Category Archives: Sporting Adventures

Cheering for Life

18 Saturday Oct 2025

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As fairly small children, Sissy and I were exposed to the concept of cheering for a person, an event or a celebration beginning, as I remember, with the sound of basketballs bouncing on a wood gymnasium floor when Daddy played in the basketball church league during those early years. We couldn’t have been more than three and five at the time, yet within my memory bank, I see the gym, the risers, the crowd screaming and cheering,  and my father running back and forth across the court with the other players. Of course, we usually played with other children during the games, not paying much attention to the score, but consciously aware of the roar of the crowd, the screeching sound of rubber soles, the stop and starts of the players against the polished wood floor of the court. In concert with those sounds, the loud annoying buzzer sounded when a foul occurred, a timeout was called or a game ended.  

We graduated from the cheers of church basketball to the cheers of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show, the softball games in our back yard with neighborhood friends, the baseball fields of Evansville when BQ finally became old enough to play, the UE basketball games, and the football and basketball games of high school.

When I finished sixth grade at Hebron Elementary, the promise of an opportunity as a real cheerleader became possible with the continuation of my education at Plaza Park Elementary for seventh and eighth grades. They had a basketball team! They had cheerleading uniforms! They had pom-poms! What young girl doesn’t dream of becoming a cheerleader?

As seventh grade began, my newest best friends, Sally and Peggy, introduced me to this possibility and I immediately began my quest for recognition on the sidelines. Sports were not inclusive of young girls in the sixties so my option for participation was to be front and center on those sidelines. 

As tryouts were announced, I spent every evening standing in our small living room watching my shadow against the wall as I moved, jumped, split and came to a posture that emulated the practiced movements of the other girls I had watched enviously.

I don’t remember the exact tryouts, yet I am certain, I was nervous, anxious and possibly prayerful right up to the time of my tryout. I could do spread eagle jumps, the splits in both directions, and leg kicks just as well as any of the other candidates, and clearly articulate “Two, four, six, eight! Who do we appreciate?”

At that time, the focus was less on gymnastics and more on spirit, and I felt that my spirit and excitement hailed in the top percent of enthusiastic cheerleading capabilities. And yes, I did make the squad. I was officially an eighth grade cheerleader for Plaza Park Elementary. Along with Peggy, Mary Jo, Jane, Pam, Nancy and me. Ms. Simpson was our squad leader, but I will keep my thoughts about her to myself. 

Our outfits were simple black and white, skirts down to our knees, plain white Keds, white socks, a cotton shirt and a sweater with a large “P” and megaphone on the front. We were quite the team. OMG-look at those hairdos. Can you find me?

Plaza Park Cheerleaders Circa 1962-63

From grade school, I graduated to Freshman cheerleader and then Junior Varsity cheerleader. When it came time to try out for my senior year, more gymnastics were introduced to the cheering menu and the competition was tough. The best I could do in terms of gymnastics was a running roundoff. No flips in my repertoire. Most of us had been cheering for several years, and it was almost guaranteed that you would be selected if you had cheered before.  Or so I thought.

Our tryouts were in front of the entire school population from freshmen through seniors in the school gymnasium. Everyone had a vote. I took my turn. I jumped, I split, I posed and cheered as loud and enthusiastically as I could, finishing in a spread eagle jump into the splits with arms held high in a V for victory.  The winners would be announced the next morning in homeroom. While confident I had made the squad, nerves took over and I eagerly awaited the results. 

Jan, one of the other cheerleaders who had already been on the Varsity squad for a year, sat in front of me in homeroom. As the announcement came over the loudspeaker, I silently prayed I had made the squad. It was important to me, and I needed and wanted this recognition. 

After hearing the list and then listening to the names being repeated, I quickly came to the realization that my name had not been announced. I had not made the squad. Others in my homeroom congratulated Jan and no one looked at me. There was silence around me. Except for Jan. She turned around and with a soulful look on her face she mouthed the words “I’m so sorry.” I smiled and told her congratulations. My stomach was in knots as tears threatened to escape my eyes and I sat silently in disbelief and devastation. The bell rang, homeroom dismissed, and everyone stood to leave the room. I slowly came to a standing position, gathered my books and prepared to face an even bigger crowd in the hallways. Shaky legs, palpitating chest, a look of stoicism, I put on a brave face and made it thru the day; I took my sorrow quietly home to give my family the news.

Devastation for a seventeen year old can and often clothes itself in frivolous desires and wants, yet at the time, I did not feel this way. Being on the Varsity cheer squad was important to me, and I was devastated. Eventually, I would understand the true meaning of devastation and this disappointment would fade into the background with more important concerns taking priority.

