Offbeat game preview

Hey folks...

This one of about three preview stories which ran before one of our football teams hosted a state semifinal.

Do Debbie Crowe a favor. Don't read this story. OK.
You can read it. But realize
something: Crowe is not the biggest, most loyal or
most enduring fan pulling for
Manatee High football. Understand people have been
going to games longer than
Crowe has lived in Bradenton. And keep in mind Crowe
and her husband, Bob, may
own The Shake Pit. But it belongs to the people who
frequent it.

"I'm just the keeper of the Pit," Crowe said Tuesday
afternoon as her
burger-and-shake shop began to feel the push of the
lunch rush.

The Pit is the keeper of the buzz. The small shack
located at 3801 Manatee Ave.
W. is a hub for everything Hurricane, from its
employees (Manatee linebackers
Josh McCoy and Ray Morris) to the two giant Hurricane
throws hanging in the
restaurant's cozy dining area.

While other eateries may use a marquee to trumpet new
menu items or
two-for-one burger specials, Crowe's doubles as a
Greek chorus of sorts. Anyone
wondering how Manatee's football team fared on a
Friday night needs to glance at
The Shake Pit's sign, which read "Canes Win, Feathers
Flew, Now Off To Round 2"
after Manatee knocked off the Cape Coral Seahawks in
the opening round of this
year's Class 5A playoffs.

The Canes, who host Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aqunias
in a state semifinal
game at 7:30 p.m. Friday, are back in the final four
for the first time since 1994,
and the hype around the Pit is almost as palpable as
the scent of burgers wafting
from the grill. Newspaper clippings and other
Hurricane trinkets hang from the
shop's walls, and Crowe's cramped office is one part
business, replete with fliers
detailing child-labor laws and safe working
conditions, and one part museum --- a
jacket worn by a member of Manatee's '92 state
championship team is on display
near the door.

It was a gift from a customer.

"He saw the stuff in here, and he brought it in," said
Crowe, who grew up in Moon,
Pa., and has owned The Shake Pit for five years. "I
told him, and I tell them all, 'It
stays with (The) Shake Pit forever.' "

Manatee's success this fall is a new experience for
Crowe, who didn't own the Pit
when the Canes won four state titles from 1983-92. But
for the Manatee
die-hards, it's a throwback to a time when playing
football deep into November was
expected. The Shake Pit is just one example of this
fall's hysteria, which began to
brew when head coach Joe Kinnan came out of
retirement.

"The community, at large now, is excited," said Gene
Brown, president of the
Manatee High Football Booster Club. "Sometimes, you
have to have something to
set you back to then go forward again. It wasn't a
setback --- it was Joe retiring.

"(It still would have been exciting) if another coach
had come in and done this, and
we were in the semifinal. But you still have that
chemistry that Joe always has."

Crowe has done her part to add some spice. She brought
rocking ponies into
Manatee's locker room when the Hurricanes played
Lakewood Ranch, and supplied
an inflatable whale --- "Shamu" --- for their game
against the Punta Gorda
Charlotte Tarpons. Yet Crowe is thoughtful in her
revelry. In light of this season's
battering batch of storms, she has dropped any mention
of the word "hurricane"
and has decided to base her ideas around candy canes.
Any Shake Pit employees
enrolled in other area schools are free to wear their
school colors every Friday ---
"Spirit Day" --- and Crowe, whose daughter is a
junior-varsity cheerleader, lets her
staff have Fridays off. Consequently, she has never
seen a Manatee football game
played to completion. Instead, she listens on the
radio and stands in a doorway
that Crowe refers to as a "lucky horse shoe."

"It's cool what she's doing," said Shake Pit employee
Bobby Santiago, a Bayshore
graduate who has started to warm to Manatee football.
"These kids are really
good. And they don't have any real stars --- it's the
whole team."

Crowe shares a similar sentiment about rooting for the
Canes. This isn't about
her. It's about the kids who work hard and the fans
who loyalty support them. It's
about the alumni, some of whom will return to Joe
Kinnan Field at Hawkins Stadium
for a 6 p.m. pre-game cookout Friday, and the guys who
broadcast every game on
the radio.

"Everybody in this community is for the kids," Crowe
said. "And that's what we as
adults are meant to do."

 

I'm open to any comments/critiques anyone has.

 

Lem,

See edit above.

I remember this restaurant from your other story. Good idea to base a feature there. I think in the main, it's fine. Where I've questioned word choices, I'm concerned either about precision (words that don't mean exactly what you need them to mean); words that call uneccessary attention to themselves; or words that weaken a sentence rather than strengthen it.

Also, a couple of compound/complex sentences that are sort of overstuffed. Too much information in too many clauses. Break them up into shorter sentences. It helps with both meaning and meter.

And while I understand that Booster Lady calls them the Canes, I'd think your paper's style is 'Canes.

I'd also like to see a (brief) description of her, and of the restaurant.

Thanks for posting.

 

I stopped after the second sentence. I have too much respect for Debbie Crowe to do otherwise.

 

Style is Canes.

 

Then I stand corrected. Thanks.

 

Thaks jg. Good points.

And Mo, Debbie Crowe thanks you

 

More generally -- this is the type of story that every game preview, particularly high school, should be. No one needs an X's and O's preview of what each team has -- there are capsules for that. A job well done. I'm inspired, and all beat writers should take note.

 

Thanks, Coop.