HighPoints Magazine Spring 2010

The High School Sports Magazine for Northeast Houston

Spring 2010

www.highpointsmagazine.com

Swim Gem

K-Park’s Kara Raney Humble ISD • Aldine ISD • Huffman ISD • Area Private Schools Fondren Orthopedic Group L.L.P. –

Leading the Way in Orthopedic Excellence

Fondren Orthopedic Group L.L.P. Leading the Way in Orthopedic Excellence

• Serving your community for all Orthopedic and sports-related needs for over 20 years • Team physicians for Kingwood, Kingwood Park, Atascocita, Summer Creek High Schools, Splendora ISD, New Caney ISD, Huffman High School and Crosby High School • Associated with Texas Orthopedic Hospital in the Medical Center • Sponsors of yearly school physicals, donating all proceeds of physicals back to the Athletic Departments of each school (Kingwood, Kingwood Park, Atascocita, New Caney, Crosby and Splendora)

Dr. Ken Korthauer

Dr. Jay Muscat

Dr. Scott Stanislaw

Dr. Razvan Scobercea

• Fracture Care

• Reconstructive Spine Surgery

• Sports Medicine

• Shoulder Reconstruction

• Joint Replacement

• Arthroscopic Surgery

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

• In-house Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation

• In-House MRI and X-Ray

Dr. David Wimberley

Fondren Orthopedic Group L.L.P. 601 Rockmead Drive, Kingwood, Texas 77339 New Location — 18411 W. Lake Houston Parkway, Suite 550, Humble, Texas 77346 281-359-5115 • www.fondren.com

HighPoints at State

Blood, Sweat and Tears K. Park Panthers Boys’ Soccer Team Fall Valiantly in the 4-A State Soccer Championship Game, 3 - 2 in a Shootout to Frisco Wakeland

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HighPoints at State

Pedals to the medals. KPark improves to 7th at State (above)

J. Friedrichs Swims the Free for Kingwoods 5A State Champ Girls (above)

Energy Extra - K. Park Motors to the Title

Mustang Splash - KW Races in the Backstroke at the 5A Meet

The Faithful - Mustang Followers Cheer on Kingwood Swimmers with the Blue Brigade in Austin

The Power of Powell - Another Medal for K. Park’s Brooks P.

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HighPoints at State

Kingwood Boys take 3rd in Austin

Senior Leadership - K-Park’s B. Johannsen Wins at State

The Hits Keep on Coming - KW Boys and Girls with the Top Three Double HighPointsMagazine.com

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Welcome

Welcome Back, No Foolin’

O

kay, I’m a little late with the April fools! reference, but better late than never, unless you’re talking about expired milk or bread. But enough about my eating habits. HighPoints wants you to get into the habit (clever segue) of checking out our magazine every time it comes out. We are coming out now every two months, not always 60 or so days apart, either. Our next issue will be out right before the kids- if you are a minor reading this, make that : “influential movers and shakers of tomorrow decide to take a well earned long vacation for the entire summer”, or if you aren’t a kid : “the kids- get out of school. Seriously, there are some changes from the first issue we need to talk about.

You will notice a much better job of writing by yours truly, than in the first issue.

This is because the rust finally came off, and I hired a top notch sales manager. At least that what he says, repeatedly and with emphasis, to allow me to strictly work in editorial. Manna from Valhalla! Anyway, I think you will really like this issue a lot better than the first. It’s not that we did not get a lot of complements about the first one. However, now that I am in larger control of things, well let’s just say I have very high standards because you dear reader have high standards. Now let’s get to the stuff I don’t like.

First, there’s some housekeeping to get out of the way. We’re human, we made a few factual mistakes and unlike my friends at a big northeastern city newspaper that buries mistakes, bigger much bigger than mine, on page 57 D; I won’t do that. First, let me set the record straight. While I was making a reference in the Eagles Reach New Ground story to the largeness of the Atascocita defensive line, I mentioned a player who didn’t start at all last year-Gary Tott- but who I figured had to get on the

field from time to time. The point was being made to explain an observation I made last year while I was on the sideline of one of Atascocita’s biggest games. I remember thinking : “The size difference with this Eagle team and tonite’s opponent is like night and day. The Eagles had grown up and become the power on the street.”

Their established school opponent looked like a new school’s team . The roles had become reversed. One of the people on the offensive line looked like he should be ready to declare for the NFL draft. He was so big that I thought I saw him playing on the Eagle defensive line. But alas, poor Gutekunst I didn’t know him well. My 52 year old eyes betrayed me and 76 sure did look like 78 on that uniform. So I apologize for the error.

Also, I inadvertently failed to mention some pretty good football players in that article. Guys that made an All-District list that I hadn’t seen yet. It came out about the time HighPoints went to press and because of that we are going to make up for that misshaped mishap. Look in our Wrap up section and you will find the entire first squad of the 19-5A All-District team, plus those with special notice that we cover from the second team, getting their names named. Also, we have to clear up some other things. Atascocita Head Volleyball coach Jessica Callahan spent three years at Alvin High as Head Coach , not two. Eagle defender A.J. Pouncy spells his name without an “e” before the “y”.

Gutekunst is spelled without an “n” before the “k” and Atascocita’s early football team in the early going did not play Humble and Kingwood as much as I had thought. The Ervin twins say I got some things wrong in their article. I probably got them mixed up when I was talking to them. After all, they are identical twins.

Finally, you can stop glaring at me when I walk in public, all you Wayland Baptist grads. Yes, I got the name of your school’s campus town wrong. I got Plainview flipped in my head with Levelland. I guess I thought if you are going to have a plain view, you better be on level land. So there as far as I know are my errors and for that I apologize. I know. I know, it’s the Cardinal Rule: You don’t apologize.

People won’t catch it if you don’t draw their attention to it, right? Well if that’s the case then why ever erase? Anyway, I’m feeling better. Confession is good for the ...whatever. Besides anyway, isn’t the Cardinal Rule about not pitching to Albert Pujols with men on base in the 2004 NLCS PHIL GARNER? There now, that did feel better... No it didn’t, ...Oh, where’s that sour milk anyway?

In this issue ,don’t miss our cover story on a swimmer with very little experience in scholastic swimming pools but who has already burst upon the scene in a big, big way. Kara Raney, the Kingwood Park Swim Gem will be worth reading about in this issue. Also, for you Red Sox fans you’ll want to read about Huffman’s own Keith Foulke, the man who stomped on Babe Ruth’s grave in 2004, as he saved the ninth inning for Boston in the World Series. Something else happened that nite ... with the ball. It’s part of our Baseball/ Softball District finish section. Also, check out my EndPoints on redisticting.

See you early, in June with our Special school year end yearbook edition. Now... go head for the HighPoints.

Thanks,

Robert L. “Rob L” Sprouse 6

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Table of Contents HighPoints at State 2010........................ ...2 Basketball Northeast Christian and The Straight Shooting Champs Take the Trophy Again.............................. 8 Little Things Lead to Big Passion for Patureau at NCA............................................... 12 Winning in New Ways........................................... 16 The Roots of Winning at Kingwood..................... 20 S and S and S Equals Another District Title for KW Boys.................................................. 25 Lady Panthers Find Success Again. . . .................. 27

Publisher HighPoints© Magazine

CLCA Forgoes the NACA, Looks to The Future.............................................. 29

Managing Editor/Writer Rob L Sprouse

Putting Out Fires at HCS...................................... 30

Photography Mila Sprouse

Cheerleading Cheers to Kingwood............................................... 31 rob’s rhetoric............................................ 35

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Swimming

Editorial Assistant Mila Sprouse Ben Sprouse

Second Wave...........................................................40 McLain Weaves His Way At K-Park..................... 47

The Streaking Comet at K-Park............................ 51 Improving Lady Panthers Swim to Move Up........ 52 Baseball/Softball Giving Back The Right Way.................................. 53 Predictions.............................................................. 56 Track and field First Time Family at Kingwood............................ 59 KP Panthers Learn the Lanehart ... . .................... 62 The Push for State with Atascocita Track and Lacour . ................................................. 66 Golf The Mr. Dependable of Kingwood Park............... 69 soccer

Photo Contributors Susan Young Renee Evans Guy Anderson Graphic Design Stacy Evans Gary Norris

Booster shots............................................. 37

Cover story

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Marketing Director Tim Canavan HighPoints© Magazine is published

by HighPoints© Magazine 4830 Wilson Rd. # 300-177 Humble, Texas 77396 Telephone 281-380-7804 or 281-253-0080 E-mail highpointsmagazine@yahoo.com

Subscriptions: $ 4.95 per issue, $ 12.95 per 3 issues (6 months), $ 24.95 per 6 issues (12 months). To subscribe or order, go to www.highpointsmagazine.com or mail your check with your name and address to: 4830 Wilson Rd. #300-177, Humble, Tx 77396.

HighPoints© Magazine welcomes reader correspondence. We reserve the right to edit or reject any material submitted. HighPoints© Magazine assumes no responsibility for the return of any unsolicited material.

HighPoints© Magazine ©2010, all rights reserved. All editorial, stories, photography and advertising copy belongs solely to HighPoints© Magazine. Production in whole or part without express written permission is strictly prohibited.

Goal Dust Twins Winning for Aldine................... 71 tribute / Wraps.......................................... 73 endpoints...................................................... 77

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Basketball

First Year Feat - Northeast Christian’s Head Basketball Coach Craig Moore Addresses His Troops Along the Playoff Trail on the Way to the TAPPS 2A Title.

Northeast Christian and The Straight Shooting Champs Take a Second

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he dynamic point guard of the Northeast Christian Academy’s Boys’ Varsity Basketball team is glad he doesn’t have to hang around the parking lot before a game anymore.

His opponents in TAPPS Class 2A are happy he is graduating, too. Brandon Trower may have thought that he was the only one with gastric difficulties, but the foes he and his band of NCA Warriors vanquished over the past two years can also testify to their share of fluttering upset stomachs while they faced the Big Blue Machine. That’s because the Trower quarterbacked motion offense expertly schemed by Head Coach Craig Moore has cemented the team into TAPPS history with their second back to back State Championship performance.

After polishing off number two ranked De Soto Canterbury The Episcopal School, 60-57 in the semi-finals in Fort Worth, the Warriors defeated Rowlett

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Rockwall Christian’s Warriors, 50-44 in the Championship Game at Legacy High’s Gym in Mansfield. Even with that though, the team’s big scorer Chris Patureau was not happy with his squad’s offensive performance, saying that his side did not play their best. In his words they, “.... failed to show the crowd what NCA was really made of because we did something we rarely do – turn the ball over a lot”. Other Warriors had a slightly different take on the matter.

Cody Pruitt, is an NCA three- sport athlete who over came : lingering soreness from football, fatigue as he got his body back in basketball shape, and a lack of experience playing basketball. Pruitt says that the stout defenses faced by the Warriors in the Final Four inhibited the team’s normally sharp execution.” There’s no doubt that they (De Soto Canterbury-Episc. and Rowlett Rock.) were two of the best defensive teams we played all year,” Pruitt says. Early in

the season, the junior forward was having to feel spent after practices in addition to working his way into a ‘basketball’ state of mind. There was another baseball player who dipped into the basketball pot right after coming from Football.

Tyler Bratton is a multi-sport player who brings that laid back, low key off the field/ court, baseball approach to basketball.

Bratton also brought football’s rough and tumble outlook to the early roundball practices. “I just wanted to tackle somebody at practice, but I had to curb that and tone it down defensively,” Tyler says.

Focused on the mound when he pitches for NCA, Bratton, a sophomore, was feeling very good, but not euphoric about taking the hoops title this season.

Gathering more minutes this year as one of the regulars, he felt slightly different than he did in ’09. “I just remember last year after playing about two minutes as

Section Title

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Basketball a freshman in the championship, walking over to the bench when it was over , hugging everybody and giving high fives and then walking to the dressing room with the team. This year it meant more because I was on the floor a lot during the game, mostly because Cody Pruitt and others were in foul trouble for most of the final. Although, we basically did the same celebration after the game this year, I felt more intensely involved this time, and oh yeah, I felt a lot more tired afterward this year,” the younger Bratton said.

Tyler’s dad, a long time Houston Police Department Training Officer doubles as NCA assistant coach and Head Athletic Director. He says that a lot of the credit for the team’s success this year lies with Coach Moore. That motion offense was also helped out by three-point dead-eye Nick Mc Donald.

The graduating Mc Donald who is looking at Trinity College in San Antonio with Mary Hardin-Baylor of Belton,Texas ; and the University of St. Thomas in Houston, set NCA school records for three-point field goals and three- point attempts, along with three- point percentage. In addition, Nick is among the all-time leaders in TAPPS three- point percentage and “threebie” field goals. This season Mc Donald reached the 113 three-point single season mark which annihilated the Warrior record. Among all High School players in all Associations he ranked in the top five in three- bombs while shooting an astounding 50 plus percent from the field.

Mc Donald and Chris Patureau are cinch All- Staters. The sixth NCA title win in 12 years was Nick’s second straight. He feels that the win is just one more reward for hard work. “I shoot about 500 three point attempts a day in the gym by myself in the off-season. I knew that I would have to work that much harder this year because we had that target on our back after we won in ’09.” Mc Donald says. He adds that it’s just one more happy memory for him at NCA, one in which he will , along with his high school days, cherish greatly.

“This program will be deeply rooted in my heart forever .,” the sentimental Mc Donald says. His Head Coach this year will treasure this season as well, but for a different reason.

Five wins after the end of the regular season and Coach Craig Moore experienced something that he had never felt before, a State Championship as a Head Coach . “Its humbling to think that I worked for a great coach like Kingwood’s Royce Huseman (hoos mun) for seven years, and I feel the same way about this State title,” Moore says.

Craig Moore is a man who works as a full-time Phys.-Ed. Instructor/ Science teacher in the Montgomery County Juvenile Center and volunteers his time for prison counseling and ministering on the weekends at the Hightower Incarceration Unit in Liberty County. He is also a very experienced basketball coach having spent nine years in Dayton, Texas as head coach, two years at Liberty and five years at Magnolia where in 2000 his Bulldog team won their first district title in Basketball since 1970, and their first 5A district crown ever. He’s also a man who says he’s coaching to teach life values not to just get wins and losses, as he helps kids mature.

Net Result - C.Patureau changes the shot 10

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Coach Moore was satisfied with the composure that his team played with in the final game. “We didn’t play one of our better games this year because of that defense of theirs and I was concerned but the guys showed a lot of maturity and never gave in to Rockwall. Our shots weren’t falling either but we stuck to the basic fundamentals of boxing out under the boards, getting the rebounds and put backs that we needed to win. We also hit our free-throws. I was upset about the critical mistakes that we made at times in the Canterbury game, but they do have ten outstanding players and it was tough. My guys came through though, by taking their best “shot” and surviving,” Moore says.

Next year, despite the Warriors losing Mc Donald, and Trower to graduation; the team could be even better. “We’ve got a 6-3 and a 6-4 pair of players moving in which will give us a post presence and that’s good because we had no true post player this season,” Moore says.

Coach Moore will also get the injured Jacob Vandergrifft back. The young man suffered a severe knee injury playing football and missed the entire basketball season. The old gang on the bench will

Basketball show up, too. Luke Edmonds has backcourt experience and will be joined by messrs. Pruitt, and Bratton as veterans.

Possible new regular rotation players like Casey Chance and Brian Goll will also return among others like fan favorite Matt Hoeks, along with of course, the star Chris Patureau The straight shooters should be loaded again even though they will lose their best shooter, Nick Mc Donald. You can also count on the same successful regimented approach by Coach Craig Moore, as well. After all, how else can you keep the team repeating the way of this year’s straight shooters ? Those guys never missed hitting the ultimate target. n

Warriors Wordings HighPoints congrats the Lady Warriors who finished third in 2A-10. The basketballers met a tough Mc Kinney Christian team, falling 61-36 in Mc Kinney during round one. The young team will return most of the team’s regulars next season.

Eyes on the prize – NCA’s N. McDonald (11) and B. Trower (3) deliver at the line during Regional Championship in Tomball, Mc Donald was State Finals MVP

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Basketball

Little Things Lead to Big Passion for Patureau at NCA

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t’s the little things that mean a lot. In the case of Chris Patureau (pronounced pat-a-row) there were three episodes that mattered.

When Chris wanted something he was no different than most four or five year olds. He wanted it! In this case his desire centered on a Michael Jordan jersey at the local mall in Beaumont, Texas. Grandma was having none of his tantrum after he was told “no”. After stern discipline was applied the number 23 Chicago Bulls uniform shirt would have to wait for another owner. Still a love affair was cemented.

Before all that happened, there was the Fisher Price toddler basketball goal, when Patureau picked up the ball he didn’t shoot it. He dunked it. Thus, a love affair with a sport was launched.

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He’s been dunking and launching those roundballs ever since.

The 6’6” swingman helped take his Northeast Christian Academy’s (NCA) Warriors to the 2010 Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) 2-A State Final Four before winning it all. .

He took the defending state ‘09 champs and led them in his first year with the team after transferring from Legacy Christian Academy in Beaumont. A player that seems to be two steps ahead of his TAPPS competition and the perfect go-to-guy for: his complimentary deadeye outside shooter-Nick McDonald, the record setting three-point bomber; Brandon Trower the wunderkind point guard; Tyler Bratton the solid role player, and

Cody Pruitt the clampdown defender; Patureau has Lamar University (Beaumont) and The Citadel (Charleston, S.C.) Military Academy looking his way.

Terry Bratton, Tyler’s dad, is the athletic director of Northeast Academy (NCA) and he says that the work that Patureau and volunteer assistant coach John Herndon, a former Rice University assistant basketball coach, have been doing has advanced the Junior’s game. Chris also agrees. “That’s one of the reasons I look like I’m able to think ahead of the defense and not have a lot of wasted motion out there,” Patureau says.

Those workouts with Herndon and instincts developed through years of playing a game that he’s been a part of on an organized level since his days on the Little Dribblers and the YMCA youth leagues

Section Basketball Title and summertime adolescent aged AAU leagues, have Chris Patureau looking like the lower case Larry Bird of TAPPS 2A-10’s district. The game that he loves so much though, didn’t always appear so easy to play for Patureau and it was his own body that was the number one reason why.

After shooting up with a growth spurt of about six inches between the seventh and eighth grades at Legacy Academy, a rare condition struck with a pair of the career ending threateners of pain and chronic knee joint tendon swelling occurring.

Osgood Slaughter Syndrome aka. Osgood Schlatter disease, is a condition that involves mostly 10-15 year old youths who are involved in a growth spurt with severe growing pains-and who generally play sports during that time. The syndrome strikes about two million U.S. youngsters each year. Two doctors in 1903 defined the disease, one which had Chris full of pain and frustration.

“My patella tendon was affected when my growth-plate ‘dropped’ too low below my knee above my shinbone (tibia) and the pain took its time to go away which really was tough to deal with because I wanted to play. I couldn’t until the pain finally subsided,” Patureau says.

Treatment of the condition usually consists of: rest, icing the knee and the affected area; compressing the area with bandages, and elevation of the knee and leg during rest. The acronym for the treatment spells -rice. Fondren Group Orthopedic Specialist Dr. Jay Muscat, whose son Brennan is a team manager for Kingwood High’s Boys basketballers, has seen Osgood Slaughter before, again and again. The Group handles athletic injury concerns for some Humble ISD institutions.

Meanwhile, once the pain and condition subsided , Chris Patureau went back to playing his passion, only this time he was tall enough to be a greater force inside.

Jumpin’ and Slammin’ - Chris P. Eliminates Victoria Faith in the Regional

After two years of high school at Legacy, Patureau’s dad, a sales executive for a nationally distributed snack chip company, transferred to the Houston area, and Chris moved in at NCA. Next season, Patureau will once again be entertaining the cozy Warrior gym’s crowd including his paternal grandparents who drive in from Beaumont.

They all know the young man who inherited his height from his maternal grandparents, will play pressure free as he pursues another State Championship. “Performing at AAU tourneys in front of 15-20 AAU upper level coaches and college scouts now that’s pressure!,” Patureau says.

