*********** Coach Wyatt- I have been messing around with the iMovie on here and seems to be pretty cool. Our school only has 8mm cameras. Will that transfer over well enough to be worth it? I have heard both ways. Your editing articles have been helpful. Coach Jason Sopko, Forest City, Iowa Coach- If you start in 8 mm you will still have to "digitize" the signal on your tape, which is recorded in analog form, so that your computer can recognize it and iMovie can use it. Your computer can do all sorts of cool things with digital signals, but it can't digitize an analog signal - yet. There are three ways of doing this: 1. Record it digitally in the first place, on a DV or Digital-8 camera. I'd say get the DV camera. Make sure that it has the capability of recording from another camera. Look in the manual under "recording," and look on the body of the camera for "Audio-Video, or A-V input". If it is simply labelled "A-V out," as on one of my older models, it will not record. Some cameras will actually allow the analog to "pass through," digitizing it on the way into the computer without even having to go through the middle step of making a digital tape. It would be worth your trouble to convert your present 8 mm stuff.. I do it all the time with some of my old stuff which is recorded on 8 mm and Hi-8. The converted 8 mm image shouldn't be any worse than it is right now, and while it won't be as good as digital, you will still be able to do something with it in iMovie2 (Apple's basic video-editing software, which comes bundled with all Macs). The single biggest move I have made since getting into video production seriously has been the move to DV. Even if you're only shooting game tapes, and not doing anything else with them, you will not believe the difference in sharpness and clarity. I am beginning to see it now in the VHS tapes that coaches send me. I can spot immediately the ones that were originally shot on DV.
*********** Uh, Your Honor, maybe next time you should just put it in the form of an order... The Great State of Washington is currently in a state of budget crisis caused partly because of high taxes that eventually killed Boeing, the goose that laid the golden egg, and by state financing of a snazzy new stadium for the wealthiest owner in professional sports, one who could have written a check for the whole deal himself and never even known it was missing from his account. So last fall, the Honorable Gary Locke, Governor of the Great State of Washington, a man not heavily endowed with stones, called for "voluntary restraint" in hiring by state agencies. Wow. They sure must be afraid of the wrath of the Guv. In the last three months of 2001, since he made his request, the state payroll grew by 1,365 bodies. And you still can't get anybody to answer the phone. ***********Tubby Raymond, who recently retired after 36 years as head coach at the University of Delaware, is a native of Flint, Michigan. His coach at Flint Northern High was a man named Guy Houston, who was something of a legend not only in Flint, but throughout the state of Michigan. To illustrate the sort of power that a football coach - anyone in authority - could wield in those days, Coach Raymond reminisced for Tom Tomashek of the Wilmington News-Journal. "We had a kid who talked back to Guy one day and the kid was kicked off the team," Coach Raymond said. "The next day, he came back to practice. He had a black eye and a cut above his nose. "He said, 'Please, Coach, let me back on the team or my dad said he'll finish the job.' That's how big football was in Flint." Can't you just see it? *********** Coach Wyatt, I am curious as to why you omit the number 69? Omitting #69 from the TIPS - which I assume is what you're referring to - is my little joke, but also my way of saying that I have been around the game long enough to know to save myself the trouble of dealing with who gets to wear #69, which as all kids know, is a crudity. I know exactly what it means, too, and why a kid wants to wear it. Mainly, it's because he wants to draw attention to himself, on the order of "sweet towels" and wrist bands, and different-colored socks and shoes. I heard a coach at Delaware once refer to those people as the "Purple Plume Gang," guys who would just love to wear purple plumes sticking out of their helmets saying, "Look at Me." On top of all that, he wants to combine his individualism with sexual innuendo, and I consider it my responsibility not to let him use our team uniform to do it. I have never issued the number and never will. I have never bought a set of jerseys with the number 69.
*********** "God smiles on you some days, and this is my day." Steven Bradbury, Australian Olympic gold-medal winner in the 1,000 meter short track, thanks to a pile-up that wiped out the four guys in front of him. *********** Man. I am sold on short-track speed-skating! I thought it was exciting enough when that Apolo guy wiped out the first time I saw it, but then on Saturday night, I saw a relay! Talk about cool! This time, it really looked like Roller Derby. What sold me on it was all those hunks in tight-fitting suits, pushing on each other's rear ends. *********** What is with this "Team USA" and "Team Canada" and "Team Russia" crap, anyhow? It sure has a phony, soccerish sound to it. It always used to be enough just to say "USA"or "Canada" or "Russia," and it does take a little more effort on the announcers' part to say "Team USA." I am cynical enough to suspect that somebody stands to make a buck off of "Team USA" tee-shirts, or hats, or jerseys.
