What I do all day

It's time for some self promotion. See the links below for some recent stories I have written for the paper. And I know, our Web site is pretty lousy. We are in the process of creating a new site and the tentative launch date is March 1.


I wrote a piece on a local basketball player that was in a car accident a few months ago. Her left lung collapsed twice as a result of the crash, but she has returned to the team. She scored a team-high 16 points the other night in a win! One of her teammates has also been out with an injury -- plantar fasciitis (I know ONE of you knows all too well what that is) -- so I wrote something on that as well. The plantar fasciitis was a web-only story but the other one was above the fold on A1!! That's pretty big for a sports guy like me who usually has stuff buried on the sports page.

Rising to the challenge (collapsed lung)

Three best friends minus one (plantar fasciitis)

Leave me a comment with your thoughts on those stories because I am thinking about entering them in the Virginia Press Association's annual awards as one package.


I am not into wrestling and basically know nothing about the sport, but I learned a little bit when I was at a big opening-of-the-season meet last Friday. We ran a bunch of stuff for the wrestling preview, which included this story. I was proud of my "choke hold" comment in the second graf.


One of the teams we cover, Chantilly, had an incredible postseason and made it to the state football final in Division 6. But in the first playoff game against undefeated Westfield -- a team that clearly should have beaten the then 8-3 Chargers -- something happened to their quarterback. He was hit in the first quarter and suffered a concussion. He was taken off the field in an ambulance, driven to an adjacent field and left the school grounds in a helicopter! He made a speedy recovery and played in the state final last weekend, which Chantilly lost.

Anyway, I wrote a story on the injury and the scene that unfolded in front of everyone. The kid was lucky to be OK because it was a pretty violent helmet-to-helmet hit. Click here to check it out.


Enjoy

-Jason