Bartow’s Glenn Rutenbar Ranked #6 Among Best Area Coaches by Bright House

Posted on July 26, 2011 by bwmerritt

Bartow High School strikes again.

As I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Bright House Sports Network is currently doing a countdown of the top 20 coaches in the Tampa Bay area across all high school sports. It’s a cool list, and they are considering more than just wins and losses (character, community impact, etc., are also considered).

Bartow boys basketball coach Terrence McGriff was the only Polk coach who had been listed as of Monday, coming in at No. 13. Now he has company.

Bartow softball coach Glenn Rutenbar was selected as the No. 6 overall coach, with the news being released on Tuesday morning. That makes Bartow the only school to have two coaches in the top 20 so far.

Rutenbar was a no-brainer for me, having won seven state championships that included five in a row last decade. Bartow has basically become the standard by which other programs in the county for sure measure themselves, and by which many in the state do as well. The Yellow Jackets made it to the FHSAA Finals this past season but couldn’t come away with the title.

Honestly, I think he could be ranked No. 1 overall.

Glenn is a great guy and incredibly focused on his job. He’s produced some dominant pitchers, from Melissa Parsons to Lindsey Littlejohn to Courtney Putnam to now Lauren West. His teams have also given Bartow a ton of pride.

So congrats to Glenn and the Bartow softball program on an honor well-deserved.

Posted in Sports | 2 Comments

Monday Faith Links: Judging Others, Friends With Benefits, Workplace Infidelity, etc.

Posted on July 25, 2011 by bwmerritt

Lots of thought-provoking stories and posts out there this week.

I’m going to lead off with a convicting story from Relevant Magazine that certainly led to a “look in the mirror” moment for me.

The writer, Caleb Wilde, starts out but showing yet again the off-base, evangelism-killing methods of Westboro Baptist Church. Yep, the same church that has been picketing funerals of military members and is well known for its anti-gay hate message.

One of Westboro’s latest topics was the death of former Jackass star Ryan Dunn, who recently died in a car crash. The church said it would picket Dunn’s funeral and basically stated that because of the lifestyle he led, he had that car crash coming. Continue reading →

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Florida High School Football Preview Magazine Ranks Lakeland #7 in State

Posted on July 23, 2011 by bwmerritt

The third annual Friday Night Football preview magazine was recently released, and I finally purchased my copy this week.

I always looked forward to this magazine when I was at The Ledger, not only to see how Polk County schools were viewed across the state but also to give me good background info on teams from outside the county. It’s a very well-put-together magazine with lots of details about each team, interesting rankings and good recruiting info.

I’m going to break down the relevant parts for Polk County football fans into multiple posts, but for this first one I wanted to highlight the magazine’s overall team rankings. FNF doesn’t break its rankings down by class, rather listing its top 25 schools in the state across all classifications (and remember, they’ve been renumbered to go up to 8A now). Continue reading →

Posted in Sports | 11 Comments

Monday Faith Links: Harry Potter, Sin, Mahaney Follow-Up, etc.

Posted on July 18, 2011 by bwmerritt

My wife and I saw the final Harry Potter movie, The Deathly Hallows Part II, over the weekend. It was very good, worthy of the end of the series, but not life-changing.

As I was reading reviews of the film last week to see what reactions people were having, I came across a really interesting story from Relevant Magazine. The article’s subhead definitely caught my attention: “Why the “boy who lived” is one of the most Christian symbols of modern pop culture.”

That’s as ironic a statement as you can make for a lot of people, especially for many Christians who have outcast the series. I avoided the books for a long time, mostly because I thought they were just for kids or teens and not because I thought they were evil.

But having read every book and seen every movie, there really are lots of Biblical and redemptive themes in the series. And the final book – especially the second half of the final book that the last movie covers – blows the top off of Christian comparisons.

That’s what Ryan Hamm, the Relevant article’s writer, focuses on in his piece. Continue reading →

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Bartow’s Terrence McGriff the First Polk County Coach to Crack BHSN Top 20

Posted on July 14, 2011 by bwmerritt

I’ve been keeping an eye on Bright House Sports Network’s top coaches countdown for the past couple of weeks.

I first heard about the countdown after I put together my list of the top 10 coaches in Polk County. Drew Fellios of BHSN posted a tweet about a week after that announcing their upcoming list of the top coaches in the Tampa Bay area (in no way am I saying they copied my idea, I think we all came up with our ideas coincidentally around the same time).

