I’ll admit I don’t always know what I’m doing with my little video camera. We’re still in the experimentation stage. Softball and baseball have been kind of a mystery to me. I’m not quite sure where to stand or where to go, whether to shoot through the fence or try to get in the dugout or camp out somewhere inside the fence, if the umpire will let me (haven’t asked any yet).

For many years, working at weekly newspapers in North Carolina and Illinois, I did everything — writing stories, laying out pages and even taking photos. Lots of photos. I used to hang out around first base, usually kneeling down in the grass just a few feet from the bag. Back then, I didn’t always know what I was doing with my little Nikon.

The closest I ever came to getting hit was in a baseball game at Southern Wayne High School in Dudley, N.C. I never saw the ball, but it came so close, I could hear the air swishing around the laces as it zipped past my left ear. I knew it had to be close because everyone in the crowd went “Oooooh.” So, evidently I nearly got killed.

Anyway, there’s no way I could take a tripod for a video camera out on a baseball or softball field. So, I’ve been shooting softball games from beyond the fence in center field. I figure if it’s good enough for Major League Baseball, it’s good enough for me. And the lens has good enough magnification that I can usually get a decent shot of home plate.

On Saturday I was out shooting Jacksonville vs. Beardstown softball, standing on a stool so I could see over the center field fence. I’m standing there between innings, just kind of looking around, when one of the Beardstown girls who played center startled me.

She turned around and asked, “Am I going to be in your way?”

She wasn’t joking, at least I’m pretty sure she wasn’t (actually, it would have been a good joke). She seemed genuinely concerned that she was going to interfere with my shot as she played her position.

Naturally, I told her to take a few steps to the right (now it’s me who’s joking). I told her not to worry about me, of course. If I need to move, I’ll move.

But you know, in more than 20 years of taking pictures at sporting events, I think that’s the nicest thing any athlete has ever said to me.

I heard today that the WIVC track meet will be held at Illinois College this year. That’s neat, and the fact that I think so has got absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the meet will be only three blocks from where I live.

Carrollton has a great track facility — one of the best in the area — and it’s been a good host for the conference meet. But just in general, it’s good to see local high schools using IC’s facilities.

IC has some of the best facilities around. I have no idea why local high school football teams wouldn’t want to play at England Field, for example, if for no other reason than to get a taste of what it’s like to play on the artificial surface. Football teams around Champaign-Urbana play at Memorial Stadium during the regular season, and I know Hancock Stadium at Illinois State used to host high school games — sometimes two or three on a given Saturday. England Field doesn’t have the grandeur of a Memorial Stadium, but it’s a good venue and would be a fun experience.

Bruner Center is getting more and more use. For the past two years IC has hosted a girls’ basketball super-sectional game. IC has hosted an indoor high school track meet for at least the past two years, and this past volleyball season the college hosted Quincy Notre Dame’s tournament (Western was booked for another event). I wish a local high school volleyball team would start an event like that at IC. And Illinois College has hosted the Westown Ford All-Star Girls’ Basketball Classic for the past two years. IC’s facilities have been the perfect size for the events it’s chosen to host.

The Bruner Center and England Field are a great recruiting tool for the college, of course, but opening up the facilities to high school events is also a great way for the college and the surrounding communities to build a working relationship. I hope it’s a relationship that continues to grow for years to come.

I had fun watching the Green Chevrolet All-Star game Friday night at the Bowl, and I posted videos of what I thought were the best plays from the game (more to come).

One of those plays came late in the game when Perry Bonds got trapped at halfcourt and threw the ball off an opponent and out of bounds, giving his team the ball back. Terrific play. Smart play. Only it looked like his foot landed in the backcourt before he got rid of the ball.

Whether it was a backcourt violation is beside the point. The point is that it “looked like” one on videotape.

Videotape is completely unfair to officials, but at the same time, it reaffirms the fact that area basketball referees did a pretty good job overall this season. I posted lots of plays on our Web site this year where I thought the call could have gone the other way. But in most cases, it’s hard to tell, even in slow motion. If you can’t tell if a call is right or wrong when you’re watching it over and over again in slow motion, I think that means the referee probably made the right decision on the court.

One of the strangest calls I saw this year was during the game when Waverly’s Devyn Morgan injured his knee. After Morgan went down as he drove for a basket, several people in the crowd howled at the referees for not keeping the game from getting so physical. Pawnee was called for a foul on the play. That’s the strange part. As the videotape showed — clearly, this time — the Pawnee defender never got without 2 feet of Morgan. By the way, even though he couldn’t play, it was great to see Morgan moving around under his own power Friday night. It’s been a long time since I saw an injury on a basketball court that was quite that scary.

