Along the River Bank By Wayne Carroll - Arabie Wins Bass Tournament The Groesbeck Bass Club held its regular monthly Bass Tournament on Lake Mexia and the Navasota River. John Arabie was the winner - he caught 16.86 lbs. and had the big bass that weighed 5.34 lbs. John is one of the best anglers in a group of anglers in Limestone County. Lives in Groesbeck. Second place was one by Wayne Loven who caught 15.94 lbs. Wayne is also a good angler who resides in Fairfield and belongs to the Groesbeck Bass Club. Third place went to James Abraham who caught 15.10 lbs. and a 5.12 lb. bass also. Due to bad weather only nine anglers took part but they all together did real well. Jim Miles weighed in a limit of 5 fish weighing 14.94 lbs. Rick Molina weighed 11.94 lbs. and Bull Durham had 1.74 pounder. All together nine anglers fished the tournament. They caught 25 fish that totaled 85.07 pounds in two days. Red Michaels weighed in the rest of the total weight and I don't have it down. The Club meets on Wednesday night before the weekend after, off limits on the lake three days. They tell me their next tournament is on Lake Waco. Some of these anglers also belong to the Mexia Bass Club. Both clubs are a fun loving bunch of good friends and all go by the rules and regulations of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Good Fishing----Wayne Carroll. Groesbeck Track Schedule Boys & Girls Feb. 26, Riesel Relays, Riesel Mar. 3, Rocket Relays, Robinson Mar. 11, Goat Relays, Groesbeck Mar. 24, Bulldog Relays, McGregor Mar. 31, Lion Relays, Teague Apr. 7, Mustang Relays, Madisonville Apr. 13-14, District Meet, Fairfield Apr. 29-30, Regional Meet, Humble May 13-14, State Meet, Austin Head Coaches: Kim Harris (boys) Alice Keeton (girls) Asst. Coaches: Mike Hill and Marcey House Baseball Coaches Convention The Baseball Show February 4-6 at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, MO is a coach's convention with a tradeshow featuring top exhibiting companies as Worth, JUGS, and Louisville Slugger. The convention also features clinics and seminars led by Hall of Fame Legend Lou Brock and Future Hall of Fame member Harold Baines. Clinics will also be led by former K.C. Royals Kevin Seitzer, Greg Pryor, Jerry Terrell and former Royals trainer Steve Morrow. In addition will be Jim Zerilla, former coach at Louisville and Wichita's Brent Kemnitz. Attendees can enter to win door prizes from many of the exhibiting companies as well as buy uniforms and equipment for the upcoming season. Coaches will attend clinics/seminars on pitching, infield play, major league Q & A, conditioning & nutrition, hitting drills, practice organizations, etc. The cost to attend is $85.00 for the weekend which includes tradeshow and clinics/seminars as well as a coach's packet. The Baseball Show will also open to the public on Sunday, February 6th at 11:00 a.m. Admission is $7 for adults and $5 for children (10 & under), children under 3 years will have free admittance. To be the best you have to learn from the best! For more information on the coaches convention visit www.thelegendssports.com or call 708-364-8487 today. Boys Baseball Clinic The Baseball Show convention is featuring a Youth Entertainment Festival Saturday, February 5th, 2005. Baseball players ages 8-14 will have the opportunity to attend a player's clinic with instruction led by Jim Zerilla, former coach at Louisville, and the Champion Sports Complex staff. Players will receive personal instruction as well as practice offensive and defensive techniques. Players will be grouped by age and ability for general and position instruction to create a safe and comfortable environment to learn and improve. Parents are encouraged to attend the last 15 minutes of the clinic where the players will discuss respect for parents and adults, academics, and substance abuse. In addition to the clinic the Youth Entertainment Festival Pass also includes admittance into the tradeshow on Sunday, February 6th. To be the best you have to learn from the best! Spaces are limited so reserve today. For more information on the youth clinic and coaches convention visit www.thelegendssports.com or call 708-364-8487 today. Girls Fastpitch Clinic The FastPitch Show convention is featuring a Youth Entertainment Festival Saturday, February 5th, 2005. FastPitch players ages 12-18 will have the opportunity to attend a player's clinic with instruction led by Two Time Olympic Gold Medalist Stacey Nuveman as well as 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist