’20 senior class can learn from experience

May 10, 2020

Oh man, to go back to senior year in high school. Wouldn’t that be something? You could get away with just about anything as a senior. Plus, you were the top dog — in sports, at school, at parties and pretty much wherever you went. Good times. No, great times. The same can’t be said for the Class of 2020. These poor kids have had so much taken away. You can’t help but feel for them. Most student-athletes build up to that senior year as the pinnacle of their career. All the hard work, sacrifice, time and effort leads up to that last hurrah. And that’s just sports. There ...

Eerie quietness comes over Cortland

May 5, 2020

CORTLAND — The drive up state Route 11 provided no sense of anticipation, not even when my vehicle headed west on state Route 305 toward my destination. The road leading to Lakeview High School was barren, not a soul in sight as I made my way to the back toward Don Richards Stadium. ...

Bowden proving haters are wrong

April 27, 2020

Sometimes it can be frustrating when you’re really good at something. I’m talking REALLY good, like there might be one or two people better than you, but you’d have to fly across the world and ride a camel 250 miles into the desert to find them. When someone is Egyptian-desert good, it can irritate people to the point that others start searching for anything negative they can find. Often times, they create some fabricated reasoning or fictitious stereotype simply to dislike them. It’s a sad path, but it’s one we’ve all probably taken once or twice (think Derek Jeter/New ...

Why, not where, are the fish biting?

April 11, 2020

Opportunities abound for all of us to become better fishers every time we go to the water, but whether we understand what nature is telling us depends on how much we are paying attention and how keenly we analyze our experiences. Many anglers miss the clues they encounter simply because they ask the wrong questions. We ask “where are they biting?” instead of “why are they biting?” The waters I fished while in Florida recently delivered invaluable lessons, most significantly the role the wind plays in our daily fishing fortunes. While we have opportunities every time we ...

YSU coach has right mix to succeed

April 10, 2020

Skepticism is pretty normal for Youngstown State football fans, and for good reason. It’s annoying to belabor the reasons, but they’re hard to ignore. Forget that the Penguins have reached the playoffs just twice since Jim Tressel left for Ohio State in 2000. While it’s the most glaring and frustrating cause for cynicism, the underlying factors are what matter most. As a reporter who has followed YSU almost every year since 2001, I’ve watched the Penguins become an FCS afterthought. Some of it was bad luck (questionable calls, unbelievably spectacular plays, alarming snubs from ...

Spring athletes deserve recognition

April 5, 2020

While we wait for word from the Ohio High School Athletic Association on the fate of high school spring sports in Ohio, the Tribune Chronicle / Vindicator sports department has decided to begin publishing our spring sports preview stories and capsules. We regularly publish at the start of each season feature stories on some of the teams expected to have good seasons or that are coming off of excellent seasons. We also publish preview capsules from every team — provided the coach sent us the information. We had begun preparation for this endeavor by sending out in mid-February forms ...