A friend sent me a photo of Mt. Holly in Michigan. Funny thing is, that’s where I first learned how to ski with my brother and my parents. I wore two pair of heavy socks and a pair of red rubber boots. My feet froze and I don’t remember having fun. Just being cold.

Mt. Holly opened in 1956, I was 8 years old and my brother was 10. My parents were in their early 40s. I’ve always thought that they were brave to begin a sport like skiing in their 40s.

But in Michigan, you either huddle by a fire or get out and enjoy the snow. My family enjoyed the snow.

I remember wearing an old pair of my mom’s ice skates. They weren’t figure skates just plain white skates. I always thought that if I had had figure skates I could have been a contender. But no, I ended up skating on my ankles with absolutely no support. I was the worst skater in the neighborhood.

Skiing was about the same. My brother got a pair of Head skis, great ones available at the time, and I skied on a pair of wooden skis until I was 16. It was after my brother died that I inherited his skis. At 6 feet 3 inches, his skis weren’t for me at 5 feet 7 inches. They completely ruined my skiing. But that’s what I got.

It’s my belief that if your children are going to participate in a sport, they should have the tools/equipment to do so, even though it’s not always easy as equipment is expensive.

Maybe my parents knew I was clumsy. But then they must have known that I persevered for decades in skiing, even after a ski accident that caused a spinal injury. Not in skating though as I never skated on a pair of descent skates.

Renting equipment helps while learning to ski.

My friend Mabel said, “Being one of the parents in the stands for wrestling competitions was like watching paint dry because it would take forever with only two wrestlers wrestling at a time. It was boring and I’d take a book. If my son didn’t make it to the next level, I’d have to stay, for it was a team sport, even for the parents as it wasn’t good sportsmanship to dip out. Rah, rah, rah.”

One friend told me they were dirt poor when she was a kid, and she tried soccer but wasn’t good at it. But she found her love for horses through her dad, a horse trader, so she rode horses and still does.

MoneyFit had great tips on how to budget for youth sports.

Rather than buying all the equipment at one time, get the most important gear, i.e. helmets and cleats for football and skates and helmets for hockey.

Many sports stores have used gear. As with clothing, kids outgrow equipment so it’s a good idea to check with sport stores in your area for items. Also, teams have gear-swaps. If your child is moving up an age bracket, there are others also moving up and leaving their equipment for a child behind them.

Comments on Reddit say that Rec Leagues are much more affordable than competitive sports travel/clubs. Rec Leagues also provide great coaching and skill building for players.

Several comments said the players’ parents should look at helping the team with coaching and other volunteering, plus consider working at events to raise funds for the team to offset the cost of their child/children’s sports.

I have three great grandsons and I’m sure (knock wood) their parents are planning wisely as all three are playing sports.

What’s a girl to do?…guess it’s time to start a “sports fund.”

Lucy Llewellyn Byard welcomes comments lucywgtd@gmail.com

127 Sports Intensity (FBC) will host their annual boys & girls Basketball Jamborees at Fairfield High School, in January. Girls divisions are set for Saturday, January 24th, with the boys divisions on Saturday, the 31st. Mike Schmidt, at Fairfield High, is looking for girls & boys who’d like to participate & play in the Basketball Jamborees. Please contact Athletic Director Mike Schmidt, at Fairfield High School, at www.fairfieldeagles.com, & then get set to JAMBOREE! Go Eagles!!

The Wilmington High wrestling team hosted its annual Sons of Italy tournament last weekend.

Before the Sons event, Wilmington competed at the Wakefield tournament. 

In Wakefield, both Ma­son Kwiatkowski (157 pounds) and Jonathan Pa­natta (hea­vyweight) placed sixth. Samuel Beaudoin (106) and Joshua Lopez (140) picked up some good wins also.

Last year, Wilmington finished 3-12 overall in dual meets, but return plenty of experience with captains Kwiatkowski and junior Theo Bryson leading the way.

Other top returners in­clude senior heavyweight Jonathan Panatta, junior Adam Saied at 165 and sophomores Domenic Bo­nanno, Ronan O’Shea, Beaudoin, Rafael Hernan­dez, Joshua Lopez and Colby O’Brien.

Newcomers include so­phomore Gabriel Andrade and freshman Jordan Wedge.

