WASP BASKETBALL PREVIEW

Wasatch ready to unleash a whole new line-up of fast break hoopsters

BY KENNY BRISTOW

Wave Sports Writer

 The gym rats are back.  You can hear their frantic squeaking echoing down the halls.  It’s a sound that would bring chills to the spines of most exterminators.  But a closer look shows it’s actually the squeaking from 23 pairs of gym shoes running drills in one of the high schools auxiliary gymnasiums.  Basketball season is here and the Wasatch High School Wasps open their 2012-2013 campaign next Tuesday night, November 20^th at Mountain Crest.

There are several words to describe this year’s team, but young is the one that seems to stick out the most.  Then again, so does the word athletic.  Head Coach Lonnie Magnusson, entering the second year of his second stint as the Wasps head basketball man, is excited about his young team.  “We graduated half our squad last year.  Eight seniors – including all five starters,” Magnusson reflected.  “We have a couple of guys who got in some good minutes last year though, so there is a mix.  We’re young, but we’re athletic and we’re going to be pretty good.”

Magnusson was referring to the up-tempo style of basketball he is intending to implement with this year’s team.   There will be plenty of pushing the ball up the court with fast break and run-and-gun on offense and a quick pesky defense that plans to press.  When you’re roster is loaded with a dozen six footers who can fly, then you’ve got to let them loose.  Look for a rotation of the team’s five seniors with three or four juniors and even a couple of sophmores seeing substantial minutes.  With plenty of substitutions and not letting up on the pressure or pace, the Wasps will surely be fun to watch.

Senior shooting guard, Cooper Ballsteadt, coming into the gym after a nice football season, is excited about this year’s team.  “We’ve got some shooters.  All our guys can run and take it to the hoop.  Where we lack in height, we’ll make up for with athleticism,” Ballsteadt said.  Senior forward, Jake Larson, coming off a knee injury from football, has rehabilitated enough to begin practicing at full speed.  When asked how his knee was feeling, he said smiling, “great.  I’m ready to go.”  Both seniors, who saw a lot of playing time last year, will be relied on heavily for team leadership and game experience.

Magnusson is looking forward to the game at Mountain Crest because it will give him a better idea of what he has and what will need to be worked on.  “It will be a great test for us right off the bat,” he said.  “They’re a good team and we’re ready to get started. “ 

Following-up on Wasatch freshman kicker Skyler Southam

It's official.  The kid has his number.  U.S. Army/Eastbay Regional Scout and Football University State Director, Adam Arrington (left) presents a jersey to Wasatch Freshman placekicker, Skyler Southam (right) Friday morning at the high school here in Heber City.  Southam was named to the freshman 

All-American team which will face the Canadian team on January 6^th, 2013 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas.  

We are all very proud of Skyler's accomplishments this season and I will keep post updated on how you can follow along as well.  The game should be available via live stream and highlights of Skyler's performance in the game will most likely appear on you tube.  I'll provide all the necessary information as it becomes available to me.  

A good day for Veteran's Day

Inside stadiums all across the United States this Sunday, sports franchises, players and fans all heartily celebrated Veterans Day.  Sports play a tremendous role in our country's make-up and in these uneasy times of a divided nation, it was appropriate that November 11th, this year, fall on a Sunday.  Kudos to all the pro sports leagues who honored our nation's veterans today with well-deserved ceremonies.

Any given week, the NFL can be seen putting on a patriotic pregame show with a giant American flag sewn in the dimensions of a football field.  Or at a NASCAR race, where pre-race warm-ups include whipping the crowd into a frenzy with an F-14 flyover at the climax of the national anthem.  The NBA will do the same, and although the arenas and crowd are much smaller, the message rings loud and clear.  Baseball, Americas pastime, would certainly pull out all the stops if it's season were still going on through Veteran's Day.  It still blows my mind that a professional baseball great like Ted Williams actually missed a couple of seasons to go fly fighter planes in WWII.  I mean, who would do that today?  Pat Tillman, maybe, the all-pro safety who left a multi-million dollar contract on the table with the Arizona Cardinals to go fight for his country in the middle east.  Men like that are few and far between, however.  Pat Tillman lost his life in that cause. 