Judging by The Wall Street Journal's reaction, it must have read my mind: "No more ice dancing!"
*********** Coach, I was wondering about tapering off the workload during practice and the weight room at the end portion of the season, especially post-season play. Is it necessary to cut back on contact, conditioning, weight room work, anything at the end of the football season to keep athletes fresh and peaked for the post-season? Or is this just a myth? If tapering is a good practice, why is it effective? Thank you in advance for your consideration. John Bothe Oregon, IL It's a great question. Tapering/peaking is inherent to any sound periodization plan, including in-season as well as off-season. It's effective because optimal adaptation (and overuse/injury avoidance) seems to result by progressing from extensive volumes of intermediate intensity work to lesser volumes of more intensive work. We use a 3-week rotation during the season where the workload progressively cycles up and amount of work cycles down. In fact the 3rd week of each phase is extremely intense - e.g. high percentages on everything, and heavy negatives on hip sled and bench press. The trade-off is that reps/sets are very low and we eliminate half of the usual movements that week. Then the next week it's back to the full menu, lower weights, more (but still moderate) reps, etc. Obviously there are different ways to apply this concept. You should also consider whether you want to simply use a 3-4 week in-season cycle, or one that's designed around important competitions. If the cycle exceeds 5-6 weeks in length you'll probably want to be a little more creative with how you vary the program. Steve Plisk Readers please note: Our arrangement with Steve Plisk, strength and conditioning coach for all of Yale's sports, is that he will answer, to the best of his ability and to the extent that his schedule permits, questions from coaches, including youth coaches. I am frequently asked by athletes or their parents to have Steve recommend individual workouts. It is simply not feasible for me to ask Steve to prescribe individual programs for athletes, not is it our desire to interpose ourselves between any athlete and his (or her) coach. I believe it is important that any young athlete learn to work with his (or her) own coach, without "benefit" of outside advice. HW (See some of Steve Plisk's other answers to coaches) *********** We have had a very successful Youth program. We send some very good players up to ouor local HS but they do not get any opportunities to play. Our HS Coaches are infatuated with size. They just look at a kid and project him at a position by his size and that is it. They rarely do any live contact at practice so the boys cannot even earn a spot on the field. It is getting to the point now that our best local boys are going off to a private school to play ball. I have nothing against the private schools. The ONLY reason these boys are going is for an opportunity to play football. And the school they are going to plays in our state's largest Division - our local HS plays in the lowest Division. Just doesn't make sense that they get opportunities there and not at our school. NAME WITHHELD
MORE ABOUT DON HOLLEDER AND THE TYPE OF MAN HE WAS "Major Holleder overflew the area (under attack) and saw a whole lot of Viet Cong and many American soldiers, most wounded, trying to make their way our of the ambush area. He landed and headed straight into the jungle, gathering a few soldiers to help him go get the wounded. A sniper's shot killed him before he could get very far. He was a risk-taker who put the common good ahead of himself, whether it was giving up a position in which he had excelled or putting himself in harm's way in an attempt to save the lives of his men. My contact with Major Holleder was very brief and occured just before he was killed, but I have never forgotten him and the sacrifice he made. On a day when acts of heroism were the rule, rather than the exception, his stood out." Dave Berry By the way... to make sure the record is correct... There is no "n" in "Holleder." The correct pronunciation is NOT "Hollander" - there is no "N". It was common, when Don Holleder was playing, for announcers to mispronounce his name "Hollander," and evidently it was a sore spot with his former wife, since remarried who, when I spoke with her, evidently thought I'd said "Hollander," and was quick to correct me!
|
February
26- "The line that divides good and evil is
not a line that divides good men from bad men, but a line
which cuts through the middle of every human heart."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: The "Little Round Man" spent his
entire career in the state of Georgia. A county in
Georgia is named for one of his ancestors.
***********
Maybe you saw players in the Army-Navy game
wearing patches in honor of various military
units. Winners of the Black Lion Award are
not only eligible to wear the Black Lions
emblem shown at left, they are all going to
receive one.
