Tales from practice

So two things here.  One, I guess they were running a fast break drill, and in the drill the point guard was furthest back, there were two wings and one post player that was closest to half court to start (makes sense because on a break most of the time the post players are close to mid court...).  The formation proceeds to the front court and the point guard I guess throws it into the lane to the post player with the wings going to the 3 point line (this at least makes sense).  Fast forward to the next day and in a game situation a break occurs (except now there is no post in front of everyone, weird), well the wings go to the 3 point line and now the coach tells them they are wrong.  They should have went to the paint first.  Which is correct, but in the drill the previous day the wings were stopping at the 3 point line, so.... what are trying to accomplish with these drills? 

Two, a player gets the ball swung to them at the 3 point line, player takes the shot.  Coach "that is a horrible shot".  Now we are teaching kids that open 3 points shots after a swing is bad shot?  He was supposed to throw it in the post.  And I wonder why we are 1-3 in the last 3 post seasons.

Why Coaches Shouldn't Dress Down Players in Public

So this hits a little close to home and is exceptionally discouraging.  Let me start with what happened then give the reasons for why this is a bad idea especially for a coach to do.  During one of the recent games the coach on E's team got really mad at a play and started yelling "he sucks, he sucks" while standing on the sidelines. Now I didn't see it, but Sophie saw it and she is always defensive about her kid so she assumed he was talking about her son.  So she files that display in her memory bank.  Well we win the game, E has 5 steals, and manages to sink 2 clutch free throws to put us up 4 with less than 2 minutes to play.  Not a great game but good enough to help the team win.  The next day he says he is done with basketball and is going to bowl next year.  Mind you he is a teenager, but this is coming after a game the week before where he said he finally enjoyed basketball again, and the team goes 2-0 in his 2 starts. So Sophie calls the coach out and he apparently cops to saying that about his own player in the middle of a game in front of his team, directly in front of our fans and across from the opposing team student section.  Now if Sophie saw it, you know there was more than her that saw it too.  In this day and age of social media a coach lambasting a players ability is going to be captured and shoved in that kids face.  I think it is totally ridiculous that a coach would say anything negative about a kid's playing ability during a game, let alone a kid on his team.  I can understand correcting a mistake or pointing out a play that could have been made (that's called coaching), but to throw your hands up in the air, and strut back and forth yelling "He Sucks, He Sucks!!" is beyond terrible, it isn't coaching because you aren't making anyone better by doing it.  What are those other kids on the bench thinking?  What are the parents thinking (glad it's not my kid... this time)? What are the other fans thinking? "wow if this guy thinks his own players suck, maybe we can win".  Then you have kids who aren't playing and just watching for the other team, but they know these players, they have grown up with each other they have competed against each other in other sports, and they know how to communicate with each other.  And if one of those kids could have got a video and posted to social media imagine the embarrassment that kid is going to go through at their own school amongst their peers.  Now allegedly that isn't what happened, but even having this as a possibility is unacceptable in my mind.  When you are the coach of a team it is your job to protect these kids from the outside.  You have to have the mentality that everyone in that locker room is not only on the same side, but there has to be a united front against the opponent, their fans and sometimes even your fans.  You have to be willing to defend the kids and any mistakes they make especially if you leave them in the game.  What sense does it make playing a kid that you think "sucks" and then if they make a mistake leave them in?  Doesn't that just make you look stupid?  Well someone once said that stupid is as stupid does and I have about had my fill of stupid.

I think the most frustrating part, at least as a parent, is that I have invested so much time in helping him get better and building his confidence.  I compare it to building a building one confidence brick at a time and every good game, good practice, learning-something-new, backyard game we play is a brick that goes into building up this structure of confidence that the kids has.  Then you have a coach that instead of continuing to build the confidence structure so that these kids can go out and compete with their full skill set, he comes in with the wrecking ball of criticism  that is capable of destroying multiple levels confidence in one fell swoop.  Shooting - No, you can't do that!! Pass it to the tall kids!! Driving to the basket - That's not your F'ing job!!!  I mean it takes so much just to get a kid to be able to play at a varsity level, and to have a kid feel like they shouldn't be playing because of their coach is a travesty.  Most kids don't even want to play sports these days because there is too many other things to do.  I remember one play at summer league where E got the ball and took off with it down the middle of the court and drew a foul.  I said "great job, see when you take something good happens".  His coach said something to the effect of that was a terrible play and he got bailed out.  I mean this is completely ridiculous right, how can a player get any better if he isn't allowed to do anything?  At least bowling won't be like this.

