ESPN has been running a series of sports related Make-a-Wish pieces and last night's piece featured Lewisville native Chris Paul hanging out with a kid who had a fight with cancer (luckily it's now in remission) and the two of them shot hoops at Paul's alma mater, West Forsyth HS, which also happens to be my kids' school. It's a nice piece (see video below) and helps boost the respect that Paul continues to earn:
Want some evidence that people are p-o'd at the ownership of the Winston-Salem Dash, a venerable Carolina League franchise that's been an integral part of Winston-Salem summers for decades? Just check out this story about the Dash having the best season they've had in years on the field yet only averaging 600-700 butts in seats per game. Even with the new stadium I'm wondering how realistic it is to expect an average of 4,000 fans per game which is what the powers that be say is necessary for the financing of the stadium to work.
The following thoughts aren't mine, they were emailed to me by fellow Lewisville-ian Dwight and I thought they were well worth sharing (with his permission):
This is in reference to your comments about the downtown baseball stadium. As a couple of Lewisville residents, aren’t we glad to be distanced (albeit only a few yards) from those dodos in Winston-Salem.
I have recently enjoyed watching the College Baseball World Series on ESPN and was very interested in the commentator’s take on the new TD Ameritrade Park soon to replace Rosenblatt Field as the site of the College World Series. As you would expect, they said, “It’s going to be a beautiful facility”, but mostly they bemoaned the loss of a very special landmark.
Well, does that sound familiar? We (and yes, I include us among the dodos because Forsyth County residents have a stake in this fiasco as well) had a very special landmark in Ernie Shore Field but now it is gone.
All this prompted me to google Omaha, Nebraska for info on the financing of their new baseball facility. I have to admit that I am not the sleuth that I would like to be, but I did learn that their new facility is expected to cost $120 Million and will have a capacity of 25,000 and TD Ameritrade is paying $20 M for naming rights. The remainder (I think) will be financed by public bonds administered by a special Commission. WOW! Why didn’t we think of that? We have the successful WSFC Utilities Commission and the unsuccessful Tanglewood Park Authority as guides. In my opinion, The Utility Commission was successful because it functioned as an independent Commission staffed with competent people (only recently have they seen revenue decline because local municipalities have been using solid waste fees to fund their recycling efforts). The Tanglewood Park Authority was never successful because it was never “independent” of elected officials.
So where are we?
Omaha gets a new 25000 capacity stadium.
We get a 5000 capacity stadium.
Omaha pays $120M minus $20M. ($4000 per seat)
We pay $42M (and rising). ($8000 per seat and rising)
Omaha owns their stadium when completed.
We have to wait 25 years for a deed (good luck Jon, I won’t be around then).
Omaha will have a watchdog if they appoint competent people to the Commission.
We have Billy Prim.
Jon, I have chosen to send this comment to you via e-mail because it is somewhat critical of elected officials and I do not feel comfortable using your site for my agenda.
You have my permission to post this comment on your sit or not as you choose. As always, thank you for an interesting (and provocative) site.
Dwight
What with all the biking that's done on the roads around Lewisville and Clemmons it should come as no surprise that Tanglewood hosted a triathlon this weekend that maxed out in participants in its very first year. Apparently the 36 North Sprint Triathlon did just that, and a local blogger and his wife did quite well in it.
In our house the History Channel is actually watched fairly regularly so it's kind of exciting to us that the History Channel is going to film a series following one of the short track racers over at Bowman Gray stadium. From Channel 14:
WINSTON-SALEM – Reality TV is making its mark on Winston-Salem and Bowman Gray Stadium. A television crew from the History Channel will film its show, “Madhouse,” at the race track this summer.
“They're filming a TV series here that's going to be on the History Channel. And it's about the life and struggles of a Saturday night short tracker here at Bowman Gray Stadium,” Chris Fleming, a driver from Mount Airy, said.
The track is NASCAR’s first and longest running weekly race. Drivers began running their cars at the stadium just one year after NASCAR started.
I was reading today's sports section in the W-S Journal and saw the picture of a young lady I've had the pleasure of coaching for a couple of soccer seasons, which caused me to sit up and blurt out, "Hey, I know that kid!" It seems that Kristen Henson, a freshman at Reagan, is a rising track star after coming in third in the 3,200 meter race and fourth in the 1,600 meter race at the state 3-A track meet. Here's the paragraph about her from the story:
Kristen Henson of Reagan, who ran a little track in middle school and is also a junior-varsity volleyball and basketball player, flashed a ton of potential as a distance runner by finishing fourth in the 1,600 and third in the 3,200. Henson a time of 5:13.63 in the 1,600 and in a humid and sun-baked 3,200, she gutted out a time of 12:30.73.
I had to go over to the Greensboro Grasshoppers stadium this morning to take care of some business for the day job and I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how nice a ballpark it is, and I also have to say that I was somewhat depressed when I compared what I was seeing with our mudhole-with-walls that is currently the Winston-Salem Dash "ballpark". From what I read a couple of years ago the whole downtown ballpark building process in Greensboro was a tad contentious, but In Winston-Salem, while there were definitely some rumbles during the ballpark approval process, especially concerning public funding for a private concern, it didn't seem half as contentious as the Greensboro process. That's just my opinion, which is worth what you paid for it, but what's a matter of public record is that Greensboro's NewBridge Bank Park, which was completely paid for with private financing from the Bryan Foundation, ended up built and open for business on time in 2005 and in Winston-Salem we have a stadium being built with partial public financing that will be open who knows when. Truly depressing.
I couldn't stay depressed for long, however, because when I walked in the Grasshopper office I was greeted by Master Yogi Berra, the black lab bat dog that was recently ejected from a game for pooping while performing his duties. I even got to play fetch with him while I waited for my appointment. Hopefully we'll have a bat dog if when the Dash stadium gets finished.
West Forsyth High School's girls varsity soccer team, currently ranked 14th in North Carolina, was profiled in the Winston-Salem Journal today. My daughter plays for the JV team and some of her friends are the freshmen varsity starters that are mentioned in the article. She already realizes that she's going to have to work very hard to crack the varsity lineup next year, but knowing her she won't shrink from the challenge and if she makes it the reward will be that much greater.
Got out to Hanes Park today to play some tennis on the clay courts. My partner and I played up a level and suffered the requisite butt kicking, but we had a good time in the process. Playing on a perfect weather day helped immensely.
Seven ACC teams made the big dance and four didn't make it past the first round, most notably Wake Forest being thumped by Cleveland State. If you go buy tournament results you'd have to say that so far the vaunted depth and parity of the ACC was vastly overrated. Personally I think a better gauge is the overall record of the conference's teams versus non-conference opponents during the season, but since so much emphasis is put on the tournament you can't totally discount the idea that the ACC teams are second-class citizens in March. My reply is this: does anyone really believe that, despite winning the ACC tournament, Duke is a better team than North Carolina?
