The 2023 Clinton County Scholar-Athletes were announced in Wednesday’s News Journal.
What a group.
And then you have the winners.
This year’s selections were especially difficult, as all years are, but this seemed particularly tough.
One scholar-athlete from each school was selected from a total of 27 applicants.
Winners were Katie Murphy of Wilmington, Ainsley Whitaker of Blanchester, Gavan Hunter of Clinton-Massie and Libby Evanshine of East Clinton.
Congratulations to you all. The winners will receive a $500 award from the Clinton County Sports Hall of Fame.
BORTON PASSES
Brett Borton, former sports editor of the News Journal, passed away May 30 in Scotland. According to his obituary on th Sauls Funeral Home website, Borton had just completed a round of golf with friends in a coastal village in northern Scotland.
Borton was sports editor a few years before I took over. Borton went to Hilton Head and eventually co-founded what is now LINKS-The Best of Golf magazine.
A published author of four golf and travel books, Borton was a Wilmington High School graduate. He was 64 years old.
QUIET HOF
Tom Carey was inducted into the Clinton County Sports Hall of Fame in 1999, the third class.
There are those who do not remember Tom Carey as an athlete at New Vienna High School. They missed something for sure.
Those who were fortunate to watch him in school witnessed a legend.
Tom Carey died June 1, just 18 days after his wife of 72 years Phyllis Carey passed away.
Tom played baseball, basketball and track/field at New Vienna. He excelled at each but his baseball career was cut short when he spiked himself during the long jump. His best long jump was 20-4, a county record at the time of his graduation.
At the county track and field meet, Tom won four events and was named the outstanding athlete of the meet.
He led the Tigers basketball team to a 41-5 record his junior and senior years and was given honorable mention All-Ohio as a senior.
Golf may have been his best game, though. He won the Snow Hill Country Club championship in 1948. He graduated high school in 1949. At the time he was believed to be the youngest club pro in SHCC history … and still may be.
It was said he earned a golf scholarship to Ohio State and played as a freshman but enlisted into the Navy in December 1950. When Tom came home in 1954, he didn’t go back to OSU, opting instead to get into farming full time.
Upon his induction into the county sports shrine, Tom said, “When I came home, I had a chance to farm. I always kind of wonder what would have happened (if he went back to OSU) but now I wouldn’t change a thing.”
WIN WITH WYNN
Tom Wynn, a member of the Clinton County Sports Hall of Fame, will be recommended as the next head wrestling coach at Milford High School.
A 1985 graduate of Blanchester High School, Wynn was a two-time state qualifier at BHS and then went on to Heidelberg College where he was a four-time Ohio Athletic Conference runnerup and a three-time NCAA Division III national tournament qualifier.
Wynn was a collegiate wrestling coach 11 years and spent six of his 13 years at St. Xavier High School as the head coach of the Bombers.
OLD DAYS
Used to be, when school finished for the year, kids could be kids. Summer was a blank canvas with which they could paint their own picture.
Not anymore. Everything is scripted nowadays. If a kid is an athlete, they have very little, if any, time of their own.
Some sports grab hold of kids when they walk through high school doors and don’t let go until they graduate.
That’s wrong.
Too many kids are one-sport athletes because they are told that’s they only way they can be successful at that one sport.
And while there are situations where that is true — specifically in individual sports like swimming or golf — I’ve always felt a kid benefits more from being part of multiple sports teams than one team. The body uses different muscles and the mind thinks in diffferent ways during different sports, so burnout and injury are less likely.
In addition, school facilities are being taxed as well. Sharing athletes and facilities is a problem at some schools. When this happens, NOBODY benefits. Trust me on that one.
MORE OLD DAYS
Secretariat, that’s a race horse from 1973 that won the thoroughbred Triple Crown, is still the single greatest athlete I’ve ever witnessed. It was 50 years ago June 8 that Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes to complete the Triple Crown. The win was the most dominant performance in a sporting event I’ve seen.
The greatest ever?
Not Ali, or Gretzky, or Michael. Lebron? Not close.
Secretariat beats them all without question.
NON-SPORTS THOUGHT
Is anybody else as annoyed as I am about the no left turn thing on Rombach Avenue? I don’t get it.
I’m not an engineer and I suppose there have been studies on the benefits to no left turn on Rombach Avenue … I know that’s laughable, right?
Anyway, I see so many people, law enforcement without lights on included, making left turns when the sign in front of them clearly says no left turn. Yet, guess what? No crashes ensued. Remarkable.
