Seasons Change

Sometimes it amazes me how fast time flies once we get into a season. It seems like just a few weeks ago we were starting basketball season and now we have two weeks left. It was a good start to the baseball seasons this weekend as well...


Saturday I saw or heard a few examples of what I think is the most important deciding factor if teams win or lose or if players have individual success – confidence.

In the women’s game, Howard Payne All-American Meia Daniels played her final career game at the Mabee Complex. She is a great player, and It wasn’t her best all-around game on Saturday, but as HSU made a run at the undefeated Lady Jackets she buried a pair of back-breaking 3-pointers. You could tell leaving her hand she wanted the ball in crunch time and knew they were going down.

In the men’s basketball game, junior forward Charlie Pannell has struggled of late with his shooting. Seeing him every day in practice and in games he is a great shooter, but he seemed to have lost some confidence in his shot. His teammates and coaches have done a good job of encouraging him to keep shooting and on Saturday he came out and hit his first three 3-pointers and had his best game this semester. It’s amazing the difference after you make a shot or two how easy it is to get it going.

The third example, I heard was talking to coach Coleman and Holcomb after the games on Saturday and they were discussing they saw the turning point in starting shortstop Brian Weeks was when they told him he had won the starting job and the job was his. Weeks, a freshman, had a solid opening weekend offensively and defensively and looks to have answered some of the Cowboys concerns defensively at shortstop.

It is so easy for the kids to go the other way on the confidence spectrum. What I saw this weekend reminds of how the good things that can be accomplished when you believe.

Former Student-Athlete
I got a chance to catch up with former Cowboy quarterback Jordan Neal on Saturday. He is in his new position as the offensive coordinator at Howard Payne. After playing professionally in Sweden this past summer and fall Neal took over at Howard Payne in December. He was taking in the games between HSU and HPU and then caught some of the Cowboys baseball game Saturday night.