It has been an interesting day

It has been a very interesting day as I shift from one news cycle to the next. I was pretty blown away by what I read in newspapers from area towns. There's a lot to digest! I will write a few notes on that in a new blog post.

One bit of news really jumped out at me: the Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley school has folded the varsity football team for the remainder of the 2021 season. The remaining games on their schedule will be forfeits. In grades 9-12, the C-G-B Wolverines had just 15 players on the roster. That's absolutely mind-boggling. This is a football program that was a state title contender in the early 2010s and won at least one state 9-man title (in 2012 if memory serves me correct). I learned today that too many kids on the 15-player roster have been injured, and folding was their only option beyond bringing up 8th graders to the varsity level.

C-G-B was 0-3 in their first three games and lost their last game by a 46-0 score to Verndale at the football field in Graceville. In the pandemic season of 2020, the Wolverines were 2-4 with wins over Brandon-Evansville and Sebeka. C-G-B's last winning season was in the fall of 2015, when they finished 8-2 and earned their last playoff win. Since 2015, the most wins they've had in one season was three. C-G-B was 7-4 in 2014 and section runners-up. They were 10-1 in 2013 with their season ending in the section finals.

I dug back in some newspaper archives, and I saw that C-G-B played in the 2008 Prep Bowl, in which they lost 22-16 to Houston to finish as state 9-man runners-up in a 13-1 season. I also saw that they were indeed 9-man state champions in 2012 and finished 13-0. C-G-B made it to the state semifinals in 2009.

From 2006 through the 2015 season, C-G-B did not have a losing season. In that span, they finished .500 just once.

Enough on C-G-B football!

Here's another mind-boggling item that popped out at me: in the Chokio Review newspaper published last Thursday, the newspaper reported that the C-A elementary school has just two students enrolled in first grade. At the end of the 2020-2021 school year, C-A's kindergarten class had six students in it. However, over the summer, four of those six children moved away.

B-B-E sports update: the B-B-E Jaguars girls' tennis team hosts Melrose Area on Friday this week in a make-up match. Their meeting with Melrose was rained out on Monday. The Friday match starts at 4:15 p.m. at the high school. Also, the tennis team travels to Parkers Prairie tomorrow for a Prairie Conference match.

The other home varsity event yet to come this week is Friday Night Lights IV, when the B-B-E Jaguars football team hosts Upsala/Swanville Area at 7 p.m. at our football stadium.

Try this one on for size...it's a 22-minute clip. My gentle advice is to watch the full clip!


Did you know? In the last 18 months, the rate of the increase in childhood obesity was fastest in children ages 6 to 12 in the U.S. From my view, the guidance and recommendations and mandates from our federal government have led to untold levels of irreparable harm for children. It's shameful. We have to do better by our children.

What have you done today to seek better personal health for yourself and your family?