Still Puzzled

Topeka, Kansas

I left the broadcast news business more than four years ago. I spent the previous 24 years doing the TV thing--14 years as a sportscaster/reporter and 10 years as a news anchor/reporter. Looking back on that very public career I remain perpetually puzzled. My latest television-related conversation is a perfect indication of what I'm talking about. It went something like this.

"I'm curious. What exactly did you study in college so you could become a TV weatherman?" I was asked.

"I never did the weather," I responded.

"Really?"

"Nope. I was a news anchor my last 10 years in the business and did sports for 14 years before that but I never did the weather."

"Man, I could've sworn you did the weather."

Spokane, Washington

Conversations and comments similar to this didn't happen just a handful of times either. I'd say more than a couple of dozen times. I guess I could maybe understand a teeny bit why they take place in Montana. After all, a meteorologist at the rival station has the same first name as me but that is the only thing we have in common. Viewers would get my last name right but some people, like passersby in Walmart, would say something like,"Hey there's Mark Holyoak, Mark, how 'bout that weather forecast for tonight?"

Spokane, Washington

The thing is I somehow got that same label in Washington and Kansas. In both locations I only reported on sports--NOT the weather.

The funny thing is that even when I was in college at Brigham Young University and taking upper level classes in broadcast communications, I always found a way to wriggle out of my assigned day to do the weather on our live nightly newscast.

Now, it's all kind of evolved into a running joke between my wife and I over the years. I'd tell her about weather-related comments somebody makes to me. She'd then roll her eyes and we both get a chuckle out of it.

So life goes on. And as it does, my TV career gets farther and farther behind me in the rear view mirror but I'm sure the bizarre conversations will continue. There's probably at least a 50 percent chance of that happening anyway.

Missoula, Montana

Topeka, Kansas

Hobbling Across the Finish Line

In my final game of the 2016 softball season I stood on third base with two outs. At the plate, a teammate laced a clutch line drive single to right field. As I jogged down the third base line and then planted my foot on home plate, the umpire raised both hands above his head and yelled, "Ballgame!" Taco Johns run-ruled its opponent to the tune of a 19-7 victory.

It was a good season. Check that, it was a great season with a great group of guys. Unfortunately, we dropped our last two games of the regular season and fell out of first place. But for the first time ever, I felt like I was physically hobbling across the finish line.

During batting practice the final day of the season, I took an innocent-looking ground ball just above my right ankle. It wasn't hit very hard (and yeah, I should've not let it under my glove) but it hit in the exact same bruised spot as a harder ground ball during a game earlier in the week. It hurt like a big dawg! I guess it was a fitting way to end the season. My pains began during our first practice of the year when I lost a stinger-of-a-line-drive in the setting sun. It tattooed me squarely in the right shin. I hobbled around like someone had just shot me. The next day it swelled up to the size of my right knee. It was so tender that I could almost feel it with each beat of my heart. The tenderness of it all knocked me out of my first two games of the season.

As the season continued, other pains both new and old kicked in. My left ankle (from an basketball injury 16 months earlier--see photo on left) was an off-again, on-again gimpy situation. My right groin (which never seems to loosen up from eight years of climbing over the boards while playing hockey) was also an on-again, off-again situation. Luckily, the old right shoulder impingement from softball seasons gone by did not manifest itself but a new pain did--in my right hamstring. On some nights it felt like I had a couple of bricks attached to it as I lumbered around the bases. It also especially worried me after watching a teammate totally blow out his hamstring and crumple to the ground after sprinting to first base.

Weider home gym

So I'm 53 years old and the oldest guy on my team by eight years. I have friends about the same age who say now (or sooner) is the time of our lives when knees, shoulders and other muscles and joints start to give out. So given the past season of aches and pains I really have two main options:

A) Decide that "I'm old," give up the active sporting lifestyle, spend more time in the recliner and look back on my days in the field and on the court.

B) Heal, have a great fall hiking in the mountains during hunting season and then turn my attention to  Mr. Weider in the basement to get stronger and seek to defy my age by being a 54-year-old who performs more like a 44-year-old on the diamond next summer.