It's not just about that though.  Soldiers don't expect to die... they expect to go and serve for the better of our country and return home to their lives.  Their homes and families.  Their freedoms.  Their sports teams.  It is always fun to see video of our troops over in Afghanistan - or wherever they may be serving us - cheering on a game here in the U.S. that they have the opportunity to watch together.
They are in foreign lands fighting not only for us and our country and our families, but for the Dallas Cowboys and the Utah Jazz and for Brad Keselowski or for their beloved Crimson Tide.  A lot of veterans and current soldiers alike would probably tell you something like Vin Scully's voice got them through it all.

For those of us who have never served in the military, it seems a moot gesture at times to thank a veteran of war for their sacrifice.  We want to be sincere, but how do you really put as much gratitude behind that thank you as it probably deserves?  The most, and the best we can do is simply say thanks.  Be there for them.  Sports organizations do a tremendous job at this like they have done again this weekend.  We can only continue to show our nation's vets respect any way we can.  If that means supporting our local sports teams and celebrating the closest thing to military camaraderie that we civilians know of, then that is a good place to start.

You're fired!

There is nothing that compares with the high of getting a new job.  The phone rings.  You answer.  It is the manager, who you met just a day or so before, calling to tell you that you've been selected over all the other applicants and to be in Monday morning at 8 AM.  It can be an exuberant feeling or a moment of vindication.  Your wife, your mother, your roommate... will have a sense of relief and you, for a brief shining moment will be held high on a pedestal.

If the job, however, is for a coaching position... well, then you may not want to start hanging a lot of family pictures on the wall just yet.  Especially if that coaching position is for a team that expects to contend for a championship immediately.  Such is the case for Mike Brown, the former coach of the Los Angeles Lakers who was just fired after a 1-4 start to the season.  Are you surprised?  If you are, then you obviously still believe in the greater good of mankind, but such is unacceptable on today's professional sports landscape.  You're fired is practically a catch phrase - well, it is now with the Donald making millions off it, but it really is a serious matter.  Nobody wants to get fired from their job.  If you know it's coming, it can be torture.  If it comes as a surprise it can leave you suddenly crippled.  Coaching in sports though seems to carry a bit of that as something normal.

Few jobs in sports have that gleaming under the magnifying glass burn to them that a head coaching position has.  When a sports franchise - or a university - is in a position seeking a new coach, there are two likely scenarios:  replacing a guy who was failing to win, or replacing a legend who did nothing but win.  Brown was asked to step into a pair of shoes he could not fill... or should I say, Phil?  As in Jackson.  The winningest coach in NBA history.  Jackson, with his larger than life persona, went to L.A. with 6 championships in Chicago in his wake.  Sure, he inherited a team of superstars, but they were underachieving, and Jackson's arrogant tough love college professor approach sucked them in like mosquitos to a bug light.  He seemed to relish that pressure with a sense of feeling no pressure at all.  Others simply cannot operate that way.

On the subject of the NBA, I think of coaches like San Antonio's Greg Popovich or Utah's former head coach Jerry Sloan, who do, or did not have the limelight savvy of Jackson, yet all the basketball knowledge... if not more.  Rarely is there a doubt that the coach knows his x's and o's - otherwise, how did he get the job in the first place?  It often seems to come down to something like a bad start to a season, or a prickly relationship with the team's franchise player, or an untimely losing streak just before, or just into the playoffs.  This is the case of Mike Brown.  Hired to take over for a legend... got bumped out of the playoffs in his first season... failed to win a preseason game in the next and got off to the worst start for the franchise in over 20 years.  Not to mention the icy glares caught on camera from Kobe Bryant towards his coach or even his agitated interviews after the games.  This after the team went out in the off season and added two superstars viewed by many as the missing pieces to the next championship puzzle.  Oh - and it didn't help when the media was screaming "what's wrong with the Lakers" after they started with three straight losses.  Team owners and General Managers will of course say that the media had nothing to do with Brown's dismissal, but we know better than that.  Would the Laker brass have fired Brown if the media and fans were in unison with their patience and understanding while the team "figured it out"?  I doubt it.