Hip Dislocation of Aught 20

So my mom decided it would be interesting to see what would have if she dislocated her hip.  On the 15th she was in her bathroom and she said she reached to get something for her hair and she felt her leg give out and next thing she knew she was on the floor and her leg didn't work.  So she spent the next hour or so crawling on her back to a phone in her bedroom.  Did I mention she just turned 90?  Anyway she found a way to knock the phone down and call 911.  Well the 911 operator calls my brother too because he thought that was his mother.  [not sure exactly the timeline but Jim also heard the calls over the scanner and headed out as well, I think he may have actually beaten Bill there so not sure what he was doing] The EMS arrived and took her to Wheeling.  Someone called Deena and she called me to let me know Mom had fallen, it wasn't until around noon that I found out she was going to have to have "surgery".  And I put "surgery" in quotes here because no one really knew what was wrong or how they were going to treat her, but as it turns out the hip reduction as they call it is capable of being done by pulling the leg/hip back into place without cutting.  Well I didn't know that at the time so I left work and went to the hospital.  All indications were that the procedure would take place around 4:30PM.  But then we had to wait for the doctor to get there so 5:30.  Then we had to wait for some OR rooms to clear out 6:15.  In total the actual procedure lasted about 2 minutes.  I know right.  So she was done by 6:30 and I think in her room by a little after 7 or 7:30.  Jim and Carol had stayed through the procedure and then left.  Bill had left before I even got there because he had to go check on his building.  You know the building that gave life to him apparently as that was more important that whatever was going to happen to his mother.  I stayed with her until about 9 and then headed home and would come back the next day to get her discharged.  Well that took forever for some reason.  The doctor saw her at 11 and then it took another 4 hours to get out of there.  Then we had to go out to Beallsville to get clothes and the dog. 

E's first start

January10, 2020.  E made his first varsity basketball start and had to guard one of the best players in the OVAC.  They did run doubles at him every time he got the ball, so he didn't have to guard him on an island, but he was wore out in the first half.  Normally the coach will pull a player if they have 2 fouls and he got his second foul with about 2 minutes to go in the half.  As soon as he got the foul he made his way to the bench and was like signalling that he had 2 and he should sit because of that, not because he was gassed.  Anyway they did win and the reason he got the start was because our good 6'5" guy has some leg issues and is out for 2 games.  Our point guard tore his shoulder during the game though (it was a ligament or something to be technical), but now he is out too.  So E should be starting the rest of the season.  I told him, we'll see but just in case I did record the intro.  Pretty neat and I am happy for him because he has worked incredibly hard the last 3 years, well 10 years really, to get to this point.

Waking the Dragon

Poking the bear, let sleeping dogs lie, there are all kinds of euphemisms about not angering your opponents and this is a lesson I have taken to heart but is a story for another day as today's story is about Peach getting woke up.  Yesterday she played basketball against the hated UL Jets, well maybe that is a little strong but they did run the score up on our varsity girls to the tune of a 50 point victory where they left starters in until about 3 minutes left in the 4th (also a story for another day), they aren't great but Peach was feeling a little nervous and so was I since her team would be missing it's best player.  Well she did a great job running the point and got several good looks for her teammates, but late in the game, and I am talking less than a minute left and down by 20 UL decides to press.  Well they get a couple of turnovers but, the deficit is just too large at this point.  Anyway Peach either steals the ball or breaks the press I can't remember completely and she is breaking away but there is a girl running her down and she steals the ball.  Well she is mad already because during the press they are grabbing and holding her and the refs aren't calling anything and this girl stealing the ball is the last straw.  I did yell behind you but it was too late, so not on Dad.  Anyway when the girl steals the ball the breaking point is reached, and I hope I can get the video some day but right at that point the dragon gets woke up and Peach goes diving after the ball and takes the girl down.  Totally a foul on Peach and probably a border line technical foul, but the game is out of hand.  Well they get the ball and are bringing it up and she is in full defense mode.  We are playing a 2-3 zone at this point, but she is out front on the zone and she is fully engaged - hands out - fired up.  I told her I wished the girl had fired her up in the first quarter.  She plays again tonight against a team that they had to beat at the buzzer the first time they played.  Still don't have their best player back, but if the dragon is out...Ooooo who knows.  I would like to see it, but I will be watching E make his second ever varsity start.  Once again another story.

