Time Out with Sophie Bunge (St. Helena High 2016 senior)

Vince D’Adamo: What have you enjoyed most about competing in athletics throughout your life?

Sophie Bunge: I have enjoyed the relationships I have formed with people through athletics, forming friendships and crossing paths with people I never would have otherwise.

D’Adamo: What are your plans after high school?

Bunge: After high school, I am applying to many four year universities.

D’Adamo: What might you choose as a major? What intrigues you about going that direction?

Bunge: For majors, I am thinking under a business major with a specialization in either marketing or international business. I have always been interested in jobs that will allow for creativity, but that also have stability and allow me to utilize important leadership skills.

D’Adamo: What has been your favorite class here at St. Helena High?

Bunge: I have really enjoyed AP Psychology this year, as the brain and how it works is really interesting to me, and I like applying the knowledge I learn in the class to the outside world.

D’Adamo: Within your family who have been the most influential people?

Bunge: I would say both my parents, my mother and father have been influential to me.

D’Adamo: Name a historical figure, dead or alive, in or out of sports, that you would most like to meet.

Bunge: I would like to meet Claude Monet, as I loved his art and would love to see his garden.

Do yourself a favor -- stay home on Thanksgiving night

Sometime’s it is easy how the simple solution can elude us.

With Thanksgiving just two days away, let’s talk turkey about Black Friday -- or Black Thursday since in 2011 the shopping day for some retail outlets now begins at 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving Night. For most years, it was common for retail outlets to open at 6 a.m. but in the 2000s the time crept into 4 a.m. Black Friday is commonly known as the biggest shopping day of the holiday season.

The general mood in the media is that Black Thursday is a terrible idea because retail workers should be able to spend the holidays home with their families (and potential shoppers should be home eating with their loved ones instead of out buying stuff). Black Thursday is already getting ugly where workers at stores like Walmart and Target have threatened to strike in past years. There have also been numerous petitions to stop the madness, particularly on social media.

While I am fortunate to have a job now that does not involve working weekends, nights or holidays, I can empathize for the workers. I am definitely of the mind that other than say police, firefighters, paramedics, and hospital employees are among the few that should have to work on a holiday. I can probably think of others but retail workers are not one of them.

One argument I have heard is that the employers should give the workers extra money for working on the holiday. That sounds all well and good but they are no more likely to do that than a drug addict is going to get clean just because it is in their best interest.

However, I think people’s anger over Black Friday becoming Black Thursday is misguided. Too many people place the blame on CEOs, which is ludicrous. Tell me one business owner that is going to turn down the chance to make more money when people are flocking the store in droves. The real problem is the people. The more they keep flocking the store in droves, the more likely the store.

Well, folks. I have the perfect solution to the problem. All that has to happen is for everyone in the United States of America to abide by it. Have every living, breathing soul in the USA choose to stay home on Thanksgiving Night. That would lead to empty stores. You can rant and rave all you want on social media. You can do all the demonstrations you want. You post all of those cutesy Nemes on Facebook. Sorry, folks. That won’t lead to change. You want your message to get through, start effecting a business’ bottom line, like don’t shop there.

Of course, getting everyone to do this is easier said than done. The people that want nothing to do with shopping on Thanksgiving Night are already doing their part by staying at home. On the other hand, the ones that enjoy it are not going to stop any time soon.

Anyhow, do yourself a favor, stay home on Thanksgiving night.

Time Out with Haley Niemi (2016 American Canyon High senior)

Vince D’Adamo: What have you enjoyed most about competing in athletics throughout your life?

Haley Niemi: What I have enjoyed the most is getting to meet new people. I was home-schooled for most of my life so coming to public school I didn't know anyone. With playing sports I have gotten to meet a lot of wonderful people I wouldn't have met if I didn't play sports. It's a great way to be social and it's something you can do your whole life.

D’Adamo: What are your plans after high school?

Niemi: My plans after high school are to go to college to become a nurse, and to travel around the world.

D’Adamo: What might you choose as a major? What intrigues you about going that direction?

Niemi: The major I'm going to choose is Nursing. What intrigues me is the fact that I could have a job that could save someone's life. I could greatly impact their lives for the better and that's what I want to do in my life.

D’Adamo: What has been your favorite class here at American Canyon High?

My favorite class at American Canyon High would have to be Culinary. I have taken all three years of the class and I have greatly enjoyed every year of it.  