To this day I remember Jan’s kindness toward me, and because of her gesture, I loyally watched her cheer through Senior year with a feeling of unspoken gratitude. 

Llife goes on and cheering opportunities continued for me; my son’s soccer and hockey games, my daughter’s tennis and swimming matches, my grandson’s baseball and soccer games, my own tennis and pickleball teams, grand slams at the bridge table, horse races and the underdog gray horse of the moment, great putts on the greens with Daddy. Cheering for specific sports teams kept me sane during the NCAA basketball tournament: Indiana, Purdue, Kentucky, Kansas, Butler, and Gonzaga: UGA football games, and surprisingly the Indiana University football team of 2025.

It has been many years since Harry Gonzo played for IU and the school went to the Rose Bowl. During this drought IU fans did not have a great deal to cheer about for IU football. As an alumni we expected the basketball team to soar to great heights under the tutelage of Bobby Knight and others, but never the football team. We are a basketball state. The SEC is for football greats. Yet here we are. IU ranked # 3 in the nation and scheduled to play Michigan State on this day. And in the Strange fashion, I will be there cheering and screaming at the TV knowing there are friends and family doing the same. Rose will be going crazy. Sissy will be a mess, not wanting to watch but wanting to know the score. BQ and Yordy will be following the game minute by minute. And Mother and Daddy-they will be there in spirit, telling their four Strange kids to cheer on—for sport, for humanity, and for life.

Go Hoosiers!  You can do it!

Golf’s Greats

17 Sunday Jun 2018

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It is on this late Sunday afternoon in June, Father’s Day and the last day of the U.S. Open golf tournament at Shinnecock Hills in New York, that I am reminded of how much my father loved the game of golf. It was not unusual to find him in the backyard hitting practice balls, made of plastic, hitting ball, after ball, after ball. He used real balls at times, but after he accidentally hit me in the calf with a line drive, he switched to plastic balls which rather floated in the air and never went very far or with much force.

I don’t remember exactly when Daddy started to play golf, but his first set of clubs was a hand-me-down set from an acquaintance. His love for golf exploded and after that, anything related to golf was a great gift choice for Father’s Day.  He never had the luxury of belonging to a private club where caddies were hired to carry bags, or battery-operated carts were used to take the players around the golf course. His children, my siblings, were his caddies-from oldest to youngest. At one time or another all of us had the pleasure or charge of carrying his bag, walking alongside of him at almost every public golf course in town. No carts, no hired caddies. Just his kids and his golf buddies.

We knew all his golf buddies and were entertained by stories about their rounds. One was a terrible cheat, according to Daddy. Another was a terrible golfer and always asked for a Mulligan. The ones that were better than him, were respected. He tried to teach Mother how to play but that didn’t work out too well. She wasn’t very good at the game and preferred to be playing bridge while he played golf.

I was probably 9 or 10 the first time I went with him to the golf course. I didn’t really have to “carry” his bag as he used one of the hand carts for his clubs, but I got to pull out the club he asked for, or hand him a ball, or replace a tee that had been destroyed by the previous shot. When we were out in the middle of the golf course, away from curious eyes, he would throw out a spare ball and let me hit it, providing instruction and guidance along the way. He taught me how to hold a club. He taught me how to putt. He taught me how to clean my balls packed with mud and dirt, and he taught me how to play fair and square.

Years later, my father suffered a devastating stroke and never played another  round of golf again. It was around the time that Curtis Strange-not a relative-earned his back-to-back win at the U.S. Open. Even though Daddy never played another round of golf, he never quit trying to hit golf balls in the backyard. He certainly couldn’t hit the ball as far, but he did a pretty good job of it in spite of his disability, holding the club in his left hand.

Today, Sissy and I play golf at a par 3 course close to her home in southwest Florida. She uses a hodge-podge set of clubs that she bought at a pawn shop several years ago. I have a real set of clubs, golf shoes and a golf glove. We don’t actually play a full round of golf, nor totally adhere to the real rules of golf. We play best ball and end up not counting beyond 10 if things get really bad. The course has multiple water hazards and we joke about how many balls we lose in those man-made ponds. Sissy usually drinks bourbon, while I’ll have a vodka or a beer. We try to make friends with every other golfer on the course that day, joking about our golf game. Most of them want to join in our reverie.

When I tell people that I love to watch golf on a late Sunday afternoon the response I most often get is “Golf is so boring on TV.” I couldn’t disagree more with that sentiment. To me, it is calm and relaxing and allows a wind-down from the weekend’s activities. It reminds that there are gentlemen in this world who are honorable and kind, and win their reputations through hard work and perseverance.

