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Life's little ironies never stop to sleep: I'm driving home to Cipole where I'll pick-up my hoop addicted daughter and then head over to the Nike Global Challenge on a Friday afternoon. I'm listening to Blazer announcer Brian Wheeler and Kenny Vance asking their sportscentric listening audience to call in with what they think would be a great nickname for Greg Oden. Some call in witty ones, some idiotic and some pretty decent ones. I reflect on "Pineapple Express' and how Seth Rogen was the proverbial loser who, along with other losers, makes a habit of calling radio talk shows while fantasizing about becoming a radio talk show host. That's when the aliens seized my body and took over. Or maybe I had an 'outta body experience.' Either way, I started calling the radio station with the perfect nickname for Greg Oden. Except I either kept getting a busy signal or a wrong number before Wheels signed off and the Seahawks football game started. I was a double loser.

Maybe I time travelled to the not so distant future, or had a epiphany or maybe it was one of those dang flashbacks. Either way, I am compelled to share it with you. For I have seen Greg Oden's nickname of the future......

Mike was truly an 'original.' Always smiling. Always trying to get a smile and a laugh out of you. He was my wife's older brother. The catch word is 'was.' This Sunday while attending our daughter's basketball tournament in Seattle, I encountered the scenario that every spouse dreads. Watching the expression of someone we love receive the news that something horribly wrong has happened. The cry of angst from my wife and the painful reverberation of hearing Mike's name as the body breaks down into panic stricken sobs is forever imbedded in my memory circuits. If life is an insane asylum, then Mike will always be "Martini,' the role played by Danny DeVito in Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." He had the same physique, with the dark inquisitive eyes and always the childlike wonder of the world. He was just 51 years old and leaves behind his wife Pauline and daughter Rachel who just last month graduated from Newberg High School. It serves a poignant reminder how quickly one close to us can suddenly walk out of our life forever. In a physical sense.

Every student athlete dreams of winning a State Championship just once, oh just once, during their 4 year High School career. Those who have experienced the emotional triumph and even moreso, those who haven't, can understand and truly appreciate the extraordinary chain of events that must occur in order to win a state championship.

But....every once in a blue moon, a gifted athlete emerges and separates herself/himself from the pack while crushing opponents in individual and team sports. Even more rare, is the athlete that can produce state championship caliber athleticism in 3 different seasonal sports. While most 5A & 6A athletes are being forced to have to choose a single sport to play, the 1A-4A athletes have the opportunity to play a different sport each season and excel if the talent is there.

One of my favorite events in the world outside high school sports and college football is about to unfold in what is the greatest track and field venue in the world. Hayward Field is the trackophiles true "Field of Dreams' not just nationally but worldwide. With action starting up this Friday, I thought it might be fun to give a shout out to a few athletes that will be fun to follow and cheer on over the next ten days. Many with local ties and some with stories on how they got to Eugene in the first place you can't help but pull for them.

ANDREW WHEATING-One of the best stories to come around in a while. Not even a high school runner but a soccer player who leaves Vermont and comes to University of Oregon. Running competitively for just a couple of years, finishes second in the NCAA 800 meters last month with a 1:45.32 which gives him the 5th best time of the field. This Duck has just scratched the surface of his potential and has track enthusiasts buzzing. He has 'declared for both the 800 and 1500 meter races. The 800 will be run this coming weekend and the 1500 is the last event that closes the trials on July 6th. So he will get a break and can attempt to make the team in the 1500 Meters if he doesn't get into the 800. (Top three finishers get to go if they meet the Olympic "A" Standard). By the time he's done at U of O he could be one of the all-time greats. He has a blistering kick and is a blast to watch coming down the home stretch where he's been mowing down runners.

In the timeline of our lifes, there are snippets of seconds and minutes and days that are clipped out and pasted away in a part of our hearts and minds and they become the currency we treasure. It is a wealth that cannot be measured with dollars and in our darker hours we cash them in and then begin the search for new moments to restock our inner wealth.  I was one of the lucky ones to experience the absurd filthy riches growing up and though my Dad passed twenty years ago, it is nice to still open the vault and run my minds fingers through the jewels and coins on my youth spent with Dad. I'd like to thank him for dragging me to all those sporting events and not to poetry recitals and EST Seminars. Even though he did hook me on the Kingston Trio.

After a bonechilling Thursday and a cool Friday, Saturday's Track and Field Championships at Hayward opened under sunny skies and a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner rumored to be sung by some of the members of the Oregon track team that would have made the Back Street Boys envious. It was a great and fitting start on this Memorial Day Weekend with great marks galore for a meet that would finish up early as a threatening electrical storm moving into the area made officials think it prudent to wrap things up ahead of schedule rather than send the kids racing around a wet track with stubby little electrical rods known as 'batons.'  The Grant boys 1600M team would close the ceremonies with the 5th best time in history and a winning time of 3:18:35. Thankfully nobody ended up playing Lee Trevino during the race.

Those silly weather prognosticators around the state were predicting warm and sunny skies to open the Oregon State Track and Field Championships in storied Hayward Field and even last Sunday found me smiling and envisioning everyone in shorts and tee-shirts and flip flops to celebrate the states best preforming as 'true thinclads.'  Fast forward...The Oregon State Track and Field State Championships opened today in Eugene at Hayward Field and it was business as usual as a good turnout showed up all adorned in earmuffs, big sweatshirts and blankets as a biting chill and threatening clouds proved the local meteorologists are nothing more than media gamblers who know how to bluff a TV audience. From the look of it, the OSAA shatterred the previous record of 892 sweatshirts sold over the three day event by selling out all 2500 in the first three hours of the meet.

"Twas the Night Before State Track

and all through the house, not a thrower was stirring

not even 'The Crouse"

Their Implements hung in the toolshed with care

In hopes a gold medal would hang from their chesthair