Warriors’ fans will also watch a player who loves his game and his school. “I like the academics here, particularly Math and History and the things I learn about how the world came to be. The teachers are great and understanding.

My coaches including our Head Coach Craig Moore - former longtime Kingwood assistant coach-are wise because

they know how to run this motion offense with our fine point guard Brandon Trower,” Patureau says.

Indeed, it was the ability of the well coached offense that overcame the fouling out disqualification by Patureau during the St. John’s (Houston) game in the ’09-10 season. Athletic Director Bratton says it was a turning point for the team’s confidence. “Thanks to McDonald, Tyler, and our pointguard Trower, the team found out that it could overcome Patureau not being a factor as he sat on the bench during the 57-51 win over the favored Mavericks. Our team became much better after that game, “the elder Bratton says.

The Warriors grew even closer as the season progressed. Chris thinks so because, “We have learned from our mistakes on and off the court. You see, we have a real brotherhood on this team,” Patureau says.

It’s a team that was spurred along in the win column, finishing 30-7, by a young man who enjoys the game he plays. Chris Patureau doesn’t really believe that he will play beyond college, saying that be-

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Basketball ing an accountant might be in his future.

Meantime, he still has the ’10-11 season to come and another bout with his deep passion, Basketball. How passionate?

Once when he was playing Little Dribblers, the intelligent, affable young man recalled with glee for HighPoints, that during one game he won the opening tip but the ball wasn’t tapped to a teammate.

Instead, he deliberately knocked the ball over to an opponent, his best friend and little league baseball teammate, Tyler Thomas. Thomas, who is now an outstanding Jr. Amateur golfer from Beaumont Kelly’s private high school, received the ball, because sharing a basketball possession might have been a big thing for a little kid. Of course, it could be a little thing to the rest of us, but the little things add up the most in the passion that is Basketball and sports in general. Like former knuckleballing Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Bouton said in his book Ball Four, “When I played I wasn’t gripping the ball, in the end it turned out it was the other way around”.

The passionate Chris Patureau would agree with that little statement in a big way. n

Candid to the Camera - C. Patureau Opens Up

The Patureau Papers Chris’ favorite movie – “Love and Basketball” Chris listens to “fire me up” Rap music –before the game-Jay-Z and Houston group Slim Thug; and country and modern gospel after the contest- like Bryan Jayson Aldine, and Zack Brown for the former; and Hillsong United, and Jeremy Kemp for the “unwinding from the battle”, latter.

He likes to saltwater fish for Trout and Flounder Patureau loves roller coasters.

Chris owns a “lotta” shoes-like free AAU shoes from camps and casual shoes.

He likes NBA Hardwood Classics on NBA-TV, watching “…the way the old greats did it” Chris’ Head Coach Craig Moore at one time retired from high school coaching and ended up teaching Phys-Ed to juvenile inmates at the Montgomery County facility in Conroe, Texas before coaching at NCA. He’s still teaching convicts for Montgomery Co. and doing prison ministry/counseling at the Hightower Unit in Liberty County on weekends.

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Get Involved!

Form teams, walk, save lives.

Join MADD’s Walk Like MADD today, by logging onto:

www.walklikemadd.org x x x x

Click find an event/view all events Click on Houston Click on participate

Register today!

Saturday, May 1, 2010 MacGregor Park

For more information, contact Heather Smith at (281) 590-2222 or email at heather.smith@madd.org The mission of Mothers Against Drunk Driving is to stop drunk driving, support the victims of this violent crime and prevent underage drinking.

Basketball

Winning in New Ways “Rome wasn’t built in a day but it finally was built, and when the kids I coached last year at Northbrook High School finally won a district game this year, I felt like the three years of hard work that we put in with the girls there finally paid off.”… Atascocita Girls Head Basketball Coach Valery Jackson

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n other words, in High School there is more than one way to win .

One can consider it a success that a team that had not won in district in over three years finally brought one home and showed just what happens when an attitude transformation takes place. The North-

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brook Lady Raiders learned to care about practice, going to class and began to believe in themselves. All of that change led to one of the hardest working teams Coach Jackson, had ever seen. The win came this past season. Valery Jackson though, was nowhere to be found on the Spring Branch ISD school’s campus…Or was she? Her hands- on style and the winning attitude approach that lingered on at Northbrook also made an appearance at Atascocita High in this past season’s first Lady Eagle District 19-5A title and Regional Quarterfinal appearance. Yet, it was the winning over of hearts and minds that was the biggest accomplishment for Jackson in year one of her new reign.

At Atascocita, Coach Jackson didn’t have to stress good practice habits like showing up on time and believing that practice itself was important. She had a different hurdle to overcome. “I knew the Humble district and the Humble- Kingwood area had good athletes and good basketball but our staff had to teach a young team to believe that it could win,” the Lady Eagle boss says. She added that it “…had to be done in phases, with the first thing: “… letting the kids know that they needed to buy into our system. They also needed to set a goal of being the first Lady Eagle team to make the playoffs, ending their drought of being the only team from AHS not to see postseason action. They missed the playoffs by a few games in ’09.

Basketball We had some kids- Curtyce Knox for one– who had won the Humble ISD title at Timberwood Middle School in the seventh and eighth grades. However, success was not theirs’ lately. Their hard work last season along with the other players made it pay off,” Jackson says.

Valery Jackson herself had experienced success as a high school player racking up All-State and All -district honors at Class-A Morton in the eighties while leading the team to the State Final Four in Austin. After playing at two-year Western Texas College in Snyder and helping to lead them to a top four Jr. College National Tourney finish, she headed to Abilene Christian a Division Two Texas school in the area known as the “Big Country” for its wide-open spaces.

However, a major knee injury closed out her college playing career and Morton High’s former star guard was off to the coaching ranks. The Varsity assistant/ JV

Head Coach post at ACU would be her first stop. That post opened up the opportunity for Jackson to become the head coach at Class 4A high school WilmerHutchins near Dallas.

With the first of her many playoff appearances, the school’s program was revived, making the post- season in her second year there. That outstanding turn led to a reunion with her old Juco. haunts at Western Texas College. Jackson guided WTC three years before heading off to Frank Phillips College a two-year school in Borger, Texas where four years of work as Head Coach produced multiple playoff appearances. That performance reunited Jackson with her former Abilene Christian Head Coach Suzanne Fox who had succeeded Jackson’s original ACU head coach Burl McCoy. When the Texas St. U. head coaching job opened up Fox took it and then later called Coach Jackson to join her there and she accepted.

Jackson though felt that she needed to get back into high school coaching. Thus, Northbrook became the launching pad that would propel her to Atascocita High.

Ironically, the Eagle slot became available when Tricia Gutierrez followed her football coaching husband to the western Texas panhandle - Coach Jackson’s home area - and Levelland High School.

As she looks back on the past campaign that found Atascocita a 22-game winner and an 11-1 district 19-5A titlist, Valery Jackson knows what was the turning point, the gateway to the Regional Quarters appearance, the longest journey taken this schoolyear by any of the Big Red and Blue’s “major” sports teams . “It was the confidence to play different styles and adjust offensively that was lacking but against Aldine High we told them that they were going to play a half-court game no matter what and run the offense and they did and it worked, leaving them with a confident feeling,” Jackson says.

The Game Plan Running the bleachers five times a day. Practicing the perfect play until it’s flawless. Athletes work this hard so they leave the field as winners. The truth is, you work just as hard for your money.

Call or visit Sterling Bank today, and let’s draw up a winning financial plan.

The Woodlands Banking Center 1430 Research Forest Drive Lance Schielack 713-507-7221 Member FDIC

Humble West Banking Center 8450 FM 1960 Bypass Road West Wayne Beattie 713-507-7188

www.banksterling.com

Kingwood Banking Center 24080 Hwy. 59 North Cheryl Howell 713-507-2470 HighPointsMagazine.com

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Basketball “We also found that after about a month that they learned that they needed to play pressing defense and capitalize on the opponent’s turnovers. Just getting them into a mindset that says after we score we need to press and build on our lead.

Too often they seemed content to not put away other teams. Once they found that attitude and- kept working on it, by the way- they started to put teams away,” the coach says.

Smith, Ashley Lovell, and Chelsea Watters all post players in the Eagle scheme.

It was also the last game for another Red and Navy Blue senior.

Rachel Arthur’s big sister Dominique the team’s voice of experience on the bench and comical cut-up off the floor, also saw her last high school game as a teammate.

Coach Jackson says the two sisters were a perfect complement chemistry wise

after a late season call-up from the JV in 2009 landed Rachel on the roster (see Arthur Sisters Relationship Artistic and Dad Knows Best and Mom Knows Best in June Year- End Review Issue) and the promotion of the - then freshman Rachel paved the way for her varsity appearance this year. “At first, Rachel was quiet and was not anyone that I expected to be a vocal leader but as the season unfolded, she really took charge and we named her

An outstanding mix of youth and experience mixed with a winning attitude brought over by two-sport volleyballers, and the Lady Eagles put away their first championship. Jackson extolled the talent on hand, saying that the talent was the first thing that caught her eye when she arrived. “ Look at a player like Curtyce Knox who can light it up from the outside and take it strong to the hole on the inside with her explosive moves to the basket.

She provides us that needed versatility from the guard spot and as a sophomore, she should get better and better. We also get fine play from our always learning soph. Rachel Arthur who soaks up our program’s teachings. I also cannot say enough about the volleyball players who came to our team off their playoff appearances and helped bring that needed spunk. Jamesia Hollins and Jeana Daniels came with their example of hard work and attitude and Jamesia still has a year left” Jackson says.

During the Bi-district playoff against Houston Lamar, scrappy, always hustling guard Makela Bell also brought that spunk while scorching the floor , diving for loose balls and keeping the LHS Lady Redskins from coming up with valuable turnovers in a 60-44 AHS win. The first two playoff wins in Lady Eagles history- the second an Area round overtime triumph 41-37 over Katy Seven Lakeswere followed by a tough season ending defeat at the hands of Houston Westside, 73-65 in the lofty air of the Regional Quarterfinal round. The latter was the final game at Atascocita for seniors Katie

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Take it from Her - Lady Eagles Coach V. Jackson Brings Wins

Collapsing D - Atascocita Shuts the Door with Defense

Basketball team Captain. She’s like a sponge and absorbs everything you tell her. She is going to be a good one. Another piece of the puzzle was 19-5A’s Newcomer of the Year sophomore guard Lauren Price,” Jackson says.

The term “good one” might sum up what Atascocita has found with its new Head Coach and its new Varsity winning attitude. Better and bigger days seem to be ahead for a young team with lots of playoff experience now and all that returning fire. Not even the old pyromaniac, Roman Emperor Nero, could top those potential coming attractions from a group of kids who have truly already won the biggest prize… learning to do it the right way. n

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Basketball

Front Row Seat - K. Schleigh Inbounds in the Area Round Against Jesuit

The Roots of Winning at Kingwood

K

yle Schleigh the graduating basketball forward/post at Kingwood High says his Head Coach Royce Huseman (pronounced hoose mun) is a perfectionist. The coach he says, demands that the job be done right over and over again. If you knew the Mustangs’ Basketball boss’ background you would not be surprised to find out that the small town roots that he possesses were the germinating factor in that hard nosed, do the little things right repeatedly approach.

You see, it all started at the corner of State Road 68 and Farm Road 186, north of Lubbock in the Texas Panhandle. Nazareth, a town with less than 400 people on a good day, and having seven major 20

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streets on another good day, is the genesis of a swingman- guard/forward/inside low post- that played the game of Basketball with a passion despite not having the speed to continue his career beyond high school. While, Coach Huseman never got to experience the thrill of going to the State tourney that the Boys’ teams of his Nazareth High Swifts (a slang name for a small, fast prairie or desert, coyote or foxnot the dictionary definition of a birdfound in the panhandle) later on were able to feel ; he still enjoyed the game. Those boys’ teams have won nine championships in the past 30 years, in addition to arriving in Austin for the final four, 14 times in that same time frame. They won another Class A- Division Two State title

this season.

As for the passion, Huseman would play basketball in the team’s gym on Sundays when school was out and a window that he had left unlocked during the week would allow him in. As a senior, he would let other kids, younger freshmen, into the facility as long as they wanted to “... squeak the floor”, with friendly practices and pickup games. Another word that started with an “s” sweeping as in ‘sweeping’ out the joint, became a Nazareth pastime because not only did the Swifts make a habit of it at the Final Four, but the girls, the Swiftettes also had a habit of going undefeated there, taking 17 State championships in the past 35 years in

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Basketball Class A, or the newer Class A- Division Two recently, or the old Class B. By the way, those freshmen that joined Huseman on Sundays, they won the first Boys’ championship at Nazareth when they were seniors.

After an All-Region Senior year himself, Huseman headed to West Texas State in Canyon (now Division Two, West Texas A&M) which at the time was an NCAA Division One Missouri Valley Conference school in a league which featured players like Hall of Fame great Larry Bird, and fellow future NBA’ers Lewis Lloyd, Xavier Mc Daniel, Antoine Carr and Maurice Cheeks. It was Cheeks who was the one that would square off against Huseman in pickup basketball games at the college’s gym. “I knew when I got out there and saw Cheeks and those WTSU players run up and down that floor, I knew I couldn’t play with them because they would already have been able to get the shot off before I could go from the top of the key at one end to the top of the key at the other end ,” Huseman jokes.

After college, Huseman took his marketable Math Education skills and hit the road, knowing that his knowledge could more easily land him a job teaching the third of the three”r”s . Huseman figured for sure he could land a Jr. High job and people who had no idea about his athletic background were interested. And who knows?, maybe get a chance to coach later on. He figured wrong. “ Shortly out of college, I was hired to coach the Junior Varsity at Kingwood where my brother-in-law Jack Aldridge was the Head Coach, I taught math and dealt with the JV and then one day coach Aldridge suggested they hire me as his assistant to replace the assistants that he inherited when he took the job. Unbeknownst to me, he had planned this idea all along,” Huseman says. Aldridge soon left, Huseman moved in as Head Coach and the program moved to the next phase.

So, the same hard working heritage that at one time was found in the country22

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Huseman on Watch - Mustangs Coach Eyes Chavez at Bi-District

side towns that dotted the Old World Alsatian Alpine Mountain Villages, had now moved in at Kingwood High. After all, it was the German settled community in the Texas panhandle, Nazareth, where large families like the Birkenfelds, Schmuckers, Gerbers, Raemakers, Schultes, Ackers, Sheffys, and of course, the Husemans, put down roots and where they continue to “water the Basketball ‘ tree” today.

“I didn’t really get our system, our style of play from Nazareth High, although they play a somewhat similarly deliberate style, but I think I brought the work ethic that we had working on those dairy, livestock, cotton and grain farms,” Huseman says.

“At Kingwood we knew that we might not have some of the athletes that other area schools have, so we figured after talking to other successful high school coaches like former Humble coach Phil Eaton, and listening to college coach Tim Floyd, that we would have to play our high-low guards and posts, outside and inside game to be effective. This was really true in the 2004-05 season when the ’05 Region Championship came down to ourselves and Aldine Westfield. We came out and

didn’t offensively really play our system, but we did a great job on defense. We first fell behind 13-0, then in the second quarter, 23-4. The assistants wanted know if we should start a full-court press. I said no that if we did, it might get up to 43-4.

We then went on a 7-0 run at the end of the half. So, I just said at halftime to the kids, let’s just start playing our game, our system. By the time we got to the end of the third quarter we had chiseled the lead down to a tie. We took care of the fourth quarter and went to Austin from there.

If you can be successful taking advantage of the strengths of your players and not their weaknesses, why not do it ?” Huseman says.

Why not, indeed? Basketball may be a quasi- religion in Nazareth, Texas, but so is doing things with the intent to reach perfection, whether you ever get there or not. On a farm you better want to do things right or there could be starvation to face. For KW Head Coach Royce Huseman who has been to the top of the State “mountain”, hard work is the path to that aspiration as he continues his life’s dream job, being the gardener and sower of the Kingwood Varsity Boys’ Basketball crop… around a dozen “seeds” at a time. n

Basketball

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Basketball

Did you know Did you know... that Kingwood Inspiration, the late Rodney Odom who worked as a club league coach and suffered an untimely death, has his own jersey bearing his number, 34 when he played at Kingwood High, hanging on the KHS Gym wall? This jersey belongs to a man- a former pro player- that started his own local Select quality summertime youth basketball team- Project Hoops- and who worked with many of the younger Kingwood basketballers when they were on the school’s sub-varsity teams. His death stunned the students and faculty and he has had a basketball tourney named in his honor at KW High.

Did you know... that Nazareth High did not begin winning until the 1970s when a former AIAW National Champion Wayland Baptist College (Plainview, TX.) Flying Queens’ player, Cathy Willitston showed up and showed the “NAZ” how winning coaching was done? She was coached by the legendary Dean Weese who is also in the State High School Basketball Hall of Fame. Later on, both the Swifts and Swiftettes were coached one year at the same time to state championships by Texas High School coaching legend Joe Lombard ,another former Wayland player. Lombard, as Boys’ coach, took the Swifts to other titles and won several more strictly as the Swiftettes’ coach before he moved on to bigger schools like Canyon High where he also won more titles. His wife also coached the girls to other state titles.

Did you also know... that Coach Huseman was offered an Amarillo Tascosa High coaching job in 2005 ? He refused to leave since he had players like Mike Singletary , and Trevin Harris coming back after winning State and he did not want to leave them even though he would be closer to his mother in Amarillo. That year, KW reached the Championship game again, a part of their seven 30 game or more-winning seasons and nine district titles in the 2000s. The only year they did not win the district during that span was a season in which they won State as District runnerup. The greatest pride for Huseman though, is the fact that during the run he got to coach both of his sons. Huseman says he also looks very forward to playing in Region 2-5A next season as KW attempts to keep the run going.

Zoning Permit - Kingwood Mustangs in the 2-2-1, vs. Chavez

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KW Scrapping for it vs. Chavez

Basketball

S and S and S Equals Another District Title for KW Boys

T

hey are not barristers but the “firm” offensive and defensive grip of Kingwood High Basketball Seniors Tevin Svihovec ( pronounced – sfih-ho-vick), Kyle Schleigh (shlay), and Robert Singletary helped them end their high school careers with another district title for the Mustangs. The trio were stopped short of the State Final Four when the Wild Horses fell in an upset to Strake Jesuit in the Area Round at Klein Forest High. The Crusaders’ strategy was to take away the outside threat of the shooter Svihovec while making life tough inside for Schleigh and Singletary on the boards and around the offensive rim.

Kingwood Head Basketball Coach Royce Huseman ( hoose mun) felt that shots at crucial times were just not falling and that was what kept his team from moving down the playoff trail. In the meantime, Schleigh says he thinks it was the ability of “Strake” to make the Mustangs have a more difficult time doing the things that they needed to do, getting no easy baskets. For his part, Svihovec believes that the Crusaders were determined to not let KW get in a comfort zone running the Mustang motion offense.

Kingwood got to the Area game by knocking off Houston Chavez in a cakewalk that was basically over with by the end of the first half. The Mustangs faced the 20-5A fourth place Lobos in the first round due to the fact that KW went undefeated in district 19-5A on their way to another 30 win season. Without a serious district challenger, the three game cushion over second place Humble may have hurt Kingwood. However, that’s debatable. What’s not up for query is the outstanding job that forward Robert Singletary did as he followed in the footsteps of his brother Mike, an All- State member of the back to back State championship games’ team which won it all in

T. Svihovec fires for three in Bi-district

the first year of that Austin double. The younger Singletary made his dad, Aldine ISD Stadium Coordinator Johnnie Carter proud, with a physical performance sprinkled with an occasional drive inside for clutch points. He gave the team an inside the paint, and on the baseline presence.

Singletary won’t join his brother’s Texas Tech basketball team- Mike is graduating next year- but he will play football at Baylor, the same school where another Singletary made quite a name for himself at linebacker. According to Robert’s aunt, that Mike Singletary and the KW Singletarys are not related.

Moving forward, Coach Huseman thinks he’s got another potential winner next year. KW could feature one of the tallest, largest teams that it has fielded since Huseman took over the squad. A lot of that size comes from the JV and Freshman team. In addition, Kyle Kuhl a post at 6-5-200, will return along with outside point presence, guard Brendan Holderread who moves in as a starter after providing a spark off of the bench. Good

shooter Kevin Acosta also will be back.