When I ran the Delaware Wing-T at Hudson's Bay High in Vancouver, Washington, we had Delaware offensive coordinator Ted Kempski come out once and put on a clinic, followed the next year by the late Ron Rogerson, Delaware line coach who'd just taken the Princeton job. I still have the notes. I once asked for - and was granted - the privilege of introducing Tubby Raymond at a clinic out here. I said at the time I felt like a parish priest introducing the Pope. Of course, the "wing-T" that Delaware has been running over the last few years is no longer your father's Delaware Wing-T. Much of it is still recognizable, but Coach Raymond has been wise enough to adapt to the modern game and the modern rules, and has attempted to incorporate the Wing-T principles with those of the run-and-shoot and the triple option. At its best,the modern Delaware offense has been very tough to stop. Nevertheless, it is the closest we got to seeing our stuff run - well - at the college level, and now, with Tubby's announcement on Monday that after 36 years he is hanging it up, I worry that if they hire the wrong guy, the Delaware Wing-T will be totally gone from college football, and we will all have lost a priceless resource. Two current members of the offensive staff are in the running, so there is hope. Delaware is not exactly a graveyard of coaches. In the last 62 years, it has had only three coaches, and they are all legendary: Bill Murray, Dave Nelson and Tubby Raymond. *********** I keep reading that Rosie O'Donnell is going to "come out" any day now, and announce publicly that she is a lesbian. Boy. You coulda fooled me. I keep thinking, "Can that be? My Rosie?" For years, my wife's been after me to take my nude poster of Rosie down from our bedroom wall.
Coach: You gave a much more controlled response to this action than I would have and I commend you for it. This coach needs to realize that I have seen three fights (one of which I was a part of) when someone pulled a cheap stunt like this. What does it teach the kids? Disrespect of your opponent? A lack of class? Not very good sportsmanship, that is what it teaches. Kids get enough of that from watching the pros, they don't need a coach modeling this behavior. As a note, I'm really disappointed that the other team wasn't inspired by this classless demonstration. The time a team did that to a team I coached, our kids were inspired and we outplayed them physically. Also, this coach would have found me waiting at the 50 yard line for him if he tired to pull this stunt. Mike Putnam, Stayton, Oregon My response was written to a youth coach for whom I have a lot of respect, and he just hadn't had the benefit of a veteran coach's perspective on the subject of ethics. Think about it for a minute - few youth coaches have the benefit of a veteran mentor to help them with these subtle but important aspects of coaching. He is a good man and a fast learner, and he took my words in the way they were intended. We all have our moments when we are new to the game. Back in my earliest days of coaching, I once took advantage of an opportunity to take a peek at an opponent's practice. (That's a real no-no, if you didn't know. I didn't know it then, but I know now - It's called "skunking.") The Lord must have been watching me and must have wanted to make sure I learned my lesson. We lost the game. *********** I assume the guy that was talking about running through the opposing team's end of the field is a good guy and still learning. I once had a coach bring his whole team to the hash mark for the toss and chant WE WANT YOU while pointing at us. Our kids never changed expression - just stood there looking at them, then went out and beat their asses. The next year we were playing them again for the Championship. Every year the Championship is played at a different field to let everyone share in the money that is made from the game. This particular year it was at their home field. However the team with the best record was still considered the home team. After the warm ups they went to their home field side of the field. We jogged down the visitors side to the 50, cut across to their side and said, "We are home team and wish to take this side of the field". Needless to say it blew their mind. They had to pick up all their gear, water buckets, phone lines, etc.The coach was mumbling and bitching when I said, "member the WE WANT YOU?" Oh yes, we beat them again. Frank Simonsen, Cape May, New Jersey *********** Coach, Thank you for talking to the coach about having his kids run through the other teams warm-up drills before the game. I believe we as coaches need to be held to certain standard. For some of our kids we coaches are the only male role model they are able to come into close contact with. So we need to make sure that we are careful about everything we say and do around our young men. I know that it is hard to control this especially in the heat of battle. But we need to remember that we are living in an age that I believe that our young people are growing up with a lack of moral and character role models, and what better sport than football is there that teaches both the mental discipline and self sacrifice and a true team work ethic? So as coaches lets not do anything to disgrace the game that we all love. Now coach don't get me wrong - I am not knocking you personally,but like coach Wyatt says chalk it up to a lesson learned. Tom Schroeder, Hugoton, Kansas *********** Regarding the note you wrote, good job coach! As I was reading the coach's email, I was already forming a response to him in my mind. I might have to tell you though, that other coach must have been a sissy-girl. No coach with cojones would have let that happen without turning that into a positive for his team. Just my two cents worth. John Torres, Manteca, California *********** Whew! We're off the hook! The Supreme Court just ruled - unanimously - that kids can grade each others' papers and tests. I made a practice of doing it in this fashion, believing