Travel Chronicles Chapter 6

Travel Chronicles Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Part 2 subset A

Travel Chronicles Chapter 4

Did China lie...

Travel Chronicles Chapter 3

Remember the #Hawkeyes

My Upward basketball season has just ended and this was one of the best teams I have had as far as kids listening and doing things and they just played as a team.  It was so heart breaking the way the season ended, we lost by 2 to the number 1 seed of the tournament and we were the 5.  The kids were in tears, Peach was in tears, I totally didn't cry.  I was close but I was just so happy with how hard the kids played that no matter the result I couldn't be upset.  You see  it was the second game we played that night, during the week and we did everything we could.  The game ended for us on a turnover well 2 turnovers actually as the game was tied with 30 seconds left and some how they other team got the ball and the best kid on their team got a free layup with 10 seconds left.  So I called timeout, and told we were going for the win, we were going to shoot a 3.  So I drew up a play where a kid would dribble left and hand it off to another kid and he would shoot it.  Well the one kid came up to early and the other kid threw it off his back and it went back court for a violation.  The moral of that story is - practice a desparation 3 point play so that the kids aren't caught off guard in the last 10 seconds of the season.
This team was special and I wrote a while ago about how a team becomes a special team and while I'm not sure how or when it happened this team definitely had that, and I wanted to foster that and keep it going as long as I could.  I have coached or assistant coached the last 8 or 9 years in upward, coached some civic basketball, and learned a lot along the way from other coaches and on-line and I don't think I could have got as much out of a team before this season.  I never really coached before 10 years ago, but have coached all the way up from T-ball, baseball, basketball, and even some flag football.  I do enjoy helping kids get better by teaching them what ever I can, but Upwards is a special kind of challenge because practice time is limited.  I had one other team that I felt somewhat comfortable yelling out plays, but this was the first time I ever accomplished it at the 3/4 level.  Not saying they executed the plays perfectly every time, but it kept me involved in the game and I think they got better at things as the season went on, and started expecting things.  Maybe I'm more organized now, but there was a feeling of something kind of organic and you could tell the kids were buying in.  We didn't really have a go-to-scorer per se that I could just get the ball to and say go get me a basket.  A lot of points came from our defense were, we would get a turnover or rebound and push the ball, but if we had to run a play or get someone a shot we did.  One game we came out and hit 3 or 4 jump shots early in the game and sometimes that is fools gold because jumpers don't always fall, especially in 3rd and 4th grade.  The well dried up.  I think we scored 10 in the first half total, after having 8 in about 3 minutes.  Then we got down 10, at 20-10 in the last period and some how, some way we managed to score 14 points and win by 4.  That was the last regular game before our Upward tourney and we had won 3 in a row.  One thing about Upward though is that sometimes you can get behind in the rotation if teams don't have the same number of players, and it is especially disadvantageous if you have more players.  I won't get into the details but basically if you have 8 players they play evenly, and if a kid was out one period he has to play the next period.  By having 8 kids you ensure that your best player is out at least 2 periods.  Well the first round of the tourney we play a team with only 8 kids, and they were all boys.  Usually that is a rotation loss.  But for the tourney we could manipulate the roster and I spent about 2 hours tinkering with rotations so that I didn't have all 3 girls on the floor at once (boys don't like to pass to girls at this level for some reason, so this would give them at least 2 options to pass), I had one of my two designated in bounders on the floor at all times, and I had my best lineup going into the last period.  That was the first time I have seen a team of 8 beat of team of 6, 15-14, 5 seed over the 8 seed.  And the other team had a chance at the end just one of our players made a great defensive play and stopped a layup.
So the next game we were matched up against a team that had a similar number of wins, but also had 9 kids.  This resulted in a rotation loss for them.  That is as simple as I can put it.  I think we won like 27-21.  Then we played the number 1 seed that same night, and if we had played them fresh I feel like we would have won instead of playing with an hour of rest after the first game.  We played a box and one defense, that we actually installed the game before after halftime.  It wasn't great but man was in effective.  We lost by double digits the previous time we played and this time we lost by 2 and had a chance to win at the end.  That is all you can ask for.  And I really can't stress that with limited practice time, how hard it is to install a defense let alone a gimmicky defense, but that just speaks to the specialness (not sure about that word) of this team.  I wish we could have gotten one final team picture, but everyone was kind of upset so it was definitely understandable that we wouldn't have wanted our picture taken.  The number one seed did end up winning 18-13 over the number 3 seed, so we definitely gave them a better game.  We were also down in the rotation 8 kids to 7, so their best player only had to sit out once, and they only had one girl.  Sometimes Upward doesn't get all of the fairness check boxes just right, but every once and a while you get a team that just comes together and can almost overcome any deficit.  Hope next year is just as good, can't wait.  Here is a picture of me and my main man Charlie.