On the other hand, you can say goodbye to backup front courter Tim Roach who Huseman says was a pleasant surprise with his fine play. Forward Logan Lowery and lightning quick guard Kenny Graves, major contributors with timely offense from the former and solid defense from the latter according to Coach Huseman, will also be missed.

As for Schleigh, he told HighPoints that he doesn’t know what he is going to do next, although, he says he will make a decision, soon. Some Division Two schools and maybe even a Jr. College or two, may be looking his way. That’s about all he signified and implied when HighPoints interviewed him. Svihovec has already committed to a small Division One school, Northern Colorado U. “The Bears’ Head Coach told me that I would see more minutes in games, the more I work on my defense,’ Svihovec says. “I’m looking forward to the Big Sky Conference and maybe we can win a lot of games and get on TV in the conference

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Basketball

Heisman and Huseman - R. Singletary with the Pose, R. Huseman with Instructions

and NCAA tournaments. The youngster moved to Kingwood from Kansas when he was in elementary school and like native Texan Schleigh, played youth basketball on club and middle school teams.

Both Kyle and Tevin moved around when their parents were transferred by employers. The pair who finally began to see the floor together in the ’08-09 season, have become very good friends. Not only do they pal around with each other at the local mall playing video games, but they helped each other out with game preparation and conditioning assistance and guidance in the weight room .

As Svihovec, and Schleigh leave they have arrived at one conclusion. “It was an honor playing for Coach Huseman, he has taught us so much about life on the court and off,” the pair echoes.

Royce Huseman’s own son Colin will also be graduating from the team, and you know what? He will probably concur with the pair’s sentiment. He will also know that the S and S and S “firm” will also be missed by their coach.

There are no lawyers needed to figure that one out. n 26

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Slamming it Shut - Mustangs Ice Bi-district

Basketball

A. DioGuardi 19 - 4A’s MVP

Leaving a Legacy Behind - A. Gober Finishes at K-Park

L. Brown (54) Screens in the Lane

Lady Panthers Find Success Again in Year Three at K-Park

T

he builder is often times the first one that will never linger for long in what they have constructed.

After all, where’s the enjoyment in that?

They want to be busy and not just standing around and admiring their handiwork while others are doing the preventative maintenance. So it went with former Kingwood Park High Girls’ Head Basketball Coach Angela Gober. The successful veteran coach is also ready to start a new challenge with the Varsity Head Coaching position at brand new 4A Porter High (New Caney ISD) in the fall of this year.

Gober has been down this road before.

However, while she still has a lot of responsibility with the Basketball program at K-Park, she’s leaving of her own volition for different reasons this time around. Gober decided not to divulge those reasons to HighPoints and her wishes are being respected. (Editors

note: It’s the policy of HighPoints to also respect Kingwood Park’s right to keep its point of view to itself, especially since Ms. Gober is not revealing her side to us) The first time Coach Gober went down the path of leaving a successful job well done was when she decided to stop standing around and to start building again. That was when she left Kingwood High and headed to Barber’s Hill High ( Mont Belvieu, TX.) before the 20032004 season. She left the Lady Mustangs after guiding them to their first district championship ever in her second year as head coach, and later on during her time there reaching as far as the Regional Semi-finals and Regional Quarterfinals, and going undefeated in district play during the premier district title year . She left KW after a stellar seven year careereight overall- in the coaching ranks there.

She leaves this time after the KP Lady Panthers had once again made the UIL playoffs. This time the team capped off a 19-14 ( 12-2, second place district finish) campaign with sweet revenge, a 46-41 Bidistrict conquest of the team that defeated them in the same round last year, Beaumont Ozen. Although, the club lost in the Area Round to Huntsville; the team went farther as a 4A group than they had ever been. District 19-4A MVP, 5-7 guard Aly DioGuardi closed out her career in style- hitting eight three-point shots in one district game- along with defensive stalwart and perennial All State or Region candidate 5-10 forward Larla Brown who is headed to the Coast Guard ( see An All- Region Salute to DioGuardi and Brown – in June issue) . In the Huntsville playoff, Sophomore Jazmyn Johnson also

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Basketball left a good feeling for next season with what her coach called an outstanding performance from the 5-9 swing player.

After a bout of cold shooting by the Lady Panthers and a dose of sizzling accuracy from the field by Huntsville, the hard fought season came to an end.

to get so upset with the officials because after all, the refs are not going to change their calls,” Gober says. “ Early on, without any seniors on the team the coaching staff was their role model and boy the kids did a great job of coming a long way! This year we are well represented on the All-District teams with Larla Brown the 19-4A defensive player of the year and Aly ( DioGuardi) the shooting guard on the first team. Our point guard a really good defensive player with good hands and a calm approach, Christy Murphy, is on the second team.

We also have another second teamer, our sixth man, first off the bench forward Jennifer Barnes. Finally, we have a pair of honorable mentions: Hanna Clegg another forward and Leslie Curphy a good defender and outside shooter at guard. Then looking ahead, they also have a terrific young guard coming up as a starter, Justine Luis who we brought up as a freshman this year. This overall, was a well-rounded team that could have played well against any team as long as everything was working”.

Also, at an end is the in-school association that Gober had with her veteran players. She started with them at Kingwood Middle School when this season’s seniors were in the eighth Grade. They continued the journey with Gober when they were at the Kingwood High Ninth Grade Campus in 2006. The following year as sophomores they met this year’s junior teammates at the same address but in the newly renovated complex that would be called Kingwood Park High. Gober had met the latter group as seventh graders at KW Middle School. As freshmen they collaborated on a second place Varsity finish in their 3A district with their sophomore teammates. Last year, their first one in 4A, they finished in a threeway tie for the top spot. Along the way, Coach Gober saw her team mature from a mental standpoint. “They learned not

about your future!”

“We are serious about your future!”

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Meanwhile, the KP Ladies head off into the future with Murphy going to Harvard with her number one Valedictorian class rating . DioGuardi says she is mulling over what to do next. She has received interest from small colleges and small major colleges, alike. Larla Brown will play for the Coast Guard, and she leaves along with Curphy , Murphy, Clegg, Barnes, and of course DioGuardi. Three juniors return in addition to any off of the JV, transfers and move-ins . Gober says the younger team will be ready to do well next year.

As for Coach Angela Gober, she is dealing with her brother’s serious illness for now. Over the last decade her mother’s illness caused her to leave Barber’s Hill, and return to a lighter load at KW Middle School. Soon after her mother passed away, her father became fatally ill himself. However, resiliency has always been one of Gober’s strong suits. From coming out of nowhere after nine years at KW Middle School to set herself up to land the Kingwood Lady Mustangs assistant’s job, and then one year later the head coaching post there- two years earlier she was the boss at Crockett High- to eventually landing the K- Park job; there is not much she hasn’t overcome. She even found a way-thanks to her parents- to play girls’ high school basketball during the 1970s after Humble ISD budget cuts temporarily curtailed girls’ athletic programs. She played at Tarkington High, surviving six- player on six- player Basketball until her senior year when she began to play five on five full-court. She played full-court at San Jacinto Jr. College (Pasadena, TX.) and finished at Sam Houston St. (Huntsville,TX.).

Forward to the future and in will come the fall, and the Lady Spartans of brand new Porter await. They will be coached by someone who relishes the start up opportunity with enough enthusiasm and drive to travel down that road again. This time, though, HighPoints gets the feeling that the builder might just turn into the resident. After all, sometimes it’s nice to stop and look. There is always room for home improvement. n

Basketball

CLCA Forgoes the NACA, Looks To the Future

H

umble based Christian Life Center Academy Boys’ Basketball team is just too good for some people. The National Association of Christian Athletes (NACA) for one, is not going to see them in the future if they can help it. The Dayton, TN. based group unexpectedly dropped the Elite Division Championship Bracket from their National tourney this year because teams like CLCA were too talented and there was not enough depth in the most skilled grouping of the tournament. Only the I- IV group bracket Championships took place and for the future that may remain the case.

CLCA Head Coach Carlos Wilson says that he thinks NACA did not want to see more domination by his group this year, so they shut the Elite Division down. The Charles Street Cougars overall finished 20-5 and at the end of the regular season were ranked number two among all private schools in Texas behind a team they beat on the road, Arlington Grace Prep, a TAPPS 4A Final Four contestant.

Other big wins for CLCA included , knocking off at the time USA TODAY’s number 22 Nationally ranked Provine, MS. a public high school that at one time led 20-0 in the game ; and among others, Foothills High of Las Vegas on CLCA’s way to a second place finish at the prestigious Bishop Gorman tourney in Vegas.

The team narrowly was defeated by Nationally ranked Bishop Mc Namara of Maryland. Other close losses were to U.S. consensus top ten team Findlay Prep of Henderson, NV. and to TAPPS 4A State Runnerup Second Baptist High of Houston. At the end of the season, a couple of CLCA High School Players joined Cougar Prep School teammates and won a Prep School tourney. Taking the National Post Graduate Athletic Association’s National Championship at the Nick Bolleteri Bradenton, FL. International

Management Group ( IMG) Academy was made possible by wins over nationally regarded Queens City Prep of Charlotte, NC. , Tagg Academy of Florida and in the final, Ocean Prep of New Jersey another National Prep Power. On the High School side, four of the team’s five losses were to top 25 Nationally Ranked teams.

The fifth loss was the one to Second Baptist. Along the way there were several high school tourneys from Alaska to Mississippi and CLCA won their share. Perhaps the biggest wins for Coach Wilson were the ones over his former high school coaches in Palestine,TX. Defeating Palestine and Tyler John Tyler were “... deeply satisfying as we beat my mentors”, Wilson says.

There were also deeply ingratiating performances this year by outgoing Senior Jason Carter who is being looked at by colleges like Alabama, Arkansas, Ole Miss and Louisiana Tech. Coach Wilson says the all out effort that the versatile swingman/power forward gave with his 6-8 frame made him one of the coach’s favorite players this season. “He gives you 100 percent everytime out,” Wilson says. Meanwhile, outgoing Leslee Smith will head for SMU and Chris Singhateh is being courted by Division Two schools, and he could even end up at a Jr. College. Chris J. Smith and Isiah Jones will play on the post grad. CLCA Prep team.

Expected back are Deividas Pukis the zone-busting shooter, and the young floor general, point guard Patrick (PJ) Hardwick Jr. who according to Wilson earned his way onto the floor with outstanding play and leadership. He will only be a Junior classman next year.

So, CLCA will shoot as an Independent next year for the National Nike Invitational in April of ’11. For a refreshing change according to Wilson, he will have

CLCA Blocks off the Village.

a large nucleus of returnees who will be ready to take the experience that they learned and earned and hopefully, end up with the opposition burned.

As for Wilson, he’ll have fond memories of this year’s team and the legacy of the terrific play that they left behind. That memento will be on display as well at an SEC University or in Ruston,LA. where Jason Carter will keep doing the dirty work and the little things that have made him the Coach’s favorite. Only this time he could be doing them in front of NBA Hall of Famer, former power forward extraordinaire Karl Malone who has been hired as a Major Basketball Consultant/ Observing Coach with his alma mater La. Tech.

Maybe then, CLCA will be right for someone after all. n

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Basketball

“Putting Out Fires” at HCS

P

utting out fires is the job of your neighborhood fireman. Generally, the kind of infernos with flames and smoke is what they deal with. Unless your name is Damon Doherty and the school that your kids go to is in need of a new Boys’ Head Basketball Coach... in the middle of the season! Thus, Doherty became the new boss of the now defunct Humble based Berean Christian School in 1996. Roll forward five years later and that institution went out of business, with the- then new Humble Christian School taking its place in ’01. The Coach decided he would like to stay until the school said to leave. To this day, that still has not happened. The volunteer coach who took Houston Greenwood Village to a Texas Association of Private and Parochial School’s 11 man football title in ’83, will begin his tenth year at HCS in the fall.

The fulltime fireman is a part-timemaybe in name only- coach. He doesn’t believe that you can properly coach unless you spend practice time with the kids.

Most coaches would tell you that, for one important reason: You’ve got to be able to evaluate the players’ constant development during the season and if they are not starters and don’t see a lot of minutes early on, then improvement is only going to be detected out on the practice floor.

When that happens, the coach finds out who is ready to step in when a frontline regular is unavailable. In Doherty’s case, the family of one of his main players issued a self-imposed report card gradebased restriction on their son. The ”fire” was put out when injured freshman Mitchell Lapora, a swingman forward entered the lineup and played lights out, replacing the “benched” player. Doherty’s previous District 1A-7 Cougar team, finished the ’08-09 league campaign in a dead heat for third, and graduated its rebounding length under the basket.

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G. O’Dell- HCS’ -Do-it-All Gaurd at the Foul Line Again

than any Cougar basketball team before it, landing in the second round before bowing out. Doherty still was pleased with some of his performers off of this season’s team.

Those players that caught Coach Doherty’s eye included graduating senior Garrett O’Dell who showed great ball handling and driving skills while sometimes performing as a one man show under the basket. Point Guard Christopher Crisp a junior classman, joined Varsity Flag Football teammates O’Dell and shooting guard Josiah “Josey” Conn a sophomore, on the coach’s lists of commendations. “Our guards were in my opinion, the best defenders from the backcourt in the district. They and O’Dell were the most well-rounded players on the team. The three of them have good to very good skills with all aspects of the game: passing, dribbling, shooting, playing defense, driving inside, etc. you name it. The things you need to do to win they can do it, except the things they can’t control - having enough height and speed,” Doherty says.

The taller kid in the middle this year was sophomore Paul Wright, who provided outstanding touch under the basket. “Paul could be a very good player and he’ll get there as he learns to condition himself outside of practice,” Doherty says.

Looking ahead, Coach Doherty will welcome a couple of HCS Jr. High players that should see some floor time for

the Varsity. They’ll join the returning Cougars as the team shoots for its third playoff appearance in history, following this season’s fifth place finish in a tough district. The winner of 1A-7 this year, Spring Providence Classical lost in the TAPPS 1A State Championship Game.

The eight team district will change a bit, becoming a nine team loop with Bryan St. Michael coming in to join the holdovers.

Perhaps, the most important holdover of all is Damon Doherty who says he’ll stay around until HCS finds a full-time coach. Of course, he said the same thing ten years ago. You see, Coach Doherty believes that there is a very good reason that he will keep on volunteering at the school. “It’s about the kids and that’s why I do it. Even on days where we lose games like the one we lost against Woodlands Academys’ Wolverines this year where we had a nine point lead with just over two minutes to play and ended up losing in overtime after they hit a sixty footer at the buzzer in regulation, I still want these kids to work hard and enjoy this. I tell them if you can’t enjoy playing then you need to buy a ticket like everyone else,” Doherty says.

That’s a statement made to his kids that eases the tension of playing . In another words, just another way that Damon Doherty puts out another kind of fire without squelching the ones that burn during the heat of competition. n

Cheerleading

Kingwood’s Ambassadors at Reliant - Mustang Cheerleaders in ‘09

Cheers to Kingwood

T

he chant used to go,” Two bits(a bit is 12.5 cents) four bits, six bits, a dollar all for the ______________ (fill in team in previous blank) stand up and holler”. With the way cheerleading has changed, the mantra might as well come out “Two bits, four bits, six bits a dollar, all for the _________ (fill in the …) do a triple handstand flip, a ‘human pyramid’ and run a mile later while chanting”. That’s the way HighPoints found the state of the cheering art at Kingwood High School.

Talking to the Mustang Head Cheering Coach Van Christman , left one impression : the days of standing around socializing with chit-chat and executing grounded yells with docile physical movement are over.

Whether the KW cheerleaders are performing at a basketball game, playoff volleyball match, entertaining the crowd on Football weekends in the fall, or impressing the judges at competitive cheer-

ing meets, hard work is their challenge’s clarion call. Coach Christman says others have noticed.

“The athletes in sports like Basketball, Football, and the like, see how hard the squad works and they see the stress we work under as our group is made up of very driven individuals who get 100 percent respect from our game-playing athletes,” Christman says.

Its not a social club nor a “walk in the park”, being a cheerleader today . However, it is a 1.5 mile run every week- a similar run every other day in the off-season - all done with not only the normal breathing , but that chanting, in order to build up breath control habits. “Its great exercise for them and it keeps them in shape to do the routines that we do,” Christman says.

The Mustang leader has an extensive background in the physical fitness and agility areas, working at a well-known Kingwood

based gym when he was 16 years old. “I became interested watching my sister taking Dancing at a gym club,” Christman says. In the fall, the Ponies’ cheer coach will begin his seventh year of coaching at Kingwood High, part of 20 years overall in the coaching/instructing profession.

At one time, competitive cheerleading in front of national ESPN cameras was just a twinkle in the eye of a television programmer trying to fill airtime on the fledgling sports network. Today, cheering contests are bigger than ever and that emphasis brings a step-up in the athleticism demanded by the newest sport. Kingwood answered the challenge by creating the cheering coach position and Christman moved right into a job that helped young athletes prepare for competitions that most people still don’t understand. Christman provided HighPoints with a primer.

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Cheerleading “ You are battling other schools who perform physical routines with dancing, tumbling and some gymnastics’ moves, working together in unison as a group.

The rating runs from ‘one’ the easiest, way up to a ‘five’ for hardest to execute.

The high and low scores, coming from two of anywhere from 8-12 judges marking you on a 10-point scale, are then thrown out and the mean or average of the other scores is your final score,” Christman says.

The team once again held tryouts this year with both boys and girls invited to participate. If a male tried out he had to meet the standard set down by those already on the squad. The same requirement is asked of a female applicant.

Christman says he is seeking only the best who can perform the needed routines at games and at the three cheering contests – including National’s and World’sand who can provide the crowds at those venues with an injection of “spirit”. Above all, he is looking for personalities that will be ambassadors to the student body, representing the school with pride along the way. Christman has a trio of goodwill spreaders and athletic competitors that carry with them that desire to carry the Kingwood banner up front.

Cheerleader and Tri-Captain Laney Fisher is a senior who loves cheering at basketball games because that is her favorite sport. “I like the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA because I like the way they play the game,” Fisher says. She may be talking about the game later on, too.

Fisher would like to get into the field of Broadcasting as she wants to study Journalism and Speech.

Senior, Stormy Veatch received her first name, not a sobriquet, but from from the conditions on a day filled with bad weather- the day she was born. Like her comrade captains she wants to continue cheering in college while at the same time she would like to pursue Accountancy. As

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Athletes - KW Cheerleaders, Enough Said

for now,” One of the things I like about being on this team is we have learned to have that needed communication and bonding that makes us effective on the floor. It also has made our friendships flourish as well,” Veatch says.

The final Tri-Captain HighPoints talked to was Erin Ellisor (Sr.) a former competitive floor vault gymnast. Ellisor gave up the sport because, ”I wanted to have a ‘ life’, not practicing seemingly all day and while it may be fine for some, Gymnastics the sport wasn’t for me”, she says. Ellisor says she followed the career of Olympian Shawn Johnson but decided that raising school spirit, not winning gym gold medals was the life for her. She says she would like to pursue Nursing after graduation.

In the meantime, the dancing and tumbling she does in cheering routines helps her to not miss her previous sport too

much. Like her other captains she shows a focus that her coach says, as with the others, has developed with maturity.

With backgrounds in dancing, gymnastics and personalities that spread goodwill to the athletes , students, and fans alike, one can pretty much expect that the Kingwood High Cheerleading squad for 2009-10 will be leaving behind a legacy that can best be summed up in six words, not six bits. As Head Coach Van Christman says: “Yes,we are here to win (and will be in the future”).

And you can take that to the bank. n

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Women

Rob’s Rhetoric

Unnecessary Roughness and Then Some

By Rob L Sprouse

T

he old joke always goes: “ I went to a boxing match the other day and a hockey game broke out”. I know the feeling because I’ve experienced it twice so far this calendar year. Once, when HighPoints witnessed the end of Kingwood’s Boys’ Basketball season as they fell to Strake Jesuit High in Area round play, and again when Kingwood’s Boys’ Soccer team topped Atascocita High in the season’s final district game, a contest that the Mustangs won to seal the 19-5A crown.