It has been thirteen years since I lost my father and on every Father’s Day I try to find some way to honor him. Today I went to a driving range, at a public golf course, and hit a bucket of balls. I put on my golf glove, intertwined my fingers exactly the way he taught me, and kept my eye on the ball as I followed the motion of my swing in my shadow.

My golf game? I can hit a nice 8 iron and putt fairly well. A hybrid is my favorite club, and I am still working on perfecting my drive with my Big Bertha.

After the bucket was empty, I went home, and watched the last round of this year’s U.S. Open.

Congratulations Brooks Koepka and “Happy Father’s Day” to fathers everywhere. Take your kids with you to the golf course, if you can. It will place you in the category as one of golf’s greats.

To the greatest golfer I knew-Allen Reid Strange

 

 

 

Basketball Madness

02 Saturday Mar 2013

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Rineyville Basketball Team '40-'41 001Rineyville Basketball '41-'42 001<a
Basketball Madness
Basketball is in my blood and I love the game and all of its glory. Not the fast paced, overpowering muscular sport of today’s professional basketball game, but the game of magical hoops that showcases a kid who sweetly hits that three pointer with a fantastical release of the ball from outside the designated line. I love the basketball that enables a kid who comes from nothing to practice his craft with little more than grit and determination and who ends up on the national stage where he is noticed, admired and applauded. I love the kind of basketball that showcases the 5 foot, 10 inch middle class, 15 year old boy from the Midwest who has stood outside in the freezing cold, shooting free throw, after free throw, after free throw, so that he has a chance to make guard on his high school basketball team and play his beloved sport. I love the kind of basketball that Indiana boys dream of, and in their dreams, store up hopes for playing for a college with a coach whose reputation can’t even begin to match that of the inimitable Bobby Knight.

This is the kind of basketball that expressively flows through my veins. The kind of basketball that in March of every year, conjures up the smell of a locker room, the sounds of rubber soled shoes connecting with the polished gymnasium floors, and the sound of the stunned and amazed crowd of spectators when an impossibly difficult shot swishes through the net with one second left on the clock, and the game which was all but lost, is now won.

I grew up in Indiana, to parents from Kentucky, to a father who played on a winning high school basketball team. With that kind of basketball pedigree, the inevitable occurs, and during March, I am lost to the crazed madness of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

Daddy was a high school basketball star for the Rineyville Red Devils and played on its winning teams of 1940-41 and 1941-42. In 1941, the Rineyville Red Devils were the first basketball team to represent Hardin County, Kentucky in the ‘Sweet 16’ on the road to the high school state championship and their dominance in the region lasted through the ’48 season. Reading the yellowed copy of an old newspaper article, my father’s name repeatedly jumps out of the article identifying him as a key player on the team- “When the final buzzer sounded Owsley and Strange had scored 15 points and nine points respectively and Rineyville had shocked Vine Grove 33-27. The Red Devils were headed for Lexington and the ‘Sweet Sixteen’ again.” (Excerpted from an article printed in the Elizabethtown News Bicentennial Edition, May 1974). While nine points may not sound like much by today’s standard, the ending scores of the basketball days of old were much lower, the three point shot nor the slam dunk were in effect, and defense was the name of the game.

I wasn’t around to watch back in the forties, but I do remember as a very young child sitting on the sidelines, on retractable bleachers, watching my twenty-something father play basketball on the local church league. I remember his tall slender frame lifting magically off the floor with one arm raised to score two points with a lay-up. I remember the patient instructions on the outdoor asphalt court at the high school as he taught my brother to carefully shoot the free throw shot, and I remember his conversations with my own son about the coaches, the players and the outcomes of this beautiful sport.

My daughter tells friends that her mother is “crazy” during the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament and I hate to admit, but I am. I suffer from that basketball madness that only a kid from Indiana, Kentucky, or maybe even North Carolina can experience. It’s the kind of madness that brings a smile to my face when I witness a last second miraculous shot, and the kind of madness I personally experience when I look up at the circular hoop ensconced in an orange rim far above my height and throw in a shot that drops through the net.

In 2016’s NCAA March Madness, my beloved Indiana Hoosiers are in the hunt and I hope they do not disappoint. The season is winding down, the brackets are being destroyed with unexpected winners and all the experts are predicting which teams will make it to the Final Four. There will be some surprises and there will definitely be some disappointments, and there just might be at least one Cinderella story.

