Sports Editor

In just a week from now all of the Troy Park and Recreation Department tournament baseball and softball teams will be hitting their respective fields in hopes of bringing back a trophy to the City of Troy.

I won’t be able to check out each and every tournament team simply because a majority of them will be headed to different parts of south Alabama. I do, however, look forward to checking out the Troy Dixie Youth National team when they host sub-district competition starting on July 6 at the Sportsplex. July 6 will also be the day for Troy’s Dixie Boys 13 and 14 year old teams to open district tournament play, also at the Sportsplex.

No doubt Dan Smith, Vaughn Daniels and the rest of the TPRD staff will have their hands full during that week, so if you see any recreation department employee out at the fields be sure and say thanks for a job – which we can be sure – will be well done.

I hope to be able to get around to some of the other sub-district tournaments going on in Highland Home, Luverne as well as some other areas, but the truth is I just won’t be able to get to all of them.

This is where the parents of the players and the coaches come in.

Please understand that we want to report on the success of ALL the tournament teams, but we’re going to need your help in doing so. Any parent or coach may come by our office, or the main office of the Troy Parks and Recreation Department, to pick up official Messenger score sheets. These sheets can be used to record the score by innings of the game, which players got hits, who was the winning pitcher, and any other game highlights that you feel our readers may like to read about. These forms take just few minutes to fill out and are a great help to us, as well as to our readers. We want your tournament scores. Please help us insure that no team is left out.

Even though we’re not done with baseball and softball, football is a topic that rests on a lot of people’s minds, especially with

little over a month left to go before fall practice begins in August.

For those college football fanatics check out the preseason publications for information on your favorite teams. Even if you don’t believe in preseason "hype", this year’s editions are definitely worth the purchase. Why? Turn to page 181 of Athlon Sports College Football 2001 and for the first time ever there is an entry for your very own Troy State Trojans, along with a picture of senior quarterback Brock Nutter, a depth chart, as well as a short article about this year’s outlook. TSU opens its first Division 1-A season as the 117th football team in the land.