During both of said games (match for Soccer) the rulebook was less than a mandate or even in the more modern sense, a guide. It was a nuisance, a vague afterthought to be tolerated but not for the most part acknowledged. Grab a player’s shirt in Basketball and pull on it until he would need to have an old-style tear-away football jersey on just to be able to move forward with his pivot foot, and that was okay. Over on the soccer pitch ( field ) run up behind the guy and give him a good shove in the back and no Yellow Card-major warning and penalty indicator- was in sight. Instead, the refs’ mantra has become as one unidentified coach from another team told me: ‘... no disadvantage to the offended player, no foul, card, etc, and no advantage gained by the offender, no problem,’.

That coach shall remain anonymous because most, if not all of the State’s High School athletic governing bodies, frown upon their members’ employees criticizing the officials. Even we media types better watch what we say about the low-paid, sometimes volunteering arbiters. By the way, neither Kingwood’s outstanding Boys’ Head Basketball Coach Royce Huseman , nor either of the Kingwood or Atascocita soccer coaches were the source of the officials’ above mentioned explanation. I won’t mention that coach’s name because he or she could get in trouble. Let’s leave it at that.

I don’t intend on getting flak myself because there will be no critique of high school officials from me. They do their best to live up to what is expected of them. An explanation of that statement is forthcoming a few lines down. So, who is to blame?

As the old Bard said in his classic Julius Caesar, “ The fault dear Brutus lies not within ourselves but within our stars”. In the case of the new style laissez faire officiating, ‘ The fault lies not within high school refs but within the pros and colleges and for that matter pro and college officials in other sports… dear rooters’.

How many times have you seen an NBA game in the last forty ? – thirty? ,twenty?, even ten- years? turn into a grabbing, pushing and shoving match with nary a whistle tweet to be heard? True, play under the basket during the Sixties with greats like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Willis Reed featured full- contact, no - layup defense, but those guys knew how to move their feet and play the angles, too. Recently, in the Nineties and this decade, Shaquille O’Neal was allowed to ignore the 3 seconds in the lane call as he camped out for rebounds, or backed up and into the hapless defender behind him on Shaq’s way to a jam in the hole. A foul became more and more an opinion instead of a judgment based on rulebook fact. This attitude also may have led to the Ron Artest vs. the Detroit Pistons and their fans debacle in the Palace of Auburn Hills in 2006.

In the NFL, do we have to continue to see receivers and defensive backs maul , and hook each other downfield until avoiding pass interference becomes the name of the game instead of actually using moves, speed and positioning to ideally make a catch or haul in an interception. Yes, it’s true the striped shirts could call offensive line holding on just about every play. However, those plays are seldom game deciders or fighting inciters away from the practice field or special teams’ coverage adventures.

And don’t get me started on the final few minutes of regulation time in an NHL game or even overtime in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In Soccer, too often we see players in MLS or Euro or Latin American play, dive to the ground with injuries that can be treated with a band aid. Instead, they give Academy Award winning performances that bring to mind Nazi Waltz in front of forehead Swastika carving American soldier Pitt in “Inglourious Basterds”. It’s a

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Section Rob’s Rhetoric Title

wonder that last rites haven’t been performed on half of MLS players within the last five years. So, I understand why officials have been reluctant to call some nastier fouls or issue the appropriate card for such offenses.

They may be actually believing that they are not seeing what they are actually seeing.

Finally, add society to this list of reasons for “look the other way, swallow the whistle”, officiating.

Today, the rallying cry is : ” YOU’RE NOT TRYING IF YOU’RE NOT CHEATING ”. And here’s my favorite: “ IT’S NOT A PENALTY IF YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT DOING IT”. Players are people too, and high school aged kid athletes are, as well, and some will try to get away with what they can when they live the way of the rallying cries. It’s bad enough in a moment of weakness we all will try to do something wrong at least once in our lives. Now, though, some are starting to hold it as a high ideal, an athletic value. Officials themselves can’t see everything or cannot call every foul they do see, or games would be interminably long. Although, if players knew officials were going to call everything they were able to see according to the rulebook, maybe they would stop committing so many offenses as players, relatively speaking of course. Then again, “YOU’RE NOT TRYING IF YOU’RE NOT …”.

Funny thing, the people who support the rallying cry are the first ones to complain bitterly when politicians or the Bernie Madoffs of the world cheat them, i.e. commit offenses-read penalties- , and those people that are victims were still being victimized even as their assailants were not getting caught. No, I’m not saying Madoff is equal to someone jumping offsides in a football game or having a bad sportsmanship attitude. It is time however, to do something!

That brings us to the solution. Simple, but hard : sportsmanship by pro and college players, and pride in doing things right instead of pride in winning at all costs. Hopefully, the coaches at both the Pro and College levels are emphasizing the fundamentals and the right way to do things. Pro and college officials, and coaches need to start insisting that players learn the rules and then ( the players ) try their best to follow them. College Basketball officials no longer call palming, carrying, and travelling like they

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used to. More and more, they are following Pro guidelines. Fans need to demand that officials go back to the old standards. In High School sports its time for everyone to do what most coaches have been doing for years, asking the UIL,TAPPS,etc, to start insisting that the rulebook become something more than a prop. The players’ safety demands it. The game’s number one saving grace, an attempt at fairness, demands it. Finally, the civility of competition is at stake. Action there is demanded as well.

Fans need to understand it. The Media needs to ‘get it’ as well . Or do we have to head to what one sideline observer standing next to me at one of the soccer games this season said: “ Man these games are getting rougher (chippier) and rougher as time goes by each season”?

Do you really want to go to one of our community’s high school sporting events and watch a melee break out? The next time might be the episode that threatens players and spectators alike and that breaks the sport’s image itself. Don’t kid yourself its almost happened before in this country. No one wants to see the kids suffer in this deal.

The only real break we should see is the one that benefits the kids. n

Booster Shots

Atascocita Booster Club

P

am Ewton is a volunteer. She says that is what she does and who she is. She also says that people would be amazed at what the Atascocita Booster Club does because that doing is about what its identity is.

The four year old organization has operated as long as Atascocita High has been around and its philosophy feeds into its purpose. In a matter of speaking , it’s akin to a Hippocratic Oath in the medical world. Only with the boosters it’s best summed up as : “To the AHS athletic departments and our athletes, do no harm”.

Ewton, the second year President of the club, wants you to know that purpose. She also wants you to know that there are reasons the club was formed the way it was, instead of going the route of individual sports having their own club.

Actually they kind of do have their own club if you consider the Atascocita boosters take care of all sports, all the ones that the 20 or so, sponsored UIL teams play.

When those sports need something they get it . They can thank the money from the taxpayer, as each athletic department budgets a certain amount of money based on those funds each year, and the boosters who step in to fill the breach when that money is not enough to upgrade facilities or is not budgeted period, to upgrade those extra, but needed items.

Ewton sums it up best. “When there is broken or damaged equipment from the previous year, the budgeted money is sometimes insufficient to cover the whole cost of that replacement and that’s where we step in,” she says.

Of course , there are other needs for each extra-curricular sport that have no funding at all by the finances of the school district and of subsequently, the taxpayer who provides the original funds to begin with. Those extras are then taken care of entirely by the boosters. President Ewton

who stepped forward with that volunteering spirit to become the group’s leader, outlined to HighPoints just exactly what those needs can be and what is done by the booster club to remedy them. “We are trying to upgrade our facilities with items like an indoor practice facility which would allow soccer, golf, and tennis along with other sports to go inside and get their work done during bad weather days,” Ewton says.

“In addition, we are going after batting cages for the softball and baseball teams and anything else that any of our sports need, including the normally non- funded extras for each sport. Also, those sports which are in UIL sponsored clubs that get no funding at all from the school district, will get help from us if the opportunities are available depending on where we are with the other funding needs and what the club sports are asking for at the time,” Ewton says.

The club sports at AHS are Water Polo and Gymnastics. While they are sponsored by the University Interscholastic League, they also go to competitions that are governed by other associations, or in the case of Water Polo and Gymnastics, postseasons that lead to those other associations’ state championships.

Aside from the equipment and facility upgrades or completely new add-ons, the biggest thing the boosters do is the one thing that not enough people know about. “I definitely think that the function that we serve that most people would be surprised with, is our scholarship opportunities and presentations facet.

Right now, we are giving out a total of 21 scholarships, with each team of the UIL Sponsored teams, getting some of those offered. If we can get enough funds raised then we will increase that number. We also give scholarships to student athletic trainers and student athletic managers.

There are careers available in those fields and college would help their employment prospects, “the Booster Club President says.

The truth is, the prospects, the outlook of the Atascocita High Eagles and Lady Eagles’ Varsities, and sub-varsities, are lifted because an increasingly growing number of boosters are on the job. Selling : banner signage to businesses, the fall, winter and spring Sports program magazines; having the “Eagle Card”- restaurant or business service provider discount tokensfundraiser in the autumn; and one fundraiser (see notice below) in the spring ; and taking care of 42 athletic coaches who Ewton says really stepped up this schoolyear. and promoted the boosters’ projects like never before ; has enabled not only the athletic departments to grow but the athletes to grow, themselves.

Oh, and one more thing, now that the club has exceeded its financial goals for the year, President Pam Ewton will have peace of mind knowing its all extra benefit from this point on, which will also perhaps, help her to have more free time to...” re-educate people who don’t know why we have the All –Sports Booster Club, instead of the individual one and how we can raise more money for their sports by tagging it as part of the whole choice of sports we offer , including the ones that generally raise more funds than theirs would by itself”, Ewton says.

You just know that the woman who stepped up and stepped in to fill a void caused by the previous outgoing board, will be out there spreading the word.

Nobody will ask her to do that, she just will. She’s a volunteer, that’s who she is, and that’s what she does. Also, the Atascocita All-Sports Booster Club en masse will be out improving things too.

After all, that’s who they are. That’s what they do! n

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Booster Shots

Notice from the Atascocita All- Sports Booster Club You can find out more information about the All- Sports Boosters’ Spring ’10 Fundraiser which features a 5K Fun Run and Walk for students, coaches, and all interested parties at AHS on May,22 nd. this year. There will also be barbecue served and maybe even a surprise or two like the Kingwood area Classic Cars on Display. All funds from the event go directly back to the Athletic Department Fund for general needs and use. How do you find out? Call Pam Ewton, Booster Club President, at 281-852-5389 The annual Spring Football Red, White, and Blue Football game(s) will be played on May 15th. at Eagle Field . Varsity members will square off against each other, with also the JV going at it, and the Freshmen mixing it up. For times and more information call President Pam Ewton at the above phone number.

For more information on obtaining Booster Club Scholarships, contact President Ewton at the same number.

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Second WaveWave Second Section Title Swimming

By Rob L Sprouse

B

Photography By Mila Sprouse

arrett Johanssen ( right ) has become an old hand at navigating the Jamail Swim Center’s racing pool at the University of Texas in Austin. The Kingwood Park High Swimming Panther’s opponents are unfortunately becoming quite experienced themselves...at seeing him and his Forest Green, Black, and Silver boys’ teammates leave a victory trail at the UIL State 4A Swimming Meet. It’s a trail that is getting harder to find for the Panthers’ opponents as K- Park completed a consecutive years title run with a thorough soaking of the rest of the field this Spring. The dominating 277 to 151 team points victory over second place San Antonio Alamo Heights was a testament to the ever- increasing realization that the school is becoming the state of the art in 4A High School Swimming in Texas. As for the path to overtaking K- Park, just look no further than the current wake of water that they are pushing ahead of themselves, as they jet through the pool’s racing lanes. Look ahead for it, if you can find it.

By Rob Sprouse Photography by Mila Sprouse

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Swimming

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Section Swimming Title

The Power of a Panther - K-Park’s Budding Dynasty

The only school in Southeast Texas that employs two Swimming coaches, also has turned the Water World on its collective ear by tailoring its workouts in a unique way, as KP emphasizes out of water, dry land training along with in the water practice. “Most club swimmers they swim five hours a day and they might think we are not getting enough conditioning done when we only workout and practice two hours a day but they are mistaken,” sophomore Brooks Powell says. That may be due to the fact that the team not only swims during the two hours but also lifts weights on dry land. Most of the swimmers that participated in our HighPoints roundtable around the pool at K- Park High, agreed that while the workouts might be grueling, that if you make it through, the results will be worth it.

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One of those workout believers is junior Chris Amoruso. “I’ve been training for three years now with Coach ( Greg ) McLain and his assistant Brad Griffith – KP’s Girl’s Head Coach- and I’ve seen 20 seconds drop from my time in the 100 yard freestyle which makes me coming in at 48 seconds flat,” he says.

Coming early and staying late is also the philosophy of the Panthers as even though they work with the coaches for those 120 minutes, they also can do maintenance conditioning on the side for longer periods than two hours each day. Rest assured though, the athletes swear those coach supervised class time practices are magical minutes that get the team in shape to compete from both a strategic standpoint and a physically fit plateau. The athletes that come early will find their Head Coach

McLain opening the weightroom for voluntary but necessary lifting sessions.

They will also find a man you could call the “Wizard of Woodland Hills” going beyond the call of duty in another way. “You can find him at 5: 30 in the morning up in his office making sure that we get the shoulder workouts that we need ,” Johannsen says.

Also, because Coach McLain runs things the way he does, it teaches you life skills, like time management because otherwise you will not be able to spend enough time doing homework and have a life outside of swimming. You have to make sacrifices if you are going to do things in your community and belong to extra curricular clubs in school, and of course, make the time needed to come early and stay late to become a State Champion,” Johannsen says.

Perhaps, the biggest push that McLain gives his team is one that points his team

Swimming away from the swimming pool. Its a “shove” that arises out of a simple edict : Spend time with your teammates and get to know and trust them as people. K – Park Butterfly style Swimmer, Mark Dix says that may be what really solidifies his team’s sterling performance. “We go over to each other’s houses and watch movies, and we go out and do the normal things like movies, video games, and Pizza.

We all like movie comedies on Saturday nights,” Dix says.

The team’s parents are amazed at the bond between this band of aquanauts.

“Our parents say we are closer than anybody that they have seen. My mom can’t believe it,” Johannsen says. The swimmer that found success as a medley and freestyle swimmer says that the togetherness sometimes gets put to the test, too.

“We have our problems with each other from time to time but we end up working it out,” Johannsen says .

Chris Amoruso who swam the fastest 50 yd. freestyle split at the state meet, says that it gets out of hand sometimes but the “glue” that the team has helps put it back together. “We are more than teammates

because we are like a family but even though sometimes we get in fights with each other, we are still not going to “kill” each other,” he says.

Unity may fortify the squad’s camaraderie, and form a more cohesive resolve.

Training , indeed gives the development and physicality need to complete the required competitive ability. Those are the pre-requisites at KP. The results though, are predicated on putting enough successful athletes inside those swimming lanes.

In order to win the team relays and the team points competition, depth has to be on display, not necessarily thinly overall developed and/or natural talent, featuring only a couple of big performances but an across the board successful team.

True, individuals winning the solo events are important to gathering medals and, more importantly for the program , those winning team point totals. However, the difficulty of taking home the team grand prize moves up a few notches if a team is only of the one or two superstars variety and not a complete team.

Kingwood Park 200 yd. medley relay swimmer Brooks Powell believes that was the key to winning it all again. “We won

this year’s championships because we had maybe not as many star swimmers as other teams but our talent is spread out, especially this year where we had four swimmers win individual championships , one won a bronze medal for third place, and one swam the fastest split time in the 50yd relay. (Amoruso) ,” Powell says.

While the Panthers didn’t have as many swimmers qualify for the State meet this time around, they still broke a 4A State meet record for team points scored. They definitely lived the high life in Austin.

They live life away from the competition, as well.

Not enjoying his hobbies, surfing the waves, and bird watching, but listening intently while not interjecting much in the roundtable, was the one his teammates feel is the “different one of the bunch”. Garrett Stewart the junior swimmer also might be the most interesting one of the bunch. He likes to get back to nature, backpacking , hiking trails, swimming streams and partaking in a little ornithology while he’s at it. “I probably will study marine biology or bird science when I get to college, and I would also like to swim in college,” Stewart says.

The Wizard’s Apprentices - (Sixth from Right) Coach G. McLain Celebrates State

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Swimming

Butterflies are Free - M. Dix Takes it to the Line at State ‘10

Another label applied to one of the group’s members is the cutup, referring to the good natured kidding commentary and “hamming it up” crowd pleaser, with a show- stopping pinache for everyone to see . Brooks Powell, the dead ringer for the teen aged acting days of Kevin Bacon, raises his hand(s) and arm(s) for everyone to see whenever he enters the starting area or comes away a winner in his event.

He also relishes standing on the victory podium as well. He’s joined by the leader, Coast Guard bound senior Johannsen, who is the President of the K – Park chapter of the National Honor Society.

Barrett says he is involved with his church and community while at the same time keeping his younger teammates in line as the unifier.

The calm one, the group says is Chris Amoruso who they say has a strong heart 44

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and fine team management skills. Finally, the one that Barrett Johannsen calls the confident, wise “old bull” is Joseph Stanton the sophomore who is one of the best freestyle swimmers at KP. In the swimming off-season, Stanton plays football . He says that during swimming season with K-Park, his job is not just moving in the water . “I feel like its my responsibility to help the new swimmers that are trying to make their move up with the team because other swimmers have helped me out and besides I enjoy passing along what I have learned,” Stanton says. Like most of the others, Stanton has swam on club teams and summer league teams before. However, now he swears by Coach McLain’s methods, saying it has helped him immensely as a competitive swimmer where time and distance pace are the name of the game.

Thus, a special, history making group of kids will either return to the Swimming Panthers next season or head to college.

Johannsen plans to suit up in the pool for the New London, Connecticut based U.S.C.G. Academy before he becomes an officer, maybe for life, or in civilian life a swim coach or a mechanical or civil engineer. Mark Dix says he may swim for Shreveport, LA. based Centenary College’s Gentlemen, or U.- Texas Permian Basin’s Division Two Falcons in Odessa, TX. Dix says he wants to be a swim coach and plans on getting a teaching degree. The returnees have their college related thoughts as well. One thing about it, they will be coming back for a chance at an unprecedented three-peat, only matched at K-Park by the Girls’ Cross Country team.

Swimming Whatever happens they all will eventually leave the man they call “papa”. “He comes in at 5: 25 (AM) and leaves at 5:15 (PM), 12 hours and does all of that on a teacher’s salary,” Powell says. Barrett Johannsen added the perfect touch to the end of the roundtable: “We have the most amazing coach and I am going to miss being around him because he cares about us, cares about his job and he comes early and stays late”, Johannsen says.

Unfortunately, for Kingwood Park’s opponents it may be too late because it doesn’t seem that it’s too early to tell they are going to have a hard time finding the path that moves past the Swimming Panthers’ success. n

Surprise Champ-G Stewart (top step) of K- Park wins State in the Breaststroke

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Section Title

Rocky’s Assault - M. Dix on the Edge, Launches for K - Park (Above)

LOOK IN THE WATER Do you know that State Champ Swimmer Chris Amoruso didn’t know how to do a flip-turn off of the side of the wall when he first came to Kingwood Park ? He started with the program by swimming in the slow lane.

Do You Know ( DYK) that Champ Garrett Stewart as a freshman could not swim a 500m or 200m race and now two years later he is among the best in the state at the breast stroke?

DYK that Barrett Johannsen decided to stop swimming for over five years until he began again during his sophomore year which was a season that he became the first Panther in the first year of the school to qualify for the state meet? Johannsen was suffering from a shoulder injury, a rotator cuff malady caused by tendinitis and bursitis and that made him initially stop.

DYK that Brooks Powell broke all of the 6-year old age group records in his summer league swim program in his very first year of competitive swimming, but later on temporarily quit the sport because of burn-out? Powell also looks up to Beijing 2008 Olympic Swimming hero Jason Lesak whose world record anchor relay lap made up a whole body length on the then individual world record holding French swimmer, and gave the great swimmer Michael Phelps his record clinching eighth medal in those games. Lesak is an out of the pool, dry land training method man himself.