Anyway, they started the countdown last week, revealing one coach each day and starting at No. 20. They have now worked their way to No. 13, and the first Polk County coach has made it onto the countdown. Continue reading →

Posted in Sports | 2 Comments

Gene Conrad, Direct Air Proving Commercial Flight Can Succeed in Lakeland

Posted on July 12, 2011 by bwmerritt

I was watching the Lakeland City Commission meeting from July 5 on the City Government channel this evening, and I was so impressed by what I was watching that I had to write a new post.

The City Commission was listening to a report from Lakeland Linder Airport Director Gene Conrad, who has been on the job since January 2010. Conrad was not only providing an update on the success of Direct Air’s service from the past couple of weeks but also on ongoing and upcoming improvements at the facility.

Lakeland Linder Airport (from LakelandAirport.com)

I’ve already been shocked by how well the Direct Air deal has worked so far. I really had low expectations for commercial service from Lakeland, considering how it hadn’t worked in the past and that the airport in general had performed so poorly in recent years (it lost more than $300,000 in 2010, according to The Ledger).

Conrad first brought in a new restaurant tenant and a charter jet service that is now based in Lakeland before partnering with Direct Air. It’s no secret that expanded commercial service is a major goal of Conrad’s and the city’s, and the early results have been promising. Continue reading →

Posted in General, Government | 1 Comment

Monday Faith Links: TOMS Shoes, Focus on the Family, Social Justice, etc.

Posted on July 11, 2011 by bwmerritt

Taking a week off certainly can cause news to back up on you, and that’s the case this week.

There are lots of great stories from the past couple of weeks, and it will be challenge to touch on all of the ones I found interesting, but I’ll do my best.

Blake Mycoskie (TOMS.com)

I want to lead with a blog post from Christianity Today that I saw late Saturday. Many of you have probably heard of the company TOMS Shoes, but if you haven’t yet you should look them up. The company basically donates one pair of shoes to the poor of the world for every pair that someone buys. It’s an incredibly practical, service-guided organization that is making a true impact around the globe.

The company’s founder, Blake Mycoskie, recently had to post an apology on his blog after a fairly significant firestorm erupted after Christianity Today wrote in a cover story that TOMS was working with Focus on the Family. The story quoted a Focus employee as saying that the organization was trying to become a TOMS distributor in Africa, and Mycoskie apparently also spoke at a Focus event. Continue reading →

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Polk County’s Top Football Recruits for Class of 2012

Posted on July 9, 2011 by bwmerritt

For the past three years, this was about the time that I would begin working on the high school football preview section for The Ledger and Polk County.

Obviously, that’s not going to be the case this year.

I’m not able to touch base with as many people as I did in the past, but I can still do some research. I’ve become a big fan of ESPN.com’s recruiting coverage and rankings (sorry to those I know who work for Rivals and others). So, I’m going to start with the ESPN rankings tonight and preview some of the top players to watch from Polk County for the upcoming season.

Below are the highest rated players from the county according to ESPN: Continue reading →

Posted in Sports | 1 Comment

No Faith Links This Week

Posted on July 6, 2011 by bwmerritt

Sorry for anyone who’s been waiting on pins and needles for my faith links for this week (I can’t imagine there’s too many of you). I had a much needed beach weekend for the 4th of July and this week is shaping up as a fairly busy one for me, so I’m going to have to put them on until next week. I will, however, try to chime in on the Rick Scott Sunrail decision, which I thought was horrendous. Turning down the high speed rail was at least somewhat defensible in my mind even though I really disagreed with the decision, but I can’t see any justification for Sunrail. So, stay tuned for more on that this week.

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Monday Faith Links: Same-Sex Marriage, Rob Bell, Contemporary Worship

Posted on June 27, 2011 by bwmerritt

I’ve looked pretty hard, but I haven’t been able to find one article that really stands out from the past week to make my lead.

N.Y. Governor Andrew Cuomo, far right (Reuters).

The biggest issue from the past week was, in my view, the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York. So, rather than giving a long intro with my thoughts – suffice it to say I disagree with the law – I’m just going to give some links to a few different responses to the issue. After that I link out to some other interesting stories.

So, here’s some to the New York same-sex marriage law: Continue reading →

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