Back on Course is More Than About Golf

While my first blog involved golfing, you can anticipate my including a wide range of sports in this blogging. I'm grateful for the opportunity to be back on course in that respect, because after several years as a feature writer for ITS SPORTS! in Tampa, FL and then occasional pieces like a pre-season preview of the Charlotte Hornets basketball team (before they left town), I'd let that part go, focusing on business writing and, of course, my Great American Novel.



There's a discipline to writing, the need to get things done in a concrete way, and the only way to accomplish that is rapping things out on a keyboard, the more often the better. Having read a few blogs over the years, my goal is to have relevant and readable thoughts vs. ramblings, more like a "real columnist" we traditionally read in the newspaper. I chose 'Baseline Shorks' as the title, not because of the baseball, basketball, or tennis connotation, but for the analytical meaning. 'Baseline' means "the actual or assumed situation or state of affairs used as a starting point in comparison or project exercises." Whatever the topic, you'll see a definite beginning point; yesterday I was going for a decent golf story arising from the negatives of a dead car stay-cation, and 'Shorks' is just the nickname I've always had.


With that in mind, I'll be taking various circumstances and putting my fairly personal stamp on them. At some point I might actually get into the nets (I was a collegiate hockey goalie) to let a Charlotte Checker, like maybe Chubby the mascot, take some shots at me. While I'm not expecting to be Hemingway about conveying exactly every gritty detail, I believe you'll get a taste of what goes on inside the mask and physically if I get that chance. I *do* know a three finger long piece of my left bicep is gone from taking a puck there way back in college. The rising slap shot, by a teammate in warmups! that caught me at the *very top* of that relatively flimsy chest protector--before anyone considered throat protectors--thats one of those moments you don't forget easily.


I'll be doing analysis of high school and college sports for sure, because especially with HS sports, there is a 'baseline' to be described there. I might not be able to tell you where former Independence HS and Florida QB Chris Leak is today, but checking in with that powerhouse program (7 consecutive 4A championships before losing in 2008 title game) might just reveal what it takes to be part of the very best. I'm sort of a hoops junkie, and while I can't reasonably expect to share in Duke's Cameron Craziness because I'm in the Carolinas, I promise you'll know whats coming with local and national darling Davidson now that Mr. Curry is in the NBA, about Charlotte/UNCC as it attempts to return from a disappointing season, maybe even Winthrop's and Johnson C. Smith's programs.


Carolina weather provides a plethora of outdoor opportunities as well, so I'll expect to discuss cycling, tennis, rugby, white water rafting (even if its an event vs. true sport), my still wonderful jump shot, and even skeet shooting. I'm looking forward to the sharing, and I hope to hear back from you along the way.


Glenn S.