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Swimming after day. You also have to have great kids and great families that will buy in to what you are trying to do with the team, and then show up to root them on. We had that, especially in Austin. The final thing you need is a great School District and great administration in your own school.

We have that with : Troy Kite and Krista Malmstrom as Humble District Athletic Directors ; our Campus Athletic Coordinator Jim Holley and our Girls’ Coordinator Angela Gober ; and our Campus Principal Larry Cooper, along with his assistant Principal Lisa Droebing ( pronounced Dray-bing) ,” McLain says.

Deja vu - The Vets Come Back in 2010 After the ’09 Title Season

McLain Weaves His Way at K- Park

H

ogwarts Academy it isn’t, but if you look closely enough you would swear that a man you could call – he wouldn’t want you to- the “Wizard of Woodland Hills”, is seemingly becoming the forest green,silver and black magic purveyor of State, Regional and District Boys’ Swimming titles at Kingwood Park.

No, that’s not children’s novelist J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter that is waving a magic wand at KP. It’s Swimming Coach Greg McLain that is turning out the back to back Boys’ 4A State Champions. Or is it that simple? “It’s a lot of luck mixed with the right preparation, because just look at the season in ’08-09,” McLain says.

“Our preparation was hit hard by Hurricane Ike even after we got started with pre-season workouts on August 1st. The Storm certainly affected a lot of people in their homes and that is certainly more serious than our problems. However, when it hit that September, we were thrown because we couldn’t train for a few weeks. Top that off with the serious

illness that Brooks Powell, one of our top swimmers had, and the major injuries that we incurred and we had a tough time getting our guys ready for February’s Championship season. On the other hand, there really is no magical solution involved. We were fortunate this year not to have major injuries. It is also just good old fashioned hard work. They were willing to put in the time and so were we as coaches,” McLain says. “ I also believe that attitude is important.

We encourage our kids to hang out with each other outside the swimming pool. I was fortunate enough to be coached by a man named John Vogel. He believed that the team came first before any individual’s desires. He said , ‘What you do outside of the pool is what you will do in the pool ’. If they get along and trust each other then events like the relays become easier to execute. If they are pulling for one another then they won’t resent it when they are pushing each other. They become each other’s biggest fan and they don’t get tired of seeing each other day

The administrators are thanked by Greg McLain because of a decision that they made. “The choice that they went with to have Swimming as a priority and allow the program to hire both a Boys’ and Girls’ Head Coach, has made Coach Griffith’s job on the girls side easier, and it has definitely made my part on the boys side much easier. I only have to primarily worry about 30 swimmers- including developing swimmers- instead of 60 swimmers which would be the case if I were overseeing both teams,” Coach McLain says.

He is also aware that the talent that he has to work with is also responsible for the success of the program. “We’ve got a great mix to deal with. First, you have a Barrett Johannsen who is our leader whether you are in the pool training part of it or are attending basketball or football games where he is our swimmers’, and sometime student body, yell leader. Shy is not in his vocabulary. He is a natural leader and it has been a pleasure watching him develop as a strong leader this year,” the coach says, Johannsen was also a team manager on the boys’ State runnerup Soccer team.

McLain also believes in another senior classman and his up and coming younger teammates.” I would call Mark Dix our version of Rocky Balboa from the movies, because he is always fired up to the point of being emotional when he competes and when he is on the starting block he

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Swimming

Mo’ Green - Panther Parents in Lime Urge K-Park at State ‘10

really gets the other guys on the relay team fired up. One of the non-seniors we have, junior Brooks Powell is a swimmer who is on the rise. He is coming into his own, because he just hates to lose. When he goes in the 50 yard race, he is hard to beat. He won State this year because there was no way after being sick last year and coming up short, that he was going to let that returning winner beat him. He hates to lose. Sophomore Joe Stanton is way ahead of the game in the fact that of all the swimmers that I have been around, Joe knows how to train on what he needs to work on and how he needs to work on it. He knows how to stay away in training from those things that he doesn’t need to do in preparation . He then brings it all together on game day and performs at his very best. He’s just a great competitor. Joe plays Football and he brings that mental toughness to swimming and his teammates, McLain says.

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“Chris Amoruso our speedy sprinter is a hard worker who is still developing , rarely taking a day off. He was a summer league swimmer who had never swam on a club before. So, he has had to learn certain things and he really has. Junior Garrett Stewart is a lot like Chris because he came to us a very raw but very talented swimmer. He too, only swam summer league. His breaststroke is now developed to the State Championship level and that has come after very hard work. He is also a very good worker,” McLain says.

Say goodbye to Mike Sullivan who is graduating , and Jacob Knight and Jordan McVey who are leaving as well. Say “hello” to new swimmers like those that are trying to move into the very fast practice lanes: Shawn Barber, Clayton Hill, Alex Fontes, Foster Wick, Michael Marucci, Kevin Dalpe, Hank Holcomb, and last but not least Gabe Williams. They were all part of a team that had 10 All American - National top swimming lists’- performance time marks this season.

And as always say howdy to the man who has National aspirations for his team and who wants to improve their 200 and 500 yd. longer distance performances. He’s the one who has guided and started other high school and club swimming programs, including San Antonio Churchill High, and The Woodlands College Park (Conroe ISD). He had a bittersweet feeling beating those 5A College Park swimmers in a regular season meet earlier this season. After all, he started the program there and they were freshmen when he coached them there and now they are seniors. However, just like the seniors at Kingwood Park High, they have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of the builder, shaper, and overseer of a design that he learned long ago from a “sorcerer” named Vogle. That man Greg McLain, whether he likes it not, has earned the right to be called the “Wizard of Woodland Hills”.

Yet, its going to take some serious State performances by the opposition , not abracadabra to make that one go away. n

Swimming of Kingwood and began to coach on the side, another club team. At the same time, he began a career that would last 13 years as the Head Coach of New Caney High School’s Swim team.

Also, he later on crossed paths with and coached some of, the swimmers that he is coaching now. Kara Raney, the senior swimming phenom (see HighPoints cover and Cover Story this issue) has been swimming in the summertime with Griffith’s league team the past couple of years . In addition to earlier coaching the Village Otters youth club team, Griffith has also started up a club in New Caney called the New Caney Swim Club or NCSC. Again, there he crossed paths with, and coached some of the boys and girls from K- Park.

Frothy Fury - S. Golson has Five Top Tens at State

Improving Lady Panthers Swim to Move Up

A

two spots improvement that amounts to a 22 percent rise from the year before has the heartened Kingwood Park Lady Swimming Panthers looking for more in 2011’s UIL Class 4A Girls Swim Meet. Shooting up to seventh from ninth at the UT-Austin Jamail Pool Center, the team is only four spots away from making the team title top three podium. Girls’ Head Coach Brad Griffith assisted by coach Greg McLain- the K-Park Boys’ Head Coach -, is taking his veteran coaching knowledge and moving the Ladies toward the top of Texas 4A. Griffith’s team only finished 11 points out of sixth, 12 points out of fifth, 27 units outs of fourth and only 45 out of podium landing third place. They were one team of only eight that scored in the 100s.

Dallas Highland Park High in a squeaker with 232 points just edged out fellow metroplexer Frisco who finished only five points behind with 227 points. It was one

of the closest meet finishes in history and ended up coming down to the last event the 400 yard freestyle. The Lady Scots first place win earned them eight more points than third place Frisco and enabled the squad to leapfrog and take the Gold.

That dream of winning it all or getting to the victory podium for K - Park now rests with a man who has spent time learning his trade. First, as an athlete, Griffith swam for Kingwood High in the late 80’s, graduating in ’88 after his team went to State in his junior and senior year. He left behind a Mustang legend, the outstanding Head Coach Greg Joseph, and moved on to Texas A&M where he became a coach on the side with a swimming club called Texas Age Group Aquatics or AGs for short. Griffith planned on swimming in college but after only getting offers from ouside the state, he settled in at College Station to earn a Coaching Degree. After earning his diploma, Griffith headed back to the Forest Cove area

Now, Griffith is coaching young up and coming high school swimmers that could bring him that much coveted higher finish. One such swimmer is Savanna Golson whose sister Caroline, a swimmer, is graduating this year. Golson though, has two more years left and is fast becoming a potent 200 and 400 yard freestyler ( She was on the Bronze third place 200 yd.

Freestyle relay team at State). She didn’t waste much time making up her mind to swim either. “I was in Kindergarten when these people came by our school talking about swimming and I thought it might be something that I would like to try out,” the sophomore Golson recounts.

Years later, Golson is still at it and she has decided to stay with swimming and only that sport. “I was having fun playing volleyball but now I think I’ve got a better chance at being successful with swimming. You’re just dealing with bettering your times in races and dealing with ways to move faster in the pool, not the other extra stuff that volleyball asks you to do,” Golson says. “ I need to focus only on the pool so that I can help my team get in the top 5 at State. We have all made a deeper commitment to train harder. When you do that you can become an awesome swimmer.

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Section Title Swimming Texas A&M . Bradshaw says she is looking at an Art majoring path but has found several recruiting websites and she might look to swim in Aggieland , as well. “I just want to keep improving as a swimmer,” Bradshaw says.

The Reach – K-Park Girl Freestyler Joins Her Teammates in 7th place State Finish

It was our improved yardage and time totals that allowed us to move up into the top seven this year. As a group we are maturing in our approach. We love coach Griffith and we want to do well for him.

Our swimmers have a togetherness about them and our improved bonds make us want to do well out there for ourselves, too,” Golson says.

Golson (who had 5 top ten finishes at State) has plenty of experienced help on the team. Junior Ally Bradshaw is a top relay swimmer ( Bronze medalist in the 200yd relay) who is also a veteran in the water. Bradshaw took up the sport when she was five years old swimming in summer leagues because swimming looked like a good time . “My dad was a swimmer and I saw him out there having fun and I wanted to do it,” Bradshaw says. Ally’s mother is the KP Journalism teacher and at one time Bradshaw was interested at going into the profession, but she says that is no longer the case.

Golson says it is the case that the program has exceeded her expectations. Bradshaw says the K- Park way is good because it emphasizes something that she hasn’t seen with the other teams she has been a member of, or other teams at any level she has competed against. “I see the bonding that we have on this team and I really think that is a key to our success because I just don’t see that with a lot of the others we go up against,” Bradshaw says.

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“We made a group commitment to train harder this time and it worked because we moved up to seventh place from ninth last season. We pretty much knew what to expect this time around and our coaches are great because they had us very prepared.

Part of that preparation is encouraging us to bond with each other. After all, if you are going to practice with the same people that you see over and over each day you better get along ,” Bradshaw says.

They say they are going to train even harder next time around. The girls are also looking to the future in other ways as well. Golson says she wants to swim at

One thing is for certain, the young swimmers at Kingwood Park High will keep on improving and will eventually get a legitimate shot at getting into Highland Park territory. They won’t fail to have that opportunity because of Brad Griffith who has given them the greatest gift that they will ever receive. The bonding , training , and attitude that they have had instilled in them has the Lady Swimming Panthers ready to show the State swimming world that they have the will to succeed which after all is half or even more of the battle. “There will never ever be a time in the future where we will just be ‘happy to be there’ at State, “Savanna Golson says.

Soon, Kingwood Park’s opponents around the area and the state won’t be happy to be there either when the Forest Green, Black, and Silver girls get their shot to be golden. n

LOOK IN THE WATER Do you know (DYK) that Alli Bradshaw’s favorite subject in school is biology? She likes to know how the human body works as she attempts to find out ways to be a better swimmer through the study of Kinesiology and Physiology.

DYK that Bradshaw is at a retired Black Belt level in Tae-Kwan Do Martial Arts?

DYK that Savanna Golson was a member of a playoff Volleyball team at K – Park?

DYK that Golson’s dad played college football for Texas A&M?

Swimming

The Streaking Comet of K-Park

S

cientists say that when a fiery object in outer space goes zipping across the sky, it can contain some of the most valuable material known to man.

For instance, the typical comet or meteor contains enough heated, pressurized carbon to carry – comets are also made up of gases and space waste- billions of dollars in diamonds. Of course, before anyone can cut the precious gems, they burn up and melt away in the atmosphere or they soon leave the sight of the observer and head off riding with the comet to another part of the galaxy.

At Kingwood Park, they also have had an experience with their own version of a comet. Only this time its doubtful that the unhappy ending that space junk and rocks sometimes meet is going to repeat itself in the person of the Lady Swimming Panthers’ phenomenal and relatively new, but soon exiting swimming sensation, senior Kara Raney. She will leave our sight and head off to college to possibly make a big name for herself but our HighPoints Cover Athlete for the Spring has made quite a name for herself at home in just two years as a 4A high school swimmer. According to her coaches she has just scratched the surface of what she can do. To them, she is a diamond in the rough . She was the brightest “gem” for the Girls’ team at the District meet.

That much is for sure ! The final medal count ( see cover) is four, all Gold. In addition, she was the Girl Swimmer of the Meet, aka. the Female Swimmer of the Year in 19-4A. She was also a Regional Medalist . At State in Austin, she also medaled in a final, taking home a Bronze in the 200 yd. Freestyle Relay with Savanna Golson, Alli Bradshaw, and Rachael Doyle the rest of the quartet.

Two appearances in the 4A meet and just two years have passed .

Now You See Her, Soon You Won’t - K. Raney the Senior at State ‘10

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Swimming The most amazing thing about Raney though, is that she only has summer league experience and has only taken up the sport full- time since last October.

That happened when she decided to quit Volleyball. Also, she has never been a swimmer on a club team. Those teams are where she could get more extensive training than in a hot months league. Although, with her current summer coach Brad Griffith, she is in good hands now.

So where does the story begin? Well...

Once upon a time, she was a little girl who began swimming when her dad gave her some sound advice. “He told me that I could float, and I believed him which was my introduction to swimming, somewhere around three or four years old, and I picked it up right away,” Kara says.

Ever since that initial splash in the pool, Raney has kept on going at the sport, albeit with some trepidation. She never fully gave her then number one pursuit in school, Volleyball, second shrift until her senior year, her first year on the Volleyball Varsity. “By then it was pretty obvious that I wasn’t going to be as good as I wanted to be in Volleyball. I wasn’t playing much on the floor and I decided it was time to realize that I was a much better swimmer than I was a volleyball player, even though I loved playing” Kara says.

Her Head Coach Griffith agrees that Swimming is definitely her sport and he, along with Boys’ Head man Greg McLain, believe that not only is she improving, but like the old BachmanTurner Overdrive rock song back in the day, “You Ain’t Seen’ Nothin ’Yet”.

McLain says she is a “natural” who works very hard to stay at her very best for now, and to seek the very best of what is to

come. “She catches the water with her hands very well, and she has an outstanding yardage length per arm stroke which makes you excited about her future, ”McLain says.

Colleges are lining up to see what’s coming next. When HighPoints interviewed Raney a few weeks after the State meet she had recruiting trips to four schools already planned, including Division One’s Arkansas-Little Rock’s Trojans. She has already been offered some scholarships from colleges. When she gets to college she wants to study Exercise Science and after her swimming career is over she’d like to be a Personal Trainer. “I like working out because it really relieves stress and I want to help other people feel that,” Raney says.

Meanwhile, for now , Kara will continue to enjoy the company of her teammates and the camaraderie that goes with that, going out for: movies like Dear John, food ; and socializing with her close-knit Lady Swimming Panther friends. “Its always nice to know that we can be there for each other when we have had a bad day ,and that we can have that nice, family atmosphere,” Raney says.

However, unfortunately for her teammates and Panther Swimming fans, that atmosphere is not going to be able to hold this “comet ”. n

Ms. 19-4A – District Swimmer of the Meet, K. Raney

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Baseball

Giving back the Right Way.

H

uffman Hargrave’s pride and joy aka. Keith Foulke (pronounced – folk) did not really know what to expect after he threw the last pitch of the 2004 Major League Baseball World Series. After all, he had never before been in a position to win the sport’s biggest prize. When Foulke released the last offering there were two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning in St. Louis and his Boston Red Sox had a three games to none lead in the best of seven series.

Naturally, as a top flight professional pitcher he was not thinking about all of the aftermath before the actual act was finished. Bearing down on the hitter was the closer’s task, full concentration, full speed not looking ahead. Wouldn’t you know it? The Cardinal batter swung and sent the ball back to the mound and Foulke himself had the honor of handing out the final assist that ended 86 years of the “Curse of the Bambino”. When Red Sox late-inning defensive replacement first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz squeezed the underhanded toss, the dogpile formed and the “Cowboy Up” club’s celebration that October night, was on and so was a fandom’s.

Only one problem. No one grabbed the ball from Mientkiewicz ( pronounced –

men kay vich) and no one would get the precious object back until 18 months later when the team and the former Florida State Seminole slick fielder finally resolved their issues. Some said that he did not want to give back to Boston fans and the Baseball Hall of Fame until it suited him. He said that wasn’t the case. Now, some could say that Doug shouldn’t have surrendered the ball right away. After all, the ball was valuable in more ways than one, and it meant something to him as well. Conversely, the game of Baseball itself and the long suffering Red Sox “Nation “and the many Fenway faithful who year after year filed into the old-style, classic ballpark and supported a team that had come so close, yet finished so far away from the big title ; deserved to also hold it right away. Arguments went down on both sides. One thing is for sure though, no matter which way Foulke himself would have reacted in the same situation ; no one can dispute the man’s desire to give back to his hometown and its high school Baseball program.

HighPoints caught up this year with the now retired decade-plus major leaguer as he showed up to pitch at Hargrave Falcon batters during the annual Huffman High School’s baseball fundraiser .

Foulke: It’s great to be back. I left here following graduation in the early nineties. My family moved here during the mid-seventies and I went to school here from first grade onward. ( He was born in Rapids City, South Dakota in 1972.)

HighPoints: What was it like to experience Boston’s reaction to the club ending the so called curse?

Foulke: There were Red Sox fans that were telling us that they could die now and all the

wait and worry has now been lifted. You really don’t get a sense until you participate in a parade in front of four million people lined up around the river harbor. People were saying there that their dead grandfathers could now rest in peace, things like that.

HighPoints: You’re back here playing in this fundraising alumni game. Why do you think that’s an important thing to do?

Foulke: It’s all about giving back to the community. If I can do something to help the baseball program here to have the quality of facilities that they need, and these are an upgrade over what he had, then I think its my obligation to do so. It is exciting for little leaguers to dream about getting older and playing on a high school field. It is important for the high school kids to have a good place to play. It’s also important for me to support the people that supported me when I grew up.

They made it possible for me to be where I am today. They helped build me.

HighPoints: What is it like to come back to the old stomping grounds and see familiar sights? Has it changed? Is it about the same?

Foulke: It’s changed quite a bit. Things aren’t close to being the same. For one thing our old high school is now the middle school, and they have this newer high school. The football stadium is brand new and really much bigger than our old one. It is really great though to see some old friends and catch up. I think I value all of these memories, going to school with the same kids from grades 1-12, more now, than I used to.

HighPoints: You have had injury problems over the last few years. It may have caused you to retire earlier than you wanted. What does come next ?

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Baseball Foulke: I’ll probably start a business venture, helping to teach kids as I give baseball lessons. I’ll work on my yard a bit and be with my three boys and my family. I’ll probably work on my tan some. Of course, you’ll also find me a lot on the golf course.

HighPoints: Final question, what part of Huffman and Hargrave High do you carry with you when you’re not here?

Foulke: It’s that’s small town and small school feeling, knowing that I played football, and baseball with the same guys for ten years.

You’re with the same guys you graduated with and went to school with from elementary on.

The program here has been successful for quite sometime. We all had something to do with that. I have learned to really appreciate this as I’ve gotten older. I’m proud to be a Texan and I’m proud to be from Huffman and Hargrave. That small town feel, its pretty cool.

For Keith Foulke, giving back when he feels a responsibility to do so, is the right thing to do. Giving back that way is to him probably worth a cool million and then some. n

Do you know?

• Mientkiewicz left the Red Sox that next year in 2005, as he signed with the N.Y.Mets.

• Foulke was parodied in an Onion online article in which the comically satirical pseudo- newspaper, “... interviewed the ball”.

