I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • Great Day to be a GAMECOCK!

    Great Day to be a GAMECOCK!


    Sunday, April 07, 2024 – write it down in the women’s basketball history books as the undefeated University of South Carolina Gamecock women defeated the Iowa Hawkeyes with a final score of 87-75 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Gamecock team finished the season with a perfect 38-0 record and will bring team as well as individual player trophies home to Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina, when they arrive today.

    (Kirby Lee, USA Today Sports)

    Coach Dawn Staley lifts the trophy for her third championship team…

    (Ken Blaze, USA Today Sports)

    …and cuts the net in basketball championship tradition

    *******************

    Magical, monumental, memory making – all words I could use to describe the 2023-24 South Carolina women’s basketball winning season. I have held my breath and refused to write about our team until we reached the post season and finished what Raven Johnson called her Revenge Tour because of the Iowa loss she took personally at the Final Four in 2023, but now she and the rest of her Gamecock Nation can celebrate overcoming all obstacles in their way toward the perfect season this year.

    Basketball has been a passion for me since I was six years old when my daddy coached the high school boys and girls teams in Richards, Texas, one of the smallest schools in the state. My grandparents took me to every home game, and my daddy let me ride the old yellow school bus to the “away” games with him and his teams. The one year he created a junior high team, he let me play with them when I was in the fifth grade. I still remember the only game we played against a much larger school that quickly disposed of us 52-19, but I scored 13 of the points which made my father very proud.

    We moved to Brazoria, Texas, when I was in the eighth grade where I loved playing for Coach Lloyd Thomas and then adored Coach Lois Knipling in my three years on the varsity team at Columbia High School in West Columbia, Texas. Several teammates from those years remain important friends who share memories we never forget. Basketball has always been in my blood, but I followed teams on TV instead of going to the games until I married a woman whose family, particularly her mother, loved basketball as much as mine did. No family gathering skipped sports conversations, especially basketball.

    Coach Dawn Staley came to the University of South Carolina sixteen years ago and generated a fan following long before the successful seasons she’s enjoyed in recent times. She rekindled the dormant interest of the Gamecock Nation, and I want to thank Pretty for making sure we became a part of the action at Colonial Life Arena. She signed us up for the Gamecock Club nine years ago, and we have never looked back.

    It takes a village as a famous person once said, and I want to thank my personal “squad” for making sure this old woman who will be 78 in two weeks continues to be able to attend the games, cheer for the home team, and share fun times: Garner, JD, Brian, Joan, Susan, Chris, Pat, Brenda, Tony, Drew, Caroline, Ella, Molly, the women who sit at the end of Row 17 in Section 118 who make sure I don’t walk past my row, and the woman who sits behind me who makes sure I sit in the right seat on my row if Pretty is at concessions before the home games. Special thanks to my Road Warriors Brian, Garner, and Robert who take care of me on the away games when Pretty isn’t able to make the trip.

    Out-of-towners who are part of my squad include Jennifer who is our point person for Gamecock basketball insider information, sisters-in-law Darlene and Dawne in the upstate, Texas sister Leora, Texas cousin GP, Seattle cousins Trevor, Morgin, Rory, Quinn, and Vaughn. They may not be present in person, but they love Gamecock women’s basketball. Locals Sheila Go, Meghan and Dick connect with Pretty and me throughout the season, too.

    (Thanks to you all for the memories! I’m sure I’ve left someone out, but if it’s you, mea culpa. Remember I am old, as my granddaughter Ella reminds everyone when I falter.)

    And of course every squad needs a Captain – my Captain is Pretty who handles all ticket purchases, travel arrangements to all games, and usually makes sure we eat Mexican food afterwards. If victories are super sweet and the Hot Donuts sign is lit bright red at the Krispy Kreme in West Columbia, Pretty drives through for a 3-pack special treat for us.

    My life has been, and continues to be, good whether our team brings home trophies or not, but today it’s a Great Day to be a Gamecock.

    Onward.

    the future is bright with one of my favorite freshies

    Milaysia Fulwiley

    (Ken Blaze, USA Today)

  • if cats have nine lives, how many lives do dogs have?


    we tried to warn you, Charly said

    Charly’s loud barks startled Pretty and me late Friday night when she jumped to her feet from her bed next to me in the den, staring toward the darkness of our backyard. Spike joined in with her from his sofa in the living room.

    What’s up with the dogs? I asked Pretty who shook her head as she scrolled Twitter from her chair for any tidbits about the first round of the Final Four women’s basketball games we watched that night. I glanced behind me from my comfortable recliner in the direction of Charly’s gaze but didn’t see any lights from our backyard motion detection devices, sighed, gave Charly a withering look for disturbing my focus on the second half of the UConn/Iowa game, raised the volume on the TV until Charly and Spike eventually stopped barking.

    Some time later I noticed our elderly 100% deaf dog Carl wasn’t in his usual spot on the rug in front of the fireplace screen. Do you know where Carl is, I asked Pretty who looked up from her phone in the direction of the kitchen. Probably in the kitchen, she said. I got up and checked his alternate sleeping spot in the kitchen, but he wasn’t there. That’s odd, I thought.

    He must be outside, but I’ll take a look, I said to Pretty who nodded. Charly seemed eager to go out with me.

    As we walked around the swimming pool in the chilly air, the motion detection lights clicked on to reveal what looked like the shape of a very large rat swimming barely below the surface of the water at the deep end of the pool opposite where Charly and I were standing. She ran around to that side of the pool as I followed her.