Travel Chronicles Chapter 2

Travel Chronicles Chapter 1

Adult Convo with the boy

So the whole basketball thing for the high school is kind of blowing up and multiple parents are writing letters and voice their overall displeasure with the coach and his staff.  Shocker right?  So I have written a letter as well and I wanted to talk to Sampson first before submitting it.  So we talked and he read the letter and it was a good talk.  I talked about how I had to quit my senior year because of coaching, and that maybe we are just destined to never play a senior season.  He has played well though when he played, but a lot of lessons were learned from my time to help prepare him, where I had no help growing up and neither parent played sports so sports were not very important in my household.  Anyway he said he hated last year and he only gave the coach a second chance this year and kind of everything from last year was confirmed and he doesn't want to submit himself to the verbal abuse for another year, which I totally understand.  He is in a little different situation from me, the coach pulled me and another kid in at the beginning of the season and basically said we weren't going to play and we were wasting our time.  So after 4 games (all loses) and playing for a total of 2 minutes (scored though), I could see the writing on the wall and ended my season there.  It was also a pay for play school so rather than pay to sit, I left before having to pay.  Sampson's situation is actually entirely different, after getting some varsity time last year as a sophomore he started some as a junior and was the 6th man, he just can't get by the yelling and swearing and demeaning behavior of the coaches.  I completely respect his decision and wanted to make sure he was done and he laid out a good case for being done.  I told him to never say never, but in this case there is no glory or record to obtain so it is far better to spend his time doing something else.  Maybe next year he can help me coach Upward.  Even though I had some horrible experiences with basketball and it gets me again here with my son, I still enjoy the sport, enjoy watching it and enjoy helping so that kids get a chance to play.  Now the old Hawkeyes are still in the playoffs but as the 5 seed so we got some work to do, but hopefully we can get that dub in the first round and then get another dub an hour later.  Go Hawkeyes!!!

Ugh

It's hard to describe that feeling were you have been gut punched and feel horrible about things, but the thing that caused the punch also creates a lot of doubt and questions.  So it is just like "I have to deal with this, but how."  So that is where I am right now, my boss or ex-boss was relieved of his job duties yesterday and he was a good boss.  I have had 5 bosses in my professional life, and he was definitely in the top 5.  Pretty easy math there.  Actually maybe I have had 6 bosses, but one was for around 6 months so not sure that counts, anyway he would still be top 5.  Honestly I wouldn't want to rank my bosses, but he was good.  I think Dale Clark is probably at the top of the list because he was very smart about what he was doing and always treated me well and allowed me to succeed and gave me opportunity to prove my self and improve myself.  Columbian Chemicals was an underrated stop on my employment path for sure.  Anyway today feels like there is a cloud hanging overhead.  Worry and uncertainty rule the day and thinking about what has happened has left me feeling very weird about my future and how things are going to be handled.  Just ugh, about the whole situation, about who is going to take over, about how much more work this will be, about how this may not have been completely thought out...

Season 7 continues...

Andy is now the new boss. 🙁  But funny thing is, two days in and Andy hasn't even mentioned the promotion to anyone working there.  The announcement was sent out in an e-mail.

Season 7

I figured out this weekend that my professional life is currently in season 7 of the office.  Michael has left (although, not by his own accord this time) and now we are leaderless.  I can only hope that Andy is not put in charge here, and if Andy is put in charge that there is a least an ass tattoo in the future that we can all enjoy.

Finally Over!!

