This isn’t about a basketball game. Don’t let the orange flier with a rim, net and, of course, basketball on it fool you.

The hand came over my left shoulder as I sat there taking notes during Stuarts Draft’s 14-0 win over Waynesboro in softball last Thursday.

Aquatic nuisance species are a growing concern in the fishing and boating community. While many of us who hunt and fish care a great deal about conserving and protecting our habitat, we may be ignoring a growing problem.

She looked like a soccer player herself. But soccer players don’t carry star-shaped Mylar balloons with “100” written on them. Right?

Dickie Bell didn’t need someone to come in his hole-in-the-wall office and tell the Riverheads boys soccer coach that he was one win away from 100 (though, someone did).

I guess it’s the cynical journalist I wear on my sleeve like a cuff link that had me feeling the battle for indoor track was a losing one.

They waited in the hallway together. One by one they reminisced about the season. Spoke about the loss. Tried not to cry. And Kendra Scott, the wounded warrior, was the last one to talk.

You know a lot about Buffalo Gap’s girls basketball team. So we shan’t insult your intelligence. So don’t look for us to laud this team’s aggressive defense or hard-nosed play under the rim. No sir. No way. No how. This you know already.

Every now and then a basketball game lives up to the hype — and that was clearly the case Thursday morning when Buffalo Gap matched up against Franklin in a Group A, Division 1 semifinal game. Each are well-coached high school teams and last met in the 2008 state finals, where the Bison claimed the title with a convincing 83-66 victory.

Leaning forward in his chair, he pondered the question for all of a second. Then Jeremy Hartman pulled his body forward, put his hands on the table in the Siegel Center media room, sighed, and let it out.

With 22.1 seconds left, the Lee Ladies had the ball, and the game, well in hand.

Kendra Scott is still smiling.

STUART DRAFT
No thrills. No frills.No high-handed hugs or low-slung fanny pats.

One of the great things about sports shows, besides seeing all the new gear and shopping for special deals, is the wealth of information you can get for free. It’s also amazing what you can learn if you just ask a couple of questions.

Only down here, in a musty-smelling – and aging – civic center does high school wrestling turn into a whirly-gig of hand-maneuvered spotlights in the darkness.

Only down here does it feel like a Vince McMahon production of a shoestring budget.

And you wonder what it’s like. Sweat dripping down your face, the crowd to your left, dressed to the nines in pink, screaming in your ears.

In a perfect world, our problems would be as simple as R.E. Lee and the Virginia High School League’s.

In a perfect world, our problems would be as simple as R.E. Lee and the Virginia High School League’s.

Sometimes things just happen to come in threes.

If you enjoy shooting a shotgun and want to get out and have some fun, here is some good news for you.

With R.E. Lee having the game well put away, freshman Angela Mickens stood at the top of the key and dribbled the ball as the waning seconds of the third quarter tick-tocked off the clock.

These days it is hard not to be concerned about our national economy.

Knocking them around is what ideas are for.

They even helped each other out on their own personal signing day.

STAUNTON
Finally, the phone calls could stop.

A few weeks ago some colleagues of mine sent me a final copy of the Recreational Hunting and Wildlife Conservation Plan. The plan provides some great recommendations for conservation in this country.

All R.E. Lee needed was five minutes (give or take).

There are some columns one would prefer never to write. This is one of them.

We are all reading or hearing about the economic stimulus package that President-elect Barack Obama and Congress will be working on. Whether you think it is a good idea or not, the likelihood that some form of stimulus package will become law is pretty much a certainty.

If news moved across the wire that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon tapped John Stuart as part of his next Middle East envoy, nobody would be surprised.

That’s how diplomatic Stuart, the Mary Baldwin women’s basketball coach, can be. Which is why nobody should be surprised that the coach won’t offer a definitive answer if you just happen to ask whether junior Kara Hawkins and freshman Sabrina Desper are the golden acorns for the Squirrels.