Congratulations to the Northshore High School boys basketball team that made it all the way to the state 5A championship last week.
The Panthers did lose in the title game to Zachary, a team that is a perennial state contender and notched its second straight state championship, but the season performance by the Northshore team is something they will not soon forgot—nor should they.
I spent my first 15 years as a sports writer here in Slidell, covering all the area high school teams, so I know a thing or two about prep sports. And the very clear fact about all the competition is this: Making a run to any state championship game is very, very difficult to do.
For the Northshore boys basketball team it was actually the first time they had ever made it to the state semi-finals on their way to an impression 28-7 overall record. For that matter, the Panthers were only seeded 11th in the state playoffs when the action began, and defeated the number 3 and 6 rated teams in the state, both in road victories, to make it to the title game.
The team is coached by Josh Carlin, a rather familiar name in local coaching circles. His father, Jay, would most probably be considered the greatest high school basketball coach in Slidell history after he headed the Salmen High program for many years. Jay was later named to the Louisiana Coaches Hall of Fame.
Josh spent 11 years as an assistant coach under his father at Salmen, then headed the Spartan program for two years before coming to Northshore this past season as his first year there. So the feat of making the title game is even more incredible when you understand much about sports, knowing that a first year coach needs to mold a team together with chemistry and just the right talent to be successful. Clearly, Josh is becoming a chip off the old block.
While The Slidell Independent does not cover prep sports in-depth, we are happy to give attention to any teams or players who achieve a level of greatness, so you can look for some extensive coverage of the team, with pictures, in next week’s edition of the paper.
But for now, congrats Panthers. That was quite a ride you had this year.
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I ran into a longtime friend at the Chamber Candidate’s Forum last week at the Auditorium, and heard an interesting story from Anna Merle Merritt, someone many of you know quite well from her 40 years teaching and working in the Slidell public school system.
Anna Merle is now 84 years young and is one of those people you have to admire for the fact she is not about to sit home in her retirement and watch TV all day. She seems to show up at more-and-more local events, and is always a pleasure to chat with.
She told me last week that she has tons of friends because she decided during the early years of computers “that I was going to learn about computers and stay connected.” Follow that up with Facebook and Anna Merle is an active participant online where she said she is constantly talking to former students. And if you consider she had about 180 new kids to teach each year, that is a lot!
She later went on to teach computer classes at Southeastern, but her willingness to remain “computer savvy” has paid off big time, keeping her aware of all the local happenings, which she makes sure to attend frequently, not to mention so many friends she has re-connected with.
I love the stories of anyone getting older and not becoming someone who needs to ask the young people for help with their computer. That’s something we all need to do.
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Larry Gillio, owner/operator of Ace Hardware on Robert Boulevard, is another guy who makes the rounds to tons of public events. Larry is a great local businessman in that he supports many non-profit events and organizations, as well as Slidell owned businesses.
However, some of that support might have cost him a little something, he told me.
During COVID, Larry said “I ate at every local restaurant I could throughout the whole thing since I wanted to support them as they have done to me for years.”
The result?
He calls it “the COVID 20!”
But if you know Larry as many of us do, he just gave it a good laugh.
“That’s alright,” he said. “At least I enjoyed a lot of great Slidell restaurants.”
Larry said that the local support of his store during COVID helped him do well during the past two years, and he is now considering a second location in Slidell.
Keep your eyes open, and keep your eyes on The Slidell Independent for all the breaking news.
Kevin Chiri can be reached by e-mail at kevinchiri@gmail.com.