Right now in 2023, it’s football. That’s what everybody’s watching . It’s what everybody cares about – the high school playoff teams, the college bowl games, and of course the run for the Super Bowl. It is football season but at the end of football season, it’s also the start of basketball season. I’m just going to talk a little bit of basketball today because I think things are changing for the better!
At Howard Payne, Nadir Dalleh has started his third campaign as head coach of the Howard Payne Yellowjackets. They’ve been weak the last two years. How struggling has it been? Well, they’ve struggled a lot. To kind of put it in perspective, they actually have won as many games so far here in 2023 as they won all of last year, or the year before. They have a 3-1 start this year. Their record may be up on that a little bit, maybe down a little bit, but they started three and one and that’s impressive! It’s very impressive because I think two of those wins have been on the road maybe, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s a basketball game that’s pretty good and they’re playing at a pretty high level. The reason that I’m excited is that they have a couple of new players coming in. They’re going to get better and I just don’t see anything but positives. I mean they are going to be, I think, a good basketball team.
Now, on the women’s side, the Howard Payne Lady Jackets are coached by Presley McKethan Fisk and it’s her second year. They were bad last year but she came in and didn’t have a chance to recruit, so they struggled but it was understandable. She told me that she was going to get some new players and things were going to change. Sure enough, they have a good looking ball club that’s going to win some ballgames and create a lot of problems for teams that they are in the conference with. I think they are going to be a fun team! I think it’s going to be fun all season long because when they start conference play they’ll play the teams back to back with the women at 5:30 and then the men after that.
I think both of the programs are on the upswing and I think both of them are going to be really entertaining. I’m trying to steer away from saying that they are going to be real good, but I think they are going to be good and a lot – A LOT – better than they have been in the past few years. I’m excited!!
Then you go to the high school and you’ve got Heather Hohertz-Perez with the Lady Lions and Will Parker in charge of the boys. It’s kind of hard to figure the boys right now because there are so many of the players – the nucleus of the team – still out on the football field so it’s going to take a little bit of time but I think that by the time District gets under way Brownwood’s going to have a good basketball team and a team that people are really going to enjoy.
The Lady Lions, I don’t know, they make the playoffs every year but the playoffs don’t necessarily say anything about how good you are. The girls have been in the playoffs but they’ve got swatted immediately and knocked out but the girls got off to a good 3-0 start or whatever this year, and I’m telling you this is a good, solid, basketball team. Heather Hohertz-Perez is going to win a whole bunch of games this year and I think go a lot deeper in the playoffs than they have been here of late.
So, I know it’s the middle of November and people listen to people like me and they go, you know, give me a break, it’s not basketball season. I’m telling you this much, it’s enough of basketball season for me to know in the early going, Howard Payne’s going to be good. The women are going to be much better. The guys, we’ll see at Brownwood High School, but the girls are obviously much better. I guess what I’m saying is – it’s basketball season! Hey, stay with the football. Stay with the football! I think some great things are going to happen but get excited about basketball because 2023-2024, I’m telling you what, good things are on the horizon!
Until next time, so long everybody.
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‘Out of the Box’ with Dallas Huston is published each Monday morning at BrownwoodNews.com. Dallas was the radio voice of the Brownwood Lions and Howard Payne Yellow Jackets for more than 55 years. He currently is Pastor of Center City Baptist Church and hosts a Men’s Bible Study in Brownwood on Monday evenings. Your comments are welcome at [email protected].