Friday nights during the fall center around high school football, but kickoffs will also be taking place on Thursday nights to help cope with a shortage of game officials. The Poplar Bluff Mules are scheduled to play at Sikeston on Thursday, Sept. 22, this season...

Twenty-one games into his season your shortstop has driven in just five runs with a slugging percentage of .217. Fans are clamoring for something to be done about his lack of production. Should you bring up the 21-year-old infield prospect that just moved up to Triple-A or make a trade?...

T his weekend Steve Rhodes and Don Metz will be standing next to the No. 1 tee at Westwood Hills Country Club just as they have during the final weekend in April just about every year. Their job is to make sure every single one of the 128 players start the Tom Hoover Ozark Invitational on time and answer any questions they might have before starting their round...

When he was a senior in high school, Tony Webb had just set the career scoring record after playing four years of basketball at Poplar Bluff and played his final game in front of friends in family during an all-star event. “It was really cool and I noticed when they did it they used to have the small schools vs. the small schools,” Webb recalled recently...

This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Education Amendments of the Civil Rights Act and the landmark Title IX section that ensured gender equity. The following year, MSHSAA held its first state championship in girls basketball...

Darian Webb held up his left wrist and asked his teammates to pop it back out Tuesday night. The Poplar Bluff senior had just gotten a steal on the other end of the Senior High Gym and was attempting a layup just as he had done many times before. This time, however, Webb landed on that left wrist...

Basketball recently celebrated its 130th birthday when James Naismith set up the first game at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Massachusetts, using a soccer ball and two peach baskets attached to a balcony 10 feet above the floor...

The Heisman Trophy will be awarded tonight to the most outstanding college football player for the 87th time and along with three quarterbacks, Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson is looking to become the first winner who did not play snaps on offense...

A pair of Poplar Bluff natives are making the trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship football game Saturday night to see their grandson play. Lee James Gladney and Tina Blackman-Gladney have been following the Pitt football team the last two seasons to watch No. 3 Jordan Addison, who is the son of their oldest daughter Keisha Blackman-Gladney...

At the start of the season, the Poplar Bluff football team had just one returning starter back on the offensive line and questions if the Mules had made enough progress to close the gap with Jackson. The line held up as the offense scored more points than any other Mules team and nobody was able to keep pace with the defending state champions better than Poplar Bluff...

A manager of a baseball team is not much different than any other middle management employee at any company, we just tend to care more about the decision-making process in baseball. Mike Shildt, it seems, did not see eye to eye with his boss and so on Thursday he was fired as the St. Louis Cardinals manager...

If there was a penalty flag thrown after the whistle Friday night, you can be sure the Poplar Bluff sideline made a collective groan. Just like seeing a flag near the line of scrimmage and knowing that there will be a holding penalty called, or that a pre-snap whistle will mean a 5-yard penalty on the offense, a penalty flag flying at the end of a play is usually a bad sign. It’s likely going to mean 15 yards for one team because of a personal foul or unsportsmenlike conduct...

Joe Scott is being honored this weekend in Columbia by the University of Missouri as part of the 2021 Class to the Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame. The Poplar Bluff resident is among 10 former Tigers to be honored during a private ceremony Friday night at the Tiger Hotel and again today at the football game between Mizzou and Tennessee...

The caravan pulled out of Tom Hoover Way just before 11 a.m. Friday, heading to Columbia. The Mules football team was scheduled to kick off in eight hours against Battle in that city. Everybody loaded up in a charter bus, a small school bus and a few pickup trucks for the journey...

Two weeks ago the St. Louis Cardinals were given a 2.8% chance of making the playoffs according to a website that tracks such things. They entered Friday a half game in the lead for the final playoff spot in the National League. Now the computer at fangraphs.com says the Cardinals have a 41.2% chance of making the playoffs...

Friday marked the first day of contests for the new school year in Missouri and also when MSHSAA set the stage for the fall sports postseason. The organization that oversees state championships released class and district assignments for football, softball, boys soccer and girls tennis. Cross country will be released at a later date and boys swimming just has two classifications, of which Poplar Bluff is in the smallest, with state qualifying determined by times throughout the fall...

As the teams are being introduced Thursday night, walking in from a corn field to a play the first MLB game in Iowa next to the movie set built for “Field of Dreams,” my wife admits she’s never seen the movie. “It looks stupid,” she adds as I try frantically search the TV to see if we can watch it...

Another season of Poplar Bluff Park Department baseball and softball will wrap up Monday when the final championship game will be held at McLane Park. The Pony League was to be decided Friday night but rain postponed the game. It’s a fitting end to a season which saw an entire week washed out at more than one point in a season that started in mid-May...

Last fall as the Tampa Bay Rays were making a postseason run and Randy Arozarena was becoming a star, it was easy for St. Louis Cardinals fans to lament about one that got away. Arozarena, and Jose Martinez, were sent to Tampa Bay for a pair of minor leaguers and a draft pick. The Cardinals had too many outfielders and not enough left-handed pitching so they traded for Matthew Liberatore. The prized prospect now pitches at Triple-A Memphis...

College sports headed into uncharted waters this week and nobody seems to know where the boat is headed or who, if anyone, is navigating. A series of court cases and laws being passed around the country have pushed the tide of compensating student-athletes and the NCAA made a slight course correction...