Our view: Bronc, Jaycees can inspire us in hard times

We should thank our lucky stars for Roger “Bronc” McCovey and the Jaycees Basketball Tournament. At a time when it seems far easier to disagree than find common ground, recent developments on the local sports scene brought us together, at least in Del Norte County.

McCovey’s improbable pursuit of athletic perfection ended in a second straight state wrestling championship for the Del Norte High School heavyweight. He’s won more than 90 consecutive prep matches, and he hadn’t given up a takedown in any of them until the championship final last Saturday night. Even then, after falling behind early in Bakersfield to an upstart challenger who had the support of the home crowd, McCovey ended up with his arm raised in victory.

Meanwhile, back in Crescent City, the local Jaycees were mobilizing a small army of volunteers to pull off their own amazing feat: a well-run weekend basketball tournament for 56 teams of eighth-graders and their accessory cheer squads, mascots and family entourages from throughout the region. Our motels and restaurants filled up, and Smith River snared a basketball championship and the sportsmanship award, inspiring a Tuesday morning parade that seemed to have everyone in the tiny community celebrating.

Congratulations to our local heroes for overcoming challenges and rising to the top. On this, at least, we can speak with one voice.

On other matters, the pursuit of consensus seems nearly impossible. Heck, on some of these issues it’s hard enough to figure out where we stand as individuals. Consider:

• No one wants to see the local economy hammered by a loss in revenue for state employees, such as the 1,500-plus who work at Pelican Bay State Prison. And no one wants to see teachers laid off and classroom services reduced. But when a plan finally emerged from Sacramento to close the state budget deficit, the portion of it that raises taxes proved predictably unpopular.

You might think the man in the middle of the state’s fiscal crisis, Gov. Schwarzenegger, would get some credit for pushing compromise and decrying the stubbornness of extremists who either oppose all tax increases or oppose all spending cuts. Instead, he’s generally viewed as a symbol of the state’s dysfunction.

• It’s difficult to even grasp the enormous cost of various federal stimulus bills that have emerged from Washington, D.C. But since the feds aren’t hampered by that pesky requirement to balance budgets that makes running state and local governments so difficult, they can try to spend the country out of its economic doldrums.

We generally find ourselves in the squeamish position of hoping local projects get their share of the stimulus while pondering the consequences of the ballooning federal debt and wondering if all this public spending can actually help stave off a financial Armageddon.

• Not even the blue Pacific provides a refuge, as the beleaguered fishing industry reels from news that there will probably be no commercial or sport season on the ocean for salmon this year.

The experts say there’s little choice if salmon runs are to recover, but at the same time we have to wonder about the dwindling prospects for the recovery of our fishing fleet.

Daunting challenges face us at the local, state and national levels, and our next moves are unclear. Perhaps the best we can do is find inspiration in the steely, never-back-down resolve of McCovey and the can-do approach of the Jaycees.

To them, clearly, failure is never an acceptable option.