The Review of Skywalker (spoilers for Episode IX below...)

So I saw the new Star Wars movie over the weekend - The Rise of Skywalker.  My big take away is that the sequel trilogy on the whole was not overly well done.  Kind of a large cash grab that paid stuff off with nostalgia and some call backs to beloved characters.  The biggest difference between this one and any of the other trilogies is the story isn't as strong.  Starting with "The Force Awakens" these Star Wars movies kind of want to throw gender in your face and show you how awesome women are, and Women are awesome, but that isn't a story in itself.  The original trilogy is a little different because it started off as a single movie and then kind of blew up and they had to make more.  So it was all self contained in the first one but there was room to grow for sure because Luke never even used the light saber in battle in the first movie.  So the next 2 movies kind of grew the narrative that was going to go back to the well so to speak to and blow up the death star again, but there was going to be some real conflict between Good and Bad and the Good was going to be pretty decimated after the second movie and then third would be a full redemption story.  Anyway they pulled it off and in my youth Return of the Jedi was about the only movie I would even rent to watch when we went to go pick out a movie, it was just that good to me, but we are here to discuss the new movie so... This movie was no where near as good.  I think part of that comes from the main character Rey and her development. In the first movie she is already beating a Sith lord with a light sabre and she hasn't even been trained.  By the third movie of the original trilogy Luke was a Jedi badass and everyone was willing to follow him into war, but he wasn't great from the get-go and that made him more relatable and believable.  Rey has basically never had a set back, and I don't think she has lost a one-on-one battle.  She is also so awesome and scary that Luke doesn't even want to train her in the second movie.  Then you get to the third movie and the shtick kind of continues.  You see Rey has never been knocked down a peg by her opponent.  The one time she faced Snoke in the second movie he ended up dead, and you are kind of left to the conclusion that Kylo did that, but did he...  So now you get to the third movie and the main big baddie has already been beat, but wait no he hasn't.  It turns out that the real bad guy was Emperor Palpatine.  From the first 6 movies. But not 7 and 8.  No in 7 and 8 he is never mentioned, like he was actually dead from episode 6, but it turns out he wasn't.  And the reason is...well the movie never gets into that, it just makes a vague reference to episode 3 when he is talking about unnatural means that the Sith can use to stay alive.  But no details of how this works.  He at least is in a weakened state so there is that and from what he says it's kind of like Snoke wasn't real in that he wasn't really a separate Sith just like a puppet of Palpatine, so the law of 2 Sith is preserved with Palp and Kylo during the series.  Whew right?  It still doesn't make sense though because one thing the other trilogies did was tie things to the end ahead of time.  Remember all the subtle holograms of the death star in the prequels.  This series not only has no hint of Palp being alive, but there was also no hint that Rey was his Granddaughter.  Yep, that gets revealed about half way through the movie.  The only thing that saves the movie as watchable is that it is moving so fast that you don't have time to question things while it is actually going on.  But the movie itself basically makes the second movie in the series a waste.  For one, in that movie it was stated that Rey's parents were just junk traders, but this reveal of Pappy Palpy at least makes more sense because of how powerful she was.  Even though the off spring of someone who was actually conceived by the force still needed training for like a movie and half and even at the end of the second movie got his ass kicked.  I think part of the problem with this series is that you had two different directors and two different stories trying to get told and I don't think the second movie fit the story of the first and third.  And they wanted to have 3 different directors, yeesh.  I think the series would have been better if they would have had the commitment of 1 director for all three movies and if the story and been developed and written for all 3 movies first so that cast, director, production, and crew were all on the same page going towards the same goal I think it would have had a different feel and been a better product and probably made more money.  They did tie a bow on the whole series but after 9 movies (and then some if you count the extra ones) I want complete story closure, kind of like Harry Potter or the Marvel series of movies.  The one bad thing about Star Wars is that there are hardly any consequences in the movies (except for in revenge of the Sith where every Jedi but 2 end up dead).  Through the prequels the only real loss (excluding all the Jedi in ep. 3) is Qui-gon and we didn't even know he existed until the beginning of the movie.  Well I guess Padme too, but we knew she was going to die.  In the original trilogy, Obi-won and Yoda die, but not really and I think one E-wok.  In this movie Kylo is killed, but then saved, Leiah dies, but she is dead in real life so not a shocker here (even though she some how survived in space without a suit or anything in the 8th movie, hmmm), chewy gets killed, but then it turns out he was on a different ship, so he is ok, and Rey dies at the end only to be saved by Ben who then dies in her spot.  Oh and also C3PO is going to have his memory erased to help move the plot along, but then R2 backs up his memory, so even that is saved.  Not even the millennium falcon gets destroyed and that is just a ship.  I mean I guess the rebels lost a lot of people in the last movie when all of their ships were destroyed, but those were kind of nameless faceless people so they don't count.  Anyway it is a watchable movie, but not one you are going to rent endlessly.  Maybe I buy it, but these last 3 are just not the old movies at all.  Overall it is maybe a 3 out of 5, but story telling gets a 1 out of 5, and answering all the questions the movies created on their own gets a (-1) out of 5.  One final thought, I will say that the actors did a good job, doing what they were asked to do, it is just that what they were asked to do could have been so much better.  How awesome would it have been for Luke to come back in Force Awakens in the snow fighting scene and he pulls the light sabre out of the snow.  He would battle Kylo for a minute or so, the entire planet cracks in half and ends the battle and they all leave of the

