Like a baseball team’s manager gearing up for spring training, the folks in the Western  Carolina University Office of Alumni Engagement are sharpening their pencils and setting the starting lineup for the second annual Ballparks and Brews Tour.

Launched last year, the event is designed to bring together members of the WCU family for a series of gatherings at baseball stadiums across the Southeast.

Haywood Regional Medical Center will host its annual free sports physicals event for local student-athletes from 3-7 p.m. Thursday, May 21, at the Haywood Regional Health & Fitness Center located at 75 Leroy George Drive in Clyde.

Open to middle and high school students, this event provides a convenient, no-cost opportunity to complete required physicals ahead of the upcoming sports season.

Harris Regional Hospital will partner with Jackson County Public Schools to host its annual free sports physical event at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 30, in the Smoky Mountain High School gym in Sylva. 

It’s been over a year and a half since the hollow ping of softball bats has rung out over Waynesville’s Dutch Fisher Field, but on April 13, teams again enjoyed the chance to kick up some dust on their favorite diamond. 

When Hurricane Helene decimated the area in September 2024, many community institutions lost so much. Mountaineer Little League lost two fields, including Dutch Fisher.

Smoky Mountain High School baseball team held a special “Youth Night” Thursday night to give the kids a wonderful experience with the varsity players.

Little League and youth players enjoyed an on-field experience at the Smoky Mountain baseball field just prior to the game between the Smoky Mountain Mustangs and the Tuscola Mountaineers. 

On a quiet stretch of county-owned land once defined by grass and gravel and garbage, a ribbon of asphalt now loops, banks and swells in tight rhythmic curves — engineered not for pedaling, but for flow. Riders generate speed by pumping their bodies through rollers and berms, transforming momentum into motion without ever turning a crank. In September, that motion will carry Haywood County into the international spotlight. 

Three former members of the Western Carolina University women’s basketball team stepped up to the line to tip off the process of raising enough philanthropic support to name the current Catamount squad’s locker room after the founder of the program. 

That opening shot has resulted in a resounding “swish,” as that locker room now bears the name of the individual who launched the program during an era when women’s intercollegiate athletics was primarily an afterthought. 

For decades, college athletes generated millions of dollars in revenue for universities in exchange for a full tuition scholarship, at best. But a series of lawsuits beginning in the late 2000s — and a cultural shift toward athlete equity — paved the way for a monumental National Collegiate Athletic Association decision. The policy change, effective July 1, 2021, allowed these players to profit from any promotional use of their name, image and likeness, known as NIL, in company marketing. 

Jackson County Parks and Recreation has announced two introductory archery programs this November, perfect for learning the fundamentals of shooting a bow and arrow in a safe and structured environment. 

Last September, when Hurricane Helene brought flooding to much of the region, the little league baseball field behind the Waynesville Elks Club was swamped by several inches of water, dugouts were destroyed and lights were carried downstream along with tons of other debris. But now, hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of person-hours later, action has returned to that hallowed diamond.