The Olympics... and beyond

If you follow me on social media, specifically Twitter, I was pretty worked up on Monday night as I tried to get into the Division IV boys' basketball semifinals at Merrimack Valley High School. I arrived approximately midway through the first of two semifinal games, hoping to see the end of the first game before the Littleton-Woodsville game as the nightcap. However, when I got there, there was a large crowd outside the locked doors and nobody was being allowed in, since the gym was at capacity. It was a bit frustrating on my part. I understood the reasons, but there was a person standing next to me in the lobby at MVHS with a ticket for the first game who couldn't get in either. And my biggest issue was that there was nobody coming out to tell people what was going on inside. The first game went to double-overtime, meaning the folks with tickets to the second game were left standing around (many outside) for longer than expected, with no access to bathrooms after a two-hour d...

I have to admit, I was getting a bit nervous. I've had the honor of covering four of the last five Olympic Games, including winter stops in Sochi, Russia, PyeongChang, South Korea and Beijing, China and a summer stop in Tokyo, Japan. Ahead of each of those Olympics, I have traditionally heard early on whether I've been granted credentials. I remember prior to my first Olympics, I actually got the confirmation e-mail during high school football season (I was in the parking lot of the Burger King in North Conway after a Kennett football game, checking my e-mail since coverage is not great at the high school). That would have been in the fall of 2012, a year and a half ahead of the Olympics, which took place in February of 2014 (I was there, nine years ago at this time). The PyeongChang and Beijing timelines were pretty close to the same.  The only Summer Olympics I have been to was in Tokyo, originally scheduled for 2020. I received my confirmation of credentials for those Games ...

One thing that I will always remember about Tom Underwood is his handshake.  Sure, he won more than 500 games as a baseball coach at Plymouth Regional High School, coached thousands of kids from their debuts in organized baseball up through their high school careers, built successful feeder programs for the dominating Plymouth football and wrestling programs, was one of the first people enshrined into the New Hampshire Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, was a heck of a math teacher, raised three kids with his wonderful wife and had a hand in seemingly just about anything that went on in the Plymouth community over the last few decades. But man, I can never forget that handshake. It felt like your hand was going to be crushed. Coach Underwood passed away last week at the age of 72. Even though he had stepped down as the varsity baseball coach at Plymouth, he was still very active in the school and the community, keeping the books at basketball games, coaching junior high sof...