Jock Talk

With the Christmas break behind us, the winter sports action returns and Kimball High is going to be very busy. They got things going this past week and it is even busier this week.

This past Tuesday Kimball hosted Potter-Dix for basketball although there was no girls JV and only two quarters of boys JV play.

Upcoming Action

On Friday, Kimball is at Bridgeport with JV game time at 4 p.m. followed by the girls and boys varsity. On Saturday, Kimball is on the road to Gordon-Rushville with a very early start time of 1 p.m. for JV games followed by the girls and boys varsity.

The Longhorn wrestlers will be on the mats at Chase County with a 9 a.m. start time.

Beginning Monday, it is SPVA Conference Tournament time for the basketball teams involved. Play begins on Monday (Jan. 14) for the boys and on Tuesday for the girls. First round play will be at the higher seeded teams home site but pairings and seedings will not be made until later this week so we can not give you that info at this time. Tournament play continues on Thursday-Friday-Saturday.

Junior High boys basketball also tips off this upcoming week for the Kimball boys. On Jan. 15, they host Burns at 3 p.m., and on Jan. 17 Morrill comes to Kimball.

Big Mike Update

Touching on the play of Kimball’s Mike Daum and his South Dakota State Jackrabbit team. They suffered a 104-88 loss to Purdue Fort Wayne although Big Mike did his job scoring 29 points. After this game, he was averaging 24.6 points, which was sixth in the national scoring average.

On Sunday ,the Jacks won over South Dakota, 79-61, but Mike had some foul trouble and ended up scoring only 4 points. SDS is now 12-6 on the season.

Kimball Golfers Honored

The Star-Herald announced their 2018 All Region Boys Golf teams this past week and Kimball had four of their golfers make the honored list.

Eric Stevens of Bridgeport was named Golfer of the Year, and Brock Ehler of Scottsbluff was named Coach of the Year.

Kimball junior Dillon Wise was named to the select 1st team. Senior Andrew McCloud and junior Zane Anthony were named to the 2nd team, and junior Izaac Reuter to the 3rd team.

Only 15 golfers were selected to the All Region Teams. Congrats to our Kimball boys, and to all those named.

Tom’s Mailbag

I always enjoy getting mail from former area athletes I have had the privilege of writing about through the years, and this past week I received an informative packet from Dean Hains, a young man who excelled at Kimball all the way from his early elementary school years through High School.

The purpose of Dean’s letter was related to a mention I made a couple of weeks back that Bob McCarty had sent me some kind words from his residence way up in Alaska. I made mention that Bob was such an outstanding football player on those undefeated teams of 1965 and 1966.

Dean “The Flea” quarterbacked those undefeated teams I might ad. Anyway, Dean wanted to point out that Bob was also an outstanding track man and payed baseball, too. Dean sent clippings of some of Bob’s achievements, including setting a school record time in the 120-yard high hurdles in 1966, when he clocked 15.5 to better Tom Rutz’s record of 15.7, and then in 1967 bettered his own record when he ran 15.2.

He also said McCarty ran 20.8 in the 180-yard low hurdles to better Jack Shaw’s record of 20.9. Bob set a school record in the 70-yard high hurdles in 1966 of 9.3 seconds.

Pat O’Brien, who still resides here in Kimball, also ran 20.8 in 1967 and broke that record the following year.

Jack’s Back

I might also mention that Jack Shaw also has returned to reside in Kimball after many years in Arizona. I enjoy talking with Jack when we meet up from time to time. Jack said he got tired of the traffic and population of the big city.

By the way, Dean was also a good track man who wrote his name into the record books, and was an outstanding basketball player, too. I can remember Dean was one of those guys who “up-chucked” before he ran his race! Do you remember that, Dean?

Thanks for the packet of clippings, and thanks for the memories. I think Dean has more info of the 1960s era than I probably do. He saved everything!