SPORTS
JUNE 3, 2015
HERMISTONHERALD.COM
A6 WEDNESDAY,
YOUTH LACROSSE • SIGNING • SCHEDULE
Take me out to
the ballgame,
any game
Broken and rebuilt on the field of play
Andre Allison carves
out new identity after
old one broke his back
SAM BARBEE
FROM THE SIDELINES
Sports reporter
BY SAM BARBEE
HERMISTON HERALD
Hermiston’s Andre Al-
lison didn’t know who he
was.
He was 13 years old in
2012, nursing a broken back
and enduring his first full
year without sports. He was
depressed, his former self a
distant memory.
But the thing that aban-
doned him — sports — also
rescued him.
S
ometimes, you just need to get out of the
house. That was how East Oregonian
sports reporter Erik Skopil and I felt this
past weekend. So we decided to go to Walla
Walla and check it out.
Walla Walla is a cool little town with a
population of around 30,000. It’s home to former
NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe, as well as
top-notch wineries and the Walla Walla Sweets,
a collegiate summer baseball team playing in
the West Coast League. For two summers when
I was in college, I interned for a WCL team in
Longview called the Cowlitz Black Bears and
knew the baseball and times were good. So,
seeing a light pole banner in downtown Walla
Walla, I convinced Erik we should attend this
game. I checked the online schedule and, sure
enough, the Sweets were playing the Wenatchee
Apple Sox. We didn’t know what we were going
to do that day. Now we knew.
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I’ve attended all year that I wasn’t covering.
That’s not really a complaint, since I enjoy
watching America’s pastime, but it’s a different
experience. I don’t have to bother with following
counts and seeing who made what play and to
whom they threw the ball. It makes rundowns fun
to watch and not torturous to follow.
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included a 20-minute walk, not bad considering
how hot it was and how out of shape I am. It took
us just about an hour because we missed our turn.
I was in charge of navigation, so it was my fault.
I’ll take the heat.
Eventually, we made it close enough to the
stadium that we could hear the public address
announcer, and got closer still that we could
follow the crowd. There was a good turnout for
the season-opener for the Sweets and a line had
formed at the ticket booth. We joined with our $7
ready for general admission tickets, but shortly
thereafter a woman approached us and offered us
two for free. We accepted and went in, thinking
we had just lucked out in a big way.
We found some seats — rather high because we
both like to see stuff develop, we are reporters after
all — and looked forward to the beginning of the
game. But there were some interesting aspects that
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grey pants, and the other team was wearing blue
camo shirts with grey pants. My experience in the
WCL told me that no two teams have uniforms
close to being similar, so I was confused. The
second strange thing was the PA announcer
recognizing the umpires for “donating their
time.” At that point, we didn’t know what was
happening.
It turns out we had stumbled across not the
Sweets’ season-opener, but Walla Walla Law
Enforcement versus Walla Walla Fire and First
Responders. I suddenly realized I had been
looking at June’s schedule before, not May’s.
It was a community fundraiser game. It’s an
annual thing, as Erik overheard a conversation
about the police winning last year. I can say with
absolute certainty we were the only ones in the
ballpark who didn’t know what was happening.
It was pretty serious, too. Players were obviously
competitive, and fans would voice their pleasure
or displeasure based on what they saw.
So we watched the game with smiles. Erik did
some heckling in jest and soaked in the baseball.
The quality of the ball was better than either of
us expected, but Erik turned to me in about the
fourth inning and said, “You know, if I had paid
seven bucks for this, I wouldn’t have been very
happy.”
It was a joke, but I felt the same way. That
isn’t to detract from what we walked into, but we
really wanted to watch some high-level collegiate
players do their thing.
The game worked its way along, and the
police took a 5-3 lead behind some good pitching,
but Erik and I left after the seventh to watch the
Mariners lose at a bar we both like.
It was a pretty funny day, that we decided
to go to Walla Walla Friday night, thought it
was a Sweets game, only to be “disappointed”
it wasn’t. We had a brief conversation with a
woman afterwards about our expectations and she
laughed. Not at us, but at our misinterpretation of
what we saw.
Although we didn’t get to do exactly what we
wanted, we got out of the house and had a good
time. Sometimes, that’s all that matters.
— Sam Barbee is the Hermiston Herald sports
reporter. He can be reached at sbarbee@hermis-
tonherald.com
THE FALL
SAM BARBEE PHOTO
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trophy from the Spokane Youth Lacrosse LAXFest May 16-17.
Allison turned to coaching after his athletic career was ended with
a severe back injury.
SAM BARBEE
PHOTO
Before he was
coaching youth
lacrosse, Herm-
iston’s Andre
Allison was a
good player in
his own right.
But he suffered
a severe back
injury in eighth
grade, and, after
a long healing
process, turned
to coaching ‘as
therapy.’
Allison was a good ath-
lete. By his eighth-grade
lacrosse season, he had
earned the nickname “The
Beast” because of his size
and athletic ability. Oppos-
ing teams looked down the
sidelines and saw the bulky
Allison ready to dominate
the game, and they would
shutter. He was a standout
in football, too, holding his
own at the line of scrim-
mage.
