Alabama High School Baseball Coach on Tomorrow's NHSCA Sports Hour to Talk About Baseball and Life After Last Week's Tornadoes

by Jeff Fisher
Host, NHSCA Sports Hour

I remember sitting in LaGuardia Airport last Thursday during delay-after-delay for my flight to Charleston, South Carolina.  The delays were caused by severe storms that stretched up-and-down the east coast.

While most times I would have been angry at the 13-hour delay that landed me in Charleston at 1 AM Friday morning, instead of noon on Thursday, this time I was okay with the situation.  The reason...I spent a lot of time in the airport watching CNN coverage of the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and Mississippi on Wednesday.  Whatever words I would write right now, wouldn't do justice to the destruction I watched over-and-over while waiting for my flight.

One of the main focuses of the coverage was in the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which was one of the hardest hit areas.  The clean-up continues as I write this piece, and will for quite some time.

While it pales in comparison, the storms caused a lot of damage to the Alabama high school sports scene, with the Alabama High School Athletic Association delaying post-season action in baseball, golf, soccer, softball and track and field for about five days.

One of the teams affected with Holt High School's baseball team.  The Ironmen had advanced to the second round of the AHSAA Class 4A playoffs against Oak Grove, however, with Holt's schools serving as a emergency shelters for families displayed by the storms, the team was knocked-out of the tournament with 12-2 and 9-4 losses on Monday in the best-of-three series.

Tomorrow, I'll talk with Holt head baseball coach Michael Beck, who'll talk about his team and his community that is trying to get back to what he calls "the new normal".

Click here to read the Oak Grove game story from the Birmingham News.

Click here to listen to the show live tomorrow at 6 PM EST.