Tony’s Take | Fear the Bow | Wild West | SEC | Max | Edition 109 

By Tony Duckworth, [email protected]

Fear the Bow.  I am always aware of the Little League World Series, but I don’t get consumed by it.  Having umpired youth baseball, I have always been impressed with the skill, determination, and poise of these kids playing on national TV.  To be eligible to play in Williamsport, players can’t turn 13 before August 31 of the current year.    

On Monday, I turned on the LLWS on ESPN while I was prepping for this week’s column.  I’m glad I did. I was able to watch nearby Phenix City, AL, win in a walk-off comeback after trailing 0-5. 

Kinley Rasmus caught my attention.  This girl’s got game. After watching her play, it’s no secret she has her own tagline.  The tagline reads ‘Fear the Bow’ since she wears a signature bow in her hair in a dugout full of boys.  Kinley is the 25th girl to play in the LLWS, but she may end up being the best. 

Kinley not only has command in the box, but she is in control on the mound. Beyond her ability to pitch, I saw her come off the mound and field a ball barehanded on the third-base line and gun down the batter-runner before he reached first base.  Kinley tossed six scoreless innings and struck out eight in her LLWS debut. Her eight strikeouts tied the record for the most by a female pitcher in an LLWS game, and she now has 14 K’s to tie the record for a girl in the LLWS.  By the way, Kinley plays shortstop, and she makes both routine and difficult plays at SS.   

Fansided reports that Kinley’s dad pitched 123 innings in four seasons after being drafted in the first round by the Braves in 2006.   

Because of the bow, I will pay closer attention as Kinsley chases LLWS history. 

Wild West.  A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about stopping madness in CFB. At that time, I mentioned the importance of the NCAA winning a lawsuit given its track record of losses in recent years.  At that time, a group of student-athletes had filed a lawsuit to gain their 5th year of eligibility despite the NCAA having legislation in place to not allow last year’s seniors to return to competition in 2026 – 27. 

Over the weekend, news broke that Lane Kiffin was recruiting an NFL rookie from the Browns.  One of Kiffin’s former Ole Miss players entered the transfer portal due to an judges injunction allowing the student-athletes to return for their 5th season of eligibility. 

I am not a fan of the ruling, but don’t blame the players or Kiffin.  Bad court rulings don’t make it an NCAA violation.  If allowed, Kiffin is right in saying, “At the end of the day, because of these rulings, they’re either going to play for you or they’re going to play for someone else around the country”. 

SEC.  ESPN’s Heather Dinich reports that the SEC joined the BIG10 in unanimously opposing players departing the NFL to join college rosters.  The NCAA has always allowed conferences the autonomy to have more stringent rules than the association.  This ruling also applies to players who are part of the NBA and WNBA.  

If the unanimous support is true, it appears that the LSU Lane Kiffin experiment is dead on arrival since this included LSU’s Chancelor and Athletics Director. However, stay tuned, given you never know what to expect hour to hour in the new landscape of intercollegiate athletics. 

Max.  Little Ann will always have a special place in my memories.  She was the first dog I called my own before I was a teen growing up in rural Middle Georgia. My older brother’s dog was Old Dan. Years later, I moved my family to Tahlequah, OK, where the two dogs were fixtures in the book Where the Red Fern Grows. 

We adopted a kitten in year two of nine in Tahlequah while I served as Director of Athletics at Northeastern State University.  Thirteen years later, we laid the big orange cat to rest on Tuesday.  He was by far the best pet Amy and I had 29 years into our marriage.  Max will be missed.   

Tony Duckworth is a native of Macon and is the President and CEO of the Albany Area YMCA. Tony worked in intercollegiate athletics for thirty-one years. He was an NCAA Division II Director of Athletics at three universities following ten years as a head men’s basketball coach at two colleges. eMail Tony Duckworth at [email protected].