West Texas

 Via The Baltimore Sun, this was an interesting story about a guy out in Mason, Texas, Chris Hicks, who watched a story on Viceland that led him to give to a place called Kids Safe Zone, a safe haven for kids in the violent, impoverished and drug-riddled West Baltimore neighborhood and Hicks ended up becoming their biggest donor. Hicks also attended Texas Tech, hence the connection here. This story made my Sunday.

Texas Tech Baseball

 Steven Gingery is very good at baseball.

Team USA beats Chinese Taipei 8-6 to sweep the series. @OU_Baseball OF Steele Walker series mvp. Steven Gingery of @TTU_Baseball top pitcher pic.twitter.com/3ua5OouJLc

— Aaron Fitt (@aaronfitt) July 2, 2017

Texas Tech Basketball

 LAJ’s Don Williams spoke with Tony Battie about his induction into the Texas Tech Hall of Fame this fall, what he’s doing now and what he remembers most about Lubbock:

“I’ve always had a soft spot for Tech and all the good people there that had a lot to do with a young boy growing into a young man,” Battie said. “Lubbock was great for me. I really enjoyed my time there and was just extremely happy.”

Asked what he remembered most, Battie said, “Just the whole college experience. Where do I start?”

He named “the school itself,” going to football games, the 30-win season and even the seemingly ordinary experiences.

“Leaving my mom’s house into my own dorm and then from there into an apartment with Cory Carr,” he said. “Those are small steps. It doesn’t sound like much now, but all of that was huge in my walk as I continued to grow not only as an athlete, but as a man.”

Texas Tech Football

This was posted the same day that Cam Batson ran three 4.3 40-yard dashes, from LAJ’s Don Williams, Williams spoke with Rusty Whitt a bit about the strength and conditioning program and the strength portion of why lifting helps increase speed:

Natural talent helps a guy get separation. Being strong ties into it, too; hence, the reason Whitt and his staff emphasize fundamentals in the weight room, on the dead lift, the squat, the bench, the power clean and so on.

“Like coach Salwasser would tell you, in your first three steps in a sprint, you achieve 50 percent of your total max speed at 40 yards,” Whitt said, “so your first three steps are so important. That’s why we do all our power cleaning and working on those initial steps and your technique. Coming out of a football stance and being explosive, we put a lot of pride in that. In order to be explosive, you’ve got to be strong. The best way to get fast initially is to get your total body strength.”

There’s a lot more there if you’re into that sort of thing and it’s a good read.

 This is something that I’ll do a bigger post on, but Phil Steele has his “Stock Market Indicator” that gives an indicator of teams that will improve or be worse in comparison to last year. Wanna guess if Texas Tech is a team to improve or be worse? Well, you’ll be surprised that Texas Tech has a winning percentage of 64.6%

Via FanRag Sports, can Kerry Hyder replicate 2016?

Now, after leading the Lions in sacks in the 2016 season, he is still not guaranteed a starting spot on a team desperately looking for strong pass rushers.

Hyder knows he has to prove himself all over again in training camp and the preseason. The good news is that he knows that’s where he shines.

“Nothing about this has been easy for me and I don’t plan for it to start being easy,” he said. “I didn’t accomplish all my goals. My goals are for us to win more games and win in the playoffs. That got cut short last year.”

Miscellaneous . . . via the Waco Tribune, one of the former Baylor regents called students suspected of drinking as “perverted little tarts” . . .