James Fleming

@CountyPolk @AndrewSapp20 Don’t think Mulberry nor Tenoroc will reach the playoffs, but would look at Ft . Meade as a possible surprise

🏈Spring Football '26🏈 The official start of the season is here and we are scouting the area looking at our teams and prospects. Can Polk County get another trophy this year? Lakeland, Lake Wales, Lakeland Christian, Victory Christian, a 'surprise' squad? #1stAndGoal🏆🥇😎

@CountyPolk @polk_way Could “gopher” be a term for “go for this, go for that”?

@polk_way TFA has a gopher on staff that was at Bartow a few years ago. He has 1 job.

Last year we lost Carl Jean-Bart to Orlando Evans This year Jaiziah Battle has transferred from Bartow to The First Academy… Lakeland, Auburndale, and Winter Haven are the only Public Schools locally I see trying to do things differently and taking a new approach to change culture… Polk County football may be in trouble.

@polk_way Think Polk County football is in great shape—- believe more quality players transfer into Polk schools than transferring out. Lakeland is a class by itself, but other programs are just a few steps back, such as Auburndale, Lake Wales and several others. Actually trend is upwards.

@gothburz If Donald Trump ( or any one of his family) had taken a single bottle of wine, all hell would have broken out in the MSM. The leading story on the nightly news, front page news on major newspapers.

I am a senior coordinating producer for the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I have worked eleven of these. I was backstage at the Washington Hilton when the shots were fired. The first thing I heard was not the gunfire. It was glass. A champagne flute hit the floor of the International Ballroom at approximately 9:47 PM. Then a second. Then the sound that I have since been told was a 12-gauge shotgun, which from inside the ballroom sounded like a heavy door slamming in a parking garage. Then the Secret Service moved. They moved the President, the Vice President, the First Lady through the east corridor in under ninety seconds, which is protocol, which is practiced, which is the one part of the evening that worked exactly as it was designed. Everything else was improvised. I know this because I ordered the wine. 94 tables. Two bottles per table. 188 bottles of a Willamette Valley pinot noir that the Association selected in February after a tasting committee spent three meetings debating between Oregon and Burgundy. Oregon won. The budget was $14,200. I signed the invoice. I can tell you the vintage. I can tell you the distributor. I can tell you the per-bottle cost because I negotiated it down from $89 to $76. What I cannot tell you is how 147 of those bottles left the building during an active shooter evacuation. I can tell you what I saw. A correspondent from a network I will not name picked up two bottles on her way to the east exit. Full bottles. One in each hand. She was wearing heels and she did not spill. A man in a tuxedo tucked one inside his jacket the way you'd shoplift a paperback at an airport bookstore. A woman picked up a bottle, looked at the label, put it back, and took a different one. She checked the vintage. During an evacuation. That's editorial judgment under pressure. The theme of the dinner was "A Free Press for a Free People." The banners were still hanging when the evacuation began. I know because I hung them. Twenty-three banners, navy blue, gold serif lettering, $11,400 for the set. They were still hanging when 2,600 guests were directed to the exits by Secret Service agents, one of whom had just taken a shotgun round in his ballistic vest and walked to the ambulance on his own feet. The agent's vest costs approximately $800. The wine that left the building was worth $11,172 at Association cost. At restaurant markup, roughly $29,000. The guests saved more in wine than the vest that saved the agent. That's priority. The video went viral by 10:15 PM. Not the video of the evacuation. Not the Secret Service response. The wine. Three guests in formalwear grabbing bottles off white tablecloths while being told to move toward the exits, while a man with a shotgun stood in the same motor entrance where John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan 45 years ago. A woman near the service entrance was crying. She said "I just wanna go home." She was not holding wine. She was holding her phone. She was the only person I saw that night who looked afraid rather than inconvenienced. That's the distinction. The rest of the ballroom did not look afraid. They looked interrupted. An active shooter at the WHCD is a logistical problem. The dinner was disrupted. The timeline was off. The after-party at the French Ambassador's residence would need to be rescheduled. These are contingency matters. Contingency matters have solutions. Fear is for people who attend events without security details. I have produced eleven of these dinners. I have managed seating charts that require diplomatic-grade negotiations. I have handled comedians, cabinet secretaries, network anchors, and the editor of a major newspaper who once threatened to leave because his table was behind a column. I have never, in eleven years, seen a guest leave a $76 bottle on the table during an evacuation. I have also never seen a guest check the label first. Both observations are consistent. The bottle is worth taking. The evacuation is worth surviving. The instinct is to do both simultaneously. 188 bottles placed. 41 recovered. 147 unaccounted for. One agent shot. Zero guests injured. Zero bottles broken. A free press for a free people. The press is free. The wine was $76 a bottle. They took it anyway.

@john_p34 Seems contradictory to say “you can on me all you want”. But then follow with the words “small” and “lazy” in the next sentence. Makes it appear that some peacock feathers have been ruffled.

I really want to respond to some of these tweets by adults too cowardly to put their name on how they feel, but that would just validate them. But fellas you have some really funny stuff that I enjoy, but let’s keep kids out of the equation. You can pick on me all you want. I love owning that small area between your ears and behind that lazy eye.

