Always be a good sport regardless of the score
High school football returns to the Shoals this week with games slated for both Thursday and Friday nights.
The hoopla and excitement that will mark season openers has been commonplace for decades in the region. Football remains a rite of passage for high schoolers in Alabama. Fans feed off the energy of each game, and bragging rights are established as the season wears on.
The action on local football fields is a rich part of the fall tradition in the Shoals. Each weekend hundreds of fans will fill into stadiums wearing the colors of their alma maters. Each loss will evoke memories of past heartbreaking defeats. Every touchdown will spur recollections of some spectacular scoring drive of another season.
But foremost in everyone’s mind will be the new chapter that will be written this football season. The accomplishments on the field will become fodder for conversations in years to come. We’ll recall the struggles and the lessons learned from those hardships. We’ll beam with pride when discussing the victories. The final scores captured in the lights of scoreboards will remain vividly in our memories.
All these ingredients combine to make football season the favorite time of year for many fans.
Today, those die-hard enthusiasts can stop counting down the days. A new season has arrived.
But as we get ready for the 2025 season, we urge fans, coaches and players alike to be mindful that while winning is important, it’s not the only aspect of this sport that should be emphasized. Players should be held to a high degree of sportsmanship no matter what the final score is.
That applies to fans in the stands as well. Your job is to provide positive support for your team, and to treat with respect the coaches and players from both teams, as well as the officials calling the game.
Remember this: As a fan, the way you act will be a reflection on yourself, your team, your city and the Shoals.
Realities of police work Red Bay Police Department officers are undergoing some virtual reality training.
Police officers often find themselves in unpredictable or high-pressure situations. During these times, those officers may need to make life-changing choices within seconds. That’s seconds, not minutes.
Virtual reality training helps prepare those officers to make the best possible choices in those often chaotic situations, said Police Chief Janna Jackson.
The officers are being put through scenario-based training that focuses on handling cases involving individuals with mental illnesses or disabilities such as autism, domestic violence cases, and robberies in progress. The goal of the training is to help the officers improve their response times, increase their awareness of challenging situations, and reduce their risk for error.
It’s invaluable and necessary training in today’s society, said Jackson.
“It helps officers learn how the public perceives law enforcement encounters and how their own responses can shape the outcome,” Jackson said.
In addition, the department’s officers have been given new TASER 10 energy weapons that are more accurate and can be deployed from a safer distance, reducing risk to officers.
The third new piece of equipment is a drone with thermal imaging, which can be used in search-and-rescue efforts, building clearing exercises, and aerial documentation of crime scenes and serious vehicular crashes.