D’Adamo: Within your family who have been the most influential people?

Niemi: The people that have been most influential in my life would have to be my parents, because they have showed me that hard work pays off. Time and time again they've shown me to keep my head up even in my darkest hour, because there's always light at the end of the tunnel.

D’Adamo: Name a historical figure, dead or alive, in or out of sports, that you would most like to meet. What would intrigue you about meeting him or her?

Niemi: A historical figure I'd like to meet would be Serena Williams.  What makes me want to meet her is the fact that she works so hard to see the results she wants. She shows fans that if you work hard at something you can achieve that dream.

Sports reporting not just fun and games

Regardless of profession, don’t you get annoyed with certain labels that come with people associated with the profession? Or do you simply accept them as par for the course?

Though I happily escaped the newspaper industry slightly less than a year ago for a career as a route sales representative for Alhambra Water, I still love writing enough to stay involved. Throughout my 18-year career in sports journalism, I had the opportunity to cover every level of sport from Little League to the NFL. The pay was poverty level but I couldn’t imagine myself being happier doing anything else -- or so I thought for many years.

Due to a combination of industry changes I was not on board with coupled with interference of family time, three years ago, I began my exit plan. I trained to get my Class B driver’s license. For two years, I worked part-time as a bus driver for the Springs of Napa and Beau Wine Tours. The former is a retirement home in Napa, CA, while the latter is a luxury transportation company in Sonoma, CA. The extra money was nice but long term multiple employment coupled with family life was going to have diminishing returns.

Fortunately, I have just one job right now. Though the job is physical and up to 55 hours per week, it is Monday-Friday, no weekends, no evenings, no holidays -- and much better pay.

I still keep my hand in the pot with writing through this blog and by helping my former employer on Friday nights during football season.

There’s one statement I heard on more than a few occasions, be it in newsrooms or just in general, that became a pet peeve. Within some newspapers, radio or TV stations, sports has been mockingly called the “toy department.” For starters, I think anyone who has ever used such a description is ignorant at best and an elitist at worst. True, sports journalists do not concern ourselves with serious problems, in the grand scheme of things, and nor do we solve all of the world’s problems.

Sometimes, I hear the statement “Gee whiz, you get to go to games for free.” At which point, I say, “Teachers get into their classrooms for free,” and “Doctors go into their operating room for free.” So, yes, sports journalists should get into games free.

What they cover matters just as much as what anyone else in the newsroom covers. There are people who “only” read newspapers because of sports. There are also people who “only” watch a newscast because of sports because sports coverage has grown in importance as sports have grown in wealth, power and influence.

If you want to say that sports journalists do not concern themselves with “serious” topics, I’ll buy that but the notion of “the toy department” is way off base.

In fact, I would even beg to differ that sports reporters do not deal with serious topics. Granted, it might not be every day, but look at matters such as Major League Baseball players using performance enhancing drugs or any random NFL player running afoul with the law.

Sports journalists are like any other reporters, in that they must find a story rather than just rely on press releases or information given by the team or school they cover. Their stories also involve verifying facts and that part of the job can be a little murky just like a news reporter encounters in their beat.

My biggest issue with anyone calling sports “the toy department,” is, well, there are many, but I’ll start with the fact that they face more intense deadline pressure than news reporters because sporting events take place much close to deadlines (i.e. covering Friday Night high school football). In the process, they are also expected to uphold the same journalistic standards as any other news reporter in the process.

They also work more nights and weekends and sacrifice more time away from their families than anyone in the newsroom, if not the entire newspaper. I do not address this topic looking for anyone to play a violin. Lord knows, no one makes them do what they do.

Title IX through my lense

As a former sports reporter, I received many compliments along with slings and arrows. It comes with the territory.

One that I received semi-regularly from mothers and daughters was, “Vince, I want to thank you for caring about girls sports as much as you do boys sports.”

I appreciate the sentiments, and yes I have my beliefs but I never thought of doing things any other way in my 18 years as a sports reporter. Football followed by boys basketball are the bellcow of any high school athletic program (college too for that matter) but when it comes to celebrating success I’m all for it, regardless of whether the sport is football, basketball, soccer or badminton.

