Rants and raves, 2024
Another year has flown by, and it’s once again time for my annual rants and raves regarding Newcastle High School sports.
Some really cool things happened in high school sports in 2024! The Dogies and Lady Dogies gave us much to be proud of, and I’m looking forward to more in 2025.
As always, with the good there are bound to be some not-so-good moments, and Ido have a couple of rants which may sound familiar since they are becoming chronic issues.
In no particular order — because both of my rants are potentially problematic — there is still a troubling trend of fewer and fewer high school students going out for sports lately.
As a small school in a tough 3A class in Wyoming, we are always going to run into the issue of not having as many athletes on our rosters as those we play against, but if things keep going the way they are, Newcastle is going to have a problem competing at all.
Though things have improved from last year, we still suffer when it comes to being competitive against bigger schools within our own conference.
The girls cross country team finally had enough runners to compete as a team at meets this fall. That was great, given that the last couple of years they weren’t able to do so. However, they had just enough, which meant that if everyone didn’t run varsity, or if anyone was injured, they would have been right back in the same boat of no team score, regardless of how well individuals ran.
There are only 14 boys out for basketball and, although the number of girls out for basketball has increased from 14 last year to 18 this year, nine of those girls are freshmen. As such, neither program will be able to play a C team game this year, and if there are any issues that keep players from being able to participate in every game, the boys may not even be able to play a full junior varsity game.
Not only is it too bad that a 3A school can’t get enough kids to be able to fill three teams, it’s also too bad that the young athletes miss out on the opportunity to develop their skills as they enter into high school sports.
I mean, some of the freshmen who are seeing varsity action would have been playing up regardless of numbers, but for those players who needed to transition a little more slowly, they are being thrown into
a pretty hot fire, which can have repercussions.
It’s sad to me that kids are opting to forgo playing sports in high school, because the window to be able to do that closes in the blink of an eye. It bums me out to think that these kids will one day look back in regret for not playing a sport that they loved when they had the chance.
Making the list for the fourth year running is my second rant of the year, and it also has to do with low participation.
We still have an officiating crisis!
Officiating is a thankless job, because you know that pretty much everyone in the gym is going to be unhappy with you at some point in the game.
The abuse heaped upon these brave souls who put themselves in the bullseye of abuse from parents and fans just doesn’t seem to let up.
We also need to be able to put ourselves into the shoes of officials and figure out if we could do the
job better. If so, maybe then we need to step up and fill some of those shortages.
But, enough with the negativity, let’s get on with my raves!
The first is that the young ladies here at NHS got the opportunity to wrestle in an all-girls division for the first time ever, and three young ladies competed their way to the state tournament in March!
We had a first-time state champion in CJ Hardy last spring when he soared over the high jump bar at
6 feet, 4 inches. The junior made improvements by leaps and bounds over the course of the season and reached the pinnacle of his performance when it really mattered at the state track meet.
This fall we had a first time conference champion in the ladies 50 Freestyle in Hailey Beastrom. The senior set her mind to finish her career strong, and she willed it to happen. That kind of determination is rare, but she totally embodied it.
The football team had a banner season this fall. After 10 years, the Dogies earned the second seed in the 2A East Conference, clinching the home-field advantage for the first round of the playoffs. Though that contest ended in a loss, the team went out with a winning record and will be returning several key players to the gridiron next season.
Finally, all of the different Dogie sports programs have a plethora of young talented athletes who will be so fun for all of us fans to watch in the coming years.
Here’s to 2025!