Listing the reasons the Buffalo Gap baseball program will miss Chad Coffey would be an exercise in folly.

There are two reasons that fans attend Valley League Baseball games, particularly in the South Division — baseball and food.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Michigan teaching fly-fishing to some Michigan State University graduate students, their friends and their colleagues. This is the third year that I have had the pleasure of teaching these ladies the fine art of fly-fishing.

“Now remember,” he says, leaning forward toward the desk to get to the unframed snapshot, “this was 42 years and 100 pounds ago.”

After traveling though the carbon-monoxide maw lined with stop-and-go-make-up-your-mind-already stoplights called Richmond Road, past a downtown that reeks of history, hoity-toit and teen angst — from the looks of those hanging outside a store called the “Dragon’s Horde” — you finally reach the jewel.

All he did was lead the team to its first regional berth in nine years.

The $70 million in funding for a new youth conservation education initiative proposed by the Obama administration recently got a bit of attention in Washington.

Coach Scott Crist gathered his Green Hornets around him.

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Don’t put those crazy college photos on Facebook.

The players don’t come all at once, but in waves.

As most readers know I spend a fair amount of time in Washington.

What? You’re expecting to read about the three that’s-Waynesboro seniors walking off the field for the last time?

Think what you want.

If watching Jeremy Fitzgerald play American Legion ball opened up a college coach’s eyes, then Terrell Thompson running the base paths must have grabbed him by the neck and shaken him to next Sunday.

Maybe it’s because it takes 27 minutes and 39 seconds for Jeremy Fitzgerald to finally stop bouncing his back against the folded-up bleachers in a dark Stuarts Draft gym.

Excuse David Van Covern if he almost “fell out of his chair” when he got the news.

On Monday I was in Washington, D.C. to participate in the Jim Range National Casting Call. I also had the privilege that evening to be the Master of Ceremonies at the event celebrating the life and conservation legacy of Jim Range, my dear friend who tragically died in January from cancer.

Sis would just have to do.

All that stood between Sam Bowman and his second goal of the season was a little bit of grass, some exposed red clay and a Page County goal keeper who was having a hard time keeping anything out of the net.

While Stuarts Draft coach Michelle Campbell might speak in a quieter tone about her team, the confidence she has in the future of her girls still comes through.

For all the bad news coming out of our nation’s capital, sometimes our elected officials actually introduce legislation that makes good sense for conservation.

This isn’t about a basketball game. Don’t let the orange flier with a rim, net and, of course, basketball on it fool you.

The hand came over my left shoulder as I sat there taking notes during Stuarts Draft’s 14-0 win over Waynesboro in softball last Thursday.

Aquatic nuisance species are a growing concern in the fishing and boating community. While many of us who hunt and fish care a great deal about conserving and protecting our habitat, we may be ignoring a growing problem.

She looked like a soccer player herself. But soccer players don’t carry star-shaped Mylar balloons with “100” written on them. Right?

Dickie Bell didn’t need someone to come in his hole-in-the-wall office and tell the Riverheads boys soccer coach that he was one win away from 100 (though, someone did).

I guess it’s the cynical journalist I wear on my sleeve like a cuff link that had me feeling the battle for indoor track was a losing one.

They waited in the hallway together. One by one they reminisced about the season. Spoke about the loss. Tried not to cry. And Kendra Scott, the wounded warrior, was the last one to talk.

You know a lot about Buffalo Gap’s girls basketball team. So we shan’t insult your intelligence. So don’t look for us to laud this team’s aggressive defense or hard-nosed play under the rim. No sir. No way. No how. This you know already.

Every now and then a basketball game lives up to the hype — and that was clearly the case Thursday morning when Buffalo Gap matched up against Franklin in a Group A, Division 1 semifinal game. Each are well-coached high school teams and last met in the 2008 state finals, where the Bison claimed the title with a convincing 83-66 victory.