Jock Talk

The lull between the fall sports and the winter sports is about to end as far as our Kimball High schedules are concerned. The Longhorns had an exhibition type night with Gering coming to Kimball for the NSAA Hall of Fame Jamboree this past Monday evening, but no score was kept officially, and it will not count on their win/loss status. The real season begins this weekend with Kimball hosting a four-school tournament on Friday and Saturday.

The schedule for Friday has the Dundy County girls going against the Morrill girls at 3 p.m., followed by the same two schools in the boy’s play at 4:30. Kimball and Potter-Dix girls face off at 6 p.m., followed by the same schools boy’s teams.

On Saturday, the losers in girls play has an early 1 p.m. start time followed by Friday’s boy’s losers at 2:30, the girls winners from Friday at 4 p.m. and the winners from Friday’s boy’s games at 5:30 p.m.

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Karen and I were involved in an unusual athletic event a couple of weeks back and what a Hoot it was! We were blessed with an invitation to attend the wedding of two of my all-time favorite Kimball High athletes with Shawn Nagel and Cierra Pedersen tying the knot in a very chilly OUTDOOR WEDDING held in the back yard of Joe and Deb Fennel’s home. It was 39 degrees when Cierra’s father, Chauncey Pedersen, performed the ceremony. Lots of heavy coats, blankets and ear muffs on the spectators, but those in the wedding party wore their white shirts and lacy dresses. I swear I have been warner in unheated goose pits.

It was without a doubt the most memorable wedding I have ever been a part of, including my own. After a very brief drive in a convertible with the top down, the bride and groom warmed up in a limo and then things moved to the Kimball Event Center and I got to witness some very athletic moves on the dance floor by Shawn’s groomsmen and Cierra’s ladies involved in the wedding.

I am sure most all of you readers know that Shawn is Kimball High’s most successful wrestler of all time, who went on to wrestle for the University of Nebraska. His entire staff were also former outstanding wrestlers, including best man, Michael Robinson, who was a classmate standout for the Longhorns. The rest of his groomsmen were all UNL wrestlers as well, and Shawn’s dad, Bob, was nice enough to bring every one of these young men around to introduce them to me. Several were All-American. They all looked like they could go to the mat right now, but you should have seen them perform on the dance floor, including Shawn. They were tossing those girls over their heads and the ladies were loving it, and they had moves of their own. It was like I was watching some dance show on TV! I asked Shawn if coach Manning taught them some of those moves and Shawn said, “No way, but we do pretty good, huh, Tom?”

Cierra was a young lady who I tried my best to consider taking her basketball game to the college level, but I never got the job done. She was very skilled under the direction of her dad, and her Kimball High coach, Chauncey Pedersen. A Great Wedding!

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I enjoyed the story Tonia shared with us on Ed Avila in a recent Observer, and Ed has always been special in my eyes as well. We shared a lot of time when Ed was so heavily involved with boxing in Kimball. In fact, just recently, when I got home from Ft. Collins following a back surgery that has sidelined me to some degree, Ed showed up at my door with some cans of refreshment to cheer me up and help me heal. We talked about some old memories in regards to boxing. I remembered the old days while sitting ringside at different events with my camera and having blood from somebody’s nose bleed flying all over me. I assured Ed that he could go through all of my years of writing and memorabilia of our boxing days and have anything he wants when I am through with them and my kids are wondering what to do with all of this stuff.

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I want to say thanks also to the Biesecker family for the wonderful ad they ran in a recent Observer thanking me for a story I ran on Madison as she closed out a wonderful athletic career at both the High School and College level. I hope I get to write a few more stories on the two Biesecker girls who are still involved with Kimball High athletics. It all started way back when I was doing stories on their mom and dad, who were outstanding athletes for the Dix High School.

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Kimball’s Mike Daum has his third year of Division One College basketball underway as a member of South Dakota State, and he is right back where he left off a year ago – making headlines on all of the major venues of news media.

The Jack Rabbits are already 6 and 2 in the young season and Big Mike is averaging 19.4 points and 8.4 rebounds. The Jacks have losses to number 4 ranked Kansas, although Mike had 21 points and 11 rebounds, and a loss to Wyoming. Mike and his team have big wins over Iowa, 80-72, and Buffalo, 92-60. Mike had 34 points in the win over Buffalo and scored 30 with 13 rebounds against Alabama State. This week SDS will face Ole Miss and Missouri State.

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A couple of junior high events taking place on Monday includes girl’s basketball at home with Bayard coming to town for games beginning at 3 p.m., and our junior high wrestlers going to Mitchell for wrestling at 1 p.m.