November 22

Found out what happened on Tuesday night at Reservoir Park in my absence: the Steamers wrapped up the East Finals with a win over the UniLords, in the West semifinals the Kings and Owls advanced to the championship round which begins on Tuesday the 28th. Had lunch with Jenny on Wednesday morning, in the evening I was back at the Arena for a special non-hockey event. In March of 2017 the Reading High School basketball team won the state title, graduating senior Lonnie Walker was the on-court leader of that squad. Lonnie is in his freshman year at the University Of Miami, on this night he and his teammates played a "home" game at the Arena. Lasalle University (from Philadelphia) was the opponent, they had a reasonable following in attendance but for the most part the crowd was very partisan in favor of Miami. The Royals management asked me to handle the PA since Miami's regular guy didn't make the trip, I coordinated with the school's athletic director of marketing and there were no issues at all. The game started at 6:00 before a near-sellout crowd, later in the night it was announced that better than 6700 were in the house. Walker was not in the starting lineup but when he entered early in the game he received the Hero's Welcome, he played twenty-seven of the game's forty minutes and scored five points. The game wound down around 7:45 or so, Miami won it 57-46 (a low-scoring game for college but it's still early in the season). The game rightfully received a great deal of media attention, the game was broadcast on each school's radio network and the local station in Reading did its own broadcast as well. There are projections that Lonnie Walker could be a one-year college player, many so-called draft experts see him as a possible first-round professional pick in 2018. Nobody can know for sure (least of all me) but it's safe to say that all of Berks County is rooting for him. Take care, thanks for reading.