I choose B.
#bringit

My Own Piece of Montana

My "driveway"

I still pinch myself! I get up first thing in the morning to take the dog outside only to watch the sun pop up above the mountains and spray down rays of sunshine through the branches of my own personal forest of towering Ponderosa pines. It's truly a glorious thing.

I really never thought I'd have my own 10 acres of Montana, (actually it's soon to be six acres-that's another story for another day) but now that we do I absolutely love it. There's really nothing like the smell of being in the woods in the mountains. A passing rain shower only enhances the senses.

Vegetation in the mountains is vibrant, colorful and brings life to everything--especially in the springtime. My favorites are the mighty Ponderosas. I love watching them sway in the breeze. When I'm hunting I love to take a break by sitting down and leaning against a pine tree on a mountain ridge to scan for animals and to just take in the landscape's beauty. We are fortunate to have hundreds of pine trees on our place which are a perfect compliment to the many wildflowers on the forest floor.

And seeing all the wild critters is a big, big bonus! After all, that is what Montana is all about. Right after we arrived at the new property, a serviceman claimed he saw a mountain lion walking across our place. If true, it's certainly not hard to see why. We had a whitetail doe that raised her three fawns in our neck of the woods. Last year, a big fur ball of a black bear ran across the dirt road right in front of my truck a mere 100 yards from our property. Just this spring, we saw a black bear sow climb down one of our trees some 40-50 yards off to the side of our home. Her cub shimmied down the next tree over. Other wildlife on the property include elk, wild turkey, raccoons, squirrels, and birds of all sorts including bald eagles, turkey buzzards, woodpeckers and an array of song birds. Having the neighbor's horses in our back pasture is a bonus as well.

The bottom line is there's a very calming influence to living out in nature. It's peaceful, relaxing and down-right enjoyable. Living there is a reward in and of itself.

Where we live

Mama bear and her cub

The back pasture

And Then There Were Two

The 2016 softball season feels a little different--not bad at all, just different.

Russ (left) and me

It was back in the summer of 2004 or so that a handful of us got together to form a men's rec league softball team. Russ Thomas, a relatively newly hired co-worker, took the reins as manager. We gathered up some friends and friends-of-friends. The core of the group included Russ, Jay Allen, Travis Munden, Greg "Rabbit" Myers and me. Before long we had a full roster and started a long run of spending our summers together in the same dugout and on the same diamond.

Not long after our inaugural season together, possibly our second go-round, Russ lined up a main sponsor that still faithfully sticks by us. That's why we're known to all we go up against as Taco Johns.

We had a lot of good guys, good players (and I mean a LOT) come and go. The first of Taco Johns' founding fathers to leave the nest was Rabbit. Greg moved away several years ago but was temporarily back in town and for a weekend tournament last summer. (Or was it the summer before last?) Anyway, we established ourselves over the years as one of the better teams in our division with one of the better records. I don't know the exact totals but we advanced to the Montana state softball tournament at least a handful of times and placed among the top 15 most every appearance.

And that brings us back to 2016. We're just five games into the new season (with a not too shabby 4-1 record I may add) but like I said, thing are a little different. Jay and Travis left their Taco Johns playing days behind and are no longer with us. That leaves just Russ and me as the remaining original founding fathers still trying to slug our way out of the batter's box. (Okay, still trying to bloop our way out of the batter's box.) And I find myself as the oldest guy on the team by almost eight years.

Travis, me, Russ & Jay (left to right) in what turned out to be our last game together
(Yeah, Travis has a really, really long left arm)

Still, it's great to be back on the diamond. It's great to be out there with the guys. It's great to play.

2011

2011

2015

2016

The Fantasy Slam

I have always loved sports. I love to play. I love to compete.I love playing alongside good teammates. (I love to win, too.)

Perhaps not so surprisingly, I started my professional career two weeks after college graduation by accepting a job as a television sportscaster in Topeka, Kansas. I spent ten years in Kansas before heading west to accept another sportscaster position in Spokane, Washington. After four years there, I'd covered sports on all levels for 14 consecutive years but it was time to move on. I left my sports days behind to move over one seat on set to accept a newscaster position in Missoula, Montana.  