Head coaching a sports team, from little league to the pro's, is not a job for the faint of heart.  From mothers to the media they must answer a bell they had better have a solution for, otherwise the pressure gets greater.  The scrutiny becomes less forgiving.  It is a responsibility on a world's stage that can bring the greatest of moments - as in a championship, or the sorriest - as in public failure.
Maybe that is what drives them.  They get hired.  They get fired.  They thank the organization for the opportunity, then move on to the next.  Maybe it's the guaranteed contracts, but I'd hate to think so.

There is nothing that compares with the low of losing a job.  The phone rings.  You answer.  It is the boss telling you that you're fired.












   

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Getting A Leg Up

Freshman placekicker Skyler Southam wastes no time making the national scene as a U.S. Army/Eastbay All-American selection

Football games are often decided by only one point.  Many times a game comes down to the final play and rests on the precise execution of a placekick.  At the center of such a breathtaking moment is the kicker.  A member of the team who mostly waits on the sidelines until the offense comes within field goal range to begin warming up for such a moment.  This is what a kicker trains for.  This is their time to make a difference in the game.

In the case of the 2012 Wasatch High School varsity football season, there weren’t many of these moments.  That’s not to say they weren’t prepared, however, because on their sideline was Skyler Southam, a 5’10”, 160 lb freshman in golden cleats… and with a golden leg.  This season Skyler converted 36 of 37 extra point attempts.  His only kick not to convert the touchdown was his final attempt of the season, which was blocked.  Not necessarily his fault, but football is a team game.  Skyler is the first to say that.  “The whole year was amazing,” Skyler said.  “My teammates were so great, especially Zach (Reiss, his holder) and Logan (Huntington, the long snapper).  It really was a fun season.”  Fun certainly translated into success for Southam as he was recently selected to participate in the U.S. Army/Eastbay All-American Freshman football game in San Antonio, Texas, at the Alamodome on January 6^th, 2013.  In other words, Skyler was the top kicker to play regularly on his varsity squad as a freshman in the entire country.

Despite the prestige that may come with such an honor, Skyler appears and acts like most high school freshman, a year or two away from teen idol good looks and easy going enough to call cool.  He and his family hail from Heber and he grew up on the youth soccer and football fields right here in town.  The oldest of four children, Skyler seems very mature and totally at ease when it was suggested to him that he has set the bar pretty high in athletics for his younger siblings.  “Yeah, I guess that’s kind of true,” he modestly shrugs with a smile.  After all, how many high school freshmen earn their entire family a trip to San Antonio, Texas for New Years Eve?  Probably not may, but that is exactly what Skyler has done.

His success this season comes as no surprise to his kicking coach, Idaho State All-American and former NFL placekicker, Dan Zeidman.  The founder of his own camp called Lifetime Kicking Academy, Zeidman knew right away he had something special in Southam.  “Skyler is head and shoulders above where a normal kicker his age would be.  He does possess the natural ability to be a great kicker, but the thing that will take him the farthest is his work ethic,” Zeidman said.  “He is very coachable and a hard worker.  I’m amazed at his demeanor, which is so important to the position.  He has great composure and confidence and as long as he remains the humble young man that he is, he will be very successful.”

Zeidman is an associate of the National Camp Series founded by another former professional kicker, Michael Husted.  Skyler attended two camps in Salt Lake this past year and even traveled to Las Vegas for one… a testament to his dedication to becoming a great kicker.  It was Zeidman, who brought Southam to the attention of Husted, then Husted passing that recommendation on to the selection committee for the All-American team that made Skyler’s selection possible.  Skyler’s accumulative scoring ranked him as the number one specialist in the country for the class of 2016.  Consistent game performances and application on the varsity squad helped provide the icing on the cake for his selection.  Obviously, he is in good hands when it comes to being coached by capable experts and it is his head coach, Steve Coburn who is the recipient of such great individual coaching.  Coburn’s belief and proper handling of the freshman has Wasatch set at kicker for the next three seasons.  If his numbers and confidence are this good already, just think of where they’ll be in a couple of years from now.