• The Red Sox sued Mientkiewicz after he and the club agreed to let New England fans see the ball for a whole year before the item would be returned to him if ownership of the precious object had not been settled. The Sox maintained that since Doug was an employee of the Red Sox, they were entitled to the ball. They lost the case and the ball wasn’t surrendered until the final resolution in the Spring of 2006.

Doug said he did not surrender it right away because he wanted to ensure that Sox fans would see the ball before the Museum or team trophy case would. The ball itself was authenticated the day after the final out of the Series, by Major League Baseball.

• The final St. Louis out was made by shortstop Edgar Renteria who signed the next year as a free agent with…Boston. He finally surrendered the bat he used in the last at bat in the 2004 Series…when he arrived in Boston. It’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Renteria knocked in the winning run in game seven of the ’97 Series for the Florida Marlins. The hit came in extra innings against Cleveland. Renteria, one of the few Colombians to ever play in the majors, wore the number 3 with the Cards. That was Babe “ the Bambino” Ruth’s number with the Yankees. In 1919, needing money to finance a Broadway play he was backing, Sox owner Harry Frazee sold Ruth to New York following the season. Boston watched as the Yanks won 26 Series titles until the 2004 season when the Red Sox finally delivered and ended the “ Curse of the Bambino”. Doug Mientkiewicz number was… 13.

J. Bagley back in Town - 2006 Huffman Grad, Current Tampa Bay Minor Leaguer; Mows ‘em down at Hargrave Baseball Fundraiser 54

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Baseball

K. Foulke File • Foulke was drafted in the 14 th. Round of the Baseball Amateur Free Agent Draft in ’93 by Detroit. He signed in ’94 after being drafted in the 9 th. Round out of small college power (NAIA) Lewis-Clark St. (Lewiston,ID.) by the San Francisco Giants.

• Keith’s best year came in 2003 with Oakland where he was 9-1 with a 2.08 ERA ,saving 43 games in 48 save opportunities while making 72 appearances overall. He struck out 88 men in 86.2 innings. Hitters only batted .186 off of him that season. The venerable publication The Sporting News named him the American League Reliever of the Year following that season.

• Foulke in the 2004 Red Sox Championship year saved 32 games with a 2.17 ERA. He had signed with the Sox as a free agent that season. Two years before, he had ended up getting traded to the A’s from the White Sox, a team that he had spent seven years with. In 2005, the ChiSox won their first World Series since 1917, one year before the last Babe Ruth Red Sox title and two years before the “Black Sox” Series Gambling Scandal and Ruth’s post season departure to the Yankees. Foulke’s post season in 2004 included a line of: 1-0, 19 strikeouts in 14 innings pitched, only 7 hits allowed , 3 saves, one earned run-none unearned- to go along with an .064 ERA (1.80 in the Series) • Foulke ended his career after pitching with among other teams, the Chicago Cubs of the National League.

Injuries curtailed his career there. His last full year was with Oakland’s A’s in 2008.

• Foulke was glad to share the stage during the fundraiser with Huffman area baseball legend Al Spangler, himself a former major leaguer with among other teams the Houston Colt .45’s ( now Astros). Spangler settled into the Huffman area after he retired. Current Tampa Bay Rays minor leaguer Jamie Bagley also played in the game. Bagley graduated from Hargrave in 2006. Bagley who said it was an honor to meet Foulke, receive some tips on throwing the cutter fastball from Keith.

• Keith was a member of the A.L.( Mid- Summer) All Star Team during his career, giving up no runs in one inning of work, while saving the game as a closer.

PEST, POOL, or LAWN

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Baseball / Softball Predictions

Softball 19 - 5A

Baseball 19 - 5A D Kingwood P2 Humble P3 Atascocita P4 Nimitz 5 Mac Arthur 6 Eisenhower 7 Aldine

D Kingwood P2 Mac Arthur P3 Nimitz P4 Atasccita 5 Humble 6 Eisenhower 7 Aldine

Baseball 19 - 4A

Softball 19 - 4A

D Crosby P2 Galena Park P3 Kingwood Park P4 Dayton 5 Barbers Hill 6 GC Memorial 7 C.E. King 8. North Forest

D Dayton P2 Crosby P3 Kingwood Park P4 Atascocita 5 C. E. King 6 GC Memorial 7 G. Park 8 North Forest

Baseball 22 - 3A D Huffman Hargrave P2 Tarkington P3 Shepherd 4 Splendora 5 LIiberty 6 Cleveland 7 Coldspring

Softball 22 - 3A D Huff. Harg.

P2 Coldspring - Oakhurst P3 Liberty 4 Cleveland 5 Splendora 6 Tarkington 7 Shepherd

TAPPS Baseball 1A / 2A - 7 Northeast Christian District Winner

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Montage

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Montage

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Track and Field

The First Time Family of Kingwood

Z

oe Simpson was mad. He just wanted to know why. After all, for the “umpteenth” time someone had mispronounced his first name- its Zoe which rhymes with” Joe”- and it was time to call his dad in the Texas Panhandle. “I wanted to know why he named me Zoe,” Simpson says. However, the bigger question that anyone else might ask is, “How do you top what this man has done?” One thing is for sure even if you can’t top it, one can certainly equal it.

Years later, another question was being asked. This puzzler was being approached in a self evaluation by Christie Burleson. It was posed just after the 2008 State Cross Country Meet when the Burleson- guided Kingwood High Varsity Girl’s Cross-Country runners had come up short in a fifth place finish in Round Rock, TX. The year before that in ’07 , Kingwood lost by the narrowest of margins in a fluky second place finish to Southlake Carroll of the Dallas area.

The Head Coach wanted to know after another year without a State Team title, if she was cutout to care too much, all the way to the point of heartbreaking frustration, about the disappointing finishes, or should she just start going through the coaching motions and collect a paycheck?

The answer to that question brought with it a historical connection with her dad.

By virtue of the fact that she wanted to care about her kids that much, Coach Burleson who also heads the Girls’ Track program at KW, decided to stick it out . Twelve months later in 2009, the Lady Mustangs had the State 5A Cross- Country title and Christie had equaled her dad.

They became the first Father/Daughter State title holders in UIL history. Her assistant that day was the semi-retired former KW Boys’ National Champion Head Coach who had won a State title ( or two , or more) in his day. He’s still her assistant today. He also happens to be her father. The Coach’s name is Zoe Simpson, but you already guessed that.

What you don’t know is that Christie Burleson first grabbed on to Track and Field when she was in diapers. “My dad was a track and a football coach from the time before I was born, and before I could talk he would say ‘ stick!’ and because he had trained me, I would reach my hand back and grab the relay baton,” Burleson laughs.

“My dad had a little kids track camp there in Victoria, in South Texas where I was born and when I was a little girl I would hang around the camp and participate in it. Then, my dad came over to Kingwood High when I was about five or six years old. Later on , he had another camp for awhile, and I was involved with that as well as a little kid. I later ran the 400 meters and the 200 m. races at Kingwood Middle School. I also ran Cross-Country(XC) but that was just to strengthen my legs for the sprint events.

Then, at Kingwood High, I ran track and Cross-Country but I never really advanced to Regional or State because even though I was a very hard worker, I really wasn’t very good,” Burleson says.

She was good enough to run in college at Division Two Howard Payne U. in Brownwood,TX. She was also good enough to participate in every track and field event from the triple jump and long jump, to the sprints and the sprint relays, along with the intermediate 800ms. “I didn’t necessarily do all those events well, but because we had a small team, I was able to do all of that at the Conference meet one year,” Burleson says.

Coach Burleson also was later able to meet the Class A one girl track team member Bonnie Richardson who won back to back State Track and Field Team Championships by herself. The girl who has since graduated, hails from tiny Rochelle in far-central/west Texas. She like Burleson in college, participated in more than a few events herself, in high school.

In her case, she accrued the needed team

I’ve Got Your Back – C. Burleson (left) with Assistant Z. Simpson (right)

points by participating in all events. Burleson says that she was able to see her at the State meet last year and in Burleson’s opinion , the athlete was fantastic.

Burleson also thought her high school coach was fantastic . He thought enough of her to give her a chance to help him guide the Kingwood Girls’ track and XC fortunes. After she graduated from college, and after she spent one year coaching at Timberwood Middle School, John Barr, an icon himself at Kingwood, made the call to Christie, and after Barr later left the school, Burleson moved into the top spot. Barr was like a second father to Coach Burleson and she felt real pressure taking over from such a strong mentor.

She did not want to let him down.

Years later, after the bitter pill memories of ’07 and ’08, because Burleson had decided to become less critical in her coaching and just be her normally off work positive self, when dealing with her KW kids; the date with destiny was set.

Now, she is shooting for the XC/ Track and Field Double – two championships in one year. However, she says that this track team is in a rebuilding year.

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Track and Field

Front and Center - Kingwood’s S. Blake Wins 800 at Mosley Relays.

Once again, by her side will be the man who was always there for her with encouragement as a kid. He’s the dad who refused to let his child think that just because she was a track /XC coach’s kid, it didn’t mean she had to be the fastest runner on the block, that her best was good enough for him. He’s the father who decided he wanted to see his family and daughters more and to give up his other assistant football coaching duties at Victoria High and only guide the Stingaree program in track and XC . When more time with his loved ones wasn’t possible to arrange, he began to seek other employment.

The one time ’76, Olympic trials quality sprinter from Rice U. with the eye blink speed, then called a friend of his the day he found out about the opening at fairly new Kingwood High School. “I talked to the great Woodlands Cross-Country/ track Head Coach Dan Green and I asked him if he knew if there were any athletes in Kingwood, and his reply to me was,’ You sorry so and so, there are athletes everywhere, you just have to develop them’, and he was half kidding in tone of course, but he was absolutely correct,” Simpson says.

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“ If you are going to wait to find that great natural athlete, then you will be out of luck. Those kinds of guys are not going to run Cross-Country. Back in those days in the early eighties, most of your sprinters in middle school were assigned to run the mile. If they weren’t good enough to run the 100 and 200m races and place higher up, then they became milers. Those really, really good athletes who were probably going to play football, could run an event like that, but they were not going to run XC. So, I said then that I was going to start looking at the middle school Phys.-Ed. Classes and see what I could find. That’s the way we operated and we avoided the milers who were going to play football, and we concentrated on developing kids into XC athletes. As for track, you will get the offseason football players in addition to the specialized track kids and the XC kids,” Simpson says.

The former Humble ISD Athletic Director is working for his daughter through the School District’s Retirees’ Rehiring Program, which enables those in it to work on a part-time basis. He helps add to the staff which also features Tricia

Davis on the girls’ side. Simpson says that being employed under his daughter , “... is a ‘gas”. “I’m having a wonderful time finding out how she works very hard and how prepared and organized she is because I’m very impressed with what I see,” Simpson says. He says her habits are totally the opposite of the way she operated as a teenager, recounting that one day he saw she had moved her bed around in her room. Only, he found out later on when she was in college that the move was made to cover up the spilt nail polish on the carpet in her room.

Conversely, Coach Simpson was very pleased that on the day his daughter made history that he was there to enjoy it. On that same day, other history also was made when the son of an old family friend also won his first Boys’ team CrossCountry State 5A title. The young man’s name was Juris Green who joined his dad, Dan as the only father and son to win a UIL crown. His dad was the man who gave Simpson the advice that convinced the successful Victoria High coach to take the Kingwood job, the employment that may have made it possible for the modern day collaboration between father and daughter.

Track and Field Now, the pair are concentrating on continuing the legacy that Simpson started at KW. They will do it with outstanding runners : miler and distance specialist Sophie Blake who has signed to run in college at Texas A&M and who finished 13 th. in State ’09 Cross-Country; Rosemary Steup ( pronounced Stoyp) the Regional XC champ who was first across the line for Kingwood , finishing 12 th. overall in the 5A meet, and was sixth overall in the 3200m at the ’09 State Track and Field meet ; Catie Daigre (Dayg) who was sixth in the state in XC in ’08, and sixth in the state in the 1600 m. run in the State 5A Track and Field meet in ’09 ; and another young runner Laura Craig . Overall, KW’s Lady ‘Stangs finished eighth at last year’s State track meet in Austin.

One of the up and coming runners to watch for nowadays is Kelly Gaudeau a freshman who has outstanding 400m sprinting speed. She hopes to repeat the terrific frosh success of Daigre. Another sprinter on the horizon is J.C. Pleasant, and Kingwood is awaiting 100m Hurdler Natasha Tillett who is out with an illness. Burleson says that she is so good that the young lady at one time was the team points leader even though she hadn’t competed much at that point. Her sister, Tiffany Tillett has taken her academic excellence and marvelous athletic talent over to Stanford U. The freshman is already making her way into the Cardinal’s

regular lineup. She attended Atascocita during her Humble ISD career.

So, the Kingwood career of Christie Burleson will continue as will the passing on of the legacy of excellence. From father to daughter and perhaps one day to young granddaughter Zoey, the foot beats will go marching on and the relay baton “stick” training lessons will too. Speaking of the Z word, how did Zoe- short for Zoeth- Simpson end up with that not so usual name? “I asked my dad what in the world, was he thinking to name me that?

On the other end of the phone I heard him say, ‘ Son , its very simple. When you were born you were so ugly that I didn’t know what to call you and I couldn’t spell “Yuck”,’ and then my dad immediately hung up the phone. The truth is that I was named for my dad’s uncle Zoeth who was the first doctor in Floyd County back in the early part of the twentieth century.

That county is near the county of my hometown Plainview ,up in the Panhandle. My name originally derives from a biblical name Zoar,” Coach Simpson says.

Pupils of the Masters- Kingwood Lady Mustang Runners above and below at the Mosley Meet, a Testament to Their Coaches

Zoar (Zo urr) almost rhymes with soar which is pretty much what the Kingwood Girls’ Cross- Country and Track and Field teams have been doing lately...soaring, and you don’t have to hear “stick” to grab that concept. n

RIGHT ON TRACK Do you know (DYK) that Zoe Simpson made it through to the third round of the 1976 U.S. (Summer) Olympic Trials? He was trying to qualify in the 200 meter dash. However, he came up one spot short.

Simpson was officially clocked in college at 9.2 secs. in the 100 yard dash, 10.1 secs. in the 100 m. race, and 20.3 secs. in the 200m; all world class times at the time.

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Track and Field

KP Learning the Lanehart of the Matter

M

ost people who come from small towns will tell you that they will always carry a” piece” of their original home with them. If you are from Iraan ( pronounced ira-ann) , Texas like Kingwood Park Girls’ Head Track and Field/ Cross- Country Coach Brittany Lanehart , then you will always have a slice of Blanton Street, or Alley Oop Ln. out by the city park, or even follow your memories of Harte St. You might even remember running or driving down Drake St. as you headed out of town to the south on State Highway 349.

You do think about it though especially if you were a five sport star in high school and the town with a little over 1200 folks hailed your State meet victory in the long jump event when you were in high school representing the Iraan Bravettes in Austin. The feat was accomplished almost 40 years to the day that your dad set a then Class B (now Class A) record in the boys long jump- 24 feet- at the State meet. It could even be possible that as your old neighborhood takes pride in what you have accomplished, that the process could be reversed, they may be keeping a part of you.

There may even have been something in the western Texas wind that carried news to them of your latest exploits, namely seven State Championships – six in Cross-Country, and one in Track and Field- as a head coach in seven years on the job. The last Championship was brought home to K-Park’s Girls as they took the crown in Round Rock in ’09.

The next one may be handed out to the Lady Running Panthers in Austin in June this year. Which ever way it shakes out, the Lanehart Legacy is in full swing on Woodland Hills Dr. these days.

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The Know How - B. Lanehart Moves K-Park Forward

The first UIL Head Coach in the modern era to win three straight championships at the beginning of their tenure at a brand new high school that they started with from its first day , Lanehart had repeated, well almost repeated the feat before. To get to that initial place she ran across a misfortune created opportunity. “I ran track at Texas Tech in Lubbock, where I had been recruited as a heptathlete – seven specialized events ranging from sprints to pole vaulting- and then I tore up my knee, forcing me to long jump until I had to stop,” Coach Lanehart says.

Eventually, she was resigned to pole vaulting only because she was really operating on only one effective leg, the one she jumped off of, with pole in hand.

However, a dark turn led to a bright path when she was forced to learn all of the events from the inside out as a spectator and prospective coach, not a competitor. Then, the scariest part came. “I was fortunate enough to land a job at Canyon High near Amarillo in the northern part of the Panhandle. It was there that I ran into the prospect of teaching something I knew nothing about : Cross- Country!

I was scared to death,” Lanehart recalls.

So she did what any good coach would do, she called people that she trusted for

information and lo and behold, she began to figure out what she needed to do to get to the season’s preparation.

It must have worked.

Lanehart was an immediate hit with Class 3A Canyon, a school that had previous athletic success in those running disciplines as a 5A, and old 3A (now 4A) , and newer 4A (old 3A) school. As a matter of fact , it took the opening of Randall High(Canyon) to put a damper on what had been predictable success in sports like Volleyball, and Basketball. Canyon which was made up of self-made athletes who had to work harder for everything they got, started to see a drain in the amount of students to participate in the athletic program there. Successful coaches were leaving, with the one she was replacing going into administration, and the program needed a spark. The lull in CrossCountry State medal production came to an end when the feisty Red Raider who played backyard football with the sons of Iraan coaches, who was the DidricksonZaharias of her hometown, came in and turned things around.

A championship in her first year of CrossCountry(XC) coaching there was quite a feat, considering she had five freshmen,

Track and Field

Flying Panther – Hurdles Whiz M. Amadou – The ’09 State Champ, Here at the Simpson Meet

and one sophomore on the squad, to go along with only a moderately seasoned junior. There would be two more XC State crowns to come over the next three years, and oh yes, just for good measure, a State Track and Field Championship was thrown in along with two second place finishes. She had coaching chops, and she developed the dynasty crew into seriously competitive runners. Today, the crown jewel of that group is Lauren Simpson, a Big 12 Conference track star, and there are others who have gone on to places like Lanehart’s alma mater, Texas Tech.

Things were going smoothly in Canyon for Lanehart.

Then, it was time to leave.

The Coach wanted a serious challenge.

After she found out about the opening at the new High School, she wanted Kingwood Park, and they wanted her.

They got a coach that came in and saw potential and more importantly saw the challenge of building something, as opposed to the maintenance of what had

transpired at Canyon. “If we could start this school again, I would do it all over again,” Lanehart says. She craves responsibility in anything she does. “When you start something, there are pros and cons to deal with. The good things you do, you own, and the mistakes you make you own.

When you start from scratch, the good part is there are no expectations, and the tough part is... there are no expectations,” Coach Lanehart says.

Lanehart says that going into Canyon High, she knew that she would be with an established program. However, with Kingwood Park, she knew that a lot of the kids she would be dealing with had never run Cross-Country or track before and may not have been involved with athletics at all, especially at the team level.

She says that’s where the fun starts as you’re dealing with kids who know nothing about teamwork, commitment or in some cases accountability. “It’s not really about teaching them about running as much as it is educating them on responsibility,” Lanehart reiterates.

The 2009 Lady Panthers finished seventh at the State Track and Field meet in Austin, and of course, won the ’09 CrossCountry State meet, but there was a time when it didn’t look as rosy.

Coach Lanehart found that today’s stars like Miriam Amadou in track with the 300 meters hurdles, had to receive extra attention right off the bat in the first year. “She couldn’t jog 800m. when I first saw her. However, if you can convince a kid to commit, work hard and believe, it’s amazing what can happen. They taste a little bit of success and it becomes contagious. The others pick up on that and then they are willing to work harder, and they begin to improve and so on.

They have to be there at the workouts and practices to see that. That’s why you need to teach them the accountability factor. From the beginning of workouts in the first compulsory practices we had, we didn’t have one person missing a workout.

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Track and Field sacrifices that the successful athletes make. They see results, and they will ‘ run through brick walls’ because they want to believe in themselves. When they run they will give you their best because they don’t want to let themselves and their teammates down. After all, those are the same people who are pulling for them and who are believing in them,” Lanehart says.

There are other believers.

