TUPATALK: Reflections

Spring has arrived -- in a sense.

The opening of high school baseball, soccer and other seasons means warmer nights, longer days and trees sprouting their new Easter bonnets can't be far away.

My heart has always chewed on the start of spring with mixed feelings. It's great to see the renewal of nature, of baseball and even of people.

But, it also means graduation is around the corner and the departure of special groups of kids. Each class brings something special to a school and to a sports programs. You've got the kids with the wacky personalities, the stoic kids, the kids you know are going to succeed in the career portion of life, the kids who have overcome struggles, the kids who still face some growing pains before they realize what life and other people are all about.

As an observer, you get to know their smiles, from the half-shy grins to the bright sparks of happiness.

Each kid is special in some way, each brings something important to the pursuit of life, love, families, careers and service.

As I look back, I don't know what I was supposed to bring. I was somewhat smart, somewhat athletic, somewhat energetic, somewhat good and somewhat wise.

But, I didn't feel like I was a complete package of anything. I observed my classmates, many of them confident and secure about who they were and what they wanted out of the future. I kind of felt like I had partly been along for a ride in those years and partly refined.

My senior year, our school introduced a new program for seniors to acclimate them to higher culture and awareness. I attended a school that averaged about 800 students per class and this special class was open to only the top 80 seniors. Somehow, I got selected for the class even though I was pulling a grade point average of less than 3.0. But, I had taken A.P. History and came across smarter than I thought I was.

Anyway, the class proved a wonderful experience. They taught us about ballet and took us to one, we spent a day touring the prison, we went around to different churches to broaden our knowledge of religions, we learned about how to eat properly at a formal dinner, and so on. The catalyst behind the class was that we were a west side school from a blue collar/bedroom community and the administration wanted to expose the seniors to some of the things the east side kids already knew.

I've often wondered what happened to all those kids I attended that class with. I hope they've each had rewarding and happy lives since we grabbed our diplomas.

Spring is both a beginning and a transition.

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BLAST FROM THE PAST

(Following is an excerpt of an E-E article from 2008.)

The Bartlesville-Sauget (Ill.) connection has put on additional muscle.

Bartlesville High product Tom Myers is close to winning a national championship in Sauget.Myers' Central Missouri baseball team powered past Shippensburg (Mo.), 5-1, on Wednesday to advance to the next round of the NCAA Division II tournament.

The Mules (47-16) will take on Mount Olive in today's semifinal round. Central Missouri, which tumbled Tuesday night to the losers bracket, will need to win to force a second semifinal game Friday.

The national championship game is planned Saturday in Sauget.Myers is wrapping up his first year as head coach at Central Missouri.

His roster includes two other former Bartlesville Bruins -- catcher Joe Kelton and pitcher Nick Phillips, both from the Class of 2006.

Neither Kelton nor Phillips saw action in Wednesday's wire-to-wire win.

Will Feil jump-started the Mules' offense with a homer to open the game, his third dinger of the season.

Feil and six-hole hitter Iain Dykins both went 2-for-4 with a run driven in.

But, Brian McBryde boasted the Mules' most boisterous bat, slamming three hits, including his 20th double of the season.

Scraping along with a 2-0 lead after six innings, the Mules erupted for three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

Feil ignited the scorching rally with a lead-off single to left; he then scored on McBryde's ringing double to center.

Mike Hallam and Dykins also hammered run-scoring singles during the inning.

While Central Missouri's offense was more than adequately potent, pitcher Danny Potje (9-2) shut down Shippensburg like a condemned taco stand.

Potje, who threw 138 pitches in the complete-game victory, took a shutout into the ninth inning. He scattered 11 hits, gave up three walks and struck out eight batters. Luis Perez was his catcher.

Today's showdown with Mount Olive is the first time these teams have met this season. The first pitch is due for 2:30 p.m.Myers' Mules saw a seven-game winning streak snapped Tuesday night in a gut-churning 19-inning loss to Sonoma (Calif.) State, 6-5.

The Mules had rallied from a 4-0 deficit to send the game into extra innings.

Central Missouri's roster includes a handful of players from Kansas (Tyler Anthony and Kelly Quirk) and several players from Missouri (Kyle Crandall, Aaron Swanner, Tom Latimore, Matt Curtis, Nick Caldrone, Aaron Brett, Chris Matlock, Peter Davenport, Eric Cole, Colin Murphy, Jon Wegener, Alex Kent, Brandon Morris, Will Feil, Danny Potjle and Scott Reller).

Caldrone is from Blue Springs; he's participated in the annual Glen Winget July Fourth tourney in Bartlesville.

The only other player from Oklahoma, besides Kelton and Phillips, is Jared Potts of Grove.

The remainder of the Mules roster represents a variety of states, including Arizona, Texas, Idaho, Indiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Nebraska and Illinois, as well as players from Canada and Venezuela.

Myers is the 13th head coach in Central Missouri baseball history, where he had previously worked as an assistant.

He was on the coaching staff on the Mules' 2003 national championship team.

After the 2003 season, Myers went to work for four years at Kansas State, as an assistant.

Myers specialized at KSU as the hitting and outfielders coach.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: TupaTalk column