Just a little bit of this and a little bit of that
Jeremy Heath

Jeremy Heath is the Dispatch Record's sports editor. His column appears Fridays. He can be contacted via e-mail at jheath@lampasas.com.

I'm trying to learn to function on fewer cups of coffee, and my ability to maintain focus has suffered tremendously.

So instead of trying to keep on subject for the next 18-20 inches, I'll better serve the reader by simply following my brain wherever it goes. I hope.

In case you've missed it, the Lampasas boys' basketball team is pretty good.

The Badgers (9-4) open District 25-4A play tonight at Lake Travis in a game that should give LHS head coach Scott Harrelson a pretty good idea where his team is. With Pflugerville Connally and Hendrickson expected to be the top two teams in the district, if everything goes according to Hoyle, Lake Travis and Lampasas will be two of the teams fighting for the third spot in the district.

The inside play of junior post Heath Hopson and senior post Heath Cofield has been stellar. The guard play has been outstanding on the defensive side and adequate on the offensive side.

The only substantial weakness this team has is the absence of a pure outside shooter. If someone can emerge as a consistent outside shooting threat and take some pressure off the post players, the Badgers appear capable of competing for that playoff spot.

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The girls' basketball team was in the thralls of a slump, losing eight of nine games heading into last weekend's tournament at Llano. But the Lady Badgers (7- 10, 1-1) won four of five at the tournament to finish runnerup to the host school and handed Burnet a loss on Tuesday.

This team, which is heavy on guards and light on post depth, needed the confidence boost as it enters the meat of the district season.

For the Lady Badgers, the outside play has been pretty good. Guards Jennifer Howard, Casey O'Connor and Michelle Benton each earned all-tournament selections at Llano and led an impressive team-shooting effort on Tuesday.

The problem hasn't so much been poor play from the post position. Each of the three primary post players -- Latoscha Sherman, Sarah Bishop and Lauren Barlow -- bring different skill sets to the court, and each has been outstanding in certain situations. But none of the three, at least at this point, is capable of taking over a game and giving the outside threats an abundance of clean shots.

On the other hand, with the guards shooting the ball well of late, any kind of defensive focus on those players will create more opportunities for the post players to shine.

* Back in Amarillo, I used to do a weekly web-cast video about that week's area high school football matchups. When it came to the segment where I and another reporter would make our predictions, I typically chose the team with the superior quarterback and cited that as the reason. Almost every week, I would get angry emails from fans (by fans I mean parents of non-quarterbacks on the teams I would pick) explaining (for lack of a better word) that quarterbacks aren't the only players on the field, and that they get too much publicity.

I would usually reply: Thanks for watching and caring enough to submit your opinion. Then the next week, I would base my picks on the same criteria. The reason: QBs deserve every bit of publicity they get, and this season -- at every level of football, as much as any I remember -- illustrates the importance of quarterbacks.

Look at the top four teams in the NFL-- a league in which the talent level from team to team doesn't vary much because of the salary cap. The New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers are head and shoulders above everyone else. And who's under center for those four teams? Tom Brady (future Hall of Famer), Peyton Manning (future Hall of Famer), Tony Romo (Hall of Fame potential) and Brett Favre (future Hall of Famer) are the four most valuable players in the league -- in any order.

On the college level, look at the difference three QB injuries made in the national title chase. If Oklahoma's Sam Bradford doesn't get hurt in the first quarter of the Sooners' game at Texas Tech, OU probably wins decisively and plays in the national championship game.

If Oregon's Dennis Dixon doesn't blow his knee out against Arizona, the Ducks are probably playing for the title and Dixon is holding the Heisman instead of Florida's Tim Tebow.

If West Virginia's Pat White doesn't injure his thumb in the season finale against Pittsburgh, the Mountaineers might be playing for the title.

If you replace any of those three injuries with an injury to a player at another position -- any other position -- none of the those three teams lose those games.

At the high school level, look no further than Lake Travis.

Junior Garrett Gilbert has a chance to win a state title almost completely on his own. Those who made the trip down to Lake Travis to watch the Badgers play this year know what I'm talking about. Lake Travis is a pretty good team with an outstanding quarterback.

Pretty good teams are not supposed to advance to the state semifinals -- unless, of course, they're led by one of the best prep QBs in the history of the most football-rich state in the Union.

The next time an outstanding guard or defensive end leads a team to the state semifinals with little help will be the first time.

*

Once again, Christmas has sneaked up on us. That means Lampasas High School spring sports are right around the corner.

Not only do we have a couple more months of basketball left, but also boys' and girls' soccer, baseball and softball, powerlifting, and track and field will all start shortly after the Christmas break.

From a journalism standpoint, the spring seasons can be quite a mess because there's so much going on. At the same time, spring sports have a certain charm that stems from the nature of the sports themselves. Spring sports are, quite simply, more spectatorfriendly than are their fall counterparts.

I know football is king, and nobody loves the fall Friday night atmosphere more than I do, but I'll trade the traffic and limited elbow room at a football game for the ability to sprawl in the stands and soak up some sun at a soccer match or baseball game any day.

But that's just me. I need a cup of coffee.