Breaking 200!

This is actually the opposite of what you might think, as far as "breaking" a number is concerned. When I graduated high school, I only weighed about 150 lbs. Over the few years after high school, I actually was able to gain some muscle and got up to about 165 lbs. Then, my metabolism slowed down and my eating did not. Many factors contributed to this but for the last couple of years I have fluctuated between about 215-225 lbs. When the new year began, I turned off the switch. The "switch" I'm speaking of is the one that drives me to eat till I am full. I turned it off. Last week, I weighed myself on the scale used by the wrestling team (has to be accurate). I weighed 199.1 lbs. I'm still losing. My goal is to get under 180 lbs. We'll see how it goes.

Winds of Change

They are a blowing! For those of you that have kept up with the fact that I'm frustrated with our basketball program, things have happened. On Friday, right before we play four games in a row (Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday) our head coach was suspended and I was named as the interim head coach for our girls basketball program. It's actually a frustrating situation to be in. I now feel like I'm coaching with my hands tied behind my back because we're not doing anything I would want to do. I just have to coach a broken system as best I can. I'll get my first practice since taking over on Wednesday.

The hardest part about all of this happening is being the messenger. I had to be the one to tell the girls and just as difficult was being the one to tell the parents after the games last night (The head coach was out of town and didn't find out till yesterday right before the JV game).

The nice thing has been that everyone has been very supportive. In fact, I received an email yesterday, pre-knowledge of the change, from a parent who wanted to express his support and appreciation and his encouragement to apply for the head coaching job next year. After finding out, he emailed me back and said that, if I wanted him to, he would get the other parents to send a letter to the athletic director saying that they would like me to be the head coach next year, as well. That feels really good; the confidence and the support!

I just hope at this point to get through the rest of this season with one or two more wins.

Then, I'll think about next year.

Sick (Not for those with weak stomachs)

I'm not sure if anyone can empathize with this but I truly hate throwing up. It is not just unpleasant for me but tends to be one of the most painful occurrences when I get really sick. Over the past week, my family, one-by-one, has gotten a stomach bug. The nece thing has been that it was a short-lived bug. All three kids had it first and were done throwing up within 6 hours, or so. Irene got it next, in fact, just about an hour after Rosemary had finished, Irene started. I think it lasted longer with her because she was up all night with Rosemary so she was already worn out before she got sick. She tends to be a real trooper when she gets sick. There are times that she has to be left alone but for the most part, she tries to help when I need it. After the other 4 got this bug, I was just waiting. Then, when I got up yesterday, I felt it coming. I put in for a substitute teacher and went back to bed. Within a few minutes of that, I went to the bathroom to do the deed. I don't know if other people are like this, but when I throw up, it's like a whole body kind of action. Every muscle tenses up and I am not allowed to stop until I am completely empty. I once threw up so hard that it tore the lining of my throat and I started throwing up blood. Most of you probably don't want to hear about this, I'm sure. I just felt like getting it off my chest. I only threw up twice and both times were horrible. Today, I'm better!

Going under the knife!

It's really not as bad as it sounds. Yesterday, my orthopaedist told me that I needed to go ahead and have arthroscopic surgery on my knee. The official term is, arthroscopic meniscectomy. Sounds fancy, huh! Anyway, he had wanted me to baby it and try to stay off of it and that turned out to not be conducive to my lifestyle (chasing after 3 kids upstairs and downstairs during most nights and weekends, teaching all day during the week, oh yeah, and trying to help out a struggling basketball team). So, my knee has improved some over the last month but not enough. The nice thing is that I can do it on my own time. We're going to wait until after basketball season is done. I'll go in on a Friday and be back to work on Monday. He also said I should be back to full, regular activity (not necessarily running) within a week. So, I guess I can live with that.

As far as basketball, our girls lost a couple of close ones last week. That brings our varsity's record to 1-9. We weren't outplayed, simply outcoached. What's more disappointing than the losses, especially the one on Friday, is to have to listen to the coach put the blame all on the players. It's a hard pill to swallow for me and I'm sure it is for them, too. It's not all their fault. They played their hearts out. Unfortunately, the team we play Friday, just beat a team we lost to last week. Wait, they didn't beat them, they pummeled them by 50 points. These girls of ours have some surprises but it's not looking good this week.