It’s recollections like that which make me think of Title IX. So what exactly is Title IX? Well, in the simplest of terms, it was established in 1972. The basic premise behind the ruling was, “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

When I first arrived on the Upvalley beat for my first stint in 2004, I learned that on a local level the one and only Donna McCornack played a vital role at St. Helena High.

Talk to many St. Helena High graduates and they’ll tell you that McCornack was an influential figure in their lives as a teacher and/or coach. In the latter role, she coached the St. Helena volleyball from 1972-1989. During that time, the Saints won two CIF state championships (1982 and 1984), seven league titles, five section championships and two more state runner-ups.

McCornack, however, is legendary in the North Bay and the Coastal Mountain region in Northern California because she was instrumental in leading the charge for equality in girls sports. She fought vigorously for the inclusion of all girls teams in the North Central League I.

When McCornack was a student at St. Helena High, she quipped, “Our choices were cheerleading and marching band.” Keep in mind, she graduated in 1965.

McCornack made that very statement when I interviewed her for the St. Helena Star the night of the Saints Athletic Association Fajita Fest in 2005. McCornack was the guest of honor that night at the annual dinner that raises funds for St. Helena High athletics.

As a 18-year veteran of the sports journalism industry before exiting in December 2014, sometimes interviews are a blur, but what McCornack said that night resonates with me to this day.

As a 43-year old, I believe I can offer a unique perspective.

I am a first-generation American with both of my parents coming (and I quote Archie Bunker): “To These Here U S of A Nation States!”

From It-Ley. Well, Italy. My dad’s side settled in Napa, my mom’s side in St. Helena. My mother was the oldest of three and graduated in 1957.

Oddly enough, her younger sister (who I still proudly address as “Auntie” before her name) attended St. Helena High within the same time frame as McCornack and became a cheerleader. Well, my grandmother in her broken English would say, “Ma, Vince, she was a ponpon girl.” However, you talk to women of that generation, being a cheerleader was an accepted reality.

Little did I know but several years later as the youngest of five children I would witness how important Title IX would become.

One of my older sisters graduated from Napa High in 1982 and wanted to try out for the soccer team. Mind you, this was before the days of girls soccer teams. That scenario meant she had to play on the boys team. Suffice it to say, the idea of a girl even thinking she could play sports with boys did not go over well at all.

My sister has told me on a few occasions how the boys would get overly physical when competing in practice or games, essentially trying to get her to quit. Well, something strange happened, my sister lasted the entire season and earned the respect of her peers.

What I am most trying to suggest is that three things are equally true, and this is a broad generalization. For openers, your 60-and-over crowd of females (a least a segment) did not think anything of having their options being limited to marching band and cheerleading. On the other hand, your 25-and-younger crowd does not know any other scenario besides females having a largely uninhibited opportunity to play sports.

As for my crowd (ages 40-50), that was the era when girls playing competitive sports was picking up speed but not as en vogue as it is now.

To truly understand the premise of Title IX, however, it is not just about girls having the opportunity to play sports. It was about them having the opportunity to compete in sports on a more level playing field.

Throughout my years of covering females competing in athletics, there are definitely a few that would more than adequately compete well against the boys but that number is few and far between. Therefore, Title IX has opened up some avenues for girls to compete in sports that might not have otherwise even attempted to do so.

Time Machine: 2005 St. Helena High baseball

Sometimes you remember just how much you graded a team on a curve. Things like that happen when teams go 23 years before enjoying a winning season and 17 years between a non-losing campaign.

The 2005 St. Helena High baseball team broke that kind of ground. The Saints entered their season finale on May 21, 2005, scheduled to host Fort Bragg in a Saturday doubleheader. St. Helena entered the day with a 9-7 record and needed a twinbill split to ensure its first winning campaign since 1982.

The Saints won the first game 5-0 behind Zac Brookman’s complete-game, five-hit shutout in which he struck out two and walked three. The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth inning until Sebastian Heil’s two-run ground-rule double. Greg “Cadillac” Quirici later blasted a three-run homer. The Saints lost the nightcap 3-2 despite a solid combined pitching performance of Alex Wignall and Eddie McMullen. Quirici was nicknamed “Cadillac” by St. Helena native Ray Particelli due to his speed, or lack thereof.

Setting the stage: After going 2-18 in 2004, head coach Bryan Powell, who was also the football coach for two seasons, resigned. The Saints then turned to Joe Densberger, who is a 1980 St. Helena High graduate. Densberger, who is the current Saints varsity basketball coach, has spent most of his high school coaching career in basketball.