No longer covering sports on a day-to-day basis as a profession allowed me to become more of a fan again. It was refreshing. And that's when I was introduced to fantasy sports. To me, it was a perfect way to keep up to speed on some of my favorite sports and teams without having to dive in the deep end and track every trend, statistic and happening on a daily basis.

That was 2004. Since then I drafted scores of fantasy teams from the NHL, NFL, MLB and filled out a batch of NCAA basketball tournament brackets. I don't always fare so well but I don't do too badly either thanks to 22 league "championships" from my 80 teams. But it wasn't until earlier this year that I finally racked up my personal version of the fantasy slam--consecutive basketball, hockey, football and baseball fantasy wins.

And it's a good thing I checked that off my bucket list because after checking tonight's latest standings, my 2016 fantasy baseball team just got smoked again and I dropped into 11th place in a 12-team league. Oh well, bring on football season!

A Good Deed

It was a simple outing that left me with a good feeling.

I needed to go downtown to the Missoula County courthouse during my lunch hour to get 2016 license plates for my son's car. Before I left, I realized I didn't have any change. A co-worker said I wouldn't need any since the old meters had been overhauled with new units that now took debit and credit cards.

After I parked I stood in front of the machine, followed the directions, entered my license plate number, pulled out my wallet and prepared to pay. Hitting the "quick pay" button would allow me to pay for the 30 minutes I needed. I put my credit card in the slot but nothing happened. I tried again with the same result.

At about that same time a bearded man in a Carhartt jacket said something like, "So that's the new set-up huh? How does it work?"

I told him he needed to know his license plate number but that the machine apparently didn't allow the payment of a small amount with a credit card even though there was a slot for it.

"Do you have any change?" he asked.

"Only a nickel," I said.

"Here you go," he said.

"Thank you," I replied.

He gave me 50 cents and returned to his vehicle to get his license number. I inserted the two quarters, received a receipt and entered the county courthouse. Moments later, he entered and took a number to do some title work which usually takes much longer than just updating tags. His number was called a good 15 minutes before mine and I smiled as he quickly exited with his approved paper work.

To me it was only fitting that someone who had just done a good deed could be in and out of the courthouse in a matter of mere minutes. I was grateful.

Arrowhead Stadium or Bust! The Ultimate Father-Son Getaway

The date was June 5, 2015. Just two days earlier, my son Jace returned home from serving an honorable and successful mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Western Australia. We gathered in our living room as family and friends to celebrate his 21st birthday which was just six days earlier.

I'd known for quite some time exactly what present I wanted to give him.

You see, Jace has been a Kansas City Chiefs fan his entire life yet he had never seen a game in person. I had attended multiple games at Arrowhead Stadium during my sportscaster days back in Kansas.

To be honest, there is no place quite like Arrowhead. It's been known as the rocking-est, loudest stadium in the National Football League for several decades. In fact, I remember spending one particular game on the sidelines at Arrowhead. By the time it was over I was just exhausted. It wasn't so much from carrying a camera on my shoulder for three hours as it was to have sound waves from the roar of the fans pounding my body play after play all game long. All in all, it's just a glorious place to take in a game.

Turkey Bowl reunion with my buddy John

When in Kansas, gotta get a Sonic slush

I flew out to my folks' place in Wichita the day before Thanksgiving. Jace had worked the previous three months in Texas so he met me there. We had a great visit with my family. In addition to my parents, Kerry's family was there as was Amy's as well as Lacey, Matthew and Paul. We played games, shot baskets next door at the church, ate well and laughed a lot! Jace and I even played a little Turkey Bowl football in the rain with my old buddy John Bazzelle on Thanksgiving morning. It had been way too long since I'd been back home and it was awesome to be back.

Hanging with the fam

Cute little Paul

The "kids" table

The "grown up" table

Playing H-O-R-S-E with Kerry & Jace in the old church gym

Like son...

