News & Observer covers MOC champs' homecoming

It took winning a national championship to get the News & Observer to send a reporter an hour away from its headquarters to cover little Mount Olive College and its baseball team. There's no analysis, no indepth reporting, but the old N&O did send someone, did publish a little note on the NCAA Division II College World Series champions' homecoming, did identify the coach's name and did mention one of the players' names -- it happened to be the same as the coach's name, but that's okay, it got mentioned.

And, just as night follows day, the News & Observer couldn't mention Mount Olive without mentioning pickles. Yes, it was in a quote by the coach, but I bet the coach said a lot of other things -- especially about his baseball program, his college, his assistant coaches and his team, particularly the ones who were recognized as All-American and whatnot -- but none of those things were quoted. Pickles got quoted. Pickles. Night follows day.

And I guess we should be grateful, since the last time MOC got coverage by the N&O, Jerry Allegood covered the retirement of the college's president in 1995. You know, the longest-tenured college president in American history. You have to do and be things like that to get coverage in the N&O when you don't exist within 10 or 12 miles of downtown Raleigh. (Even then, Allegood drove over from the eastern regional office in Greenville; the N&O only sent a photographer from its headquarters in Raleigh.)

Anyway, let's go to the tape and try not to be disappointed that the lead is about window-dressing and set decorations, for the N&O giveth and the N&O taketh away:

Mount Olive title is college's first
Madeline Perez, Staff Writer

MOUNT OLIVE - As the Mount Olive College baseball team sat in front of home plate, a banner hung high overhead from the ladder of a Mount Olive Fire Department truck. Hundreds of fans and family members surrounded Scarborough Field, with many waving posters and sporting championship T-shirts.

And in front of the team sat the NCAA Division II national championship trophy.

Monday's rally celebrated the college's first national title, won when the team defeated Ouachita Baptist 6-2 on Saturday. The Trojans, the tournament's top seed, finished the season 58-6.

Coach Carl Lancaster addressed the crowd.

"Twenty-two years ago, I took this job and people asked me why, and I told them I didn't know. Well, now I do," he said.

The day was especially notable for Lancaster's son, senior Jesse Lancaster, who celebrated his 22nd birthday. His father led the crowd in serenading the outfielder.

"I'm going to have to get Dad back for that," Lancaster said. "I wasn't expecting it. That was a little bit embarrassing having the crowd sing to me."

The celebration began Saturday after the victory, with the team given a police escort after several fans greeted the team at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. That night, a small crowd greeted the Trojans at their field.

The win has provided a boost in publicity. Lancaster and athletic director Jeff Eisen said recruits have begun calling to express interest in playing for Mount Olive.

Lancaster hopes the national spotlight will let the country know what Mount Olive -- the college and the town -- have to offer.

"We've been known for pickles forever," he said. "A lot of people in the baseball community understand what kind of program we have, but people that are not baseball fans now know there's more to Mount Olive than pickles."

Tuesdays are the big days for sports coverage in the Goldsboro News-Argus, so I'll check there this afternoon for more on the celebration. As for the Trib, my beloved Mount Olive Trib, its new owners have finally posted news of the college's victory over Ouachita Baptist -- the first one, from last Monday morning, not the last one that brought home the trophy. (Sigh.)

Trojans play for the trophy on Saturday

Three teams down, one more to go. Last night, the Mount Olive College Trojans made history again, defeating Central Missouri and winning the right to play for the NCAA Division II College World Series National Championship on Saturday. Neither the Mount Olive Tribune (which has been updated, slightly) nor the Goldsboro News-Argus has the most recent news on their websites, so I went directly to the NCAA website to get the latest:

May 29, 2008
Mount Olive Advances to National Championship

SAUGET, ILL. - No. 1 ranked Mount Olive secured its spot in Saturday's national championship game with a 5-3 victory over No. 7 ranked Central Missouri Thursday afternoon in the semifinals of the NCAA Division II National Championships at GCS Ballpark.

