As the World Series draws closer and closer and we’re waiting to see who will join the Tigers in the fall classic, the Bobcats have cranked up, the Panthers have won four in a row and we just finished with race week here at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.

And oh yea, High School football is in full swing and the playoffs will be here before we know it!

It’s a week when I have really had to stop and think about what the Independence Patriots have done, winning 100 consecutive games.

When I arrived here in Charlotte five and a half years ago the winning streak was already underway. Amazing that I have never seen the Patriots lose a game.

I have seen a couple of squeakers, but in the end Tom Knotts and or, Bill Gieller have always walked away victorious.

Players have come and gone, and even the two coaches just mentioned have come and gone a season at a time, and here we are 100 games later and the Patriots look to be on a roll that just won’t end.

It will be very interesting to see what goes down when the Mustangs of Myers Park come calling this Friday night.

It’s an easy pick to say they should roll to another easy win but the reality is you never know what will happen until it goes down.

And while I’m sitting here writing about Tom Knotts, on one of the five televisions back here in the sports office, (yes, my life is rough. I watch sports in person or on TV and I get paid to talk about it), I’m listening to Arizona head coach Denny Green lose his mind after this week’s Monday Night game as his rant is played over and over again, a reminder how glad I am to cover the coaches I do in the local area.

On the High School front they are nearly all great to deal with, from E.Z. Smith to Roy Kirby to Chris Norman to Jim Oddo to the aforementioned coach Knotts, and the same can be said of John Fox.

And while I’m on current affairs, I would have a hard time thinking that if any of them had their players put on the kind of display seen in Miami over the weekend they would send a real message to their players.

Not some phony one week suspension against Duke. Nothing personal against Duke football.

Happy High School football everyone, along with everything else going on, it’s a great time of year! We’ll see you on the Blitz!

Ira