Day: August 14, 2023

Lots of lasts and firsts over the past seven days. Let’s see if I can get through them all without getting too wordy or emotional.

First Week at CHS

L had her traditions orientation last Sunday evening and then a half-day schedule walk through on Wednesday before Cathedral began the school year on Thursday.

When we picked her up from the traditions orientation and asked how it went, her response was, “Fine. I have a new potential boyfriend.” Good grief. I believe she and this young man were up talking late into the evening the next night. A year ago this kid refused to wear contacts when she wasn’t playing basketball, had braces, and kept her hair pulled back at all times. Now she’s always in contacts, the braces are off and the teeth look good, and she is super proud of her curls. In fact when she got her schedule and saw that weight training is her first class of the day 3–4 days a week, so got upset because “my hair isn’t going to look good after weights.”

It was very odd for her and C to head off to CHS together without me being involved. I had a mental clock constantly ticking Thursday and Friday, making me think I had to be somewhere at a certain time. I imagine that clock will tick for a few weeks until my brain re-wires itself after 16 years of school year drop offs and pick ups. And right about the time I adjust, L will start basketball workouts either before or after school and I’ll start driving at least one way again.

Early last week M said to me, “You finally get to sleep in now!” I shook my head and said, “Uh, no I can’t!” and nodded at C, who started laughing. C is now the responsible sister for driving herself and her sister to school. She is also the hardest of our kids to wake up. Thus it will continue to be my job to make sure she gets out of bed. Since she parks in the junior lot, which is much more chaotic than the senior lot M parked in last year, she is leaving about 15 minutes earlier than they left last year.

Put all that together and I’ve been getting up in the 6:20–6:30 range through three days, compared to the 7:00 that was my standard wake time last year. Oh well. Allows me to knock out my blogging responsibilities sooner in the day. I’m sure all my friends who have had jobs their entire adult lives feel really bad for me not being able to sleep in every day.

You know what else is weird? This is the first time in nine years we don’t have any kickball practices/games when the new school year starts! Not sure what I’m going to do with myself with no games of any kind until mid-November.

Week of Lasts/Goodbyes

Lots of lasts for M over the past week. A week ago Sunday was her final time working on Sundays for her aunt who is a personal chef, a job she’s had for two years. C took over this weekend.

We had the in-laws over for dinner on Monday. M had a couple other dinners with either aunts or friends. Lots of friends dropped by to say goodbye, which meant plenty of tears. Friday her core group all stopped by to say goodbye together. We cracked up when her one friend, who is not emotional at all, came bouncing down the stairs with a smile on her face while the other four girls were all in tears.

Moving Day

Saturday was move-in day at UC. We rented a minivan, dropped all the seats, and filled it up, then had the back of S’s Jeep Cherokee full as well. Seemed like a lot of stuff to me. We also made C and L go with us. For the record I was against this, although they did help us get unloaded a little quicker than we could have done with just three people. After that they were just kind of in the way, but I guess it saved us having to do sister goodbyes at 7:30 AM.

It was raining in Indy when we left but we got ahead of the storms as we drove down. We were able to pull right up in front of M’s dorm and were almost completely unloaded before the rain hit Cincy. It was pretty gentle until after we had everything out of the cars and I had moved them to a parking garage, so none of us nor M’s stuff got soaked.

This was the early move-in day for people going through rush, who have other early commitments, or are local and just wanted to drop their stuff and go back home until the official move-in date. I can’t imagine what it will be like later this week when the bulk of the students show up. Seemed like there were a ton of people there already. Later in the day you couldn’t get anywhere close to M’s dorm and folks were hauling their stuff several blocks. So glad we were early and missed that.

You may recall M was not pleased when she got her dorm assignment. I told her to suck it up, living in a crappy dorm is part of being in college. But after seeing her room, I’m on her side. It’s not great. I swear it feels older and smaller than my old, small crappy dorm rooms from the early 90s. I’m not convinced it got a very good cleaning after its last occupants moved out. There are also very few electrical outlets, which seems weird for modern times. Hope the girls are careful with their extension cords.

You can see the basketball arena from her window, which is kind of cool. The Bearcats come to Lawrence this season, so KU may play there in the ’24–25 season, depending on how the new, new Big 12 schedule works out.

We arrived three hours before her roommate, so we had a chance to get M’s stuff in and organized on our own. We took off right after her roommate arrived so didn’t see first hand how they divided up the space. The pictures M sent us make it look like they got everything in and arranged ok. The roommate brought a rug, which might have been the best contribution of all.