But all this athletic suc-
cess hampered Allison, and
he’s the first one to admit
it. It hampered him socially,
however, not physically.
“I was kind of cocky and
mean in high school when
I was playing sports,” he
said. “You know, ‘Sports is
life, I’m the best.’ I thought
I was it. I thought I was go-
ing to get scholarships, go
to college, play football and
lacrosse.”
That eighth-grade season
proved to be Allison’s last.
He fractured the L5 ver-
tebra in his spine when an
opponent checked his back,
cracking the vertebra slight-
ly. Right away, the pain
sensors in his body fired
down into his hips and legs.
He thought that was where
the problem was, not the
cracked vertebra. Doctors
were concerned about ap-
pendicitis or other internal
problems, but the back and
spine were left unchecked.
So Allison continued to
play. A few months later,
fall camp began for foot-
ball, and Allison was set to
enter the high school pro-
gram as a freshman. Early
in camp, it became obvious
his back was in trouble. He
hurt it again.
His mother, DiAna, took
him to the hospital.
“He couldn’t walk,” she
said. “It was scary.”
Allison was diagnosed
with a double fracture in
the L5, and both were bro-
ken all the way through.
The doctor gave Allison the
worst news possible. When
he walked in, Allison asked,
“How long will I be out,
doc?” with full optimism
and enthusiasm that it might
be a few weeks or a month
or two at most. The word
that followed broke Alli-
son’s heart: “Forever.”
“Right away, it was just
in slow motion,” Allison
said. “It was like, ‘This isn’t
happening right now.’ I was
such a young kid. I’m still
SEE ALLISON/A7
Youth lacrosse popularity growing &RI¿Q
‘New’ spring sport
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gains participants,
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followers
Now, they are now top
placers at tournaments, high-
lighted by the third- and
fourth-grade team winning a
large tournament in Spokane
where they were the only
team from Oregon in atten-
dance.
BY SAM BARBEE
Why has lacrosse become
HERMISTON HERALD
so popular? What is it threat-
In recent years, the Herm- ening baseball and softball
iston Youth Lacrosse program as the chief traditional spring
has been growing at an expo- sports?
nential rate. Just two short
Some of it has to do with
years ago, Hermiston teams the game itself. Base sports
routinely had fewer than 11 are notorious for their slow
players, the number needed nature, while lacrosse is fast-
WR¿HOGD IXOOWHDPWKH\DQG paced. For Hermiston resident
had to borrow players from Brooke Palzinski, lacrosse’s
other teams.
speed is what attracted her
“high-energy” daughters.
When one played softball,
she would cheer and congrat-
ulate opposing batters when
they reached base “because
she had someone to talk to.”
“Lacrosse is constant ac-
tion, constant running, and it
has a much more team feel,
lacrosse does,” Palzinski said.
“I think baseball still (is) if I
strike out, if I just got the hit,
if I make the catch. Lacrosse
is much more team-oriented,
and you’re much more in-
vested in the people you’re
playing with.”
Echo resident BeAnne
SEE LACROSSE/A7
After one year as Stand-
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and athletic director, Dom-
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back to Washington. Travis
Reeser, formerly of Sun-
ridge Middle School in
Pendleton, has been hired
as the new physical edu-
cation/health teacher and
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RI &RI¿Q¶V YDFDWHG SRVL-
tions, the school district an-
nounced.
Ledbetter becomes a Penguin
Hermiston pitcher
signs with coach she
met as a 14-year-old
BY SAM BARBEE
HERMISTON HERALD
When Madisen Ledbetter
was 14 years old, she met a
coach that she really wanted
to play for. It was Mandy Hill,
and she was then a student
teacher at a clinic Ledbet-
ter attended. She knew then
that Hill was a coach that she
wanted to learn from.
Four years later, that wish
was granted. Hill took a job at
Clark College in Vancouver,
Washington, and that’s where
Ledbetter is headed, too. She
signed her letter of intent
Monday to join the Penguins
softball program under Hill.
“Mandy wanted me to
SEE LEDBETTER/A7
SAM BARBEE PHOTO
Surrounded by her family, Hermiston senior Madisen Ledbetter holds up her letter of intent to play
softball at Vancouver, Washington’s Clark College next spring.
GO SEE IT
Wednesday, June 3
Baseball
Hermiston Little League games starting at 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, June 4
Baseball
Hermiston Little League games starting at 5 p.m.
Friday, June 5
Golf
Big River GC closed for Meadowood Springs Fundrais-
er Tournament
Baseball
Hermiston Little League games starting at 5 p.m.
Saturday, June 6
Golf
Big River GC closed for Meadowood Springs Fundrais-
er Tournament
Sunday, June 7
Golf
Big River GC closed for Meadowood Springs Fundrais-
er Tournament
If you have any other local sports events, contact Sam
Barbee at sbarbee@hermistonherald.com