As the weeks of March Madness proceed, I will be watching and a little bit of me will go crazy. I will be cheering from the sidelines-anxious, pacing and amazed. I will fondly recall the lessons of my favored sport from long ago. I will watch the loft of the circular form on its downward path toward the rim and I will somehow hear the almost silent swish of the ball sailing through the hoop. I will remember the Cinderella footsteps of a young man from Rineyville, Kentucky who taught me how and why to love basketball, and the boys of basketball will once again amaze me.

My boys of basketball-the Indiana Hoosiers! Good luck and let the madness begin! The Strange kids from Indiana will be cheering!

Wrestling Mania

03 Saturday Nov 2012

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Indiana’s Most Famous Wrestler-The Bruiser

My parents exposed their child to often unusual and atypical experiences-or at least looking back, it seems so. We went to the racetrack and church, the bowling alley and Bible school. We saw Jerry Lee Lewis and the Lennon Sisters in concert. We learned how to play poker and we mastered the game of hopscotch. These were the most opposite of events and entertainments and some of them perhaps not necessarily considered appropriate for children.

In thinking back to those times, I have to remember that today life is governed by different rules and everything we say and do must be politically correct.  In the fifties, lives were simpler and in some ways-not in all ways-people were less judgmental and more caring. In looking at life through those eyes, I consider one of the most unusual sporting adventures we witnessed as children was wrestling. And, since our parents chose to expose us to the sport, it made perfect sense that we were introduced to one of the most famous wrestlers of all times-none other than the one and only, Richard “Dick the Bruiser” Afflis.

“The Bruiser” was an Indiana native having been born in Delphi, Indiana-I had to Google Delphi to find out exactly where it was located-and grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, where he first played high school football. He continued playing football as a college student for the Boilermakers of Purdue University and then played lineman for the Green Bay Packers in the early fifties, before becoming a professional wrestler.

The interest in wrestling exploded after WWII so it must have been a natural choice for our parents to take us to the Armory to see the famous “Bruiser” when he came to town. Forget the fact that wrestling was and still is one of the most aggressive and brutal sports of all, if not in actuality, violent on some levels. “The Bruiser” became a legend in the world of wrestling and somewhat of a hero in Indiana and particularly in Indianapolis where he lived.

I have only a vague memory of “The Bruiser”, but Sissy reminded me of our excursion to the Armory and helped trigger the memory of this unusual nugget of my childhood. She easily recalled the event and described “The Bruiser” as being barrel-chested with bleached blond hair. His favorite opponent carried an equally frightening moniker of “The Crusher” and sported bleached blond hair as well. It must have been the fashion for wrestlers at the time, which eventually carried over to Hulk Hogan, a more modern-day wrestler.

For me, I remember the shoes-high top lace-ups in bright red. Apparently, I was a shoe aficionado even then. On the other hand, perhaps I just preferred to concentrate on the shoes he was wearing rather than the jeering and heckling of the crowd-strangely gruesome behavior from seemingly normal people, which I have never been able to understand.  The wrestling experience apparently left a much greater impression on Sissy, as she loves her boxing and football contests of today. I consider them two equally aggressive sports, which often make me cringe with the crushing of body against body.

For me, I prefer petticoats and the more gentile sports of tennis and golf. Sorry Bruiser-I do not think I liked watching you wrestle in person, and I certainly do not watch it on TV today. Mickey Rourke gave me enough of a flavor for the sport in the movie “The Wrestler”-barrel-chested, with bleached blond hair, wearing the shoes. Red shoes? Now those are worth thinking about.

 

 

Cinder In the Past

01 Monday Oct 2012

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Competition ran rampant in our household and winning was all important. We played board games, card games, participated in sports, battled to make the best grades and even invented some of our own war fare in the world of childhood recreation. We didn’t have a garage, nor a paved driveway, but a front and back yard and a black cinder driveway that began at the edge of the sidewalk and ended at the front door to the house. It was one of our playing fields.

I don’t know if cinder driveways even exist anymore or for what it is even used today, if at all. If you have never seen black cinder, it is actually volcanic stone composed of small to large stones of irregular, sharply pointed stones. And I do emphasize the words sharply and pointed. It was fairly light, porous and packed well, which I suppose was why it was good for driveways. Either that or it was less expensive than gravel or concrete.

During the hot long days of the Indiana summers we tried to occupy ourselves with a variety of activities to keep from getting bored. We played baseball or kickball in the back yard. We built tree forts and played hopscotch, tag, marbles and jacks. And as little girls we of course played dolls and house. These activities made up my sister’s and my recreational pastime, along with all the other boys and girls in the neighborhood. On certain days, when we were bored with our typical recreation we challenged each other to all kinds of crazy activities. Running across the street in front of cars, ringing neighbors’ door bells after dark and running away, taking a tomato out of someone else’s garden-okay so we weren’t totally innocent in our play and safety was not always a factor. But in the fifties, we didn’t think about safety the way we do today, so we plugged along with our games and activities just like children of previous generations.

