Out of the Limelight

 Other than golf and college basketball, a Saturday in February would not seem to be a major sports’ day.  High school parents know better.

Girls’ basketball playoffs are underway, along with wrestling, girls’ gymnastics, girls’ bowling and boys’ swimming.  Boys’ basketball, which should be starting in early March, will get most of the media attention, so sportswriters and reporters can ask:  Where’s he going to college and is he good enough to turn pro?  The amateur ideal is left for other sports.

Take gymnastics.  For some reason, very few kids from Illinois go on to the Olympics; ditto swimming.  Regardless, the athletes do it because they love it, and parents watch because it’s their kid competing.  Just once, though, I’d like to see Sunbelt athletes train and compete in the Midwest, with our ever-gray winter skies and cold that clings to a body like glue.  Clare went to Florida to start her college softball season, only to come back to play in the mud and cold.  Imagine Arizona State or Oklahoma starting their season in Chicago.  How do you like the wind, guys?  It can carry off the meanest softball cheer.

But athletes around here don’t complain the way their parents might.  It’s the playoffs, and time to lay it all out.