by Larry Ham
My name is Larry and I will be covering Sports for Kings River Life Magazine. Born and raised in Southern California, I have been a sports fan for as long as I can remember. My father was a sports fan and that made it very easy for me to learn to love everything from Baseball to Bowling, Basketball to Badminton. I am also married to KRL’s Editor-in-Chief but don’t read anything into that. Lorie dislikes sports for the most part, but she agrees with me that sports and recreation are an important part of life in the cities along the Kings River.
Loving sports as I do, living in Reedley is really a treat. As is the case with most cities in the area this magazine will cover, Reedley has terrific sports programs from grade school all the way through Junior College. And, truthfully, I will be less concerned with statistics and scores than with the people who produce those statistics and scores. Working in radio in Dinuba for 13 years, I’ve been blessed to get to know a lot of terrific people involved in school sports. This includes not only the coaches and players at Immanuel High, Reedley High, and Reedley College, but many of the indispensable behind-the-scenes people at those schools. We are also extremely fortunate in Reedley to have well-organized and well-run youth sports programs. The people involved in these endeavors all have one thing in common — a love of athletics and a dedication to doing things the right way.
Doing things the right way is very important to me. I guess I get that from my late Father. He always insisted that I and my siblings try our very best to be a good citizen first and a good athlete second. And believe me when I tell you there is a right way and a wrong way to run a school sports program. That’s why I’ll concentrate on the good things in the sporting world, and not the bad. If you want to read about drug busts, arrest records, and baseless accusations, you’ll have to go somewhere else. There is so much good in sports — especially on the local side — I think it would be a great disservice to push something positive to the side in order to roll out the trash can.
I am very excited to get started. There are so many great people to talk to! If you are a passionate sports fan, or a semi-interested sports fan, or someone who thinks sports are an unnecessary intrusion into your world, I hope you’ll read my column. As I said, I will be less concerned with the scores than with the scorers. If you have any suggestions concerning someone or something for me to cover, just contact the editor. I have 24/7 access to her!
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