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Guy and Pam Smith

Guy and Pam Smith
Guy & Pam attend over 150 sporting events a year, nearly 50 of which are Pennsylvania football games. Their weekly in-season blog focuses on PIAA District 11, and this season will expand to also include Saturday PSAC NCAA D2 games. Guy runs the auto racing "TrackChaser" group, the website roamingtheraceways.com and has written a weekly column in "Area Auto Racing News" for over 40 years. Guy is retired from teaching high school computer programming, while Pam is in her final year as a professor of Speech Pathology at Bloomsburg University.
 
 
 
 

Around District 11 with Pam and Guy: 2024 Annual Review

December 30, 2024

2024.34.  We started the blog in 2021 as “PA Football News” freshmen.  Four years later, we graduate as seniors.  This is the 34th week we blogged about football this year, well above half of the weeks for the entire year.  Not too shabby! Guy made it to 64 football games this season, just a bit […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: 2024 All Snack Bar Team

December 23, 2024

2024 Episode 33.  Just for fun after the 2021 season, we came up with our first District 11 All Snack Bar Team, since one of the ways we try to support local high school football is to eat dinner at the games.  Readers got a big kick out of it, and our Snack Bar of […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: The Only Game in Town

December 17, 2024

2024 Episode 32.  We thought that our 2024 football season was over a week earlier when Northwestern Lehigh scored in overtime to defeat Avonworth for the PIAA 3A state championship.  We thought wrong. After the NCAA D3 Susquehanna River Hawks upset the Saint John’s Johnnies in Minnesota, we looked at the bracket to see where […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: 3A GOLD!

December 10, 2024

2024 Episode 31.  Since Guy retired in 2015, he has gone to all the state championship games at all classifications.  If he had gone to all six games this year, he would have set a new personal record for the number of football games seen in a year. But this year was different.  Pam had […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: And Then There Was One

December 3, 2024

2024 Episode 30.  Pam’s knee replacement rehab is going well, ahead of schedule actually.  She was able to walk a mile on day 11, and flexion measured at 92 degrees, both ahead of the two-week benchmark goals.  She made it to Bethlehem for Thanksgiving dinner with her stepfather, but she was not ready for football […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: A Saturday Double

November 27, 2024

2024 Episode 29.  Pam’s knee replacement surgery went well, and she is hitting the rehab hard, already ahead of all benchmark metrics for one week out.  However, it is likely she will miss the last three weeks of the high school season. With Guy solo, he initially chose three sporting events for the weekend:  High […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: And Then There Were Four

November 20, 2024

2024 Episode 28.  It was our last week before Pam’s first knee replacement surgery on the 19th.  If all goes well, the second one will happen six to eight weeks later.  With that in mind, it was mostly “Pam’s Pick” last week.  We ended up at PIAA 3A field hockey semi-finals on Tuesday, District 11 […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: A Game of Inches…And Seconds

November 13, 2024

2024 Episode 27.  This past week we chose high school football on Thursday and Friday.  On Saturday we went with a Wilkes University “Home Run” of Women’s Swimming, Men’s Swimming, Women’s Ice Hockey, and Wrestling.  Sunday we were on the fence between Moravian Equestrian and Bucknell Women’s Rowing, choosing the latter as it was a […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Some D11 Upsets but not in Whitehall

November 6, 2024

2024 Episode 26.  This week’s events found us at high school football Thursday and Friday, auto racing Saturday, college ice hockey on Sunday, and an unexpected field hockey game. With no fewer than six Thursday night games with D11 teams, we had more choices than ever.  Since we like to see as many different teams […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: 32-4 = Some Good Football

October 30, 2024

2024 Episode 25.  There were three football games on our schedule this week, plus one auto race.  The three games checked off a trio of mini goals for the season. Friday was Pam’s pick, but Guy gave up six of our yoga classes to stay home with a flurry of construction workers so that Pam […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Add the Subregion Teams

October 23, 2024

2024 Episode 24.  Five football games out of a six-sporting event week.  Racing on Sunday was the only other sport besides high school football Thursday, Friday, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening, and Monday. This year three 1A teams from District 2 were combined with the three 1A teams from District 11 for a Subregion come playoff […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Let’s Play Two

October 16, 2024

2024 Episode 23. It was another busy sports week for us, with seven events on our schedule including four District 11 high school football games, two varsity / two JV. Our other three this week were Wilkes NCAA D3 men’s soccer, Penn State Altoona D3 ice hockey, and a Saturday ace in New York. The […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Back Home and New Territory