that by taking tests home and correcting them myself, I was wasting a great opportunity to use the correction process as another way of teaching. (Not to mention spending a lot of my time doing it.) But trust some weenie modern parent to complain that his (or her) kid's "right to privacy" (sorry- can't find that in the Constitution) was violated by letting another student know how he (or she) had done on the test being corrected. And somehow the case made it all the way to the Supremes before being tossed. Don't know about you, but my biggest problem was keeping from announcing their grades to everyone else. I would call them up to the front of the room and, in confidentiality, silently point to their grade in the book (being careful to mask all the other kids' grades in there). Whereupon, they would turn and walk back to their desks to a chorus of "whatcha get?", and immediately begin telling the people around them what they got. COACHES WEIGH IN (SORRY - COULDN'T PASS IT UP) ON THE SUBJECT OF WEIGHT LIMITS *********** "I agree completely with your answer to the President of the new junior football organization. As you are well aware, I've coached at the 5th through 8th grade levels for 8 years and, based on my experience, all of the reasons you cited are correct. Specifically, I've seen 180 pound 6th graders, who, if forced to move up a grade, would get pummeled by 140 pound 7th graders. This past season we had a 220 pound 6th grader who, in spite of his girth and willingness to hit, did not hurt anyone this season. There is more to the physics of football than size. "Additionally, Pop Warner type organizations that allow participation based on weight eliminate football as a youth sport for many overweight (obese) children. In our league, where there are no weight restrictions on participation, I've seen kids' lives turned around because they could play. A few years ago, one kid, whose mom dragged him to practice every day, lost 25 pounds during the season. He eventually became a decent player and contributed to the HS varsity his last 2 years in school. Prior to his first year of football, he'd never played any sport at all. Finally, if your correspondent is looking for a set of rules to govern the weights in his league, I'd be happy to send him a copy of our rules. I don't have a electronic copy, but I can forward to him via fax or letter, if he wishes." Just let me know. Keith Babb, Northbrook, Illinois *********** Hi Coach, Just surfing your news and saw your comments on youth football age wgts. As a youth Coach I have concerns over the age wgt. issue. Maybe I can get thinking differently on the subject. Maybe not, here goes: 1st(and this one you probably won't like) is that youth football is not a feeder system to high school, especially at the younger ages. I am very proud of the players I have Coached and that have moved on to HS and College and continued to play. Fact is tho most Kids play for a year or two before they decide that maybe football is not for them. But we Coach them just the same and hopefully they take some of the lessons they learn with them and it will help them later on in whatever they do. Trying to groom a eight yr old to play High school football is just not practical. We try and teach them about the game and instill a love for the game so they will stick with it. The older age groups are different. We definitely try and prepare them for the next level. 2nd, Coach as we know Mom has alot to say whether a boy will play football or not. And she will not like that little johnny will be going head to head with Monster Joey!! When the boys get to HS Age Mom has alot less to say and size will not matter to a real football player when it comes to deciding whether to play or not. So I think we will lose a great # of players to other sports, you know what one in particular. 3rd, There just is not enough players to allow Youth leagues to restrict a team to just one grade/age. Example if a team were restricted to just 6th graders you probably wouldn't have enough players to field a team. So now you have to lump several grades together to form a team. Without any kind of wgt restriction you now have younger players in lower grades participating with older players that can be much larger. Those younger kids are much more intimidated by the bigger kids. So again I think it would affect the # of kids in our program. 4th, and lastly Coach, for the amount of time I have Coached youth football there has been very few kids we had to turn away because they were to big. We usually have a place for them somewhere. And if we do have to move them up to an older team it usually still works out for them. It would not be the same for the smaller lighter players. With the wgt. restrictions it allows the smaller kids a chance to play this great game. Lets face it, there will be no place for them to play when they reach HS. And honestly the smaller kids way outnumber the bigger kids. So I think it would be bad for our community to do away with the wgt. restrictions. It just gives more kids the opportunity to play with kids there own size and age group. It gives them the confidence they will need to go on to the next level. Our organization is a Pop Warner league and we have age/ wgt requirements and I think we service our community and kids the best we can. Even tho I always do not agree with all the Pop Warner rules. Well I guess that is about the most rambling I have ever done in one single email ever!!! I know all the HS Coaches out there will not agree, and some I have spoken to would rather just groom the Future Big Potential Football HS players but youth leagues are for all youth players not just the future HS stars. And youth leagues can contribute to the area High Schools without just catering to the special players, but by hopefully teaching and sending them greater # of players that are confident and disciplined and know the football basics. Ken Brierly, Carolina, Rhode Island I appreciate the input. I don't feel