Wim Hof and MAF training

I have started doing the Wim Hof breathing method.  Basically you take 30 deep breathes without fully exhaling and at the end of the breaths you hold your breath after the last exhale.  You can hold for a minute or minute and a half or even longer if you can.  The idea is that when you are holding your breath there is a blood chemistry change as the blood is becoming saturated with CO2.  Right after the deep breathing the blood and tissues should be saturated with oxygen, which will gradually get exchanged for carbon dioxide.  Allegedly this is making the blood more alkaline, but wouldn't a carbon dioxide reaction (even in blood) make an acid?  Regardless the pH of the blood is changing through this interaction and is supposed to help fight off infections.  At least it is supposed to when you do it in conjunction with taking cold showers / ice baths.  Kinda sounds like it sucks right?  It isn't that bad, but finding a time to take cold showers can be a little difficult depending on what you have going on.  I also have decided to not do the snooze alarm any more.  I just get up, and go and do the breathing first thing.  Trying to stay in an alpha state right after I wake up.  I have found that by completing routine tasks this is made easier.  Any interaction with a digital device may through you out of this state.  After I do the breathing I will meditate for about 10 minutes, then try and take that cold shower.  So I have about 30-40 minutes tied up in this new routine but it does make me feel better, at least when I get enough rest.  Trying to do this on a short night's sleep is not advisable.  I have also kind of soured on the MAF training.  I think it is a great thing to do, but I don't think I am a good enough runner to try this.  I think this is more for people that already know how to run, because I find that my efficiency is very low running at the rate to keep my HR low.  And I know that the idea is you are training the aerobic engine to be better so that it will work more efficiently when needed, but man is it hard.  I tried to incorporate some interval training back in this week and I just didn't see the benefit, but I did seem much slower than before when I was doing intervals, and I think this is because I haven't been pushing myself and I'm not that good of a runner to start with.  Now one day after that I did try a longer run and ran with some pace at the end.  That felt a little better at the faster pace, but couldn't keep the HR down.  So I am going back to the drawing board to try and run with more speed to try and get my form fixed and then maybe go back to the low HR method.  Anytime I am running slow though I will try and keep my HR down as much as I can.