October 9, 2024

2024 Episode 22. We only made a pair of games this week. On Thursday we returned to the old stomping ground at the Bethlehem Area School District to see the Freedom Patriots run their record to 7-0, fairly easily defeating previously two-loss Bethlehem Catholic in a city rivalry matchup. On Friday we ended up at […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Parity a Pipe Dream in D11

October 3, 2024

2024 Episode 21. We can’t speak for the rest of the state, but in District 11, it seems the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, so to speak. Week in and week out, there seem to be far more blowouts than close, exciting games. Take last weekend for instance. There were 24 games […]

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Around District 11 With Pam & Guy: 124 Points in Minersville

September 25, 2024

2024 Episode 20. Another three-game week for us, beginning with the crazy game in Minersville on Thursday night. On Friday, we visited the last of the six schools from outside of District 11 that were grouped with the district teams in subregions at some point from 2021-2023. The last to visit was the 6A Williamsport […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: LED & ESN Both Much Improved

September 18, 2024

2024 Episode 19. This week’s sporting events were the Shellhammer Dirt Track races Wednesday, East Stroudsburg North Timberwolves on Thursday and Shenandoah Blue Devils high school football on Friday, NCAA men’s and women’s cross country at Misericordia University on Saturday morning, NCAA field hockey at Wilkes University on Saturday afternoon, New Egypt Speedway racing on […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Thinking Outside the District

September 11, 2024

2024 Episode 18. As we reached the third week of the high school football season, football was our most attended sport last week. We kicked it off with Reading Fightin’ Phils minor league baseball Wednesday, Marian Catholic football Thursday, Executive Education football on the road Friday, NCAA women’s soccer in the Saturday afternoon rain, racing […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Thursday Night Football Begins

September 3, 2024

2024 Episode 17. After three fall seasons of football being the top priority at almost every opportunity, this year we are “rebalancing our portfolio” and diversifying a bit more this season. For the Labor Day weekend, we scheduled a split with three football games and four races. We lost one of each due to non-weather-related […]

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Around District 11 With Pam and Guy: Strong Start by D11 Schools

August 28, 2024

2024 Episode 16. High school football is back! Way better than Christmas! The teams from D11 had a good week, with the majority of schools playing teams from outside the district. And D11 had a good showing. Of the 27 (of 47) schools that played outside teams, the D11 schools won twice as many as […]

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On the GEFA Trail—The GEFA SEASON STADIUM REVIEW

August 3, 2024

2024 Episode 15. This Spring, Pam and I decided we were going to follow GEFA, the Great Eastern Football Association playing 8-main semi-pro ball, for the entire season. We didn’t commit to going to a game every week, but when we did go, we went to see different teams play each week. We never went […]

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On the GEFA Trail—A Pair of All-Star Games, GEFA and The Dream Game!

July 22, 2024

2024 Episode 14. We were planning on going to our 20th and final Spring/Summer football game this weekend, but by some luck we ended up with a 21st. This was easily the most football games we have ever attended during the spring and summer months. And although 21 is only a small percentage of the […]

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On the GEFA Trail—Keystone Bowl XX

July 16, 2024

2024 Episode 13. After an almost month-long break for us (we skipped the two weekends of playoffs), we were back on the GEFA trail for the Keystone Bowl. It’s not like we sat home for a month, as from the final regular season game on June 15 to the championship game on July 13, we […]

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On the GEFA Trail—Indiana County Crusaders

June 18, 2024

2024 Episode 12. It was the final week of the regular season, and we had been to see eight of the 11 GEFA teams play at home, plus the neutral field “Kickoff Classic” triple header. The Monroeville Titans folded early, and the Somerset County Miners home season had ended. Also, the Bedford County Buffaloes had […]

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On the GEFA Trail—Moshannon Valley Vikings

June 10, 2024

2024 Episode 11. After ten straight weeks of spring Saturday football, we took a Saturday off for Philadelphia vs. Brandywine Civil War Rules Base Ball at Burnside Plantation in Bethlehem, followed by races that evening at Wall Stadium Speedway in New Jersey. This past Saturday we were back on the GEFA Trail. Our sports week […]

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On the GEFA Trail—Williamsport Wildcats. Bonus Coverage—Big 33 High School All Star Game

May 29, 2024

2024 Episode 10. That’s ten straight weeks of spring football for us. But it looks like that streak ends there, as we have no football scheduled for the current week. Last week we doubled up with football on both Saturday and Sunday. The sports week started with Modified racing at the Kutztown Fairgrounds Action Track […]

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