This was the first week of Major League Baseball. As we’ve mentioned in the past couple of weeks, many of us are unable to watch due to corporations not working with other corporations. So my access to stories about Brady Singer and Whit Merrifield and Salvador Perez will be limited this year. It was also the weekend of the Final Four in Indianapolis and that amazing buzzer beating shot by Gonzaga. Those stories will be told by millions for years.
This past weekend, my wife and I went to a Kansas City Comets game. The Comets are the city’s indoor soccer team and play at the arena in Independence. They have a 37 year old player-coach – Leo Gibson – from Liberia. They lost to a team from Ontario, California that sent the Fury to the finals for their championship. Both games of their series went to overtime. You probably didn’t hear about it because it was going on at the same time Gonzaga was draining that game-winning shot.
The announcer for the Comets is Erik Bergrud who is the voice of Park University soccer, as well. Park University is in the middle of a meteor shower of sports right now. Due to COVID, many of their winter sports were postponed to the spring. Now that it’s spring, baseball, softball, soccer, and men’s and women’s volleyball are all going on at the same time. Park’s volleyball program has been ranked in the top five all year on both the men’s and women’s side. Park’s women’s volleyball program is led by an Olympian. Nada Meawad participated in the 2016 beach volleyball tournament for her home country of Egypt and hopes to qualify for the 202(1) Olympics as well.
You likely heard about the hot start for Whit Merrifield and the last second shot by Gonzaga, but I’d doubt you knew anything about Leo Gibson or Nada Meawad.
If there’s any good that is coming out of Major League Baseball taking away easy access to their product, it’s that it doesn’t take long to find out that there are just as compelling stories happening all around you every night of the week. Sure, they aren’t under the brightest lights, but they don’t need to be.
Your local high school is filled with stories of overcoming adversity – especially this year. My son’s baseball team hadn’t seen a competitive pitch for 672 days and then started their season with a seven-game winning streak. A team that won only a few games a few years ago.
Park Hill has the number one ranked baseball prospect in the country, Carter Jensen, a catcher, is expected to be drafted later this summer if he doesn’t play in college for LSU.
The stories are there, you just need to listen and find them. Whether it’s your high school’s golf team, a local college’s softball team, or just the club ball playing in the local tournament out at Fountain Bluffs – spend a little more time this summer looking for the stories that not everyone will be talking about tomorrow. You’ll be surprised at how amazing they are.
(Amazing is also what you get when you follow Chris Kamler on Twitter as @TheFakeNed)