so strongly about the issue that I don't allow for the fact that there will be well-reasoned disagreement, which is what I consider yours to be. I do feel the need to clarify one point, though, and that is the impression I may have somehow given that I think that youth teams are supposed to be feeders for high schools. I know that it works that way in some places, and to the extent that those places are able to make it work, more power to them. But in general, I don't think it is feasible or necessarily desirable. I think the purpose of youth football is to teach kids the basics of the game, teach them coachability, teach them good work habits and responsibility, teach them to be competitive, and instill in them a love of the game so they will want to keep playing. That, to me, is good coaching. I personally could care less what system the kids have run if the coach has done the job in those areas. If a youth coach is able to do that, that is all the "feeding" I think I as a high school coach should expect. If I have said or written anything that has given any other impression, I do hope that clears it up. The important thing is that it happens to be a point on which I agree with you heartily. HW *********** Our league has a web site forum area and during the season, they asked the question; "should we raise the weights?" I was happy to read your comments since I am of the same opinion. Although in my response I argued both sides of the issue, I was trying to point out that size alone should not be the determining factor. For what it is worth, her was my response back in September of 2001. Scott Roberts, Clarence, New York The weight survey is a great idea and everyone and their brother has an opinion on this subject. It will be very interesting to see the results. I have more questions/comments than suggestions and look forward to reading everyone's opinion. Having a son who is a 9 yr old 1st year Freshman, and already nearing the 100 lb limit, it would be easy for me to say "raise the weights", but I am not sure that would be in the best interest of our league. Many parents are already concerned about the safety of their children and I think the weight restriction relieves some of their concerns. Increasing weights to accommodate boys that are in the highest 5% of weight percentiles may not make sense. Link to National Center for Health Statistics shows a 100 lb 10 yr old is at the 95th percentile for his age. *********** Coach, Your letter from the gent who has questions regarding what kind of Jr football they should play is a topic I'm fully qualified to help with. Your welcome to pass along my email address to him in case he wants opinions from someone who's fought the battles. As you know we play by grade and age, not by weight. It works out fine in our system with our kids, all 750, league wide. Glade Hall, Seattle, Washington (Coach Hall knows these things quite well. A couple of years ago, after a disagreement with the board of directors of his league, he left that league and its financial security, and raised the funds and the support to play independent until hooking up with another league. HW) *********** Hugh: I agree to a point with your assessment on keeping kids of age groups together rather than using weight classes as the key factor. Unfortunately, I don't know what the right answer is. In our league of over 5,000 boys we use age as the primary factor but there are maximum weight classes with no striper rules. One of the reasons we don't go to an open weight per age group is that in some ways you are just promoting "fat and lazy kids" and what I mean by that is as follows: Most of the kids that we get who are significantly over the weight limit for their age group are not "bigger" kids (meaning height and weight) but rather normal height and rather obese. In the 1970's the weight class for sixth graders was 80lbs, in the 1980's it was 90lbs, in the 1990's it was 95lbs. and last year we bumped it up to 100lbs. Doctors and our own statistical research tells us that 100lbs. should include almost 93% of the sixth graders in the nation. Unfortunately, I think we are just seeing MANY MORE fat and lazy kids than ever before, no thanks to gameboys, satellite TV, home computers and no doubt overprotective parents that don't let the kids play outdoors at the sandlot all summer. So in 25 years, the weight class for the average sixth grader has gone up 20 lbs. - Is it evolution or too much sweets and not enough exercise???? Bill Lawlor, Hoffman Estates, Illinois *********** No sooner had Canada's hockey team had its ass whipped by Sweden than The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, executive director of Team Canada, began to start the "Us Against Them" talk. Everybody, he whined, is out to get the Canadians. "It almost sickens my stomach to turn on the TV," he said. "It makes me ill to hear what's being said about Canadian hockey." Uh-oh. He must have seen us damn Yanks over there, whispering and snickering. Man! Talk about paranoia. Losing will do that to a guy. "The Americans love our poor start," he went on. "They love it when we're not doing well. I don't think we dislike those countries as much as they hate us. They don't like us, and they want to see us fail." Uh, Wayne, not to interrupt you in the middle of your tirade, but most of us over on this side couldn't give less of a rip. I mean, c'mon. Olympics hockey is just a bunch of NHL pros from Canada or wherever playing another bunch of pros from one place or another, anyhow. We pretty much had a preview of the whole deal a month or so ago in the NHL All-Star gam - those of us who cared enough to watch, that is. I hate to tell you, Wayne, but the problem is not that American hate Canadians. Or even dislike them. Nothing of the sort. Canadians are not exactly a hateful lot, eh? The real problem, as I have heard Canadians say for years, and one that will last long after the Olympics are over, is that most Americans couldn't care less about Canada one