Amanda Freed, Jessica Mendoza, and Lovieanne Jung. In addition there will be Olympian Ginny Georgantas, Greek Olympic Coach LB Bailey, former ASU coach Tamara Ivie, and Private Coach to US and Greek Olympians Mark Doran. Players will work on the fundamentals of hitting and drills before breaking down into stations for work on defensive fundamentals. In addition to the clinic the Youth Entertainment Festival Pass also includes admittance into the tradeshow on Sunday, February 6th for an autograph session with the Olympians. To be the best you have to learn from the best! Spaces are limited so reserve today. For more information on the youth clinic and coaches convention visit www.thefastpitchshow.com or call 708-364-8487 today. Let's Read Riddle By BYRON "Putt" RIDDLE In the past week we have spent a lot of time attending practices of both the boys and girls varsity basketball teams at both Teague High School and Fairfield High School. On Friday night we even covered the district games of both the Teague Lions and Lady Lions (shouldn't it be Lionesses?) against the Mart Panthers and Lady Panthers. Nope, no switch in loyalty or shopping around for other teams to support going on here. It's just an assignment from the Mexia Daily News to help them prepare their basketball tabloid issue that highlights virtually all the high school varsity teams in Limestone and Freestone Counties. Doing Groesbeck was a given, but when Dick Gibbs who so ably has covered the Freestone County teams in years past in preparing this piece suffered a mild stroke, yours truly got pressed into service to fill in for him. One of the neat things about doing this has been getting to know those four coaches better. To a person, they are dedicated to making better players and better human beings out of the players that they coach. They bring different experience levels to their jobs and different styles of having their players perform on the courts, but they all have warmth, a caring attitude, and a passion for their sport that they share with their respective teams. So give Fairfield Eagles coach Joey Worley, Fairfield Lady Eagles coach Tommy Fadal, Teague Lions coach Bart Beasley, and Teague Lady Lions coach Jocelyn McMurry their due. They're good at what they do to build their programs and to build their players. The Heart of Texas Championships was our first team roping event to attend this weekend in Waco. It's quite an extravaganza and well worth attending to see some great performers in action. Not being acquainted with the sport, we had lots of questions to ask. We struck paydirt in finding the right person to ask when we met Ben Clements as he was announcing the competition in the #10 championships. Seems Ben not only announces, but also works in the national offices of the United States Team Roping Championships in Stephenville, Texas. And talk about a kindred soul. For the last 10 months, he has been the editor of Superlooper Magazine, the Bible for the team roping set. Anyway he passed on to us some fascinating tidbits of information about team roping and its growing prominence as a sport. For example, there are currently some 35,000 card carrying active members in the USTRC. It is the biggest national organization in this sport. There are other regional team roping organizations such as Rope America that have active memberships. When you add all the memberships in all the organizations together, Ben estimates that there are close to 120,000 team ropers active in the United States. The USTRC puts on 85 events a year of the type done in Waco. Incidentally the Heart of Texas Championships in Waco last week is the closest that all the ropers in this area get to attend. Most weekends if they want to participate, they are hauling their trailers with their favorite trained horses down highways to spots to which they have to be committed. So that they get no bum steers among the string that they send out one by one into the arenas for their maybe 15 seconds in the spotlight until they're caught or not, USTRC goes to sources it considers reliable for providing great roping stock. This weekend, Jeff Smith out of Inman, Kansas brought in the steers as he does for so many of the USTRC events across the country. For the steers, it's not a bad lifestyle relative to other members of the bovine set. For one thing, Smith and other like him train them to be ropable. For another, their services in the arena usually last around five years. That's far more than their