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Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

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Time to make some changes in ever-changing times

High schools: Tim Martinez

By Tim Martinez, Columbian Assistant Sports Editor
Published: March 16, 2020, 8:48am

I think there is one thing we can agree on.

These are unprecedented times.

With no school for the next six weeks, there are no high school sports.

I’ve been watching as local coaches reacted to the news on social media.

Some expressed sadness about missing their players for the next six weeks.

Other expressed concern that the entire spring season might be lost.

Others offered tips about how their athletes can remain sharp during the break so they can be ready to go when the season resumes.

But of all the thoughts share, I liked the shared by Camas football coach Jon Eagle, who also coaches track and field.

Eagle tweeted out an African proverb: “Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”

Then he added: “Offseason training. Papermakers will find a way.”

I’d like to extend that sentiment to all high school athletes across Southwest Washington, across the state, the country.

In fact, let’s extend it to all students, or even to every adult.

Every problem has a solution. But the longer you spend worrying about the problem, the longer it will take for you to find a solution.

That’s what we were doing last week at The Columbian, when the winds of change first started to develop into a full-fledged gale.

The first thing we did was cancel the publication of our spring sports preview. It didn’t make sense to produce a product that was previewing a season that won’t start until late April at the earliest.

Instead, we are taking the stories we’ve been working on for the spring preview section and we’ll run them in the daily sports section starting later this week. Those stories feature some of the outstanding spring athletes in the region.

These stories, which we will run one each day, will give us a local content to fill our section every day through most of the rest of the month.

We’ll also be squeezing in the All-Region girls and boys basketball teams, which we’ll be doing next weekend.

You’ll also notice that The Columbian sports section will be a bit condensed starting later this week.It’s hard to warrant a full-fledged sports section when there aren’t any sports going on.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t stories to tell.

We’ve also been brainstorming other story ideas. We’ve been doing a lot of outside-the-box thinking, because things these days seem way outside the box.

And we’re open to your suggestions. If you have a story idea you’d like to share, send me an email or give me a call (Actually, an email is better. I have easier access to my email from home, and I’ll be working a bit more from home in the coming weeks, as many of us will).

You can also send me a DM on Twitter (they’re open), or a comment on Facebook.

There are things I’m going to miss over the next six weeks, like getting outside to watch some prep sports.

But there are things I’m looking forward to.

  • Telling stories we otherwise might not get the chance to tell.
  • Telling those stories in different ways.
  • Having the time to get better at my job.
  • Not leaving the office around midnight.
  • Not waking up to an alarm to make sure my son gets to school on time.

You know, if you’re afraid of the dark, the worst thing you can do is focus on the darkness. Find the light, any light, and you’ll adjust to the darkness.

Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached at (360) 735-4538, tim.martinez@columbian.com or follow his Twitter handle @360TMart.

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