way or the other. *********** I heard a woman caller on a radio talk show come up with one of the best suggestions I've heard on a long time. The subject was all this "celebrate diversity" nonsense that's being foisted on public school kids, often with the thinly-disguised purpose of promoting acceptance of the gay-lesbian lifestyle. One local school has scheduled "Celebrate Diversity Week," with gay and lesbian panelists scheduled to talk to the kids about - what? Apart from the obvious question about how, in the face of the appalling job we are doing educating our kids, we can possibly justify devoting teaching time to such matters, the caller said what we really seem to need nowadays is "Celebrate Similarities Week." *********** In case you didn't read this in your paper: Dear Ann Landers: As someone who reads your column every day, I took exception to the letter from Bill Phar, e-member of George Halas' taxi squad, who said football can be dangerous, and kids can get badly hurt. Nice going, Mike! *********** I asked Steve Plisk a question forwarded to me about rehab, and as I'd though he would, he answered me like this: We're getting outside my area of expertise here Hugh. I can provide links to a few useful sites (below), but as is the case with all aspects of the program, the practitioner's knowledge, skill and ability are the keys to a successful rehab program. Here are the links which Steve so generously provided: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons <http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/> A reminder to readers: Our arrangement with Steve Plisk, strength and conditioning coach for all of Yale's sports, is that he will answer, to the best of his ability and to the extent that his schedule permits, questions submitted to me by coaches, including youth coaches. It is simply not feasible for me to ask Steve to prescribe individual programs for athletes or their parents, nor is it my desire to interpose Steve or myself between any athlete and his (or her) coach. I am not a great believer in creating a situation where a coach has to compete with an outside adviser. It is my policy any time a young player (or a parent) asks me for advice to refer them to their coach. I believe it is important that any young athlete learn to work with his (or her) own coach, without "benefit" of competing advice. HW *********** Brisa Silva is a 5-7, 17-year-old sophomore basketball player at Los Angeles' Garfield High, and she's pretty good. In fact, she's very good. She's averaging 24 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.8 steals on a Garfield team that was 21-3 heading into last weekend. She has made 60 three-pointers, and the boys at Garfield are said to be reluctant to play her one-on-one. Her coach at Garfield, Ed Kikuchi, has officiated for 25 years and coached for 10 years, and he told the L.A. Times, "I've seen a lot of players. Out of the East L.A. area, she could be the best." From the first time Coach Kikuchi saw her dribble the ball up and down the court with both hands, he knew she was special. What is marvelous about this girl is that she did not get this way with the help of personal coaches, summer camps and elite travelling teams. Nor did she even have the benefit of playing at an inner-city playground against other talented kids. She did it on her own. The old-fashioned way. Practice, practice, practice. She started playing basketball at the age of five in her native Rosario, Mexico, practicing at a playground where the hoop never had a net. She arrived in the US at the start of her freshman year, speaking not a word of English, hoping to find the competition that would help her some day become a professional. What a lesson this should be for American parents, who are so eager for their kids to develop, mainly to get them off the hook of having to pay for their kid's college. Someone should tell them that it isn't working. They spend fortunes on the personal coaches, personal trainers and summer camps and put their families' lives on hold while travelling all over hell's half acre following their kids' travel teams, and here's a little kid in Mexico who jumps past all of them because of what's inside her. You doubt that there's something wrong with modern-day Americans and their approach? Then how come so many of the white guys in the NBA are European? They don't even have high school sports over there! To say the least, the numbers and advantages are all in favor of the Americans. Does it have something to do with the fact that American kids - and their parents - expect someone else to do the job of making them better?
MORE ABOUT DON HOLLEDER AND THE TYPE OF MAN HE WAS "Major Holleder overflew the area (under attack) and saw a whole lot of Viet Cong and many American soldiers, most wounded, trying to make their way our of the ambush area. He landed and headed straight into the jungle, gathering a few soldiers to help him go get the wounded. A sniper's shot killed him before he could get very far. He was a risk-taker who put the common good ahead of himself, whether it was giving up a position in which he had excelled or putting himself in harm's way in an attempt to save the lives of his men. My contact with Major Holleder was very brief and occured just before he was killed, but I have never forgotten him and the sacrifice he made. On a day when acts of heroism were the rule, rather than the exception, his stood out." Dave Berry By the way... to make sure the record is correct... There is no "n" in "Holleder." The correct pronunciation is NOT "Hollander" - there is no "N". It was common, when Don Holleder was playing, for announcers to mispronounce his name "Hollander," and evidently it was a sore spot with his former wife, since remarried who, when I spoke with her, evidently thought I'd said "Hollander," and was quick to correct me!
|
A
LOOK AT OUR LEGACY: His given name was Lynn Waldorf, but
everyone called him Pappy, a nickname he acquired when he
was prematurely gray.