brethern who get put out to graze for a few months until they reach somewhere around 1100 pounds in weight out in the pastures or in the finishing pens of a feed lot. That process takes only a few months by comparison and ends with a trip to the meat packer's plant. While it costs big bucks ($100 in each category in Waco) to enter a roping at the USTRC events, there's also the chance to take home big bucks. With 2200 plus teams coming from the 1065 contestants, some of whom entered more than one event (each roper could be in a maximum of three events), there was at least 270, 418 awarded to the riders. Ben says the usual formula is for the USTRC to cover all their many expenses with a third of the fees and return the other two thirds mainly in cash, but also in saddles, buckles, spurs, and etc. back to the ropers. Back to basketball. Some of you may recall the Goats having to face the scoring machine from Teague named Jerry Heggins before the realignment this past year mercifully took him out of the district. Now a senior at Teague, he had increased his scoring output to levels of 34 points average a game. Early on this season, he personally outscored the entire Lorena Leopards team 50-49 in their one meeting of the year. Anyway we might have jinxed him last Friday night. Just before he and the other Teague Lions took the court to warm up for their district 22-2A game against Mart, we remarked to him how good it was that the Goats didn't have to face him this season. The memory's not totally certain, but it seemed like he put on one of those somewhat north of 30 points scoring outbursts on the Goats in their final meeting last spring. Anyway, against the Panthers, he had his worst performance of the season having to shoot time and gain to finally reach 10 points. That was 14 points below his previously low game of 24 points in this year. His pace will probably pick back up again right away to where other teams will have to focus their defenses on stopping him though. Ropers Shine In Waco By BYRON "Putt" RIDDLE The Heart of Texas Championship in Waco this past weekend had a lot of roping teams from around Groesbeck participate in this three day event sponsored by the United State Team Roping Championship (USTRC). At least seven of the individuals from Groesbeck, Kosse, Thornton, Mexia, and Mart placed in their events and took home some cash and in some cases, the right to participate in other events later this year. Taking third place in the #13 roping was James Robison of Kosse and his partner Kirby Hill of Corsicana. They turned a time of 33.91 on four rides. For their efforts, they split $3212.00 between them. Further, they won their way to participate in a regional shootout later this year in hopes that they will make it to the National Finals in Oklahoma City in October. Right behind them was Zach Haynie of Kosse and his partner, Dustin Mueller of Fredricksburg. For making their four ropings in a 35.61 time, they picked up $2268.00 to split and also a trip to a regional shootout for the same goal of getting to Oklahoma City in the fall. Still in the #13 roping, Ryan Haynie of Kosse and Curt Crawford of Royce City, Texas took ninth place to get $600.00 to split. They had a time of 40.85 on four ropings. In the #12 roping, Brandon Matchett of Kosse along with Dylan Branson of Burleson took 10th place and won $600.00 with a 42.66 time in four tries. In the #12 short go, Matchett and Branson got $400.00 for their time of 6.61. In the #11 Incentive roping, Chad Reinke of Mart partnered with Kenneth Reinke of Axtell to take home $800.00 each for a 29.09 time on three ropings. Kent Phillips of Groesbeck with Clyde Ridge of Wortham as his partner took second place honors in #9 roping with a 44.26 time on their combined four ropings. They each took $1881.00 home as well as a trip to the national shootout. In the #9 rotation with 3 FT, Phillips and Brandon Ferguson of Mexia finished with a 7:34 time which gave them $600.00 to split. In all, the Heart of Texas Championships brought 1065 contestants to Waco. Not only were they from Texas and the nearby states of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana, but they were also from Nevada, California, Arkansas, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. They paid in about $400,000.00 in fees to get a chance at the $304.00, $418.00 that got paid back out in cash and merchandise. This is an on-line publication of Groesbeck Journal P.O. 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