The Trojans (57-6), who will be making their first national championship appearance, will face either No. 2 ranked Sonoma State or No. 4 ranked Ouachita Baptist on Saturday at 1 p.m. Central Missouri ends its season at 47-17.

The Trojans earned their spot in the title game by holding off the Mules who scored two unanswered runs between the seventh and eighth innings to trim a four-run deficit to just two. Central Missouri then put two runners on base in the bottom of the ninth with two outs before Patrick Ball entered the game to earn his third save of the season.

"They made things tight near the end of the game," said Mount Olive head coach Carl Lancaster. "But we were able to work our way out of it."

Central Missouri put the first run on the board in the bottom of the first inning, but a three-run third inning gave Mount Olive a lead it would not relinquish. The Trojans plated two more runs in the seventh inning before Central Missouri got a pair of runs for the final score.

Kyle Jones (4-0) recorded the win on the hill for the Trojans, making just his second start of the season and allowed only two runs on five hits. "Kyle was a work in progress," said Lancaster. "He has been out of baseball for three years, but he's got a good arm and he got us two wins at regionals. I thought he did well and we had to give him his shot."

Mark Carey (10-2) was credited with the loss for Central Missouri. The starter lasted four and one-third innings, giving up three runs on five hits, while also walking five.

Rich Racobaldo went 2-for-5 with two runs scored and two RBIs for Mount Olive, while Erik Lovett and Josh Harrison also recorded two hits each.

There it is. If the Trojans win on Saturday, the recently-named Dianne B. Riley Trophy Case will have an historic new piece to add to its collection.

Odd, isn't it, that they could be facing Ouachita Baptist again? After they dispatched Ouachita on Monday, that team apparently squeezed through a loser's playoff to stay alive, and they've kept at it through the week. If they make it all the way to Saturday, they'll come back with a score to settle, no doubt. If it's them, I hope our Trojans are ready.

MOC in World Series; changes at the Trib

Change is never a breeze, but the closer change comes to the heart, the worse it feels.

I was pleased, and am pleased, to learn that the baseball team of my old alma mater will be going to the World Series -- the Division II College World Series, more precisely -- this weekend. The Mount Olive College Trojans beat the USC-Aiken Pacers twice on last Sunday and Monday to win the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional, and they'll play the South Central Regional champion, Ouachita Baptist, this Sunday at 2:30 p.m.

Good for Carl Lancaster, the coach at Mount Olive since (almost) before there were pickles. And good for Mount Olive, where the Trojans played on home turf -- Scarborough Field -- last weekend.

I've never been a big baseball fan, but you have to cheer when your alma mater does well, and I'm cheering.

To get the scoop, of course, I went to the website of Mount Olive's hometown newspaper, the Tribune. I was shocked.

Now, I've not lived there in 10 years. But when I left Mount Olive, I'd spent almost half my life there. A place has charms, and you get used to them. I once participated in a panel discussion on Southern literature, the theme of which was "the sense of place." That sense is, of course, the defining essence of Southern literature. No other region of the nation has such a niche carved out for it in literature, and that's because Southern writers from Edgar Poe and Thomas Wolfe, to Capote and Faulkner, to Edgerton to McLaurin and Gibbons, (and Eudora Welty, and Harry Crews, and Doris Betts) write about the places they know. If biography is history, then place is biography, at least in the South.

And I do, often, miss the little town. Ruth's beef stew at the Piggly Wiggly deli. Two-seater airplane rides over the Pickle Festival crowds. The angry, winedark sky in the minutes before an evening storm in July. Turkey subs at Pizza Village, the best I've had anywhere yet. Pickle brine hanging heavy in the hot night air at Labor Day. And March daffodils on Main Street. I spent three or four days exploring an iced-over wonderland there during a freak winter storm in the 1980s. And when the sun came out after Hurricane Fran in 1996, I walked many of the town's blocks sight-seeing the downed trees. There was nothing else to do; there was no power and there wouldn't be for a few days.