Though the team got progressively worse under Powell the previous season, the Saints entered the season with a good roster foundation led by a talented core of players from the previous year’s JV team that included but was not limited to the twin pairing of Luke and Eddie McMullen.

Densberger had a built-in familiarity with most of the players from either coaching them in basketball or little league. He also brought in Brent Koen and later Bill Connelly as assistant coaches.

Thumbnail sketch of the season: St. Helena started that season about as inauspiciously as a team can begin -- 10-1 loss at Middletown and a 25-0 loss to Justin-Siena in five innings. The latter went undefeated that season on the way to winning the CIF North Coast Section Class A title.

The Saints then bounced back to win four straight games -- 5-4 over Vallejo, 18-0 over Calistoga in five innings, 3-0 over St. Vincent (Petaluma) and 10-2 over Tomales. In the win over Vallejo, St. Helena trailed 2-0 early in the contest but scored four runs in the fourth inning highlighted by Brookman’s two-run triple. Vallejo had the tying run 90-feet away but the Saints escaped with the win.

The win over St. Vincent proved significant because it meant the team surpassed its win total from 2004. Not to mention, the win highlighted by a most impressive complete-game, three-hit shutout from Brookman who struck out three batters and only threw 71 pitches. What made Brookman’s performance even more impressive was that the Saints led 1-0 until the top of the seventh before scoring two insurance runs.

The Saints, however, would lose five of their next seven to drop to 6-7. St. Helena would need to win four of five to record its first winning season since 1982 and three of five to have its first nonlosing campaign since 1988 (the Saints went 13-13 that season).

St. Helena would go on to win four straight including the aforementioned 5-0 win over Fort Bragg in the lidlifter of a doubleheader. The Saints entered the twinbill with wins over Clear Lake (8-1), Cloverdale (8-2), and Lower Lake (11-1).

What I remember most about the day of the Fort Bragg doubleheader was interviewing three members of the 1982 team (Tom Johnston, Dan Beltrami and Tim O’Leary) during the game. I had set up time to interview them beforehand because I was confident the Saints would get at least a split of the doubleheader. The 1982 Saints went 9-7 but closed the season losing four straight.

What it meant: The 2005 season did not generate any immediate momentum as hoped as the Saints had losing seasons from 2006-2010. Densberger was forced out after 2006. Kirt Brower coached the team in 2007 before Dan Parker’s stint lasted from 2008-2009. Brandon Farrell, who is the Saints football coach, took over from 2010-2012. Darrell Quirici has been the coach ever since that time.

St. Helena achieved three consecutive CIF North Coast Section Div. IV playoff seasons including a 9-2 win over Fortuna to give the Saints their first postseason win since 1978.

Time Out with Jorge Polanco (Calistoga High 2016 senior)

Vince D’Adamo: What have you enjoyed most about competing in athletics throughout your life?

Jorge Polanco: What I enjoyed most about competing in sports has to be the feeling before the game. Nothing comes close to the feeling of the butterflies before every single game. I could be either extremely confident about the game or nervous and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference, I would get into this zone and just live there till the last whistle blew.

D’Adamo: What are your plans after high school?

Polanco: After high school I plan on attending a four-year university. I am uncertain where I want to go or if I want to continue playing football. Most likely I will go to Sac State and try to be a walk-on to the team.

D’Adamo: What might you choose as a major? What intrigues you about going that direction?

Polanco: I'm going to study Physical Therapy, mostly in hopes I could still be around sports for the rest of my life. I also like knowing why something hurts especially after games and I feel cool when I'm able to fix or treat whatever is wrong.

D’Adamo: What has been your favorite class here at Calistoga High?

Polanco: Government and Econ. with Mr. (Ben) Hartelt. I enjoy the way Hartelt teaches and he always finds a way to bring whatever he is teaching to life.

D’Adamo: Within your family who have been the most influential people?

Polanco: My father is the most influential person in my family. He has taught me that if I want something bad enough I will work till I achieve or get whatever it is.

D’Adamo: Name a historical figure, dead or alive, in or out of sports, that you would most like to meet. What would intrigue you about meeting him or her?

Polanco: I would like to meet Patrick WIllis. He is my all time favorite players of the game he is unlike any other to ever step on that field.