PIAA decision tough for everyone

April 11, 2020

Throughout my 15 years working in the sports department at the Altoona Mirror, I have had to conduct some very emotionally tough interviews. Talking with Juniata Valley girls basketball coach Rachelle Hopsicker and her team after the Lady Hornets led Jenkintown by nine points in the 2018 PIAA Class 1A championship game with less than four minutes to play before losing in overtime stands out. Another that comes to mind is Portage girls basketball coach Lance Hudak, who turned his back during the interview to hide his tears after the Lady Mustangs were stunned by Bishop Guilfoyle and a ...

Man witha plan: New Bucs GM thinking young at AA

April 9, 2020

The Curve were supposed to open their 22nd season tonight at Peoples Natural Gas Field, and it was supposed to be a season that would answer a couple of big questions going forward. Now, it’s quite possible there won’t even be a minor league baseball season, making for potentially ...

Virus will make the timeline for sports, too

April 6, 2020

The unthinkable, at least for sports fans, already has happened. The games, as we know them, are shut down. We’ll never know if San Diego State was a Final Four contender or if Tiger Woods would have defended his green jacket at the Masters. There was no opening day in baseball. The odds are increasingly good there will be no Stanley Cup Final or NBA champion in the year 2020. And now it’s time to consider the unimaginable, at least when it comes to fun and games as we once knew them. That means no college football this fall. No Super Bowl next February. No sports at all as ...

Spring brings memories of baseball

April 3, 2020

Living without spring sports gives everyone a chance to reflect on some of their memories of years past. Staring out the window into the sun and an empty baseball field while visiting my father in Tyrone a couple weeks ago, I started to think about one of the most memorable high school baseball games I ever covered. Ten years ago, Central hosted Tyrone in a game no one thought the Golden Eagles would win in the first round of the District 6 playoffs. Tyrone left most of the fans in attendance, including its own, in shock when it took an 11-3 lead into the seventh and final inning. ...

Time at home now vital to PSU’s future

March 29, 2020

Penn State has a chance to enjoy a great football season this fall — if there actually is football — but a lot of what happens months from now on the field will depend on what the players do at home over the coming weeks and months. There’s no spring practice, no Blue-White Game, no on-campus workouts with teammates and training staff pushing each guy to the max. There won’t be any organized team activities until at least mid-summer, all because of the coronavirus. Football, right now, is an individual sport. The individuals who maximize their work and focus during this ...

A ‘Classic’ case of ‘what if?’

March 28, 2020

Readers of our newspaper should be pulling out their sports pages to read about last night’s Altoona Mirror Basketball Classic. It could have been one of the most memorable yet, with at least seven future NCAA Division I girls players set to lace up their shoes and one of the strongest Blair County boys teams since the Mirror Classic began in 2006, extending the Big John Riley Game, which started in 1984. But, alas, it wasn’t meant to be. The Mirror Classic was officially canceled on March 13 after Penn State Altoona, the scheduled host of the game, closed its facilities. A ...