Is it just me or is it a horrible thing to celebrate the end of your kids season, maybe his career?  Well that is what happened on Friday.  You see I try not to live through my kids, but I want them to be happy more than anything, so when something makes them upset I want to see them get that out of the their life.  And that is where this season of basketball comes in.  The last two years really have been a horrible experience and Sampson has had to work his way up from the freshman team / reserve team to the varsity team without anyone really helping him or a coach really seeing the potential in him.  Which is unfortunate as the kid has achieved quit a bit athletically and has settled into a couple of sports, but he hit a couple of home runs over the fence in Bronco ball, he won the summer swim title for boys when he was 12, and he is a regional qualifying cross country runner in high school, ran a sub 5 minute mile in track, plus all the stuff he has done for basketball.  But he isn't crazy tall and he isn't an exceptional leaper, but that is about all he isn't.  As far as basketball is concerned he can pass, screen, shoot (when he is allowed), and is probably better on defense that anyone on the team from the aspect of position and hand placement.  He does have freakishly quick hands if you want to give him that, but it is hard to quantify those. Anyway he worked to get to varsity and I think he thought there would be some relief if he was playing just varsity and it didn't turn out that way.  In a way it was almost worse.  Last year he was the 7th man on a team that only went 6 deep.  But he played reserve and practiced as part of the white team.  So he was in line for a tongue lashing every once and awhile, but managed to stay out of the spot light most of the time.  As far as screwing up in a varsity game, well you have to be in to screw up, and the only time he got in a game at Shadyside he actually did pretty well and knocked down a 3.  But that was the only time all season he played in the first half and netted only 10 varsity quarters all season, no where near enough to letter apparently, even though he did all of the off season varsity summer leagues and varsity practices all season.  So that is a little ridiculous because if you aren't going to reward a kid with playing time, then at least reward them for the time they put in.  But not this coach.  This is where the problem is, and I have talked about it before.  How do you make a kid hate a sport they have been playing for 10 years?  Yell at them everyday in practice and never tell them they do anything right.  And the problem isn't that it is just him getting yelled at, it is everyone gets yelled at in practice.  There is no level you can ascend to in order to get away from the wrath and that is what I think he realized this year.  That even if he did start, even if he was a focal point of the team he was still going to get yelled at and berated for every little thing he did, so he has had enough.  Which is a damn shame because I have put a lot into encouraging and building him up over the last 10 years and this next year should be his best on the basketball court.  Plus the time his mother has put in at the concession stand and doing basically everything for the parent organization over the last 4 years.  But I honestly don't feel bad about him not wanting to play because it has been that miserable and that is terrible.  How can a coach make a kid want to walk away from something they have done for the last 10 years and how bad is it that I don't want him to play either.  I mean I felt good when this season finally ended and I know how competitive he is and how much he would love to play as deep into the season as possible, but the practices are so brutal and there is no glory in anything they are doing so being done is the better option.  How sad.  I'm competitive too, and when they step on the court there is some questioning of how bad do we want to win vs. how bad do I want this season to be over.  The last game of the season was kind of the high water mark for poor player development, talent evaluation and just overall spitting in kids faces from a coach.  There is one senior that starts and has been in the system for 4 years, there are 2 seniors on the bench, one that did all of the off season stuff same as Sampson and one that was injured the previous football season, so he was restricted medically but his brother played so he was there basically.  Anyway the one senior plays and Sampson is now the 6th man even though he was told he would start based on match-ups which I guess were never in his favor the rest of the season.  The last game he only plays 6 guys, now granted it was a 2 point game at half time, but right after half we commit 8 turnovers in the third.  At some point Sampson came in, but he was the only one.  The other two seniors never came in until there were 40 seconds in the game and Sampson and the other senior had fouled out.  40 seconds. And you know what the coach posts on the way home on the bus:


Seniors you will be missed.  Apparently they were already missed because he couldn't find them to get them in the game.  Now the bad thing is the senior night game (which the seniors should have started but didn't because that is another thing this coach doesn't get) the guys played a good bit and at one point 3 senior boys (minus the starter, I mean why wouldn't you put all four seniors out there at one time for a nice moment, but no he couldn't do that either) where on the court together.  And they won by 38.  So don't you think that would register that the more rest the starters get, the fresher they are at the end and just in general during the game and the more engaged the team is and the better they play.  I mean if the abuse in practices was leading to this display every night I could kind of justify it, but it was a fluke game, a one off, that will probably never be repeated for the rest of his tenure which I hope is over actually so that Sampson would get to play his senior year.   I know you never say never, but at this point right now I hope he doesn't play and I hope 4 seniors that were on varsity and about 3 other players don't come back so he realizes you can't treat people like that.  Especially when IT ISN'T WORKING.  You have to see that the results you get are from what you put in, and we were 13-11 and probably should have won another 4 or 5 games and still been playing, but not the way this team was coached.  1960's offense, no transition, and only one kid is allowed to shoot and he only shoots 30% on a good day, makes no sense.  Maybe God can intervene some how, I hope so.