Commentary: Some things I noticed on the photo tour

The Odessa American photo tour is five days of traveling around the Permian Basin and meeting with all of the non-Class 5A schools in our coverage area during the first week of practice for football and volleyball.

Our contingent that went on this tour includes sports editor Chris Gove, photographer Kevin Buehler and myself. Sports writer Joel A. Erickson and assistant sports editor Craig Craker also joined us for one day each. The trip can be grueling — we traveled more than 1,100 miles on this trip — and it can be funny and entertaining all at the same time.

Here are a few things I noticed during my first football tour.

>> Greenwood head coach Shad Hanna said we looked better Monday than every year we have seen him in Alpine on the tour. Alpine is generally on the last day of the tour, so when visiting those schools out near the Davis Mountains, we don’t look nearly as good as we did on the first day. Greenwood was the first stop on the tour this year — at 6:30 a.m. Monday — and Hanna got to see us as fresh as possible, which he was very excited about.

>> I should probably think about what I say when I’m around sports editor Chris Gove. He will post those comments on our new Twitter page: OA_sports. Several comments I made that ended up there revolve around food. I’m not a small guy. I’m 6-foot-1 and about 230 pounds. I like food, and Gove loves to report some of my random comments. When we stopped in McCamey on Tuesday, I had my mind made up on what I was going to get to eat, until Gove showed me the backside of the menu. The following conversation led to this gem being posted on Twitter: “BM of the day: ‘I got really distracted when he showed me the fried okra.’ ”

>> I also like country music, which Gove seems to think is derived from me being a “cowboy.” I know I’m a bit country, but I grew up in the Metroplex. I think they even each other out a bit. I also keep up with the Texas Country/Red Dirt/Americana music scene, which leads to random questions about music he either is unsure about what musical category a song or artist belong in or is just trying to goad me into saying another Twitter-worthy comment.

>> When Gove tells a coach something about the new area writer, they all believe him. Gove tells the coaches a little bit about me when I first meet them, including that I am a cowboy. Then, that leads me to have a 10-minute conversation clarifying his comments. That’s fine. I want the coaches to know me.

>> Why are there yellow flowers popping up all around the Permian Basin? I’m not entirely sure what flowers they are — they look like sunflowers, but the flowering part looks too small compared to the size of the stem. I really don’t have any complaints, because it changes up the scenery a bit, but where did they come from?

>> New Wink coach Andy Hrncir is very serious when it comes to discipline and efficiency. I spent nearly 20 minutes around Hrncir as he interacted with players. If he saw something he didn’t like, then he addressed the issue and the players immediately responded. That tells me the coach is putting his mark on this team already and if nothing else, I would venture to guess that the Wildcats will be one of the least penalized teams this season. When the players were getting their mug shots taken for us, Hrncir and assistant coaches Jesse Jones and Cary Shackelford ensured that Wink would be one of the quickest to get their individual pictures taken this year.

>> We need more people to “like” our oavarsity.com Facebook page. In addition to recently creating a Twitter page, we created a Facebook page to help our readers follow what we are doing here in the sports department. At the time of writing this article, we have 41 people who “like” our page. Both social-media outlets are not going to always be completely serious. They are meant to be funny and entertaining, while also keeping you informed on sports in the Permian Basin. Without you, we are really just talking amongst ourselves. We also have 10 people following us on Twitter.

>> I miss playing football sometimes. As Gove will tell you if you ever meet him, I once recorded a safety in a 5A football game, but that has nothing to do with this. I watched Monahans run its Wing-T offense and it immediately brought me back to my playing days at Burleson. Watching the trap and sweep plays that are a staple of the misdirection offense got me excited and wishing I still had some eligibility left. While I mainly played linebacker, I learned that offense inside and out under Mel Maxfield, who now coaches at Amarillo High.

Then on Friday, when the players put the pads on for the first time this season, I suddenly felt like I could go out there and be able to fill in as well as anyone, despite me being out of shape.

>> There is more to six-man football than I could have ever imagined. We went to five different 6-man schools and saw several different offensive and defensive schemes. I had never seen a 6-man game or a practice before this week, and I have a large amount of respect for the work that goes into playing that brand of football.

Now that the hard part is over and done with, let’s get this season started.