Linked Up – 4/19/13

“Retired” Portland track coach Arnie Liscombe (left) is still very much a part of the program. Middletown Press photo by Catherine Avalone.

This edition of Linked Up is admittedly a bit maudlin and sentimental. As this sentence is typed, there is a manhunt going on in the Boston area, in the days following a heartbreaking tragedy. Yet as has been frequently pointed out these terrible events often bring out the best in humanity as people pull together. Similarly, when talented writers tackle the immense emotion in such situations, it produces brilliant and touching pieces of writing. Which is what Linked Up, in many ways, is about, so those pieces dealing with the aftermath of the bombing are provided here. Let us also not forget there are still many great Connecticut high school sports stories being written, and we have plenty of those as well. The underlined story separates the two sections if readers would rather skip more coverage of the marathon.

• From Sports On Earth: The great Leigh Montville with a must-read piece on the tragedy at the Boston Marathon and then on the continuing strength of the city.
• From the Boston Globe: Perspective from the Boston Globe on the heartbreak on Patriots Day.
• From ESPN.com: Bonnie Ford tries to make sense of a senseless day in Boston.
• From Yahoo Sports.com: Wonderful story from Dan Wetzel with more thoughts on the unthinkable act in Boston.
• From the Hartford Courant: A local perspective from Jeff Jacobs on the tragedy, and from Lori Riley who was there.
• From Grantland.com: Charles P. Pierce explains how it will be awhile until the marathon is back to normal.

From this point on are non-marathon-related links.

• From the Middletown Press: Portland track & field coach Arnie Liscombe is technically retired, but it is really hard to tell. 
• From OregonLive.com: With school budgets in flux, athletics teams are getting creative with their fund-raising efforts.
• From the Hartford Courant: Remarkably, cystic fibrosis has not slowed the athletic prowess of Courtney Peterson of Glastonbury.
• From the Greenwich Post: The Greenwich girls lacrosse team is trying to handle the pressure of a “three-peat.”
• From the New Haven Register: It  wasn’t easy at the beginning for Elliott Antler, but his persistence paid off with a remarkable wrestling senior season.
• From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: An op-ed piece discussing the current culture of high school sports. Very insightful and well stated.
• From the New London Day: Megan Gada of NFA is driven to succeed in everything she does.
• From the Reno Gazette Journal: CIACsports.com has addressed this issue before, but this is some excellent in-depth reporting and storytelling on the recent OCR ruling regarding athletics participation for students with disabilities.
• From the Norwalk Hour: The McNulty husband and wife team provide a solid foundation for the Staples boys lacrosse team.
• From the Connecticut Post: The Oxford boys volleyball has taken its game to a new level and has some big ambitions.
• From the Stamford Advocate: The New Canaan baseball team remembers the low point, and is trying to maintain its rise.