Since leaving there, I've kept connected to town mainly through the Mount Olive Tribune website. The Trib published only twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, but that was enough to keep expatriates informed. So I've checked in two or three times a month to get a fix. And that fix, for the most part, has come from Nelson Bland, the paper's long-time photographer, long-time reporter and long-time columnist. If memory serves, Nelson has been part of the structure of the Trib for longer than Steve Herring's been the editor, and Steve's been there a long, long time.

For years, when I've gone to the Trib's website, I'd look first at the top story or two, get my bearings, then head to the left side of the screen, where I could get the inside scoop: Nelson's Notes and Bland's Focus, which were Nelson's column and a picture or two that he'd taken during the past week. If you read just the top couple of stories and Nelson's Notes, a far-from-home fella like me could feel attuned again.

Like this segment from a little while back:

Since the announcement that the Tribune has been sold--again--I have received numerous calls and folks have stopped me in the stores and restaurants to ask about it.

They wanted to know if I was going to stay and continue this column and the 50 and 25 Years Ago stuff, which they said they enjoy.

Well, I’m getting old, and actually I’m getting a little tired and burned out after 38 years of going way beyond the call of duty, being dedicated and loyal like the late Tribune editor Cletus Brock taught me.

Sometimes I just want to go home, and as my double first cousin Doris Price Rhodes of Goldsboro says, get inside, turn around and look out the door and tell the world to kiss my butt, and shut the door.

Anyway, whether I close that door or not, I do appreciate all your comments and support over the years.

Janice Rogers of Dudley, whose son, Randy Rogers is the Arrington fire chief, is one of those who called. She told me she takes the Goldsboro News-Argus, but she loves the Tribune and “the stuff you put in there.”

Janice said that when I was in the hospital for several weeks last fall, that “the Tribune just wasn’t the same, not as good.”

--nb--

One lady, Charlotte Price Goodwin of Folly Beach, South Carolina, called. She is originally from Seven Springs and says she loves to get her Tribune to read about homefolks.

Charlotte said that she likes this column and the 50 and 25 Years Ago stuff.

She said her husband, Tim Goodwin, a retired DuPont employee, is a city councilman in Folly Beach , which is about 10 minutes from Charleston .

I learned that Charlotte ’s son is Curtis Barwick, whose photo I took many times when he was a FFA student at Southern Wayne High School. He is employed with a swine operation, Coharrie Farms, and is a past president of the N.C. Pork Council.

“He loves them hogs,” Charlotte said.

She continued, “I have always taken the Tribune, so now, don’t you quit writing because if you do, the Tribune won’t be the same.”

Many other folks have made me feel good when they have said things like this. Thanks, y’all!

--nb--

Up there in the photo is Gene Sasser and his wife, Susie, with pretty four little registered Jack Russell puppies that Gene raises. He donated one to the recent Rones Chapel United Methodist Church fundraising auction.

Gene, a former Wayne County sheriff’s deputy, is now a Duplin County turkey producer and lives near Rones Chapel.

His son Billy is in the Coast Guard and has done well, even went to England to do some work with the Coast Guard, or something similar over there and personally met the Queen of England.

Anyway, every year Gene donates a Jack Russell puppy to the Rones Chapel event. It’s the only auction I’ve been to where a puppy is sold.

So, if you want a Jack Russell, Gene is the man to see.

That's what I was looking for when I went to the Trib's site today. I wanted to hear Nelson's take on the team from Mount Olive going to Sauget, Illinois, for the College World Series.

But there was no Nelson's Notes. No Bland's Focus. Almost no Trib at all.

Maybe the Trib is renovating its website and doesn't have all the features back in place. I've read recently that it's been bought out again; I just Googled a bit and found out who the new owners are, which explains why the new Trib website looks an awful lot like the websites of the Princeton paper and the Wayne-Wilson paper. I saw recently that Steve was voted into the college's Hall of Fame but I hope that doesn't mean he's retiring. But if these changes are real, and definite, then they're a bit drastic.

At any rate, finding no information there about the Trojans going to the World Series, I wound up going to the Goldsboro News-Argus's website, where I found four separate stories on their achievement.