Bill and Emily Langenbach had a grandson that ran cross country and track a few years before I became the track and field coach at Fortuna High School in 1982. He tried hard and he found some athletic success, and they became fans of the sports. Every season from then on, they would come out […]
Rod Kausen
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Gene Cotter’s Basketball Jones
“Then one day my momma bought me a basketball and I loved that basketball; I got a basketball jones.” — “Basketball Jones,” by Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong I was at Centerville Beach one day about 25 years ago and a man came running down the beach with his Boogie Board. I yelled and he […]
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To Choke
I watched a home high school sectional basketball game years ago against a very athletic team from the Bay Area. The game came down to the final minute and one of their athletes was called for a hard foul to put one of our stars at the free throw line to shoot two free throws, […]
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Of Basketball and Role Models
The first time I met Jain Tuey, she was starting her freshman year at Fortuna High School, where I was teaching. After work, I ran into her dad Skip at Safeway and we chatted. The whole time, Jain was holding a basketball against her hip, impatient and glaring at me in her T-shirt and sweatpants. […]
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The Race to Bring Horse Racing Back to the Fair
The Humboldt County Fair homepage says, “While there are still uncertainties as we move through 2021, plans to have a full fair including horse racing, vendors, carnival, exhibits and livestock is underway.” Come Friday, the fair is just seven weeks away with plenty of loose ends to be tied. At least now there are some […]
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Thoughts on Winning
Watching the NCAA Track Championships last weekend, I witnessed an athlete win a title and position herself for an Olympic team berth. I’d coached an athlete who competed evenly against her. Many people have asked me why the young woman I coached did not take an athletic scholarship to compete beyond high school. She was […]
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Coach Leonard Casanova’s Lucky Roll
My old man grew up a couple years behind the Casanova brothers on the outskirts of Ferndale in the early 1900s. All through my growing up my dad admired them both, even though Johnny Casanova was no longer alive. When he talked about Johnny, my dad would tear up and get shaky. Leonard Casanova was […]
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The Fastest of the Fast
My virtual 100-meter dash is composed of two heats of eight sprinters from the Humboldt-Del Norte League record books (16 fast boys) and then the finals, made of the eight fastest qualifiers from the two heats. I rely on stories, times, records, conditions and personal visuals. These 16 might not include the fastest person ever […]
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Kids and Sports
Plenty of adults label this generation of kids as lazy and spoiled. That is what older generations do: label the younger generations as not as tough as they were — walking to school, part time jobs, toeing the line and playing more sports. By one barometer concerning sports, the National Alliance for Youth Sports concludes […]
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High School Sports Revisited
March 4 brought more hope to high school sports and to youth and club sports. It also brought a lot of confusion. The California Interscholastic Federation has agreed that all sports, including indoor, could resume immediately under certain conditions. In the Humboldt Del Norte League, soccer games begin today and football games begin this weekend […]
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Quarterback Rich Mayo
With the local high school football teams scheduled to begin amid these strange times, it seems like a good time to reflect on a Humboldt County football legend. Raised on the fringes of Eureka out past Redwood Acres on Bettencourt Ranch, Rich Mayo grew up on a dairy and worked hard as a kid. He […]
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Forward Movement
I have spent every spring since seventh grade involved in track and field, well over 50 years — a life of studying forward movement through running, teaching, clinics, clinician and graduate study — a lifetime study of coaching. We are all aware of the benefits of forward movement including heart strength, muscle strength, chronic disease […]