*********** I'm just starting to realise, the more I learn the more I need to learn. Last night whilst cooking dinners I ended up drawing formations out on my chopping board using grapes,new potatoes and strips of Fillet Steak,my wife is starting to get concerned. Mike "Spike" Kent, Cornwall, England *********** This from the LA Times, sent me by John Torres, Manteca, California: The Interscholastic Surfing Federation championships are set for Feb. 23-24 at Oceanside Harbor. Watch out for Brett Simpson of Huntington Beach, Travis Mellem of San Clemente and the Gudauskas twins, Patrick and Dane, of San Clemente. *********** Coach Wyatt, I was offered and accepted the job at Columbia High School, in Columbia, MS this week. (Home of Walter Payton) Columbia has run the Notre Dame Box for 14 years. They were 11-3 last year and lost in the semi-finals to the eventual champion 14-6. They graduated 11 seniors, 5 starters. At Columbia, we will have 3 of the top 50 juniors in the state. (seniors next year) I will inherit a senior offensive line headed by a 6'7" 345 lb. tackle If he can move, I may move him to center. We will also have senior FB Toney Mckinney 6'2" 225, (355 bench) and Cory. I really am excited about our prospects for the 2002 season. We will conduct spring drills in May. Steve Jones, formerly Florence, now Columbia, Mississippi *********** I glanced over at the TV, and I saw a bunch of guys in gooney spiderman costumes skating very fast around a small oval course, in a very tight pack. I said, "Hey! Everybody come quick! It's Roller Derby on ice!" So everybody came quick, and one of them said, "Oh! That's short-track!" Well, I'll be a son of a gun if it wasn't five guys racing!. On ice skates! They leaned into the corners as if they were on racing motorcycles, and just before the finish, the first four or five guys got wiped out, and the tail end guy, an Australian who avoided the mishap because he was so far behind everybody else, managed to stay on his feet and glide across the finish line. It was the first gold medal any Australian has ever won in the Winter Olympics. I'm sure his nation, one which takes all sports very seriously, is proud of him. (My son, Ed, who lives in Australia and works in sports over there, wrote, "Aussies found it very, very funny...comments like 'that's the Australian way to win the gold!' and the like.") Americans, on the other hands, were devastated, or, the TV announcers told us, I guess we were supposed to be. That's because among the people in the multiple-car (oops - multiple skater) crash was a rather strange-looking dude from Seattle named Apolo Anton Ohno, who had been hyped as the favorite. But in a national tragedy of near-September 11 proportions - to hear the announcers describe it - Mr. Ohno and Americans everywhere lost our chance for gold. The camera showed us close-ups of Ohno's dad-and-mentor, who at first reminded me of the kindly old mentor in The Karate Kid, but this time, when The Kid lost, Dad looked about as nasty and venomous as I've ever seen a human look. Whew! Good thing no judge had to answer to him!
*********** Say what you will about my fellow (or former) townsperson Tonya Harding, but she would have known how to deal with that French figure skating judge. *********** I had no idea how many of these Winter Olympics "athletes" were football fans until I noticed that no one on skis can make a landing or cross a finish line without giving the "touchdown" signal. *********** I am amazed that Al Davis has yet to ask the NFL to award a second Lombardi Trophy to the Raiders. *********** Perhaps the ultimate in pushy, whiny parents are turning out to be the parents of Miss America. They wrote a letter complaining to the Miss America officials that their daughter (who I sort of thought was considered an adult now) was not getting enough bookings (and therefore not getting enough appearance fees). They also complained that the officials had failed to give them their daughter's itinerary, and in general to prepare them for what life would be like as the parents of Miss America. *********** The first clinic of the year was held this past weekend in Houston, at Cypress Community Christian School, where head coach Brian Summers and offensive coordinator Jim Hanley were gracious enough to play host. An unusual treat was the tailgate lunch provided by Coach Scott Barnes, who drove down from the Dallas area with his barbecue setup in the bed of his pickup. Cypress Christian is a small school, and a great example of making good use of the Double-Wing. A new school, Cypress Christian has only been playing high school football for two seasons, and has had two winning seasons right out of the gate, despite playing a lot of freshmen and sophomores those years. I always enjoy visiting Texas, especially with kids and grandkids in Houston. I think Houston is a great city, despite the fact that as we all know from listening to Al Gore, President Bush did everything in his power while governor to poison its air. Houston must have as many restaurants of as many different kind as New York or Los Angeles. Maybe it's the fact that the Cajun Country of Louisiana lies just to the east, and there are a lot of transplanted Louisianans in the Houston area. The weather was fantastic - sunny, breezy, about 65 degrees - and everyone assured me that it is like that all the time, and invited me back in July to see for myself. *********** "I LOVE MY COUNTRY!" says the guy on the giant billboards along the freeways that thread through Houston. Hey, wait