The 1000th follower(s)

 I recently passed the modest level of 1000 followers on X.  I know a lot of great sports accounts would think that to be a paltry number but I feel good about the types of followers that are reading about Gramp's Braggin' Rights ratings and a few of my infrequent blogs.

Amongst the 1000 are athletes, high school coaches, and athletic directors from throughout the state.  Many of them are convinced that Gramp's ratings are far better than the polls put out by the coaches' association, sports accounts, and area newspapers.  There are about 500 of these followers and about 500 fans, parents, and former players.  It has been gratifying to have learned so much about communities and their coaches and teams while doing Gramps ratings.

I picked up the 1000th follower on Sunday afternoon and I had a hard time picking so I chose two.  They are both remarkable coaches and individuals.

The first one turned out to be Jason Culpepper, who had followed me with his personal account last year.  He added me to their Tipton Lady Cardinals and Tipton HS activities accounts.

Jason Culpepper is the Tipton's girls coach.  The town of Tipton is about halfway between Jefferson City and Sedalia with a population of 3,262 and about 230 students from seventh through 12th grade.

Tipton was the class two state champion last March, claiming their first ever state title versus St. Joseph LeBlond, avenging their only loss of the season by LeBlond.  According to Culpepper, the girls learned a valuable lesson in the loss to LeBlond that helped them roll through class two competition and beat LeBlond the second and most important time... the state final.

According to Jason, "I followed you on my personal account last year. I think you do a really good job of ranking classes 1-6 across the entire state. I also don’t notice you having a bias towards a certain region which I appreciate. I also felt like your rankings are more accurate than the coaches' poll in some cases. Hopefully, the new format we are using for the coaches' poll will help with that issue".

"I think for the lady cardinals the biggest compliment we’ve gotten this season was from spectators at Linn this week that have never seen us. They both said “Your girls play defense to perfection and they are a joy to watch”. We take pride in our defense and our ability to defend teams like Fatima and hold them to 33 points".

"Not much to say about me. Just a guy who’s been coaching at Tipton since I was 20. Entering my 13th season as the coach and very blessed to have had some really talented, hard-working kids that have great parents. They allow me to coach them and together we get the most out of our team every year".

It thrills me to have state championship coaches who believe in the ratings statistics I work so hard to calculate. It is the only "poll" in the state with all teams assigned a meaningful numeric rating.

The other follower that chimed in at 1000 was coach Cody Stoneburner of North Shelby. Cody was actually a new follower, so he is the official 1000th. Cody was quite the high school basketball player, standing at 6'10" tall and weighing 220 pounds, back at North Shelby back in 2003 and 2004, blocking 755 shots in his career (over 9 blocks per game each of those years). I believe those are state records for both career blocks and blocks per game.

North Shelby HS is located in Shelbyville, MO, a little over halfway between Hannibal and Macon and just north of Highway 36, and home to about 518 people and 127 students in 7-12.

North Shelby lost a tightly contested game to Higbee. 65-63, at the Norm Stewart Classis on December 9th. In looking up Stoneburner and North Shelby, I actually found out that Norm Stewart grew up in North Shelby.

One of the highlights of the Classic, was the team got to meet Coach Stewart. The team was class one district 11 champs two years ago and hoped to go further this year. They will have to get by Atlanta and Marion County to do that.

"Hey Gramps, I just recently heard about your rankings, from our principal and former coach of the Raiders, Landon Daniel. I've loved looking at your rankings so far this year.

As for me, I am a graduate of North Shelby in 2005, I was on the 2nd place state team in 2003 and the state championship team in 2005. I assisted in coaching the boys for 2 years, then head coached the girls for 5 years, then went to south Shelby where I coached boys and girls for 2 years, and then BACK to North Shelby as assistant boys coach for 2 years, and now I have been the head coach for 2 years.

My Raiders are 2 years removed from an elite 8 appearance, last year we were 14-13 and lost in the district semi-final, this year we are currently 2-5 and have played a very difficult schedule with losses to Scotland Co, Clark Co, Higbee, Marion Co, and Monroe City. At the start of the year, we only had 3 boys with driver's licenses, so we are very very young but we are progressing nicely. Anything else you'd like to know I'd love to talk about my program."

What I love about doing Gramps ratings is that I learn about so many programs around the state and how they have turned it around (like Coach Culpepper) or are working at turning it around, like Coach Stoneburner. In some cases, I have introduced myself to a coach after a game. The usual reaction, "Hey, you are the infamous Gramps.... Love your ratings!"

I have also learned about Missouri's geography. Or, at least, a little. When I look at the Missouri state map, I will be able to tell you where Tipton and North Shelby are and who's coaching over there.

Thanks for your support.

Continued success with your programs, Coach Culpepper and Stoneburner.

And if you are driving through Tipton or Shelbyville, give them a honk and watch out for those young drivers, especially in Shelbyville.