...like father

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, Jace and I drove the Cav north toward Kerry's place in Overland Park. On the way there, we were attracted to a massive Scheel's Sporting Goods store. It was so big that it had a ferris wheel inside of it. We also found a couple of other attractions that allowed both Jace and I to throw down nearly identical reverse slam dunks right in front of the University of Kansas student section at Allen Fieldhouse. To cap off our visit, we found some pretty sweet $20 KU and Wichita State hoodies.

Yeah, it's a BIG store

After an enjoyable evening with the Kerrys, we awoke to a rainy day with temperatures in the mid-30s. We stopped at Walmart to get some plastic ponchos and then headed toward the Harry Truman Sports Complex. After finding our parking spot, we walked over to Kauffman Stadium--home of the world champion Kansas City Royals. I was decked out in my Royals gear so we took a few photos before making our way to Arrowhead Stadium.

Champs baby!

We arrived well before game-time because that's exactly what Jace wanted to do. We watched both the Chiefs and Buffalo Bills take the field for pre-game warm-ups. We even saw Bills' kicker Dan Carpenter, who had a highly successful college career at the University of Montana. We had seen him play there before he advanced on to the NFL. We went down to the front row and were only 20 yards or so from him. We yelled for him but he did not acknowledge us until we shouted "Go Griz!" Even then, he only nodded.

Here come the Chiefs

Soaked, but lovin' it

Not quite the 50-yard line but pretty darn close

Our seats were perfect: section 101, row 26, seats 1 and 2 on the 42-yard line. The rain continued to fall at a steady pace. Because of that, some fans stayed away but Arrowhead was still rocking. Like all the other fans, we also stayed on our feet the entire three-and-a-half hour game. There was really no reason to sit down. The rain was constant and our seats were drenched. Our short-sleeved ponchos kept the rain off our bodies but our arms and gloves were soaked. We didn't care though. We screamed every play the Chiefs were on defense. It was our contribution helping the team..

This was a big, big game with huge playoff implications for both Kansas City and Buffalo, and boy did the Chiefs deliver. Kansas City fell behind 10-0 before ratcheting up the defense and then outscoring the Bills 30-12 over the last three quarters to take a 30-22 victory.

Post-game & soaking in the victory

The next morning we started the Kansas City-to-Montana drive home in the Cav. Our goal was to make it to eastern Montana in one really, really long day so our second day would be much easier. The only thing is Mother Nature did not cooperate. Temperatures dropped and the steady rain turned to snow. We had no choice but to go as far as we could because I had to catch a plane to Las Vegas in 48 hours for work.

The Cav's silouette

The farther we went, the more intense the snow became. We found ourselves forced to reduce our speed from 75 miles an hour to 60 to 50 to 45. At times, we followed the snow plows. At other times, we passed the plows and kept on going. Little did we know that we were in a blizzard warning as we cut across Iowa into South Dakota. We later learned that Sioux Falls, Mitchell and other towns along the way set single-day records for snowfall.

After awhile, it became abundantly clear that if we didn't pull over, we may spend the evening stuck in the Cav in a snow drift. We called ahead and reserved a room in Kadoka (where?) in west-central South Dakota, some 400 miles shy of Billings.

We set our alarms early the next morning. It took us about 25 minutes just to cover the 80 yards from the parking lot to the road. Things didn't get much better from there. We gassed up and the "little car that could" worked as its own snow plow as we struggled down the on-ramp onto I-90. The interstate was no better. In fact. it was much, much worse than the previous night. Somehow we made it one mile in the deep snow to the next exit. We got off the interstate, somehow made it off the off-ramp and returned to our motel. We had left our key in the room since we didn't think we'd return so we were locked out. Jace contacted the manager who supplied us another key and we climbed back into bed and went back to sleep.

We awoke some 3-4 hours later only to find the snowplows had been out and done their job. Snow was no longer falling and it wasn't an hour or two until we were again traveling 75 miles an hour. There was no snow on the road as we cut across the corner of Wyoming into Montana. From there, we later stopped in Bozeman before making it across the rest of the state and arriving home at about
11 p.m.

Cav = the little car that did

All in all, it was a victorious father-son trip to always remember.

To me, this photo says it all!