Finishing second three times has to hurt at Willoughby South, reporter Tim Warsinskey writes in his weekly Tim’s Take column, which this week features a series of tiny takes.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Tiny Takes as the 10th high school sports season of the century fades into history:
• Woe to be a Rebel.
Last week, three Willoughby South teams came home with district runner-up trophies. It lost two district championships in heartbreaking fashion.
The baseball team was defeated by Mayfield, 6-5, on a run in the bottom of the seventh inning. The softball team lost its final to Madison, 7-0.
The boys track team led throughout the district meet until the last two events, falling to Glenville by 1.25 points. A seventh-place South runner was disqualified in the 3,200 meters and Glenville won the 4x400 while South placed third. There were other races and field events where another few tenths of a second or inches would have given South the title.
That has to hurt. Nearly half of South's 1,400 students play sports and the school pays attention to athletic success. Winning a district title at South can get you invited back for induction into the athletic hall of fame.
Beating Glenville in track would have been huge. Coming so close to glory, the heartache was palpable in track coach Matt Luck's voice after the district meet.
"We wanted to win. We wanted to win this thing. Why? Because we're Willoughby South. We don't have a district track title at this school," he said.
• A good suggestion came in the wake of my criticism last week of arcane track and field uniform rules in which athletes can wear a wrist watch, but be disqualified for wearing a wrist band: Take away the team points earned by the offending athlete, but don't disqualify him or her.
Sadly, somewhere at an Ohio regional meet this week, it's likely an athlete's dream of competing in the state meet will be ruined by a petty uniform violation. Yes, the kids should know the rules. No, that does not justify stupid rules.
• It is bittersweet to see football coach Ray Harriman leave Newbury for rival Berkshire. It's a good move for Harriman. He teaches at Berkshire and was an assistant there before taking the Newbury head job in 2007.
Harriman was 3-26 in three seasons at Newbury, which doesn't sound like much. But he saved football there. The team was down to 14 players in 2008, but persevered under his leadership. He somehow had his players believing last fall they would win each week, even as a losing streak grew to 16 games.
The way Harriman reached into players' hearts and inspired them, he reminded me of St. Ignatius coach Chuck Kyle.