But back to my point. Of all the games I watched this year, I saw only one where one missed call could have cost a team the game (and it’s probably not the one you’re thinking about). Even the game where Jacksonville hit what “looked like” a three-pointer at the buzzer that was called a two, I had to watch the tape at least 10 times, in slow motion, before coming to the conclusion that maybe — MAYBE — the player’s foot was really behind the arc when he took the shot.

The officials had only one chance to look at the play.

We’re starting something new on the Web site. Not a big thing, but we thought it was a good idea. Beginning now, we’ll start posting briefs that have appeared in the paper. That way, if you miss a notice about tryouts or parent meetings or some special award or honor, you’ll find that information online. We’re not sure if we’re going to create different files for every week, or if we’ll do them by month. But whatever we do, the information should be easily searchable on Varsity.

Enjoy.

Worst. March. Ever.

High school basketball ended way too soon. High school baseball and softball have barely gotten off the ground. If it’s not raining, the ground’s too wet from the previous day’s rain. And to top things off, the U of I basketball team set a school record for losses. Any other year, I’d be in front of the television watching the NCAA tournament all day today. Not this year. Shortly after the Illini lost in the NCAA tournament last season, I canceled my cable TV and haven’t had it since. I get three-and-a-half channels, and none of them is CBS.

I haven’t missed it, really. I’m gone most nights. The only college football game I was able to watch start to finish on television in the past year was the Rose Bowl. When I had cable, I used to tape the games, but somehow I’d never get around to watching them. It’s not much fun to sit there for three hours if you already know who won.

I don’t think I saw a single Illinois basketball game this year. I did see part of the Hawaii game on a live feed over the Internet. But by not watching, I saved myself a lot of aggravation this season.

And brackets? I never participate in office pools. I did one year, several years ago, and it was impossible to enjoy the games when I knew I had money riding on the outcomes. You can’t pick the winners in the first two rounds anyway. Not anymore. Not like you used to be able to. I never could pick against Illinois anyway. I just don’t bet.

Who do I like? I can’t pick Kansas or North Carolina or Duke or Memphis or Indiana or Notre Dame. I want all those teams to lose in the first round. I don’t have anything against UCLA — not really — so it wouldn’t bother me if the Bruins won. But my team is already out. So, I won’t be watching.

It better get sunny real soon.

We’ve been running a photo contest for the past several weeks on our Web site. I’ve been happy and disappointed with the response. Five people have submitted photos (which is the disappointing part), representing three schools (which is the really disappointing part), and no videos have been submitted (which is the really, really disappointing part).

But the people who have submitted have been true tigers. One has submitted 262 pictures. That’s a lot. A total of 691 photos have been submitted to the Web site. That’s the great part — these folks are dedicated.

We offered two $200 prizes. The athletic department of the school with the most reader submitted photos and videos posted at myjournalcouriervarsity.com through March 31 will receive $200 from the Journal-Courier. And the person who submits what we think is the best photo or video during that time period will win a cash prize of $200.

West Central is winning the competition for the most photos — by more than 300 photos. Lots of school spirit there.

But you know, if 10 people from your school had submitted 50 photos each over the past three months, your school would be in the lead right now.

We started the contest for one reason only, and it wasn’t because we wanted to give away $400. It’s a lot bigger than that.

We want to get people used to posting photos and videos on our Web site so we can create an online community. We want myjournalcouriervarsity.com to be a place where you can come and share information, not just read information. We want you to become an active member of our community, not just a passive one. That’s our job as a newspaper. Someone once defined a newspaper as a community talking to itself. That’s why we created this Web site.

It’s going to take time, I know. But with your help, we’re hoping to get there.

And you still have a few days to turn in some photos. You might just win.

Hey, folks. It just occurred to me that we won’t have much to put up on the Varsity Web site starting the second week of June.

So, if you’re coaching a high school team this summer, please let us know about it. If you’re playing in the area, we’d love to come out and shoot some video and get a progress report on how your team is coming along.

You know, we’ve love to go with the Jacksonville girls’ basketball team to Chapel Hill this summer (it’s been a long time since I’ve been in Chapel Hill), but it’s probably not in the budget. Note to team: Make sure to visit the Rathskellar restaurant on Franklin Street. If you can’t find it, ask anybody for directions to “The Rat” — they’ll know.

Even if we can’t be at your events this summer, we’d appreciate a call to let us know how your team did in a big tournament. It really amazes me how many people think we have some magical master list here at the office with every sporting event on it. We don’t. And if we don’t know about it, we can’t report on it. We’re counting on you to help us out this summer (all year, really).