@BigCountyPreps1 Repeat—— there’s absolutely NO QUESTION about it. Clearly it’s the Naughts

Who has the best home game environment. There is only one correct answer: Venice, Plant, Jesuit or Lakeland?

@BigCountyPreps1 The L

@CrazyVibes_1 As opposed to practices of other stores—previous similar experience at a Publix store, offered to overlook price mistake, Publix manager insisted on honoring the mistaken underprice of the item. As the saying goe, it’s a pleasure shopping at Publix.

At a Walmart store in Mexico, a customer found a 70-inch TV priced at 547 Mexican pesos (approximately $30). The customer bought it, and when he tried to leave with him, it turned out that the price was mismarked and the employees prevented him from leaving. The incident ended in a fight, the arrival of the police and the arrest of the customer. It seems to me that in this case the customer was right and should have been compensated by the store.

@TonyLaneNV Well, today a quarter is worth about 5 cents, so not sure although a quarter is actually not a nickel

This one trips up WAY more people than you think… Two coins add up to 30 cents… but one isn’t a nickel Sounds easy… until you try it 😅 Most people overthink it and get it wrong Don’t scroll - what’s your answer? ⬇️ 🇺🇸

@Top25PublicHSFB Furthermore….a good part of the state record. 9 championships came against STA…..ummmmm….a PUBLIC SCHOOL versus private school. There you go!!

Honestly I thought you guys would want me to forget it after losing by a combined score of 63-0 🤷🏼‍♂️

@Top25PublicHSFB History is history….and great history in story of state championship games between STA and Dreadnaughts. Story book history. AND reaching a spot in state championship is a phenomenal achievement in and of itself. So snicker if you choose, but I choose not. Record 9 time CHAMPIS

@Top25PublicHSFB @polk_way Here again—-a fallacy in Public Schools ranking formula, when considering enrollment. When push comes to shove, enrollment means nothing to success on the field, where football game is played by teams of 11 on the field. Granted, a great student section is a plus, as is Bryant.

I respect the pushback. Lakeland is an elite program, and Florida was easily the toughest state in this series to rank. The goal of this project is to keep the criteria uniform across all 50 states, so I’m looking at the full résumé from 2021–2025: • State championships • State championship appearances • Sustained success across the window Lakeland’s résumé: • 2 state titles (2022, 2023) Venice’s résumé: • 2 state titles (2021, 2024) • 1 additional state championship appearance (2023) When two programs have the same number of titles and similar classification sizes, the next separators are championship appearances combined with overall sustained success. Lakeland deserves credit for beating Venice head-to-head in the 2023 title game, but this ranking is based on the entire five-year résumé, not one or two matchups. Both programs are elite, as well as the other three mentioned, so I knew I wasn't going to please everyone with this one.

I respect all media but this is just horse shit lol. I’m not being biased to Lakeland AT ALL… Lakeland went to Traz Powell and dethroned Miami Central, they haven’t been to the State Championship SINCE… Lakeland in the period named 2021-2025 beat the #1 team Venice TWICE in the State Championship….. How the hell is Lakeland lower than EITHER? 🤣

@Top25PublicHSFB @polk_way Seems to me that Public Schools needs to do a little better job in research——gives the Naughts 2 state championships but then nothing——guess the Naughts playing STA the past 2 seasons for state championships didn’t really happen. DUH and another DUH.

@polk_way Exactly——in face to face meetings in recent years, Naughts owned Venice, last game the Naughts limited Venice to about 30 yards offense per quarter. Venice and Lakeland last season had a common opponent: Lake Mary. The Dreadnaughts beat Lake Mary. Meanwhile, Lake Mary beat Venice

@Top25PublicHSFB Let’s see—-the Lakeland Dreadnaughts won a state championship in 2022 by defeating Venice 21-14. Repeated as state champions in 2024 by defeating Venice 60-48. Nuff said.

@Crazymoments01 Looks more like unbearable moments rather than crazy moments

A crocodile came crawling into our backyard... and my Dogo Argentino stepped in before we could even react. No fear. No hesitation. Just protection. He didn't just bark he saved us.

@CRaineySpeed The minutes go too fast in this video

Check out Vibin with Boogie's video! #TikTok tiktok.com/t/ZThxWVJ3s/

@MichaelWBratton @thatSECpodcast Whoever or whatever drew up that list of SEC Power Rankings 2.0 deserves a negative 2.0 rating. After Georgia at #1, it goes “haywire”.

2026 SEC Football Power Rankings 2.0

@LibOrNormal Original receipt—-paid with cash or card——if card, probably goes back to card. So ——-maybe such a charade is for naught.

Someone dropped their receipt at Walmart so this lady picked it up and walked back in the store and got everything on it....

@polk_way Naughts need to be better prepared for STA than what appeared last 2 games….but part of the 5-2 record includes the Pounceys, Black and other GatorNaughts who were National champions successive years (both as Naughts and Gators) Not gonna meet that level often.

The fact that it’s a private school doesn’t mean much.. Lakeland was 5-2 against STA entering the game so that’s no excuse… Same day travel for a state game should never happen, I don’t care if it’s in Orlando… Fan support was limited so that’s true