In roughly 25 years as a sports journalist, I’ve covered all sorts of basketball games – from Final Fours to the NBA Playoffs to innumerable high school and college games from Florida to California.
But I never covered a game quite like the one staged Thursday at the Columbus High gym.
I use the term “cover” loosely in this case because I was too busy laughing and mingling the with crowd, players and coaches to provide a detailed account of the contest.
Instead, I will merely offer a few expert observations.
The game, sponsored by The Dispatch as part of the American Cancer Society’s annual Relay for Life fund-raising drive, pitted team members from Columbus High School against a group of players assembled by Columbus Mayor Robert Smith, dubbed the Possum Town Trotters.
In the days leading up to the game, I had heard rumblings from the Trotters that their game wouldn’t just be competitive, but that the Trotters would actually win. They had some big-time players on the roster, I was told.
In turned out to be more than brave talk. The Trotters led through most of the first quarter, fell behind only to rally. The Falcons led 35-24 at halftime, but the Trotters rallied again, cutting the deficit to a single point twice in the third quarter, only to fade in the final period, ultimately losing by a 73-54 margin.
In the end, it was clear that the Trotters superior “experience” proved no match for the younger, faster, more durable teens. While the Trotters’ starters held their own, it was clear the mayor’s team had a depth problem. I might also add they had a “breadth” problem, too, if you know what I mean.
Not that the Trotters substitutes didn’t have their moments. Columbus schools superintendent Dr. Philip Hickman laid out some “corporal punishment” whenever one of his students ventured into the lane while Columbus Fire Department Chief Martin Andrews chugged up and down the court like a ladder truck “racing” to rescue a cat from a tree. Some might suggest that Andrews was “slow.” I prefer a more generous assessment: Let’s just say Andrews was “deliberate.”
I should point out that I was personally selected by the mayor to play in the game (for reasons that should arouse suspicion, obviously) but I had to bow out due to a rare and temporary medical condition that mysteriously disappeared soon after the game’s end.
But I think it’s fair to say that even my presence on the team would not have greatly altered the outcome.
I pause here to sadly note how bitter Roger Short has become only a few months into his retirement as director of the Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority. Short served as a referee in the game and proceeded to call three technical fouls on the two coaches in a span of about two minutes near the game’s end. In fact, Short hit Falcons’ coach Sammy Smith with two technicals and threw him out of the game, the first time in his distinguished career that the affable Columbus coach had ever been ejected from a game.
Short also told them to “stay off my lawn.”
If I can be serious for a moment (and no, that is not a rhetorical question), Thursday’s event was a delightful experience. Sometimes, we may be led to wonder if our disputes and differences divide us beyond reconciliation, but then events such as these happen and you realize that, for all our bitter disagreements, we really are a community, and a friendly one at that. In these moments, we realize that we like each other far more than we let on. Let’s not forget that.
Well over 300 spectators turned out and every one of them left Thursday’s game smiling (Short being the lone possible exception, of course). Of no less importance is that the event generated a sizable contribution to the Relay for Life drive.
The Mayor, being the competitor he is, promises that he will assemble an even better collection of players for next year’s game.
I can hardly wait to play … health permitting, of course.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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