Glory days

As a former Chicoan periodically reminds me via e-mail, CN&R is not known for sports coverage. That doesn’t mean we never cover sports. In fact, we have an annual sports issue, one of the pleasant surprises I got when I took this job.

So, for one week, I get to play sportswriter again.

I spent 13 years in the “toy department” of The Press-Enterprise in Riverside. Better hours and a chance to become an editor led me to switch departments, but I still scan a sports page—paper or Web—daily. My TiVo knows to record football games, and I’m prone to show up at a volleyball match to experience a happy flashback to my college days. (Coaching and managing, not playing; 5-foot-6 with a 3-inch vertical leap doesn’t quite cut it at the NCAA level.)

Anyway, I jumped at the chance to write a sports feature, and who better to feature than Amber Simmons? She was chosen Chico Sportsperson of the Year after an All-American sophomore season for the Chico State women’s basketball team. But there’s the personality dimension, too: She’s a low-profile person thrust into a high-profile position as leader of a group poised to return to the Final Four.

“She’s very shy, almost in a lot of ways introverted,” Athletic Director Anita Barker observed. “That’s such an antithesis to the way she plays.”

Breaking out of her shell will be especially important considering an offseason coaching change—the second reason I took on this assignment.

Simmons’ new coach, Molly Goodenbour, and I share a little collegiate history. While covering women’s basketball for the Stanford Daily, I wrote about her arrival. Three years later, while down in Southern California, I chronicled her MVP performance in the national championship game. We hadn’t talked since, so it was a surprising coincidence that she and I wound up in the same place at the same time.

I enjoy reliving old times. I got to do that again last Friday, with a sideline view of the Paradise-Pleasant Valley football game.

The stadium was packed beyond capacity—fans from both sides camped out at the back of the end zone after every seat and spare space by the fence got gobbled up. Cheers reverberated through the pine-lined stadium as the unbeaten teams faced off.

High school football has a special energy—tangible, uplifting. The rush of a fall Friday came back as I watched the intense line play of Paradise and the flashes of brilliance from Pleasant Valley’s skill players.

The Bobcats took a 27-7 lead, failing to increase a 30-14 margin when they ran out of time before halftime. PV closed within 30-21, but a fourth-down gamble didn’t pay off, and the ensuing drive kept Paradise comfortably ahead for the rest of a 44-28 victory.

This area is known for a lot of things: arts, agriculture, charm, heritage, the great outdoors. It’s great to know Chico has such a vibrant sports scene, too. There’s no cheering in the press box; good thing I’m only a sportswriting dilettante these days.