Tide almost shocked the world

Once it looked like the Columbia boys’ basketball team was going to qualify for the state playoffs, I started researching what teams the Tide might play.

Two Saturdays ago when Columbia beat Milton Hershey to place third in the District 3 playoffs, I pulled out my file on Strawberry Mansion.

The file included scoring averages, who they played, information on the Public League and that team picture.

When I started showing around the team picture, the reaction was like “some of those guys have to be 30 years old and there’s no way Columbia could hang with them.”

During the course of the season, thanks to our cable system (what someone thanking Comcast these days), I had seen a couple of the better Class AA teams in the state play.

And despite some of the snickers from people, I thought Columbia might have a chance to shock the world on Saturday at South Philadelphia High School. No, I wasn’t smoking anything either.

I just saw our team play with a lot of heart this year and despite being badly under sized, I got geared in for a great afternoon of basketball.

There were some things I knew ahead of time about SM. One, it was there first trip to the state playoffs and I have seen some teams from the Public League just fold up their tents. Two, they probably knew nothing about Columbia, and three they would probably be over confident.

The only concern I had last week was whether or not any fans would want to travel two hours to see the Tide. Thanks to some parents, three fan buses were filled and South Philly High turned into a home game for the Tide.

Despite the odds and the talent at the other end of the floor, the Tide was up to the challenge and as coach Mark Wisler said in the CHS gym afterwards, “Columbia basketball is back on the map,” because of Saturday’s performance.

Not only did the Tide come within a couple of shots from shocking the state, it also showed the state, there’s a pretty good brand of basketball played in these parts.

Just witness what I read on line on Sunday and Monday from Ted Silary from the Philadelphia Daily News. He and the SM players were very complimentary toward our players and fans.

Sure, Columbia basketball really never disappeared from the radar screen at the county, district and state levels. Until Saturday and this year, it was just a little small part on the radar screen.

The work ethic and effort put forth by this team and their coaches this year will long be remembered as one of the best teams to come out of Columbia in a number of years.

I know they’ve probably heard it a thousand times throughout the season and a thousand more times since Saturday, but thanks for the memories.

It was a blast!

There’s no need to hang your heads over anything that happened this season.

The other side

Let me preface this column with this comment. “We don’t know how lucky we have it around here.”

The Lancaster-Lebanon League, and even for the most part District 3, has some of the nicest facilities around. Whether it be football, baseball or softball fields, gyms and courts, we are fortunate.
Perhaps we are spoiled in that regard.

Then you have the other side, well not quite the world as the headline mentions, but the other part of the state.

Saturday, I got to see the other side when I traveled to Philadelphia to see the Columbia boys’ basketball team play Strawberry Mansion High School.

It was a great game, but the amenities left a lot to be desired.

Just for some background, this was third or fourth year that the Philadelphia Public League has been competing with the other PIAA schools. Use to be before they joined the PIAA, jumping from school to school, or program to program was pretty much common place.

Not so anymore.

The game was at South Philadelphia High School, just over a mile from Citizens Bank Park, the Linc, the Spectrum and Wachovia center. That was the good thing.

The rest, well let’s just put it this way was a treat.

Okay, there was a small parking lot in front of the school, but not really that big. Most of the parking had to be done on the streets, at whatever location one could find. Not good.

Then there was the walk to the gym and up a step that had granite steps with no railings for support.

It was also kind of nifty to have to go through a metal detector, which I can proudly saw I set off.

I had been warned about some of the things with the gym before, but was still surprised.

On a good day, the gym might have seated maybe 800. There were no bleachers on the one side of the floor and pretty much limited seating elsewhere.

The concession stand was no more than 10 feet off the floor and ran out of hot dogs. After a two-hour trip, that was the last thing I wanted to hear that I couldn’t get my Phillie frank.

You couldn’t drink out of the water fountains and the bathrooms were smaller than what we have here at our office.

And despite the two-hour trip, more than 300 fans from Columbia showed up. Mansion, who was within shouting distance might have had about 30.

Oh yeah, there was the scoreboard clock that had so many lights out, one would have thought they didn’t pay the electric bill.

And in all my 30 years or so of going to basketball, I rarely have seen a fan go out on the court and yell at a coach.

Saturday, there was a fan from Mansion, who during a second or third quarter run by the Tide walked out on the court near the Mansion coach to tell him he needed to play zone, and walked back. Myself and others sitting around me where like “Wow.”

So I guess the moral of the story is the next time you think we have it bad, its a lot worse elsewhere in terms of facilities and fields.

Truck route might be doomed

A multi-million dollar project being designed to eliminate heavy truck traffic in downtown Columbia is on life support.

The alternate truck route, or bypass, had been pulled off a transportation improvement program list for at least two years and may not make any lists at all.

Columbia Borough first learned that its plans for the truck route might be in jeopardy when they learned the plans were removed from the two-year list because the truck route was at least four years from construction.

There were recent reports that the truck route was dead because Governor Ed Rendell had pulled funds earmarked for the project to put into other road projects including the leasing of the turnpike and repair of bridges across the state.

Mayor Leo Lutz has spent much of the last two weeks contacting officials from the county, state and federal governments. He addressed the Lancaster County Commissioners and the County’s Municipal Planning Organization last week. He presented commissioners with copies of an old petition that Columbia residents were asked to sign more than a year ago when a public meeting was held at the high school.

For more, see this week's Columbia Ledger.

Update on charges

An 18-year-old Columbia father was charged in connection with injuries sustained by his one-month-old son following an incident Thursday night in the borough.

Charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of children by Columbia Police was Brandon Scott Brooks, 18, of South Eighth Street. Detective Dan Bell said that Brooks was arraigned Friday before District Judge William Reuter of Mount Joy and placed in Lancaster County Prison. Brooks, Bell said, met bail and was released from prison over the weekend.

Bell said police first became aware of the incident Friday, Feb. 29 when they received a call from a York County healthcare facility that the injured infant was brought in for treatment of injuries. Police were advised that the baby had serious injuries to the head and leg areas and was being flown to Hershey Medical Center for treatment.

Police said in the arrest affidavit that the infant suffered a subdual hematoma on the left side of its skull; a fracture on the right side of the skull; a fractured right femur, a injured spleen and possible rib injuries. Columbia Police said the baby has undergone a couple of surgeries.

Bell said he immediately called the Lancaster County District Attorney’s office and detectives from that office conducted interviews with the baby’s mother, who is a minor and mother at the Hershey Medical Center.

Police said the incident happened at the mother’s home on Walnut Street, between 7-9 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 28.

After interviewing the baby’s mother and and her mother, detectives then interviewed Brooks about the incident.

The arrest affidavit said that Brooks admitted to police that he threw the child a “distance of at least three feet” toward a wooden headboard and the baby’s had rotated while it was in the air and the baby’s rear head and body struck the headboard.

Police said Brooks was trying to get the baby to drink from a bottle and was “fussy.”
Brooks then told police that when the baby’s head hit the wooden headboard, it produced a “banging sound.”