While the camps have been paramount in advancing Southam’s kicking abilities, it was apparent early on, especially on the soccer field, that this kid could kick a ball.  “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do on the football field,” Skyler said.  “I play receiver and even some quarterback, but I kind of knew that kicking would be something I’d be good at once I got to the high school level,” he added.  “Coach Coburn believed in me enough to let me get in there a couple of kicks early on and it just kind of became full time.  I never expected to kick for the varsity team, but I’m glad it happened.”  Southam got his chance in the second game of the season on an extra point then a kick-off.  By the third game, the job was his and he didn’t miss an extra point the rest of the way.  He also continued to kick for the freshman team where he nailed a 42-yard field goal against Uintah.

It’s not an easy question for a high school freshman to answer, especially when that question is about the future.  Skyler, who seems pretty content living in the moment, enjoying his first year in high school and still contemplating playing basketball this year, has three more years of kicking for Wasatch.  He has already reached such a high level, yet it’s exciting to wonder what the next few years have in store for him.  “I would love to get a scholarship and kick in Division 1,” he said confidently.  It sure looks like he’s gotten off to an excellent start.

Mother Nature, Patriotism and the Big Game

It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature.  That’s the old saying, but man, lately she seems to be a little extra ornery.  We’re not talking rain outs here, we’re dealing with hurricanes.  Mama - and I’d like to believe that she is a sports fan like most of our mothers - has recently unleashed a barrage of natural disasters that seem to have their sights set on putting an end to our American past times. 

Last week, Hurricane Sandy crashed on the northeastern shores of the United States and left a trail of destruction we haven’t seen since her older sister Katrina devastated the southern bayou region surrounding New Orleans back in 2005.

It is difficult to place significance on sporting events when there are families left powerless, homeless and suffering the loss of life.  How does one celebrate the weekend of a big game when their fellow countrymen are sleeping in shelters wearing the same clothes they’ve had on for a week?

As our public servants sacrifice their time and wellbeing for the good of mankind, we as civilian bystanders are best served supporting them… in any way we can.  There is no reason to harbor guilt for carrying on with our lives.  At some point we are all faced with a situation brought on by a natural disaster like a tornado or an earthquake or a flood or a tornado.  There is no stopping such a happening - only preparation and recovery. 

This is why the show must go on.  Americans love their entertainers, whether that be talk show hosts or point guards.  It is okay to escape for a little while to root for your favorite team or laugh at your favorite television comedian.  It is their place in society to take us to that special realm.  Physical complications such as electricity and transportation can cause a postponement or two, but once those problems are fixed there is no reason why the games cannot be played.

In the case of the New York Marathon, which for the first time since it’s inception in 1970 was canceled, athletes who had trained for years to run in the event instead gave their time to help those devastated by the hurricane.  Instead of running for a time, they ran for a cause.  They grouped by country and ran for Americans.  Instead of packing up and returning to their corners of the world from which they came, they stayed.  When it would have been easy for them to feel sorry for themselves, they felt sorry for others and postponed their dream of running in the greatest marathon on Earth.  All participants in this year’s race will automatically be qualified to run in next year’s marathon.  When I first read that the race had been cancelled, I wondered why.  The hurricane did not affect the terrain of the run and millions had already come to the east coast for the marathon.  It generates tremendous revenue for New York and the advertisers and merchants who support it.  Instead of wiping it out, why not use it for a platform to raise money for the Red Cross?  Turn it into a telethon for those severely crippled by the storm.  Well… that sort of happened.  No one even had to ask.  They banded together and did it unselfishly on their own.  Amazing humanity and amazing patriotism.

This is a sports column.  I like to write about sports.  I am always humbled when sports and real life cross paths.  They do so everyday.  But with something of the magnitude of a hurricane dismantling an entire coastline, it becomes even more significant.  Like the athlete who makes millions quietly visiting a young cancer patient or the professional football team that invites an entire firehouse to be their guests at a home game, these things make us all feel better.  They warm our hearts.  We are all healed a little bit by such happenings.  Disasters bring that out in us. 

Mother Nature can be nasty.  Keep in mind that most days are natural disaster free though.  She is mostly good to us.  But when she does decide to wreak havoc, it is our job as a human race to band together and do what we can to help in the recovery.  If that means playing a game of basketball or running a marathon even though the trophy has been locked away until next year… then so be it.