What’s the right amount? Local coaches debate correct size of playoffs

October 7, 2022

For a second straight year, the Warren John F. Kennedy football team faces an unexpected bye-week. A lack of players forced St. Thomas Aquinas to cancel a string of games, including tonight’s scheduled matchup with the Eagles. In years past, JFK coach Dom Prologo would have likely worked feverishly to find a last-minute replacement. Given the current high school football landscape that includes a 448-team, six-week tournament, Prologo is content to rest his players. At Springfield High, the combination of an inexperienced team and a brutal non-conference schedule resulted in an ...

Chilly weather signals time for game fish

October 2, 2022

The frost on my car window Friday morning was a clear signal that the season of big fish is at hand. Chilly weather and shorter days have sounded the dinner bell for the game fish here in Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. Whether you pursue walleyes, crappies, bass, muskies or steelhead trout, the next six to eight weeks will serve up some of the best fishing of the year, particularly for trophy-size specimens. Friday’s frosty windshield quickly thawed, and I was on my way within minutes. The balance of the day was comfortable, the kind of autumn weather that delivers ...

Niles: ‘A magical, mystical place’

September 30, 2022

Carey Mason was driving from her home in Michigan and on her way to Pittsburgh when she decided that a drive past Bo Rein Stadium was in order. It was Sept. 9, and Niles happened to be playing at home that night. Kickoff was less than an hour away, so Mason and her husband John opted to pull ...

An ode to a legend and his sport

September 29, 2022

For the last week or so, I’ve had a hard time finding the words. It’s wildly different from my usual writing efforts, but this felt like a once-in-a-career chance to write about a sport we never get to talk about. From the moment Youngstown State announced that Tony Hawk would be ...

Fishing the Ohio always an interesting task

September 25, 2022

My drives south on Route 7 enroute to the Ohio River are always in inky blackness, which is appropriate considering the great mysteries that await when I reach my destination. I love getting up before dawn to go fishing for smallmouth bass on the Ohio River, but not because it is the greatest fishery. In fact, many in the bass world consider our Ohio River a joke in terms of its fish population. But it’s not a laughingstock, in my opinion. For precisely the reasons that others disdain the Ohio, I love it. It is not an easy fishery. The river rarely fishes the same two times in a ...

A journey behind the camera

September 23, 2022

It was the fall of 1957, and Bob Zajack was anxious to play his sophomore season of football at McDonald High. A year earlier, Zajack was already a solid enough player that he earned a spot on the Blue Devils’ varsity roster and lettered as a freshman. However, Zajack suffered a shoulder injury late that season, and effects of the injury carried over to the following year. So much so that Zajack’s sophomore season ended in abrupt fashion. Seemingly, his association with the football program had come to an end. Fast forward to Sept. 9, 2022. Prior to McDonald’s home ...