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!

Dodgeball to Basketball

So, my team didn't win the Dodgeball tournament. It was an interesting experience, though. It's interesting to see how competitive people can get about a silly game. I did, on the other hand make it onto the faculty all-star team wich competed against the student all-star team. It wasn't even close. We put 'em down quick!

Now, with dodgeball over, I can concentrate on the upcoming basketball season. For those who don't know, I coach high school girls basketball. I am not the head coach and not the JV coach either. I was hired to be the head coach and things haven't gone quite as expected, to put it in a nice way. Anyway, I'm still on the court coaching, yelling, running, pushing, encouraging and generally doing everything I can to get every ounce of potential out of each player. At the end of practice, I'm usually as exhausted as the players. I didn't know it until Irene made a comment to someone else that I am a lot more upbeat right now and happier, in general. The fact is, I am! It's not that my life sucks the rest of the time but I think it's simply the fact that I get to do what I love to do on a regular basis right now. Irene tries to keep my head in check but it's hard, when you end a practice and see the drastic improvement, not to feel pretty good about the way you do things.

Well, gotta change for practice!

Dodgeball!!

So, it's become a tradition at this here high school for the faculty to have a dodgeball tournament. I have opted to participate in said tournament this year. It is today after school. I'm not sure what to expect from this but a lot of these teachers take a lot of pride in their dodgeball skills and make sure that everyone else knows what the eventual outcome of the tournament will be. I, on the other hand, being from Texas need not brag. Humility is just a natural trait for us Texans and the need to express our superiority in, well, just about anything is a given.

I look forward to the tournament today. I hope that I can bring my teammates up to a championship level.

I'll try to remember to post results tomorrow.

On another note, basketball practice starts tomorrow (Finally!!!). I do love basketball season and being on the court every day!

Moved to tears

I was reminded last night of something I heard said by Jim Valvano. For those of you who don't know who that was, he was, in simplest terms, a coach. He is most commonly known as Jimmy V and he died of cancer. At the ESPN, Espy Awards a few years back, they gave Jim Valvano an award and he gave a speech that rings through those who heard it being punctuated with the words, "Don't give up! Don't ever give up!" Those aren't the words I was reminded of. The ones that came to me last night were part of a list of things someone should do on a daily basis. One of those things was, "...be moved to tears..."
Last night, I was moved to tears. I was watching a show on ESPN called E60. It's like the sport's version of 60 Minutes. Anyway, there was a segment about the mascot from The University of North Carolina that died in a car accident. This young man made the choice, a very verbal emphatic choice, to be an organ donor. His organs were donated to at least four different people. All of these people were brought back from the brink of death. The parents of this young man received an opportunity to meet these recipients and vice versa.
I was doing well up until the point where it showed the meeting. At that point, for some reason, I couldn't hold back the tears. This young man's choice gave one man the ability to go back to work on his farm, another man went from being bed-ridden to being able to spend time with his teenage children, yet another will now be able to watch his young children grow up and last, a teenage boy will be able to try out for the high school basketball team. Just to see the mixture of emotions, not just the elation for a new lease on life, not just the thankfulness for the gift they had received but also to watch the guilt that some underwent because they lived while this young man had to die.
What else can I say? I was moved by the whole experience. In fact, moved to tears.

The scariest day in my whole life

Can you think of this? The scariest day? I'm pretty comfortable knowing what day this was for me. It was right about this time back in 2003 and I was studying in Mexico. Irene was back in Texas with the boys, James and John. I get a call one night in my dormroom from Irene. She starts by saying, "First of all, everything is fine; everyone is okay."
I knew something was wrong.
She proceeds to tell me that John got lost at school.
"What!?!"
Some of you may not understand what a risk it is having kids with autism out in an open area without the ability to be with them at all times. They don't know what it means to wander and that's exactly what John did. You see, at his school, there's a large playground and it is separated from a major road by chain-link fence. What, up to this point, had gone unnoticed was that there was a large drainage ditch that passed under this road and actually connected the playground with the neighborhood on the other side of this road.
Do you see where this is going?
Nobody noticed John wander away because there were 7 other kids in his class that were also drawing attention for whatever little autistic eccentricities they have. Nobody saw him disappear into the drainage ditch and then come up on the other side. All in all, he was missing for approximately 30 minutes. The school went on complete lockdown and doubled up classes so that teachers could help search the grounds. The police were called. The entire school was in a panic and, rightly so. My three-year-old autistic son was wandering around a neighborhood all by himself and nobody knew he was there. Then, God showed an older woman this small boy wandering around by himself without an adult in sight and he wasn't responding to her. She called the police who were already patrolling the area looking for him. They picked him up and took him back to the school.
I can't imagine Irene's true feelings through this. She arrived at the school to have the principal come out to her to tell her that John was missing. His teacher was so beside herself in tears that she couldn't even face Irene. And almost immediately after Irene received this news they received the call that John was found and was okay.
He was already lost and found by the time I heard the story but it still scared me more than anything that's ever happened to me. Just the possibilities of what could've happened. It still gives me a funny feeling just to think about it.
Thank God, He's watching out for us!