Remember the days when we thought we’d see North Rowan All-American Greg Yeldell triple-jumping in the Olympics one day?

The NFL may come first.

North Rowan football coach Roger Secreast said recently that Indiana University coach Cam Cameron told him Yeldell’s junior season may be his last in Bloomington.

“He figures Yeldell might be playing on Sunday somewhere,” Secreast said.

The 5-foot-10 Yeldell, a strong safety, is up to 215 pounds, according to Secreast. But track is still dominant. He is the Big Ten indoor champion in the triple jump (53-7).

It has been a bad couple of weeks on Wall Street. How bad? Last week, Bobby Knight was seen choking his broker.

Ba-boom-boom.

West Rowan football coach Scott Young stood in the gym recently, talking with basketball coach Mike Gurley about realignment, which will take effect after next year.

Gurley definitely got the better end of the deal.

West joins East Rowan, Mooresville, North Iredell, Statesville, Northwest Cabarrus and Kannapolis in the new 3A league.

“When you look down that list, there’s some pretty good football teams,” Young whewed. “We’ll take pride in saying it’s the toughest football conference around.”

Young couldn’t believe the North Carolina High School Athletic Association chose to put Kannapolis and Concord in different conferences.

“I was shocked,” he said. “Any time they’ve been in the same classification, they’ve never been split.”

Young said there are positives and negatives with the realignment.

“The positives are that it is a competitive league and everybody’s fairly close to us,” he said. “The negative is that there are going to be some mighty good football teams sitting at home in the playoffs.

“We’re not scared of it,” added Young, who turned West’s program around with an 8-3 record last season, “but it’s definitely going to make our job tougher.”

Secreast was asked how he felt about his new 2A league, which dropped defending state 2A champ High Point Central and North Stanly, while picking up 0-11 (last year)West Stokes.

“If Central’s not in it, then it won’t be as strong,” he said. “And we’ve always had trouble beating North Stanly.

“But Inever really care who we play anyway.”

Bob Costas: “While playing in Japan, the cubs expanded their fan base. They became the first team to be heckled by Buddhist monks.”

Know what I really hate about the NBA? Everyone has to shorten his name.

Chris Webber has become C-Webb. Jason Williams has become J-Will. David robinson is now D-Rob.

It took Lennox Lewis about five minutes to defeat Michael Grant in a heavyweight boxing match last week.

Lou Grant had a better chance of beating Lewis.

West Rowan’s Henry Kluttz won an award last week from the NCHSAA for his work in athletics.

That was quite a brawl between Detroit and Chicago last week, wasn’t it.

Baseball statisticians say it was the first time the Tigers have hit anything all season.

If injuries take their toll on Jim Baker’s Catawba basketball team next year, the coach may have his own version of UNC’s Julius Peppers waiting in the wings.

Luke Samples, a husky, 6-3, 205-pound quarterback who signed with David Bennett’s football team out of East Wilkes High School, averaged 23.5 points, 14 rebounds and 6.3 assists his senior year. He was player of the year in his conference.

Just thought you ought to know, Jim.

North Rowan quarterback Mario Sturdivant is looking to play next year as either a junior college or Division IIschool.

The big-name junior colleges, like Garden City (Ks.) would love to have the Shrine Bowl signal-caller who threw for about a million yards in his Cavalier career.

Secreast said Sturdivant is leaning toward Wingate if he takes the Division IIroute.

“He liked their facilities and they run the same type of offense that we do,” Secreast said.

I read where the stock market was down 617 points on Wall Street. That sounds like halftime of a Clippers game.

Has anyone had worse luck than Catawba’s former All-American basketball player Marvin Moore?

He had tryout with the Miami Heat and the Charlotte Hornets and was all set to go overseas to play in Turkey when an earthquake hit. His family’s home burned down in Ahoskie. He is currently teaching at Ahoskie High School, his alma-mater.

Baker actually said his 7-foot-2 Frenchman Gaetan Cogtigny, who never did much of anything here, may have a better chance at a pro career in his native land.

“On our level, it’s so much quicker,” Baker said. “There are a lot of 6-5, 6-6 kids playing inside. Gaetan will do better at a higher level.”

And finally ...

I hear there’s some good news and bad news in South Carolina.

The good news is, senators decided to take that Confederate flag down.

The bad news is, they replaced it with a statue of John Rocker.