By Richard Carrier
Contributing Writer

Those who see me wandering around the county, seemingly without purpose, for the next couple of weeks will just have to make allowances. The glazed look and 100-yard stare you’ll notice right away are not the result of me being off my medication or having been concussed at the recent Senior’s Regional Croquet Tournament (although that particular gathering does get pretty rowdy on occasion).
No, I guess you would have to classify my current malady as noise pollution, resulting in trauma. Nah, that’s not right either, plus its totally misleading. Disregarding my appearance, I’m certainly not traumatized. I am, in fact, ecstatic. So, as one of my old Philly buddies would say, “leave me explain to yous.”

I was over at Powhatan High after classes last week interviewing the second of volleyball coach Clark Menger’s talented foreign exchange students and as I exited past the closed gym doors I heard the unmistakable squeak of tennis shoes on hardwood, the slap of a Spaulding (if you listen real carefully you will actually hear it ring as it slaps against that same beloved surface) and then the indescribable sound a basketball makes going through the net. (Go ahead all of you English and Journalism majors out there, take your best shot. And don’t give me “swish.” That’s so lame.)
There was a basketball game going on!

Coaches Washburn and Grabill were there, observing, and some really large Marine type was actually playing with the kids. I recognized some of last year’s JV guys, but none of the varsity, most of whom would have been running wind sprints for Coach Woodson’s playoff bound football squad anyway. Coach Washburn explained that this was an after school open gym, not an organized practice, but I could have cared less. It was an organized basketball game, the harbinger, the precursor, the forerunner, the vanguard, the portent, the antecedent…sorry, I’m back under control now… of the basketball season.

I’m not really sure how I got home, but I guess it was fate because just after P.T.I. that evening I found channel 614 on my satellite. I swear I never knew it was a part of my package. But the program guide said college basketball and when I punched in 614, Carolina — that is The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, for those of you who have been off of the planet for the past 50 years — was introducing “Zeke” Thomas and his Florida International team to college basketball. Two nights later, Carolina was there again on my new favorite and imminently blessed channel 614.
So now I am absolutely excused from being a rational member of the human race for the next six months. I can’t help it. There is no cure(and I wouldn’t take it if there were.) I am a basketball fanatic!
Already I’m compiling rosters and asking questions. Will Powhatan’s typically extended football season result in another negative start of the season for the basketball squad? (Talk about a good news-bad news situation, both Coach Washburn and Coach Pomeroy at Blessed Sacrament have to start practices, and sometimes the season, without half of their team and most of their starters because of the success of both football programs.) Will 5’9” jack rabbit Shawn Minor get help in the post from last year’s JV? Will Coach Pomeroy have a post player at all? What about trying to replace all of those stellar seniors on the Lady Indians? Is Ebony Scott the answer? Is Christy Henderson quietly chuckling to herself as she looks at all of her returnees at BSH? Is Austin Taylor’s off-season work the formula that is going to make her dominate? Will girls JV Coach Shell Danials be any less animated and enthusiastic on the sidelines this year?
Seriously folks, I truly do ask for your indulgence over the next six months.

I try my best to be a professional journalist and for the most part I think I succeed. And when I don’t, I generally learn from the experience (Thank you Powhatan Soccer Fan Club) But I just can’t be held but so accountable for my actions during basketball season. It’s probably genetic.