“We have a great group of second-year wrestlers that we are confident will make an impact on the team’s performance,” said WHS coach Kevin Ri­ley. “Samuel Beaudoin, Jo­shua Lopez and Colby O’Brien all picked up some quality wins at the varsity level and we are excited to witness their continued pro­gress. Adam Saied and our junior captain Theo Bry­son are now upperclassmen. They are both looking to rebound from a previously shortened season due to in­jury. We are excited for their return. Our heavyweight, Jonathan Pa­natta is looking to build upon a great junior year picking up several quality wins in­cluding success at the Lowell Holiday Tourna­ment. Our senior captain, Mason Kwiatkowski is fo­cused on making his final year his best yet. He produced a lot of quality wins for the team last year and they look forward to his leadership for the 2025-2026 season. We welcome David Watson to our coach­ing staff. 

Coach Watson brings a vast amount of wrestling experience and family pe­digree to the table and we are fortunate to have him. We are also fortunate to have former standout wrest­ling alums Evan Walsh and Ken Adams back as assistants. Both Coach Walsh and Adams bring college level experience to the table which is invaluable.”

Gymnasts ready

The Wilmington High gymnastics team is ready for a solid season.

The Wildcats will be led by seniors Sienna Brick­man, Maddie Plurad and Lexie Masters this season.

Juniors on the team in­clude Jordan Haering and Isabelle Maiella while so­phomores are Emma Cal­lahan, Martina Andreeva and Lindsay Fontana.

Freshmen on the squad consist of Emmy Rada, Kel­li Tkachuk, Isaure Pretot, Janice Ryou, Grace Call and Lily O’Connor.

Three eighth graders will compete with the Wildcats including Gia Slusher, Tea­gan Sullivan and Liora Dashevsky.

“We hope to have a great season,” said WHS coach Kristen Hannon. “We have our returning captains Lexie and Maddy, who are entering their senior season. Along with our other senior Sienna returning, we have our new junior captain Emma returning; as well as our other juniors Jordan, Isabelle and sophomores Martina and Lind­say. We have the po­tential to use a variety of our talented kids in the all-around or at least to fill in the gaps where needed on other events. We hope to keep up the success and momentum we have had from this past season, while building for the future.”

Swimmers optimistic

The Wilmington High swim team is partnering with North Reading this winter with coach Jim Boyle as the head coach.

The squad was 1-5 last season, but is looking forward to improving this year.

Senior Ella Dong and junior Cole Falk are the team captains while other returning letter winners for the Wildcats include senior Vijay Cudia, senior Declan Savage, senior Jon Mehr, senior Gabby Lat­son, junior Cooper O’Shea, junior Kyle Griffin, junior Angelia Vo, sophomore Stella Michaud and freshman Emily Falk.

Promising newcomers are freshmen Alita Nguan­siri, Ruby Davidson and Molly Bagtaz along with eighth grader Vasili Lis­tapod.

“Our goal is to continue growing the team while becoming increasingly com­petitive within the Cape Ann League,” Boyle said. “We have several swimmers with the potential to qualify for Sectionals and States, led by junior Cole Falk, who aims to build on his top-five finishes in the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly at last year’s state championships.

Girls hockey drops opener

The Wilmington Girls Hockey is starting in a new co-op opportunity with Wakefield this season.

The team will be led by senior captain, Vivien Sa­voie, who was the squad’s leading goal scorer last season.

Also returning are goa­lie, Emma Allard, forwards Dani Chillemi and Olivia Raposa and on de­fense, Emma Ebert.

Freshmen Kelsie Mor­row and Riley Lopes are exciting new additions as well as sophomore Rita Bishop, who is coming off of being out with an in­jury last year.

Woburn beat Wakefield/Wilmington last Saturday evening, at Stoneham Are­na, 3-0.

Allard had 29 saves on the day.

“Yes, she (Allard) was tough to beat, last year (with Stoneham/Wilming­ton), and we put a lot of shots on her,” said Wo­burn coach Steve Ken­nedy. “I would have liked to have seen more offensive production, but they (Warrior Cats) were a good team.”

Wilmington/Wakefield’s best chance came from Savoie as she had a last-second breakaway in the middle stanza.

Orange’s leading scorer Friday night Ivan Kim in the tournament opener. (PHOTOS: Tom Connolly, For OC Sports Zone).

Orange’s boys basketball team got off to a slow start and couldn’t recover, falling to Incline High of Nevada 52-32 in an opening round game of the 60th annual Orange Holiday Basketball Classic Friday at Orange.

Incline forward Halen Hanson led all scorers with 17 points to help the team snap a five-game losing streak and improved its record to 4-6 while Orange (5-9) lost its third consecutive game.

To see additional photos, click on the first photo:

Incline players left to right with Coach Tim Kelly, Halen Hansen, Jonah Miller, Lucas MacDonald and Andrew Bodel after the win Friday.