Rush activities start Monday evening. I’m sure it’s going to be a stressful week for all those girls. I don’t know if M has any preferences. There is not a chapter for the house her mom was in at IU, so she can’t do the legacy thing. The greek system at UC is a little different than at your traditional state schools. Some houses don’t actually have physical houses, and others are quite a bit smaller than their sibling houses at IU or Purdue. I think at some houses you don’t move in until you are a junior. I don’t have my head around the details. I just hope she lands somewhere with good people that makes her happy. And I hope the next few days aren’t too rough on her. Classes begin on the 21st.

Between the rain, us being all sweaty and gross, and the emotions of saying goodbye, we didn’t take a single picture Saturday. I had to ask M to take a few so I have a record of her arrival at college. As of the time of this post, she hasn’t seen me any but promises to.

Oh yeah, the emotions. I wish someone would have warned me.

I kid. Everyone I know who has taken a kid to college warned me. I still wasn’t prepared for the wave that started to hit me while we were eating lunch, knowing that we would be leaving without her soon. Yikes. The goodbyes were hard and I was kind of a mess for a few hours afterward. Glad that L rode home with S, and C slept in the back of the van all the way home.

We’ve sent a kid off to college. Crazy.

Loaner

In addition to the minivan for the trip to Cincinnati, I am also driving a loaner from Audi again. The rear tailgate on my Q5 has failed for the third time, and it is taking a few days to get parts in.

The last time I got a loaner it was an A5, which was a lot of fun. How privileged of me was it to be disappointed when they gave me another Q5 this time? And the same trim level as mine? Mine has better (ventilated) seats but otherwise it is the same car, just newer and white. I did let M drive it Friday when she took me to pick up the minivan. I’ve never let her drive mine, so it was kind of a special treat before she went off to school.

Flory

Finally a big time Indiana recruit picks KU!

My Saturday sadness was balanced somewhat by the commitment of Kokomo’s Flory Bidunga to KU late in the evening. He is currently ranked as the #1 center and #5 player overall in his class. He is the highest-rated recruit to commit to the Jayhawks since Josh Jackson. By one measure he is behind only Jackson and Andrew Wiggins as the highest rated KU recruit ever. I would submit that there are at least three recruits who would be rated above him if modern recruiting rankings existed when they were seniors.[1]

I have been paying attention to him since last summer. He had just been in the US one year, and led his high school team to a surprising semi-state run in the state tournament as a sophomore. His summer team played Xavier Booker’s team, right after Xavier had been named the #1 player in his class. A local reporter was at the game and tweeted out updates. Bidunga just destroyed Booker that night. He had nine dunks and out-played the alleged best player in the country.

I didn’t expect KU to be in the mix – they never really have been with studs in Indiana – but I was hopeful.

Then this past spring there were rumors that Bidunga might reclassify and enroll at KU over the summer. Apparently he is tight with the Adidas folks and that promoted the rumors. Rumors he quickly quashed, insisting he was going to play his senior year and try to win a state championship.

However, KU seemed to be in the lead because of the Adidas connection. Until this July, when all the recruiting “experts” decided that Duke was his most likely destination.

When Flory announced he would be committing this week, there was another rush of predictions for Duke.

Until Friday when a bunch of those same experts flipped their predictions to Auburn. Which seemed…odd. But do you ever really know with teenagers and recruiting?

Then he picked KU, which made me wonder if people around him were intentionally giving bad intel to the recruiting gurus.

Just a good reminder that you should never read too much into these predictions. Bidunga was going to Duke, until he wasn’t. Mackenzie Mgbako was going to Kansas…until he picked Indiana. Don’t believe anything until you see the kid put on the hat.

As for Flory, he led his team to the state finals last year, where they lost to undefeated Ben Davis. He had 19 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocks in the title game. He holds the unofficial Indiana records for most dunks in a game, 11, and most consecutive field goals made, 32. He’s only 6’8”–6’9” so it’s not like he’s Joel Embiid or Udoka Azubuike. He is a ridiculous athlete who has very good post fundamentals and tries to dunk everything. He doesn’t register as a one-and-done player because of his size and the lack of variety to his game right now, but Bill Self did tell him he could be as good as Embiid so, again, you never know.

The big bonus is he seems like a great kid. He is always smiling. He always plays hard. An IU friend of mine who has seen him play a bunch texted me saying, “He is going to be awesome in Bill Self’s system.” A reporter asked Flory Saturday what he would like KU fans to know about him. His response was that he is a good person who treats people well, and it would be great if people knew that.

Love this kid already!

I may have to attend a Kokomo high school game or two this year. Hopefully they come down to Indy a few times.