County Signs: Red Devils stay alive

By MONTE DUTTON Camden Finley connects. (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. The latest of life’s ironies occurred to me Thursday morning as I augmented, updated, corrected and reposted Wednesday’s crop. NIL (name, image and likeness) provides college athletes monetary compensation, yet the world “nil” means nothing. Thus could the athlete at an unmonied institution say, …

County Signs: A night for the locally famous

By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. At this stage of my career, the best part of the annual Laurens County Sports Hall of Fame is that the audience mainly consists of people my age and older. They knew my parents. They ate at the Wrangler. They bought watermelons at my grandfather’s store. Those …

County Signs: Tennis teams triumph

By MONTE DUTTON Nathan Meade (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I never thought I’d read books on my phone. Or watch sports called cornhole and pickleball on TV. Then again, I never thought I’d hear of a fellow named David Pecker, though I have to admit it’s an apt name for the guy who ran …

County Signs: A race to the finish

By MONTE DUTTON It took nine innings to settle the rivalry at Ed Prescott Field (Monte Dutton photos). Click here. Many years ago, a colleague asked me to read his column and “see what you think.” I didn’t think much of it. The author expressed his view that playoffs ought to be held for the …

County Signs: Next … Red Devils visit Raiders

By MONTE DUTTON Coleman Coker (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. It wasn’t a bad weekend. I found out who Nelly Korda is. By some miracle, the Boston Red Sox are 13-10. I’m trying to keep optimism at bay. It’s early. Talladega ended with a crash at the finish line. Who knew? I hoped Brad Keselowski …

Furmanology: Paladins win first softball series with Terriers

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. My first impression when I watch Nikola Jokic is of one of those 1970s rasslers who claimed to be from a Communist country. Then I realize that Jokic takes the exact same clumsy shots I took when I played basketball, with the exceptions that he hits virtually all …

Blue Hose Blurbs: Baseball drops third straight

By MONTE DUTTON (PC photo) Click here. I watched most of the Xfinity Series race at Talladega on Tuesday, won by a fast-rising youth with the can’t-miss name of Jesse Love. When I first started writing about races there, it scared me. A car sailed out of the track the first time I went. Weird …

Furmanology: Another heavenly hall of fame

By MONTE DUTTON (Caleb Gilbert photo) Click here. I have warm memories of Jimmy Satterfield, who was not always a warm man. He was folksy, humble and patient, but on game day, he turned cold. Satterfield grew up hard, as most in his generation did. It took a while to figure him out. And vice-versa. …

County Signs: Music to my ears

By MONTE DUTTON (Monte Dutton photos) Click here. I’m going to miss Young Sheldon. Them’s my people. Tonight I played in front of people at The Lumberyard’s open jam. I like it because people sometimes listen. The local musicians shared with PC biology scholars, and I took one for the team because I needed to …

Furmanology: On the bright side, lacrosse wins

By MONTE DUTTON (Furman photo) Click here. It’s all busy work, mostly thankless. Thanks to staking out Laurens County as part of my territory, I’m aware of the importance of baseball. It’s big. Clinton won the state title in Class 3A last year. An inexperienced team is getting better by the week and still has …