How much is too much?/A lot of fun

As many of you know, I coach girl's basketball. Well, I sort of coach girl's basketball. Today, I'm going to go out on a limb and put in print some feelings I've been having because one, I don't think anyone who would take offense will see this, and two, I'm not sure if I care if they take offense because it would be because, "the truth hurts." You see, our varsity team is 1-5 right now to start the season. Their losses have been by an average of about 25 points. It hasn't been pretty. In fact, it's been quite embarrassing. There are too many problems to count but, in the end, it comes down to one thing, practice. It's not that we don't practice but that we don't practice well. Very little of that is the fault of the players. They share in the blame but the majority of it comes from the coaches. Our practices start off with the same thing every day; lay-ups and jump-shots. It's a drab routine that is not improving anything. We then move to another drill that, once again, is not improving anything because the head coach seems to just be on cruise control for the first 30-45 minutes of practice. It's been so routine like this that when we finally changed it up to a different drill this past Monday after the lay-ups and jump-shots, you would think the girls' heads were going to explode. It was like they didn't know how to do anything else without following that same routine. Another problem with our practice is that we do not spend any time working on the small things; ball-handling, passing, rebounding or man-to-man defense. Thus, we do these things very poorly in games. Also, when we work on team-stuff, only aabout half of what we work on actually is used during the game. For example, on Monday we spent a good bit of time working on our full-court press but never used it in the game last night. The head coach is upset because the team isn't intense and doesn't do the things necessary to win but the problem is that we haven't been preparing them in a way that breeds that attitude. I spend a lot of time biting my tongue because, in the end, it's not my program but how long to I sit and watch a team get run into the ground over and over again before I step and say something? We'll see if I can make it through the season without biting my tongue off.

On a more positive note, our JV team lost by three points in double overtime last night. It was the funnest game that I've been a part of this season. The girls never gave up. They kept fighting till the end but just couldn't pull it out. I was very proud of them and their effort and could do nothing but laugh and say how fun the game was. That's what it's about. You work hard to prepare so that you can, at least, put yourself in a position to win. Doing that and playing up to your potential is the fun that comes in the end and, as a coach, it's a lot of fun for me to watch that. Of course, it was a lot funner last year when I was coaching a freshman team that went 25-3 last year and did anything I asked them to do. I look forward to having another opportunity to coach a team the way I want to coach them.

Not a good doctor visit.

So, I went to the doctor this morning. It was not a pleasant visit, whatsoever. The majority of the displeasure came from the fact that my appointment was at 8:10AM and the doctor came into the examination room to see me at 9:50AM. I was not happy. I try really hard to be patient (I waited 45 minutes in the exam room before I said anything). Finally, at 9:40, I went to the nurse and said that, if I'm not seen by 10:00, I have to go. I had class starting at 10:30 and had only taken off for the first half of the day. Anyway, it only took the doctor 10 minutes to do what he needed to do.

I have a partially torn lateral meniscus of the left knee. I was given a shot of cortisone, a prescription of anti-inflammatories and told to "baby" it for the next month. I laughed because that goes against my every being. Especially in practice it's going to be tough. I'm a hands-on kind of coach. I don't just say, "Do this!" and expect the players to do it. I get out there and show them. I promised Irene I would try my hardest.

The overall opinion of the doctor is, let's try to calm down the inflammation and maybe it will heal itself. If it doesn't, then it's a bad enough tear that they will have to do arthroscopic surgery. He assured me that, if it came to surgery, they would be able to do it on a Friday and I would be back at work on Monday. Hopefully, it won't come to that.

Anyone have any experience with this kind of injury?

MRI

So, I'm scheduled to have an MRI tomorrow on my left knee. It's kind of unusual that I'm not too worried about this. I have a pretty good idea what it's going to show(slight tear in the meniscus). I also know that I don't have a lot of pain right now and have been able to run full speed at times as long as I don't turn on a planted foot real hard (that's probably what caused it). At the same time, this is a little difficult for me because we are in basketball season and I like to work out with the team in order to push them to be better. If I can do it, they can do it. I can stay with the slow people and get them to go faster and I can run with the fastest and make them go faster, too. I'm pretty sure the injury happened while running lines. I also find it interesting that this was my least favorite thing to do when I played b-ball but right now I get a lot of enjoyment out of it; maybe because it feels good to know I can still do a 17-across in a minute. Hopefully, I'm accurate with the prediction of my injury and treatment will be easy and recovery fast!