“Can you run across the driveway faster than me?” was the usual start to the cinder challenge. It was the game of chicken on cinder. Once the challenge was accepted, the shoes and socks came off, one of the kids volunteered to be referee and the game began. The driveway was only wide enough to accommodate one car, so we didn’t have to run very far. But, running across cinder on bare feet hurt-there is no other way to describe it. The faster we ran, the less pain we felt. The competition was over quickly and when a winner was declared, we usually had multiple re-matches  until we tired of the sport, or our feet hurt too much to continue.

Of course, this was one of those activities we weren’t really supposed to do, so it had to be done quickly and surreptitiously without Mother discovering our game. Our feet were susceptible to small cuts from the cinder if we stepped on a particularly sharp stone at the wrong angle, so the game wasn’t without risk. We frequently heard the admonition, “Don’t do that again!” when we had to admit to our small transgression and seek a bit of first-aid or TLC.

Eventually the cinder was replaced by gravel and we either outgrew the painful races or substituted them for another sporting adventure. I don’t even remember who won all those races because there were so many and no one really kept count. For me the memory signifies a small piece of the competitive spirit that was instilled in me as a child by my parents, and for that I am grateful. Today, I doubt that cinder is even used for driveways, but I will have to research that possibility. And, while I am at it, I will take a look at Wikipedia and see exactly to what we exposed our small, bare feet. On your mark, get set, go!

 

Off to the Races

15 Saturday Sep 2012

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You can’t live on the Ohio River between Kentucky and Indiana, having been born in Kentucky, and not know about horse racing.  The genes for loving horses, the racetrack and the two dollar bill were in our genetic makeup and deeply entrenched in our blood. Evansville, Indiana was only about twenty minutes from Henderson, Kentucky where Ellis Park, built in 1922, was located.

The thoroughbred-racing season began in July and ran through Labor Day during the hottest part of the year. Steam rose off the cornfields as we drove the back roads to Ellis, which were normally nothing more than dirt tracks.  At any other time of the year, the farmer, sitting atop his tractor, was the only traveler on those dirt roads. Lined on each side by flooded or dry riverbanks, this route was quicker than the traffic laden Hwy 41, which was the main route to the track.  From the back roads, we pulled onto the temporary parking lot of green, grassy areas, and Daddy squeezed our car into any conceivable space available. We walked the long way to the track, through dried, river bottom sand. The wind picked up the dust mingled with sand and circled us as we stopped along the way to watch the horses coming out of the stables. The horses were beautiful and the brightly colored attire of the jockeys was stunning even in this smaller racetrack venue.

As children, we didn’t know that the horses weren’t necessarily Derby bound; we just knew that other kids our age didn’t get to go to the racetrack except for our cousins who lived on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River.

At the track, our job was to pick a horse for each race. We made our selections, not by the talent of the horse or the skill of the jockey, but usually by the name of the horse-the name that just might bring us luck. With our two dollar bills tucked away in small pockets or hands, we happily followed our parents toward the grandstand where we leaned on the rails and watched our pick on its way to a hopeful victory.  While some people may have thought taking two young children to the racetrack was inappropriate, I prefer to think of it as another form of education. The experience introduced us to ratios, returns and chance. If you bet two dollars and your horse won, and it paid 2:1, you knew you were going to win four dollars. And if your horse, didn’t win, then you had two less dollars to spend. What a better way to practice basic math!

There was also the mystery of it all. How did you really know which horse was going to win? Mother certainly didn’t, but somehow, she usually came home with at least one winning ticket. She would bet on a horse if it had one of our names, or if she liked the jockey, or if she liked the color of the horse. If the horse was gray, she would always bet on that horse. Even if it had the worst odds of winning. She would bet on that horse.

As an adult, trips to the track continued with my own children in tow, and Mother was still betting on that gray horse. We cheered for her off-the-wall choice, and then stunned, watched her collect her winnings. We tore up our losing ticket stubs and silently kicked ourselves for not betting on that gray horse.

Still today, so many years later, on that first Saturday in May for the Running of the Roses, my sisters and I text and call and discuss our proposed bets for the Derby. We call our brother in Indiana and ask if he’s going over to the track. For four Strange kids on that day, we always place our bets. Sometimes we win and sometimes we lose, but we always place our bets. And sometimes we have a mint julep, or two, just because we can!