- kosavage, owner of the potent # 11 Modified, has tapped the talented and popular Woody Pitkat as his driver. These are just some of the changes that the 2012 racing season will offer. Tickets for the Icebreaker are available in advance from
the Thompson Speedway track office. Fans are urged to purchase their tickets prior to the event so that they can avoid the long lines on race day. The complete schedule of events for Icebreaker weekend is available on the track’s web page.
www.thompsonspeedway.com
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