Lanehart says that she has never seen a school district like Humble ISD. “The support that we get from the District Athletic Directors Krista Malmstrom, and Troy Kite is the best I’ve seen. You can add closer to home, our Athletic Directors Jim Holley, and Angela Gober, and our Principal Larry Cooper, a former coach ( Houston Jones, and Humble high schools), and our associate Principal Lisa Droebing , another former coach, to the mix of backing and it is just outstanding , especially with these facilities here.

This is the best I have seen for women,” Lanehart says.

There is of course the most important faction that you need to buy into the process : the kids.

When she arrived at K-Park, she found herself with the same kind of team she dealt with in Canyon, if not as experienced with the sport as the Top O’ Texas kids, then just as new to the high school demand of disciplined responsibility.

“There were seven freshmen girls that were on the first team and they had to learn what I expected of them, “the coach says. Things did not start out well, or was that the case? “People look at what you do performance wise in September and October and put a lot of stock in that, but many times those teams that perform well ‘burn their engines up ‘ too quickly and their performances peak too early. The first time we competed that first year we finished fourth in the JV Division of that meet. We ended up winning the State Cross-Country 3A title that year, because we brought them along slowly. Don’t get me wrong , we want to win every time we step to the line but how you finish in

Grace in the Race – G. Fletcher the 3200 m. Spring Times Leader in 4A 64

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October is not that important in the long run, unless you are going away from the accountability that the runner needs,” Lanehart says.

“Also, understand that we put stock in how we prepare and how we do race prep once we arrive at the site of a regular season meet. In our earlier week practices we treat the preparation for those in-season meets with urgency and we practice how to deal with pressure situations. That way on the day that the meets arrive, then we will be ready to deal with ‘the nerves’ . We even look at how we conduct warmups before each meet. The idea is to get into a routine. Then when the nervous anxiousness hits, you can deal with it by having the confidence that you have the mental fitness as well as the physical fitness to deal with the pressure later on at the postseason meets, like State. Seventy five percent of the teams that make the State meets do not perform well and dealing with pressure is probably why. We never want to perform poorly at State,” Lanehart says.

Track and Field Finally, there is the story of Miriam Amadou who wasn’t on a middle school track relay team and now runs a 53 second quarter mile-400m.- and won the State 4A track 300m. hurdles with a time of 41.65 secs. She and an El Paso based runner were the only ones at the meet that turned in an under 42 secs. performance mark.

Coach Lanehart says her 4x 400 relay team is coming along well and should give K- Park a boost in the relay sprint event.

Those are the ingredients in the Lady Running Panther Track and Field and Cross-Country team’s planned success.

Of course, Coach Lanehart says that they have to continue to do the things that no others are willing to do before they can get to the pinnacle place. Lanehart says it was a “punch in the gut for the kids when we finished fifth in the District Preview regular season track meet this spring” . She says though, that her kids will be prepared for postseason as long as they expect the best and they believe in the process.

Plenty for Aponte – K-Park’s Nicole A. Heads for the Line at the Sam Mosley Meet

In ’09 State Cross-Country at Round Rock, sophomore Zahri Jackson who unlike some of her teammates, had a running background , finished third overall in 4A Girls (and second among those runners who had a full complement of at least four other teammates who had qualified for State). Those teams of five are the only ones that position-score for the team competition title. Schools that have less than five but have runners who have qualified individually, are not eligible for the team competition portion.

Jackson also finished 3rd. in the mile at State Track and Field ’09. Jackson’s junior class brother Kwame also qualified for the State XC meet, and her older brother Sam ran years ago under the legendary Zoe Simpson at Kingwood. ( see “First Time Family...” this issue)

Also, helping K- Park XC’ers to the crown, was fourth overall, ( 3rd. full complement) Nicole Aponte who did not compete in Athletics in middle School, but did begin to play Soccer in the ninth grade and was discovered running around on the practice pitch by Lanehart . This year is her first in running competition.

Seventh place finisher overall ( 5th. full complement teams), sophomore Kaitlyn Boucher ( boo shay) is part of top ten XC depth for the Lady Running Panthers.

Top 20 State XC finisher, hard working Grace Fletcher is also a track star who this Spring set the fastest time for the two mile event- i.e. 3200m.- in Texas 4A with a mark of 11 :05 (11 mins,5 secs.). On the way up are freshmen girls Janiece Bernard and Destilynn Lindberg in XC.

It’s a process instituted by someone who was smart enough to look for help a few years ago when ever she was faced with the then unknown. Sort of the way long ago settlers sought out help from each other during the West Texas frontier days even as they expected and planned for the worst and hoped for the best. In the end, they believed things would work out and even though there was frustration and human nature filled doubt, things did generally work out for those who stuck it out. That attitude formed Iraan, and that attitude has served Kingwood Park’s Girls’ runners who have given their Head Coach 3 of her 7 total State Championships, with no doubt, more to come if they have their way. Some would say it’s the West Texas way. You know Brittany Lanehart thinks about it... all the way to Harte Street. n

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Track and Field

The Push for State with Atascocita Track and LaCour

By Jacob Kerr (Courtesy of The Talon, Atascocita High School’s Student Newspaper)

V

anita LaCour, the Girls Head Track and Field coach at Atascocita, has produced more state champions from the food and parental advice dished out from her own kitchen table than some schools have in their entire history.

LaCour’s eldest son Carey anchored the Humble Wildcats’ 4x400-meter relay team that won the State Championship in 2003.

Her daughter Karyn, also a Wildcat, won back-to-back state championships in the 100-meter hurdles in 2006 and 2007. And last year at the 2009 UIL State Track and Field Championship, her son Cameron placed first in 110-meter hurdles competing for Dayton High School. Now, LaCour hopes to send yet another athlete to the state meet, but this time from her second family – her track team.

With the regular season meet schedule over, and the postseason unfolding, Atascocita’s Girls’ runners and field performers are trying to live up to their potential.

The team is led by senior captain Shakevia Fleeks who participates in shot put and on relay teams. At the Sam Mosley Relays on March 6 at Atascocita, Fleeks placed fourth in shot put and led the 4x100 and 4x200 relay teams to fourth place finishes, showing improving times in both events. LaCour feels the relay teams should make a good postseason run if they continue to improve.

“We get better times on relays each year, but so does everybody else, so we always miss it [state meet] by a close margin.

Hopefully, this year it will be different,” said LaCour.

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Passing Gear – The Eagles’ Harriers Aim for Victory at the “Mosley” and Eventually State

One of Atascocita’s best chances for State is junior Rachel Mitchell who competes in high jump. Mitchell joined the team after theGirls’ Basketball squad finished their playoff run. Mitchell placed third at the Sam Mosley Relays against some of the Houston area’s top high jumpers. LaCour is incredibly excited about Mitchell’s postseason potential.

“If she continues to improve, she eventually could go to State,” said LaCour.

Two other athletes have great chances to do well in the postseason, but first they must overcome a much larger obstacle – injury. Junior Jillian Anderson, who went to regionals last year and competes in the 800-meter dash, and senior Sharonda

Bryant, who competes in the 400-meter dash, both have been out with leg injuries.

After four years, LaCour is ready to eventually see an athlete get to State.

“After four years, my goal is to make it to State and we can get there,’ said LaCour.

When that happens, oh, now won’t that make for some interesting dinner conversation? n

(Eds. Note- We at HighPoints appreciate Jacob Kerr’s fine writing for this story.)

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Golf

The Mr. Dependable of Kingwood Park Leads Panther Golfers

I

t seems sometimes that with a friendly mailman your mailbox seemingly develops a second opening on the opposite side. When you open the box you can see the smiling face and easygoing manner of the person who delivers your letters. It seemed that way for years and years for the residents of Memphis, Texas. It seems now that the feeling that engendered that attitude is alive and well residing in the persona of the Kingwood Park High School Head Golf Coach, the son of that long ago Memphis mail carrier. Coach Tony Pounds, outside of a head full of gray hair, has not changed one bit over the years. That “down to earth” quality, that feeling you get that he never is going to treat you like a stranger is why this uber people person has been a successful golf coach in the Humble ISD since he took the vacant Humble High Golf position in 1979.

Simply, Tony Pounds knows how to use patience, consistency of personality and oh yes! knowledge of the old Scottish sport, to make Panther performers better.

After all, Golf itself is a game requiring patience and consistency from its players.

During his short tenure at the three year old school, Pounds has repeated the same ability to develop a mindset of success for his students that he did when he helped Atascocita High’s program get off the ground during that school’s first year. After hearing that his good friend and former Humble Head Basketball Coach Larry Cooper had taken the job as Head Principal of brand new K - Park, Pounds jumped at the chance to lead the golf program.

Leading the way is nothing new for the former Oklahoma State NCAA quarterback. After playing football, tennis and basketball at Class A (now called 2A) Memphis High , Pounds thought his

What a Pounds is Worth - KP Coach Tony P. Steadies Panther Golf

athletic days were pretty much going to end with All- district football honors. “ I thought that I was finished playing football but a friend of mine who was also a friend and a relative of the coach at New Mexico Military Institute, a Junior College in Roswell ,recommended me after he was asked if there were any ballplayers from our town that were worth looking at,” Pounds says.

Otherwise, Pounds says he wouldn’t have ever played in college as a scholarship player. Later, after Juco. ball and signing a letter of intent to play with North Texas State in Denton and receiving interest from Texas Tech in Lubbock, Pounds decided to go another direction and go to Okie State. In ’70, Pounds turned in the highest Cowboy passing yardage total since 1940. His mark which was the

highest total since OSU records had been kept , held up until pass defense rules were liberalized in the late ‘80s. At that point, OSU QB, current Cowboy Head Coach, Mike Gundy began a parade of high octane passers, including current major league baseballer Josh Fields in the 2000’s ,which eclipsed the 2000, and 3000 yard passing mark. Still it took almost 20 years after Pounds mark, until the record numbers fell. Its all the more impressive considering the Texas Panhandle native operated when teams ran the football eighty percent of the time, eating up more clock time and reducing the amount of offensive plays, and the defense could contact the receiver all the way downfield until the ball was in the air.

However, it was a run that Pounds remembers most… his own. “We were playing University of Houston and after HighPointsMagazine.com

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Golf a timeout we tried a quarterback sneak and they just happened to be moving their middle linebacker to the side on a ‘stunt’, so there was no one in front of me and 43 yards later I had a TD. With my ‘blazing’ speed, I think I could run faster backward than forward, I couldn’t be caught,” Pounds says jokingly. Thus, after an All-American Juco. career and a Big 8 Conference performance that found him one week as the conference’s Player of the Week despite the fact that he played against future pro QBs Bobby Douglas of Kansas, Lynn Dickey of Kansas St., and Jerry Tagge from National Champ Nebraska and college All- American Jack Mildren of Oklahoma ; Pounds was directed into coaching after his 6 feet-165 lb size precluded any chance of a pro career.

Tasting football coaching at small college Cameron University (Okla.) an NAIA school, and then joining a friend to coach an English speaking high school taking up the sport in Mexico City, Pounds gained the experience he would need to attend Coaching School clinics. That in turn led to an assistant coaching job at North Shore High (Houston). After one year coaching varsity backs and QBs and assisting with the basketball program , followed by a final year under Mustang Head Coach Harlan Baldridge coaching the defensive line, Pounds was ready to look for a more stable situation than the life of a Texas high school football coach.

With a coaching background and experience on the course as a golfer with good athletic ability, Pounds was ready to begin the rest of his life.

Enter Humble High and the Golf coaching position after Mickey Daugherty left for brand new Kingwood , leaving behind the man he recommended for the job.

On the day of HighPoint’s interview with Coach Pounds he was busy informing one of his top assistants that she needed to keep his golfers walking – later they would run- through their paces. Exercising and fitness are not the only changes

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to golf preparation in today’s game. Video Technology has also helped swings become more consistent. “Junior golf is exploding in popularity compared to years ago and yes, Tiger Woods is certainly responsible for some of that. You can also add to that the ability for a young golfer to study their swing on video, and work on the weekends and in the summertime with professional instructors which gets them a lot of experience playing on plenty of available golf courses,” the Panther Golf coach says.

Being the Golf Coach at a smaller (4A) school means Pounds has to deal with athletes that play other sports and he says that took some getting used to. He also says he likes the smaller school atmosphere just fine. “It still is fun to coach Golf because it presents a challenge to your abilities as a coach. With golfers you are dealing sometimes with almost a sensitive football kicker’s mentality.

Everybody knows that Golf is a mental game. I’ve had golfers who have begun to master the mental part despite the fact that they might not have the best swings in the world and I have seen great swings belonging to kids who can’t score well because they can’t get over the mental hump,” Pounds says.

“Sometimes with young high school aged golfers they will listen to you and try to correct flaws but when it doesn’t work out for them, they will go back to their old ways. Then you deal with some golfers who for particuliar reasons don’t want us tinkering with their swing. That’s why a large part of our job is organizing tourneys and transportation and getting out of the way until they ask for our help,” Pounds says.

Going into the District, Regional and State tournaments, the K-Parkers were looking to break through and get to the latter rounds. Led by boys like: Sophomore, Kyle Fischer; Senior, Clint Duval; and Soph. Mark Walton, the Panthers

have a versatile squad. Fischer is proficient at the short game-deep fairway play, chipping and putting- while Walton can deliver the long ball. The longest hitter of the three may be Duval who uses a calm, stoic demeanor-think PGA veteran Fred Couples- combined with great mechanics to provide an experienced and competent hand for the top five boys.

On the girls side, Pounds main assistant Mike Masters is happy with the play of Sr. Aliece Anderson who uses an all around game to lead the Lady Panthers. “Masters does a great job with the girls, including Anderson who can do just about anything on a golf course and has Houston Baptist and Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, (Texas) looking at her for a scholarship,” Pounds says.

In the district his year, Huntsville and Montgomery represented the biggest threat to K-Park’s boys while Montgomery and Magnolia High were the girls’ main competition. After redistricting, Willis becomes a threat to watch for in the district next season.

All of that will be going on under the watchful eye of Tony Pounds a man from a town that once proudly proclaimed it had 3,332 hearty souls in its population.

Chances are the population in the town hasn’t changed that much in the past forty years either. Which can mean only one thing, there could very well be 3,331 hearty souls in Memphis, Texas because everyone knows that one of those souls is gone. He’s “peeking through the mailbox” right back out at the kids of Kingwood Park and spreading a good nature, a hearty laugh, and a genuine no frills personality right back out to his community.

Reminds you of a certain long ago mail carrier who told his son that in their town everybody knows everybody and everyone helps everyone. Tony Pounds took that message to heart and doesn’t plan on changing anytime soon.

You can depend on it. n

Soccer

Goal Dust Twins Winning for Aldine Soccer’s Lady Mustangs

N

ine years in a row makes you pretty good. Depth that helps fill in the cracks when they fall completely through, makes you even better, and sacrifice for the good of the team makes you even more special when your best players are doing it. Aldine High Head Girls Soccer Coach Helen Davey is the witness to all of those aspects of what makes the Columbia and Royal Blue’s program so special.

Davey, who has guided the Lady Mustangs to those nine consecutive playoff berths in 15 years of coaching at the school, watched this year as her second best player missed the whole year with an injury. In addition, her best player missed a portion of the season, and her third best player had to move to a new position and totally change her game. She also saw: that latter player bear down, the rest of the squad step up their level of play a notch, and that third best player then go back to a complementary player attitude once the star returned.

And Oh ! what a star, Karla Pineda ( pin yay dah) followed up a year in which she was named the Greater Houston Soccer Player of the Year as a freshman, with an injury-filled year. It only spurred the player that her coach says has a scorer’s touch that can match any player that she has coached. After coming back from the disabled list, Pineda began to find her touch, and soon she was scoring with a vengeance. Sitting statistically just behind her partner on the pitch, Reina Mata, Karla finished almost in a dead heat for the team scoring lead . The pair both tallied over 15 goals , as they tried to make up for the loss of another big scorer Maria Arzapala, whose major knee injury wiped out her season.

Davey meanwhile, saw her gutty team wrangle another playoff spot where none might have been truly expected.

The mark of a good coach is to get the maximum out of any team whether the conditions are ideal or not. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Helen Davey pulled off the feat, not when you consider her backstory.

Born in New York to a city firefighter, Helen and the family moved to Southern California when she was close to her college years. She later matriculated at a San Diego college, getting her degree .

In Coach Davey’s dad’s mind there was a very good reason to migrate southwesterly. He told her that he believed NY City would go bankrupt in – at that time- ten years. They left and only seven years later the “Big Apple” went belly up financially.

Davey, a good athlete who played softball, tennis and basketball when she was younger and twirled a baton to boot, was not close to becoming a coach after college. The thought never entered the mind of the former ballet dancer. As always, children came along and drastically changed her life. “When my son was six years old, his soccer team needed to provide a referee to the league’s officiating pool or the club wouldn’t be eligible for the playoffs,” Davey says. Coach Davey decided to volunteer to go to officiating school and one certificate later, not only did her son’s team have a shot to make postseason, but the first of three phases of a Soccer career was launched. The next occurred a few years later.

“When my son was eight years old it was suggested to me that I should try playing Soccer, that it was a fun sport, and lo and behold I found a 30 years and older league, and began playing ,” Davey says.

She loved it and soon after dug even deeper into the sport.

“When my daughter was seven years old, I volunteered to coach her youth team in Houston where we had moved,” Davey says. She found every morsel of soccer coaching she could taste. At one time free clinics provided to the public by the then North American Soccer League team in town the Houston Hurricane, opened up fans’ curiosity to the pro game.

Davey attended every one that she could, including those presented by then player, now Major League Soccer (MLS) Houston Dynamo play-by-play announcer Glenn Davis. She also voraciously studied coaching inside and out by attending any other clinics that she could find and by reading about the fine points of the game from other coaches. Later she was off to National Coaching School where she would be certified to coach at just about any level.

She had her opportunity at Stovall Jr. High the neighboring feeder school to Aldine High. Then later, she found out about the opening at Aldine, applying and getting the job. She started the sub-varsity Girls’ teams at the High School in order to expand the experience level of the players. Fifteen years later, her ten year assistant Mark Kuehl ( Keel) and Davey had led Aldine to that ninth playoff spot in nine years, as the team finished in third place in 19-5A. In the playoffs, Aldine met up with a tough Bellaire High team, and lost in Bi-district 4-1. Thus, the continuity of Davey and Kuehl’s “marriage” as she puts it, enabled the coaches to extract every ounce of productivity from the injury laden squad. They had gone as far as they could go, but the young squad will return next year, including the tough, physically playing Mata and the smoothly scoring, Pineda who is only a sophomore.

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Soccer Karla Pineda is a humble young lady who reflexively gives all of the credit for her phenomenal career to her teammates.

The talented forward saw her brother playing when she was four years old and decided to begin playing at the club level.

Davey says the hard working forward is both a naturally great athlete and a selfmade player. The striker with the golden ability says she needs to improve her game and going to a camp sponsored by the University of Texas in Austin should help her sharpen her skills. She says that she would like to attend Texas. In high School she also likes other subjects and may end up in another career. “I like Math and Science and I think I might get into a career involving animal science,” Pineda says.

She says that she enjoys playing with Reyna Mata the 2010 striker who has now moved back into her natural position of sweeper-forward, the corner kicker on the team. Mata feels the same way and admits it took a lot of pressure off of her shoulders whenever Pineda returned from injury. “I stepped up my game and we all stepped up our games when she was out and also with Maria Arzapala our senior scorer out, and when Karla came back I could relax more and settle in with my regular position,” Reyna the junior says.

Its been both sweet and sour for Aldine’s Girls’ soccer opponents this year with the “sweet” play of Pineda and Mata usually followed by the sour taste of defeat by the opposition. If Aldine Head Coach Helen Davey continues to have a say in the matter, then the duo of Karla and Reyna will continue to improve, leaving the sweet smell of success in the air. One thing about it no one can argue that in an injury filled 2010 season, the Lady Mustangs didn’t just survive. No, they won and got everything from the “Goal Dust Twins” of Pineda and Mata that they could, as a coach and her players showed exactly what a good team is made of. n

The Phenom – Aldine’s K. Pineda, One of the Best Young Soccer Players in Metro Houston

Reyna says she is looking at colleges like Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, U. of Houston, U of Dallas, and the University of the Ozarks in Missouri. She has improved her grade in Physics, and says she likes her Health class. The physical , solid tackling forward is looking at the latter class subject in more ways than one. “I would like to get into the medical field, maybe as a Pediatrician later on,” Mata says. For now the healthy eating player will occasionally find some junk food like ,”... stuff like Sour Patch Kids, a sweet and sour candy that I like”, Mata says.

