Thanks for a great season

SoBoCo Nation...

I want to express my thanks for allowing me to join your "family" this past basketball season. Though I knew literally none of you at the start of the year, you all made me feel welcomed and appreciated. It's been a long time since I made a long "state" run with a basketball team, much less two and after 40 years in the business, you helped me create memories that I will carry and cherish forever.

When Pat Lacey came to me during football season and asked if I would consider doing webcasts for a special group of young athletes at the school, I never imagined the ride I was going on. These teams, made up of 17 seniors with special bonds, and each with their own special story, never quit, never disappointed and never failed to impress.

I have these images of Maguire Scheer's body torquing sideways in mid air as he grabbed another offensive rebound against Father Tolton...

Skyler Beeson's left handed drives to basket...

Emma Anderson looking like Michaela Wright's little sister while guarding the Tolton center, then stripping her of rebound after rebound...

Zane Safley's long, high-arching threes...

Kylie Shoot's higher-arching threes...

the selfless courage of Colin Vaughn...

Riley Scheer's 5 points in 30 seconds when things were seemingly coming apart at the seams...

and of course Sam Stichnote hanging in the air before flipping the ball just over the front rim for the win.

So many more moments to savor, so many things to look back upon. My deepest appreciation goes to the booster club, Andy Jahnsen, Tony Phillips, and Pat Lacey for always being there for me to do an interview, answer questions, and help me do what I do. And thank you to the many Eagles and Lady Eagles fans, family and others for all the kind words. These games were easy for me to talk about, that's for sure.

I love what I do, and as I said, I have 40 years of memories to look back upon. Thank you to the Southern Boone community, the Eagles and Lady Eagles for making new memories for this old announcer.

Dick Aldrich

Mid Mo Sports Online

And while I'm writing this, let me digress to my webcasts. Many folks expressed disappointment that most of the state games were done by audio only. That's because of the restrictive policy the MSHSAA has set up to monitor, and in my opinion, harass internet webcasters. For state games, webcasters must pay $35 a game to do audio-only webcasts. If you want to do a video webcast...the fee goes up to $500 a game. $1,000 a game for final four games.

Is the policy arbitrary? Yes. Is it capricious? You bet. But until we can make the MSHSAA see that we are not harming the attendance for their post season tournaments, then the policy will stay in place. The policy has been in place for the ten years that I have been a webcaster, and even though we have even gone so far as to testify before a legislative committee about the fundamental unfairness of this policy, nothing has changed.

During the Eagles and Lady Eagles state run, each webcast I did drew larger and larger audiences, topping out at more than 18-hundred viewers for the sectionals. My metrics tell me we had hundreds of viewers from out of state, from 28 states to be exact.

I don't do these webcasts to make money. I paid $105 out of my own pocket to do the three state games. I do them so grandparents can watch from Florida, so brothers and sisters can see their sibs from college, so deployed soldiers can see their kids even from the deserts of the middle east.

Did the thousands who watched my webcasts from Blair Oaks effect the how many people they were able to shoe-horn into that gym down there? No way. The people who wanted to be there had to come early, but they were there. During the state games, word spread through Twitter about the great basketball that was being played in Wardsville and Rolla and Springfield and the audience grew even as games were going on. Because of our webcasts, more people were talking about the MSHSAA's precious money-making tournaments, and that is something that I think the association would encourage. You're welcome MSHSAA.

And now, if you want to watch or listen to a final four game, you have to pay the MSHSAA to get on its stream...or hope that the game you're interested in is on radio.

This needs to get fixed. MSHSAA is living in the dark ages when it comes to internet webcasting by biting a hand that will gladly feed it.