a minute - I know that guy! It's none other than our old pal Bum Phillips, selling Country Sausage. *********** Man! When the Houston Texans begin play next year, they are going to be playing in some stadium! Billed as the first football-only stadium with a retractable roof, it stands next to the Astrodome, and is so large it actually dwarfs the Astrodome, a building once called the Eighth Wonder of the World. *********** As you watch TV from now on. keep an eye out for "Time Buys." What that means to you is, keep an eye peeled for more of what you might call unconventional sports, in the places where the Big Four - football, basketball, baseball, hockey - used to be. The four major networks, tired of blowing megamillions on the major sports (where else did you think the owners were getting the all money to pay those louts?), are bailing out. The sports divisions of the four nets are said to have lost an aggregate $1 billion last year. They have clearly overspent for the prestige of broadcasting major sports, and now that they've discovered that the returns don't justify the costs, they are willing to settle for what are called "Time Buys." Basically, that means that the networks sell blocks of time - say, one, two or three hours - to independent production companies, which then provide the "programming" that goes on the air during that time. The production companies handle all the details and costs of producing the events and sell (and keep all the money from) all the advertising. In many cases, they also use the network's announcers, who are under contract anyhow, so it doesn't "look like an infomercial." And since everything's paid for, and the network doesn't have to please advertisers, it could care less about the show's ratings. The soccer World Cup is being shown that way in the US - ABC and ESPN are trading the time to the producers, in return for the programming. *********** We were going thru pre-game drills at one end of the field, and the other team was at the opposite end. As we finished our warm-ups, I got the boys in a line and told them to run down thru the opposite goal post -- slowly, in a perfectly straight line -- clapping and yelling our battle cries and told them to form a perfect circle in the middle of the field..we do this every day at practice, so they are pretty good at it..anyway, they pulled it off and I swear the other kids stopped their pre-game and just watched as the boys ran right thru them, around their goal posts, yelling in unison and forming a circle on the 50. My assistant said that was "cold", but I was worried about these guys..anyway, the other team never even got into the game -- they quit on the first series and we spanked them hard...I can only imagine what the other Coach was sayin', but he never mentioned it to me. Somebody would have to tell you this at some point, so it might as well be a friend...It is considered a fairly serious breach of coaching ethics to invade the other team's end of the field in pre-game. It is their practice field for that particular moment in time, and it is their practice, and you have no more right to go on it and do that than you have to go onto their practice field during the week and disrupt a regular practice. Chalk it up to learning. *********** If there is any event that debases its sport more than the NBA All-Star game, it would have to be one of those old varsity-alumni games that colleges used to play at the end of spring practice. At least most of those guys enjoyed being there. I mean hell, even in the Pro Bowl they at least block and tackle. I heard someone on ESPN complaining that the NBA Slam-Dunk contest held in association with the All-Star game has become a non-event, since none of the big stars gets anywhere near the NBA Slam-Dunk contest any more, with the result that the contestants are now pretty much no-names. I wanted to ask him if he'd seen an NBA All-Star game lately, since he didn't seem to realize that that's where the Slam-Dunk contest has moved to. All the big stars take part in that one, where they find there's no more defense to get by in that slam dunk contest than there was in the other one. *********** Joe Jackson, center for Rich Central High School in Olympia Fields, Illinois, has committed to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point to play football. This is very exciting for his coach, Jon McLaughlin, and for me, too, because I assisted Coach McLaughlin during preseason practice this past season. Joe, 6-5, 315, is a heck of a kid, and his signing by West Point is obviously a tribute to the coaching he's received at RC, but also to the academic preparation he's received, , and the upbringing of his parents.
MORE ABOUT DON HOLLEDER AND THE TYPE OF MAN HE WAS "Major Holleder overflew the area (under attack) and saw a whole lot of Viet Cong and many American soldiers, most wounded, trying to make their way our of the ambush area. He landed and headed straight into the jungle, gathering a few soldiers to help him go get the wounded. A sniper's shot killed him before he could get very far. He was a risk-taker who put the common good ahead of himself, whether it was giving up a position in which he had excelled or putting himself in harm's way in an attempt to save the lives of his men. My contact with Major Holleder was very brief and occured just before he was killed, but I have never forgotten him and the sacrifice he made. On a day when acts of heroism were the rule, rather than the exception, his stood out." Dave Berry By the way... to make sure t |