    The moving object came into focus when I approached, and my blurry eyes finally recognized Carl’s little terrier head barely above the surface of the water but still moving with his short arthritic legs keeping him afloat.

    I can’t swim so I started yelling for Pretty who couldn’t hear me over the TV in the den. I walked as fast as I could to the back door yelling Carl’s in the pool, Carl’s in the pool!!

    Pretty jumped up, ran past me to the swimming pool where Charly was still standing guard over Carl, and the next thing I saw while I tried to reach them was Pretty diving into the pool to lift Carl out of the freezing water, swimming him to the nearest ladder.

    Minutes later we had wrapped the shivering Carl in towels and blankets in front of gas logs blazing in the den. I held him while an equally shivering Pretty changed out of her wet clothes. We had no idea how long he had been in the pool, how much water he swallowed, whether he would survive the whole ordeal.

    You’re my hero, I said to Pretty when she walked into the den in dry clothes. She shook her head, but I repeated No, you are really my hero. Carl would be gone without your brave rescue. Let’s hope he pulls through tonight, Pretty replied.

    ********************

    Carl two days later – with a look that might say you should have listened to Charly and Spike Friday night. First, you take me on a car trip across the country to a basketball tournament in Albany, New York and when I make it home from that adventure this week, you nearly let me drown in the swimming pool. Talk about March Madness, and thank God for Pretty and April, if you don’t mind me saying.

    You know what, Carl? I don’t mind your saying, and I couldn’t agree more.

  • March Madness on the Road with Pretty and Carl from South Carolina to New York!


    Our family road trips following the Texas years have been far and few between as my cousin Martin used to say, but March Madness brings the passions that are often an impetus for wild yearnings to be a part of something bigger than our living rooms. Before you could say Go Gamecocks, Carl and I were passengers in our Grannymobile being driven by Pretty to watch our Gamecock women’s basketball team play in the Sweet Sixteen in Albany, New York, a mere 853 miles from our home in West Columbia, South Carolina.

    We were welcomed by North Carolina, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York on our trip – but Virginia’s Blue Star Memorial Highway pet rest area was Carl’s personal favorite. Pretty and I oohed and aahed over the beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia between the Blue Ridge mountains to the east and the Alleghenies to the west while Carl slept in the back seat. He missed breathtaking vistas during that 140-mile portion of the trip but didn’t seem bothered when he woke up in West Virginia.

    Gamecock mascot Cocky cheers with fans at team send-off in their Albany hotel on Game Day, Baby!

    Associate Head Coach Lisa Boyer and me in hotel lobby

    (hm. I possibly had cocktail before this picture was taken)

    Head Coach Dawn Staley leads team through hotel lobby to bus

    basketball buddy Brian, me and Pretty in MVP Arena on Game Day

    basketball buddy Robert with new Gamecock friends we met at game

    Brian, Robert, me and Pretty thrilled as Gamecock women wins in Albany send them to 2024 Final Four!

    Consider the 2023-24 South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball team which at the end of the regular season + the SEC tournament + the first two games of the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball tournament + the Sweet Sixteen + the Elite Eight = the only undefeated team on the road to Cleveland, Ohio, for the Final Four. Go Gamecocks!

    ****************

    We’ll be watching March Madness this weekend at home from our living room – still trying to catch our breaths from road trip – catching up with laundry, too.

    (Thanks to Robert, Brian, and Pretty for photos used today.)

  • Still I Rise


    Photo by eberhard grossgasteiger on Pexels.com

    Today is Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter for Christians around the world who will focus particularly on the miracles of resurrections in words and songs during the next seven days. He is Risen, the New Testament gospels proclaim. Hallelujah.

    When I think of resurrection, I hear the rich voice of a Black woman named Maya Angelou reciting a favorite poem:

    Still I Rise

    You may write me down in history
    With your bitter, twisted lies,
    You may tread me in the very dirt
    But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

    Does my sassiness upset you?
    Why are you beset with gloom?
    ‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
    Pumping in my living room.

    Just like moons and like suns,
    With the certainty of tides,
    Just like hopes springing high,
    Still I’ll rise.

    Did you want to see me broken?
    Bowed head and lowered eyes?
    Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
    Weakened by my soulful cries.

    Does my haughtiness offend you?
    Don’t you take it awful hard
    ‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
    Diggin’ in my own back yard.

    You may shoot me with your words,
    You may cut me with your eyes,
    You may kill me with your hatefulness,
    But still, like air, I’ll rise.

    Does my sexiness upset you?
    Does it come as a surprise
    That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
    At the meeting of my thighs?

    Out of the huts of history’s shame
    I rise
    Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
    I rise
    I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
    Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
    Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
    I rise
    Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
    I rise
    Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
    I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
    I rise
    I rise
    I rise.

    Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

    ********************

    Still, like air, we can rise. Hallelujah.

     

  • March Gladness


    wishing our friends in cyberspace March Gladness!

    particularly nine-day-old Penelope a/k/a Penny

    Penny is the newest addition to our good friend Susan’s farm in Elgin – Susan loves her Gamecock women’s basketball team almost as much as she loves Penny.

    Here’s to new life in the spring, renewed hope in a future that includes another national title for Coach Staley and her Gamecock women in the NCAA tournament starting today in Columbia!

    Go Gamecocks!