If you know of such goings-on this summer, please post a note on this blog entry to let us know. We’ll create that magical master list right here online. And you might just see me up in the stands with my little video camera.

Funny thing about Saturday’s Westown Ford Girls’ All-Star Classic — the game seemed to run long (every all-star game seems to run long), but sitting here looking at videotape, I wish they could play it all over again.

There were some great moments. Brown County’s Leah Kassing had a terrific game. Fully recovered from shoulder surgery that forced her to miss the entire volleyball season and most of the basketball season, she really seems to be rounding back into basketball form. She came back for the last few basketball games this season, and though she put up some points, she was struggling to shake off the rust. It was great to see her close out her high school career with a really solid game. You could tell she was having fun, and that she enjoyed having a chance to play one more high school game. I think she’ll have a great college career.

Carrollton’s Dana Schnettgoecke — what can you say? She was the area’s best three-point shooter this year, and she proved it again Saturday night, beating out Greenfield’s Lindsay Gruen in a shoot-off to determine the three-point shootout champion. Schnettgoecke and Gruen made nine three-pointers apiece in the first round.

I was glad to see West Central’s Kelsey Little have the game she had. She and Pleasant Hill’s Devin Wombles each scored 15 points. Little averaged just over six points per game this season. But scoring really wasn’t her job. She held together a very young group of Lady Cougars as they survived some early season growing pains and became one of the area’s best teams.

And then there was Routt’s Melissa Nichols, diving on the floor, making steals and just generally wreaking havoc as the South applied a little full-court pressure to get back in the game. Nichols scored 13 points. She didn’t make any threes, but one of my favorite plays was one she made on a three she missed. Shooting near her own team’s bench, her shot rattled out and bounded toward the far side of the court. She darted after the ball, dashing past a couple of players in the free-throw lane to grab her own miss in the opposite corner.

The game was another great event, I thought. It wasn’t close to a sellout, but how many people watched the game doesn’t matter. Not in the least. What matters is that all these girls got one more chance to play a game they love before moving on with their lives.

Gosh, they were great players.

And they will be missed.

All-star basketball games can be fun. They can also be dull. But tonight’s Westown Ford Girls’ All-Star Classic is one game I’ve been looking forward to seeing.

The South team features a tremendous collection of guards. One of the team’s tallest players, West Central’s Kelsey Little, is a guard herself.

Can you even imagine? A team with Kelsey Little, Routt’s Melissa Nichols, Pleasant Hill’s Devin Wombles AND Carrollton’s Dana Schnettgoecke — Nichols and Schnettgoecke being two of the final four girls in the state at this season’s three-point shootout. Add in Lindsay Gruen, who helped Greenfield set a school record for wins this year, and you’ve got one incredible team.

There are a lot of good, young players coming back next year. One look at our all-area team will tell you that. But these girls, who basically ran the show for their respective teams, will be tough to replace — tougher than many people realize, i think. It’s odd that this much talent at one position will be graduating this year.

Plenty of other great players from other area teams will be on the court tonight (festivities begin at 6:30 p.m. at Illinois College). It’s a great event, and we’re pleased to be one of its sponsors again this year. See you at the game.

There’s only one team in Jacksonville that can truly be said to have a real tradition of winning.

The athletes apparently all get along with one another. They all get to play. Their coaches are supportive, yet demanding (it wasn’t so long ago that they were out on the court themselves). The parents even dress up funny and perform at the team’s final practice.

And the Jacksonville J’ettes — yep, the J’ettes — have qualified for state competition 25 years straight. They’ll be competing at the finals this weekend at the Assembly Hall in Champaign.

You could argue that what the J’ettes do isn’t a sport. They don’t play with a ball, and they don’t have other people on the court trying to keep them from doing what they do. But you can’t argue that they aren’t athletes.

I had no appreciation for that until I saw the J’ettes practice at the JHS Bowl Wednesday night. I watched them perform lots of times during halftime at JHS boys’ basketball games this year. The J’ettes and the Jacksonville High School jazz band make basketball games fun to go to whether the team wins or loses. People who didn’t go to the games because the team had a bad year missed out on a great show.

But, back to the practice. For two solid hours, the J’ettes performed and performed and rehearsed and rehearsed, with barely half a dozen breaks for water. Girls who didn’t bring their own water bottles marched in a slow procession up the stairs to the water fountain on the main level. Five minutes later, they were back down on the court, kicking and dancing, over and over again, striving to perfect their routines.

Try doing deep knee-bends for 15 minutes straight, and you might get an idea of what the first five minutes of practice is like for these girls.

How do you explain 25 straight appearances at state competition? You don’t. You just sit back and enjoy the performance. They’ve already done all the work. Twenty-five years’ worth.