Orange Coach Jake Rhodes (fourth from left) talks to his team during a timeout.

Irvine players warm up before Friday’s game.

“We lack basketball awareness and making adjustments,” said Panthers Coach Jake Rhodes, who was missing four players due to sickness and unavailability. “We’re not shooting well. I think we’re shooting something like 18 percent from the 3-point line. We can’t continue to try and shoot over taller opponents in the paint. We must push through this and be focused on the fact that the team comes first.”

The Panthers fell behind 14-7 in the opening quarter but held Incline scoreless over the final 3:40 of the quarter and added baskets by Sebastian Nunez and Fernando Reyes to cut the lead to 14-11 after eight minutes of play.

Both teams didn’t shoot well in the second quarter. The Panthers were held to two baskets by Anthony Randle and Ivan Kim in the quarter but still only trailed 23-15 at halftime.

Orange’s shooting woes continued in the third quarter as the Panthers didn’t sink a bucket until Alex Villa nailed a 3-pointer with 1:12 left in the quarter, but Orange trailed 36-21 after three quarters and the Highlanders cruised to a victory.  

“Shooting has been our big problem,” said Panthers assistant coach Rob Nasman. “Our defense is improving but as a team we’re still having too many lapses and we’re giving up too many second chance points.”

Orange forced 13 turnovers in the game but was never able to draw any closer than 10 points of the lead in the second half. 

“We didn’t have the energy today; we need to come out with more energy,” said Ivan Kim , who led Orange with 13 points. “We know we’re better than this and we know what we are capable of, but we have to prove it.”   

The Highlanders were consistently able to drive into the lane for layups and limited Orange to one shot on the offensive end. Incline also outrebounded the Panthers and moved the ball efficiently.   

“Tonight was the best job we did all season getting Lucas MacDonald the ball in the key,” said Incline’s coach Tim Kelly. “We need to get him the ball more in the paint for him to be effective. We are still trying to find our identity as a team.”

“We did good getting back on defense, moving the ball, rebounding and getting key baskets,” said Hanson, who scored 10 points for the Highlanders.  

In other tournament games, Fullerton defeated Boulder City, Nev. 54-42 and Shadow Ridge topped Irvine 50-49.

Notes:

—Orange will play Shadow Ridge of Nevada on Saturday at 6 p.m. while Incline faces Irvine at 7:30. 

–—The Orange Holiday Basketball Classic is the longest running Christmas basketball Tournament in Orange County. The event started Friday, including boys’ and girls’ divisions with the girls championship game scheduled Tuesday at 6 p.m. The boys’ final will follow at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday night.

—In the boys division, Pool A consists of Incline, Nevada; Irvine, Orange and Shadow Ridge of Nevada, Nev. Pool B will include Boulder City, Nevada, Cerritos, Fullerton, and Long Beach Wilson.

—In the girls division, Pool A includes Apple Valley, Laguna Hills, Montclair, and Valley Christian. Pool B includes Cabrillo, Fullerton, Irvine, Orange.

—Incline’s coach Tim Kelly is the son-in-law of former Servite football coach Larry Toner. Kelly said his son, John Paul Kelly, is currently an eighth grader and is a skillful basketball player who plans to relocate to Southern California next season and attend Servite or Mater Dei and play basketball.

—Incline High School is in Nevada on the north shore of Lake Tahoe.  

Bayern Munich have, supposedly, always put an emphasis on academy talents and transitioning that talent to make an impact in the first team. However, for years it felt as if Bayern’s pool of youth talent had run dry. Blame the front office, blame the coaches or blame the general lack of talent. It doesn’t matter. Lennart Karl’s tremendous success story this season is single-handedly forging Bayern’s youth strategy for the future.

In an interview with Maximilian Koch of Abendzeitung, Bayern CEO, Christian Dreesen, stressed the importance of Karl’s emergence, the Bavarian side’s youth academy and how the club will continue to lean on academy players in the future.

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“Lennart Karl is doing incredibly well,” exclaimed Dreesen (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “Compared to other 17-year-olds, he’s simply much, much more mature. Christoph Freund, Max Eberl, and Vincent Kompany recognized his immense talent, which is why he got his chance. And he seized it. Of course, we couldn’t have expected him to establish himself so quickly. This has to be our path for the future. Lennart is an example for other talents at the academy that they can make it to the top. Just like Josip Stanišić, Aleksandar Pavlović, and Jamal Musiala before him. We’re investing a lot of money in the academy, and it has to pay off. A high percentage of players trained here are making it to the professional level – significantly more than at any other German club. To remain competitive in the medium and long term, we need to rely on a mix of homegrown players and international superstars like Harry Kane or Luis Díaz. Financially, the Premier League is too far ahead – especially when it comes to TV revenue. English clubs earn 80% more from domestic TV rights than their German counterparts, and the differences are even bigger internationally.”