Reyna Mata, Pineda’s Partner on the Pitch 72

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Tribute

HIGHPOINTS GIRLS TEAMS OF THE SEASON

COACHES OF THE YEAR BOYS

CRAIG MOORE

ATASCOCITA BASKETBALL

(first year coach with NCA program)- TOOK NORTHEAST CHRISTIAN BASKETBALL TO STATE TAPPS 2A TITLE

COACHED BY VALERY JACKSON, REACHED 5A REGIONAL QUARTERFINALS WON DISTRICT 19-5A and TWO PLAYOFF GAMES, NOT EXPECTED THAT HIGH

GIRLS ( TRI- tie) VALERY JACKSON

ATASCOCITA BASKETBALL, TEAM’S FIRST DIST. CHAMP, TWO PLAYOFF WINS ( in her first year with AHS)

KINGWOOD SWIM TEAM

NANCY FAULK

COACHED BY RUSSELL DUIN WON STATE 5A MEET, HAS NOW CONSECUTIVE TOP THREE FINISHES, THIRD IN ’09, (CO-tie) GIRLS DIVISION

MAC ARTHUR BASKETBALL-19-5A UNEXPECTED SECOND PLACE FINISH

RUSSELL DUIN KINGWOOD SWIM TEAM, won state girls and won third at state boys

CONGRATULATIONS

HIGHPOINTS ATHLETE OF THE SEASON ATASCOCITA HIGH SOCCER KELSI BROWN WITH 38 GOALS, 8 ASSTS. 84 PTS. IN JUST 22 GAMES FOR YR. FOR THE GIRLS

CONGRATS TO FIRST ISSUE COVER ATHLETE

NORTHEAST CHRISTIAN BASKETBALL NICK MC DONALD

KENT BROOKS

SHOT OVER 50 PERCENT FROM 3-PT. AREA, OVER 100 TOTAL FOR THE SEASON , WAS MVP AT TAPPS 2A STATE TOURNEY FINAL FOUR

SIGN.WITH UNIV. OF HOUSTON FOOTBALL

CHRIS PATUREAU AVERAGED OVER 20 PTS. A GAME, AND DOUBLE DIGIT REBOUNDS A GAME IN SEASON (CO-tie) FOR THE BOYS DIVISION

HIGHPOINTS BOYS TEAMS OF THE SEASON NORTHEAST CHRISTIAN BASKETBALL

KINGWOOD PARK SWIM TEAM

COACHED BY CRAIG MOORE

COACHED BY GREG McLAIN

IN FIRST YR. WITH TEAM–SECOND CONSECUTIVE STATE

WON SECOND OF BACK TO BACK 4A STATE MEETS

CHAMPIONSHIP TAPPS 2A, THIRD IN FIVE YEARS, WON DISTRICT, REGION, 30-7 ON SEASON

KINGWOOD PARK SOCCER COACHED BY RYAN SMITH WON DISTRICT AND ALLOWED ONE GOAL DURING DISTRICT SEASON, UNDEFEATED WITH ONE TIE DURING REGULAR SEASON,

KINGWOOD SWIM TEAM COACHED BY RUSSELL DUIN FINISHED THIRD FOR CONSECUTIVE TOP THREE FINISHES FIRST IN ’09, AT STATE 5A MEET

TOP TEN IN POLLS DURING SEASON 27-1-1 region champ and state runnerup

(QUAD-tie) BOYS DIVISION

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Wraps 19-5A Basketball (Boys) 19-5A

19-5A Basketball (Girls)

District

Season

UIL Playoff/ HOW FAR

wins-losses

w-l

w-l

D-Kingwood

12-0

30-5

(1-1,/ AREA)

p-Humble

9-3

20-15

(1-1/AREA)

p-Aldine

* 6-6

12-9

(0-1/BI-DIST.)

p-Eisenhower

x 6-6

7-15

(0-1/BI-D.)

5 Nimitz

5-7

13-13

6 Atascocita

4-8

11-22

7 Mac Arthur

0-12

3-25

19-5A

Key- * - won third place due to district tie-break system

District

Season

UIL Playoff/ HOW FAR

wins-losses

w-l

w-l

D-Atascocita

11-1

22-9

(2-1/REG. QUARTERF.)

p-Mac Arthur

10-2

19-8

(1-1/AREA)

p-Ike

7-5

15-14

(0-1/BI-D.)

p-Humble

* 7-6

14-15

(0-1/BI-D.)

5 Nimitz

x 6-7

13/17

6 Kingwood

2-10

4-19

7 Aldine

0-12

3-18

x - lost third place tie-break

Key- * - won fourth and final playoff spot due to extra tie-break game win

D - District winner, p - playoff qualifier

x - lost fourth place and final playoff spot with tie-break game loss to Humble D - District winner, p - playoff qualifier

19-4A Basketball (Boys)

19-4A Basketball (Girls)

District

Season

UIL Playoff/ HOW FAR

District

Season

UIL Playoff/ HOW FAR

wins-losses

w-l

w-l

wins-losses

w-l

w-l

D-Barb. Hill

13-1

28-6

(2-1/REG. QUARTF.)

p-Kingwd. Park

12-2

19-14

(1-1/AREA)

p-Dayton

9-5

17-14

(0-1/BI-D.) (0-1/BI-D.)

D-C.E.King

13-1

27-9

(1-1/AREA)

p-G.Park

12-2

19-16

(1-1/AREA)

p-Kingwd.

Park

11-3

22-12

(1-1/AREA)

p-Barb. Hill

7-7

18-11

(0-1/BI-D.)

p-C.E. King

8-6

12-20

5 Crosby

6-8

11-18

5 GC Memor

7-7

16-10

6 GC. Memor

4-10

13-14

6 Crosby

4-10

9-22

7 North Forest

2-12

4-20

7 North Forest

4-10

7-15

8 Dayton

1-13

5-22

8 Galena Pk.

0-14

2-22

19-5A ALL DISTRICT FOOTBALL TEAM

22-3A Boys Cleveland Dist. Champ (1-1,/ after bye -REG.QTRF.) Coldspr-Oakhst. Playoffs (0-1/BI-DIST.) Tark.Prair. Playoffs (0-1/BI-D.) 4-Splendora 5-Huff.Hargrave (7-22 on season, 4-8 Dist.) 6-Shepherd, 7-Liberty

22-3A Girls Cleve. Dist. Champ (0-1/after bye-AREA) Splendr. Playoffs(1-1/ after bye-REG. QTRF.) Tark. Playoffs (0-1/ Bi-DIST.) Huff. Harg. Finished 6th. 3-9 in dist.

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Defensive Player Of The Year – Jay Guy – (Sr.) –Eisenhower Offensive Player Of The Year – Joshua Huff – (Sr.) – Nimitz Defensive Newcomer Of The Year – James Mc Queen – (Jr.) – Ike Offensive Newcomer Of The Year – Greg Williamson – (Jr.) – Kingwood

Offense First Team

Defense First Team

OT - C.J. Simon - (Jr.) - KW

DE - Jay Guy - (Sr.) - Ike (Def Player of Yr)

OT - Chris Martinez -(Sr.) - Humble

DE - Delvin Becks - (Sr.) - Ike

OG - Quartel Miller - (Jr.) - Ike

DE - Justin Hamilton - (Sr.) - Ike

OG - Nathan Gutekunst - (Jr.) - Atascocita

DE - Philip Dean - (Sr.) - Aldine

C-

DT - Juluis Green - (Sr.) - Aldine

Jason Price - (Sr.) - KW

RB - Dontae Williams - (Sr.) - Aldine

DT - Cody Nicholson - (Sr.) - Atascocita

RB - Marion Grice - (Sr.) - Nimitz

DT - Oscar Roberson - (Sr.) - Atascocita

RB - Wesley Vincent - (Jr.) - ALD.

LB - Cqulin Hubert - (Sr.) - Ike

WR -Norman Darden - (Sr.) - Ike

LB - Fred Simpson - (Sr.) - Atascocita

WR -George Moore - (Sr.) - Aldine

LB - John Walker III - (Sr.) - Atascocita

WR -Everett Pleasant - (Jr.) - Atasc.

DB - Allen Veazie - (Sr.) - Ike

WR -Xavier Maxwell IV - (S.r) - Humble

DB - Mike Schrang - (Sr.) - KW

QB - Joshua Huff - (Sr.) - Nimitz (Off Player of Yr)

DB - Demetrius Woodard - (Jr.) - Mac Arthur

QB - James Jones - (Jr.) - Ike

DB - A.J. Pouncy - (Sr.) - Atascocita

FB - Andrew Bratsman - (Jr.) - KW

P-

All Purpose - Kent Brooks - (Sr.) Atasc.

(Highpoints Issue First Cover) Deep Snap - Derrick McWilliams - (Sr.) - Mac Arthur

Pablo Beltran - (Sr.) - Atascocita

Wraps Tapps 10-2a - (boys) - Northeast Christian District Champs, Regional Chs, State Champ 2A (Repeat) Won -30 Lost 7 Tapps 10-2a - (girls) - Northeast Christian Third In Dist. (0-1 In Playoffs/ Bi.-Dist.)

Tapps 7 – 1a - Humble Christian Boys Fifth In Dist. 11-14 Season,5-9 Dist.

Independent Christian Life Center High School Boys Team 20-5 Season Swimming - 5a (girls) - Kingwood State Champs, Regional Champs, District Champs Swimming - 5a (boys) - Kingwood Third Place In State, Regional Champs,Dist. Champs Swimming - 4a (boys) - Kingwood Park State Champs (Repeat), Region. Champs, Dist. Chs. Swimming -4a (girls) - Kingwood Park 7th In State, Regional Champs, Dist. Chs. Wrestling - Kingwood Park Had Two Wrestlers At State: - Boys- Brandon Lorenz 103 Lb. And Below Class: Lost First Rd. ( 1-1 In Consolation Rd.)- And Girls 138 Lb. And Below Class Tiffany Ellett: Lost First Rd. (1-1 Consol.)

Summer Creek 3rd Dist. 20 Jv Meet( Boys) Soccer – 19-5a (boys) - Kingwood Dist.Champ In Playoffs ( 2-1/Region. Semis )

Atascocita 2nd Place (1-1/Area)

Aldine 3rd Place (0-1/ Bi-Dist.)

Mac Arthur 4th Place (0-1/Bi-Dist.)

Soccer – 19-5a (girls) - Kingwood Dist.Champ In Playoffs( 4-1/Reg.Finals )

Atascocita 2nd Place (1-1/Area)

Aldine 3rd Place (0-1/Bi-Dist.)

Mac Arthur 4th Place (0-1/Bi-Dist.)

Soccer - 41-4a (boys) - Kingwood Park District Champ In Playoffs Gave Up One Goal , No Losses In Regular Season District, 14-0-0 And One Tie Regular Season,Overall; 27-1-1 Playoffs, Region, (State Runnerup, 7-1) Basketball All Region- Tex. H.S. Bask. Coaches Assn. Region 3 (Boys) Kyle Schleigh, And Tevin Svihovec Kingwood (2 Spots Of 20 In Reg.) Basketball Region 3 (Girls) - 5A- Meclescia Turner-Mac Arthur;Chrishuana Parker-Nimitz; Curtyce Knox – Atasc.

4A- Alyson DioGuardi – Kingwood Park; Larla Brown-K-Park Note Key Individual Medals And Stats Will Be In June School Season Wrap-Up Plus Championship And Playoff Results, As Well Predictions Gymnastics - KW Or Atasc. Reg Champs. Boys And Girls Lacrosse To The Playoffs Out Of Tx. Hi. School Lacrosse League South Dist. Boys (Ed. Note: lb – sr. - robert singletary – see this issue – s and s and s... Made second team all district def. As pertinent to a story in our first issue - eagles reach new ground – highpoints wishes to congratulate : de – sr. – tre thompson – atascocita; reps. off. Players – c – sr. – jonathan vargas, – wr – sr. – quentin parks, qb – jr. – earnest carrington, - fb – jr. – joseph epps, & k – sr. – pablo beltran for making all dist. second team and congrats to rb – jr. – taylor olejniczak of kw a story subject in our first issue; also congrats to first issue story subjects rb’s dantae williams and wesley vincent – sr.’s – of ald. for making first team offense, and special cudos to our first cover athlete kent brooks for making first team off. as all-purpose, runner and receiver)

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Montage

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Endpoints

Not so Brave New World

W

ell, it finally happened. Like an Arctic blast that the TV weatherman said was only three days away until it arrived the next day, redistricting made its inevitable but somewhat startling (biennial) winter visit. The UIL and TAPPS shuffling left behind somewhat shocked but anxious for the challenge, high schools. Say good-bye to 19-5A’s district as you have known it for the past two years.

Au revoir to District 19-4A and sayonara to TAPPS 2A-10 for basketball. Instead, for the first time since this writer was only out of high school there for three years, Humble High will represent itself as a next to highest level classification (UIL Conference) competitor, not a top class level participant. HHS will still run a classy program but in 4A not in 5A. Its make way indeed, for 14-5A for only Atascocita and Kingwood . Joining the Conroe ISD schools along with Angelina County soloist Lufkin, will be presenting some of those new challenges. Joining Region 2 -5A not only moves playoff battles to the west and north of Houston but also splits the Humble ISD into both Regions 2 and 3. The latter is the home of 4A schools Kingwood Park , new Summer Creek and of course Humble. Look out 18-4A, here they come!

Perhaps the most predictable, but not totally certain, thing that will happen is that Humble ISD’s new Turner Stadium (see HighPoints Fall/Winter ’09-10 edition –“Ode Dear”) will no longer in ‘11 host the Region 3-4A and 3- 5A Track Meets. By the way, if this prognostication is missed and Turner does host the meet, Atascocita and Kingwood won’t be there in 2011 and ’12, but Aldine ISD will. If the 4A portion is held there without a 5A companion to go along, then K-Park, Humble and new kid on the block Summer Creek will still be there along with New Caney ISD. The Region 2-5A Cross Country and Track Meets are currently held in Arlington, and Round Rock respectively. Kingwood, Atascocita, and Conroe ISD would show up there if the meets stay in place. We will wait and see .

Meantime, it was a surprise to many that the Humble 5A schools did not go into the district with schools from Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Baytown along with Galena Park North Shore. Aldine ISD moved in with the Alief schools: Hastings , Elsik and Taylor. That move was pretty much expected since (Houston) Spring Branch schools Northbrook, Spring Woods and Stratford dropped to 4A, and created a vacancy in 185A. Spring Branch Memorial High moves to the new 19-5A configuration with the Katy schools and Strake Jesuit High. Now, Aldine, Ike, Mac Arthur and Nimitz will not have to schedule as many non-district games but their travelling mileage will go up considerably. With a new Aldine ISD school opening in the next few years, another move could soon be on the way with none, one, or more schools lining up in 4A there. Aldine will probably still host – at Lone Star College North Harris- the Region 3-5A CrossCountry Meet. We will wait and see.

Finally, TAPPS reduces all of its basketball classes to eight districts or less, ending 2A-10 in the process. Northeast Christian High will move northwest into a district with schools like Bryan’s Brazos Academy, the team the Warrior Boys crushed this season in Bi-district play. There is talk that it will be a tougher district but that remains to be seen as the six- time overall, and current two-time defending State champs look for another trophy next year. District 2A- 7 should be theirs’ for the taking. In addition, other NCA sports will be moving including 6-man Football into its own district after playing as an independent in TAPPS in ’09. Christian Life Center’s basketball team will stay an affiliated independent but the 6-man football team will move into TCAL from Texas Freelance.

Humble Christian along with the Conroe and Woodlands area private schools will also see some change. New Caney splits up into itself and into the new Porter High Spartans who will be resplendent in Red and Black. That pair will team up with the Humble 4A schools and northerners Willis, and Huntsville in 18-4A along with

Conroe ISD’s Caney Creek High. Hargrave (Huffman) stays with the same teams in Region 3-3A. All in all, some coaches are concerned about travel, well at least some of them.

Atascocita’s Girls’ Basketball Head Coach Valery Jackson is from tiny Morton in the West Texas Panhandle. She doesn’t think travelling to Lufkin is that big of a deal. “ We used to go to district games two and a half hours away-five hour round trip- on a school night, so Lufkin just under two hours away doesn’t bother me in the least,” she says. The changes overall don’t do anything but challenge the coaches and as most of them say : “ Put anyone on our schedule, we will be ready to play”. With fiscally fortified programs to face you can bet they will be prepared. Likewise, New Caney and the I-45 schools better be ready as well.

Otherwise, they all could be in for a chilling reception. n We hope you enjoyed a second helping of your magazine. We hope you took away memories that will last and last. Join us in early June for our season ending wrap-up issue. Softball, Wrestling, Lacrosse, In-line Hockey ,Tennis, Golf and all the so called majors: Baseball, Basketball, Football- 11 man, 6-man, and full contact flag- Volleyball, and Track and Field, and of course your other favorites like: Cross-Country, Swimming, Soccer, Gymnastics and much much more will be covered with a look back at ’0910. Also, we will have a few special treats for you that you will not want to miss. Finally, HighPoints is glad to see Humble High Head Baseball Coach David Sitton back in the dugout, following his absence. We wish Coach Sitton and particularly his wife, and the rest of the family, the best. We also wish the best for Summer Creek Athletic Coordinator Brian Ford and particularly his wife , and the rest of the family . Similar illness has touched my wife and we are pulling for you all. That’s it for now. So until next time, don’t forget...

“Look for the highpoints “!

Sincerely Yours, Rob L Sprouse HighPointsMagazine.com

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Endpoints

INCLUDING KIDS, INC. provides educational and therapeutic in-

Our goal is to raise a significant amount of funds so that children of all economic classes can receive the therapeutic services they so vitally need and deserve. The goal of Including Kids is to help not only the child with autism but the entire family.

Please support our program which helps facilitate the inclusion of children with autism in your community.

FUNDRAISING EVENTS FOR 2010 October 5th-Tennis Tournament October 18th - Golf Tournament October-December: Annual Giving Campaign

struction using the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis for children with autism and other related developmental delays endeavoring to facilitate their inclusion in the community and inspire them to become productive citizens.

5364 FM 1960 E., HUMBLE, TX 77346 Tel: 281-852-0501 FAX: 281-852-0502 EMAIL: INCLUDINGKIDS@INCLUDINGKIDS.ORG www.includingkids.org

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:JENNIFER DANTZLER, BCBA, M.S.ED.

Including Kids, Inc. is

a 501 (c) 3 NON PROFIT ORGANIZATION

Summer Creek High School All-Sports Booster Club First Annual Bulldog Classic Golf Tournament Four-Man Scramble

Monday, June 7, 2010 1:00 PM Shot-Gun Start

Oakhurst Golf Club 20700 Mills Branch Drive, Porter, Texas 77365

Sponsorship packages are available Contests, Prizes, Dinner, Awards, Live & Silent Auctions To obtain a registration form and golf brochure please visit our web-site at www.humbleisd.net/schs, click on Athletics, click on All-Sports Booster Club For additional information please contact Mark Smith at m.smith11@att.net

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281-913-7788 18323 W. Lake Houston Pkwy Humble, Texas 77346

Fresh Never Frozen Angus Beef Hamburgers Best Chicken Fried Steak in Texas Fresh Seafood Entrees Lighter Side with Grilled Entrees Steak Night on Thursdays

NFL and College Football Headquarters Full Astro and Rocket Coverage March Madness All Day Long Your Local Kids Team Supporters Book Your Team Party Here

281-662-7070 7787 Willow Chase Blvd Hwy 249 Houston, Texas 77077

Live Bands Weekly Bringing in Great Talent Weekend Live Entertainment Great Patio for Entertaining UFC fights on Pay-Per-View

Wednesday and Sunday Kids 12 and under Eat Free With the purchase of adult entrĂŠe per kid Great place for kids Two jumpies on Sundays