The 58-year-old CEO went on to explain Bayern’s need to find creative ways to bridge the financial gap that exists between the Bundesliga and Premier, perhaps hinting that the youth academy could be a good example.

“We need to find other sources of revenue or further improve existing ones,” explained Dreesen. “Take sponsorship, for example; we’re doing very well there, among the top three European clubs. And we need to increase that even more. We’ll only be able to compete internationally in the future if we grow dynamically in sponsorship and merchandising. And then I’m not worried about the future. We have to work harder for it; for us, money doesn’t just seem to grow on trees like it does for others. We have to work for every euro and, above all, be careful about how we spend. It’s about our ambition to play top-level European football while simultaneously being financially stable. We have to try to maintain this balance. And that’s harder than it perhaps used to be.”

The recent emergence of Aleksandar Pavlović and Lennart Karl have certainly given Bayern impetus to trust and utilize the youth academy, something fans have been crying out for season upon season. Youth players also incur no transfer fee which comes as a massive positive on Bayern’s balance sheet. Considering Kompany’s knack for integrating young players into his squad as well as ‘Die Rekordmeister’s’ financial savvy, one can expect the academy to play an increasingly important role.

The Alabama Sports Writers Association has released the three finalists for Back and Lineman of the year in each classification. 

Plainview junior Cole Holland has been name one of the three finalist for 4A Lineman of the Year along with Sharontae Bailey, Anniston and Laquon Whisenhunt, Jackson.

Holland anchored the Bears offensive line this season as Plainview captured the 4A Region 8 Championship going 13-1 advancing to the semifinals for the first time since 1999. Holland blocked for an offensive that scored 586 points this season averaging 41.9 PPG. This year’s Bears offense scored the most points in school history, passing the 1991 team that scored 553 points.  

ASWA FINALISTS

Winners of the Alabama Sports Writers Association’s major high school football awards, Mr. Football and the 12-member Super All-State team are scheduled to be announced Jan. 20 at a lunch banquet at the Montgomery Renaissance. 

7A BACK

Zion Crumpton, Carver-Montgomery

Trent Seaborn, Thompson

Jayshaun Woodhouse, Central-Phenix City

7A LINEMAN

Malique Franklin, Daphne

Tristan Lyles, Central-Phenix City

Cam Pritchett, Thompson

6A BACK

Brock Bradley, Spain Park

Aaron Frye, Clay-Chalkville

Jamison Roberts, Saraland

6A LINEMAN

Ka’Mhariyan Johnson, Muscle Shoals

Anthony Jones Jr., St. Paul’s

Braylon Outlaw, Pike Road

5A BACK

Sammy Dunn, Vigor

Jake Harper, Fairview

Spencer Unruh, Corner

5A LINEMAN

Jabarrius Garror, Vigor

Ellis McGaskin, Williamson

Ba’Roc Willis, Moody

4A BACK

EJ Crowell, Jackson

Landon Duckworth, Jackson

Gunner Rivers, St. Michael

4A LINEMAN

Sharontae Bailey, Anniston

Cole Holland, Plainview

Laquon Whisenhunt, Jackson

3A BACK

Jaxon Penn, Mars Hill Bible

Cedrick Simmons, Southside-Selma

Wendell Winston, Randolph County 

3A LINEMAN

Monroe Partin, Bayside Academy

Samuel Swinney, Mars Hill Bible

Shadarius Toodle, Cottage Hill

2A BACK

Kylen Johnson, Coosa Christian

Cutter Mays, Pisgah

Kane Smith, Luverne

2A LINEMAN

Zayden Franklin, Coosa Christian

Jaylen Hill, Lanett

Owen Wadsworth, Southeastern-Blount

1A BACK

Nehemiah McCary, Maplesville

Blaize Wakefield, Hubbertville

Jaquez Wilkes, Wadley

1A LINEMAN

Marctavious Crittenden, Georgiana

Eli Hubbert, Maplesville

Tim Parnell, Leroy

AISA BACK

Ahmod Billins, Abbeville Christian

Kade Carroll, South Choctaw Academy

Peyton Yerta, Chambers Academy

AISA LINEMAN

Remington Faile, Patrician

Radarion Glover, Abbeville Christian

Eli Whorton, Chambers Academy