D's Notebook

Tag: cheer

Weekend Notes

October 29, 2018 /

A strangely busy yet boring fall break weekend.

L had a soccer tournament to wrap up her season. This came after not playing for two weeks and, unfortunately, it really showed. The girls, and L especially, were just not on their game.

Friday we played our opening game at 7:45 under the lights. The windchill was in the upper 30s, there was a stiff northerly breeze, and it was raining steadily. All-in-all a miserable night to do anything outside. We were playing a team we beat 2–1 in the regular season. Surprise, surprise, we got another, nervy, 2–1 win. We played our second round robin game Saturday against a team that beat us 8–1 to begin the season. We hung in for the first half and went into the break down just 1–0 on a freaky goal that went off our defender, off our goalie’s hands, and then off her foot into the goal. We melted down in the second half and lost 5–0.

Still, we made it through to the semis and took on a team we tied 3–3 during the regular season. We played really well for the first 25 minutes, mostly controlling the game. L had our only decent scoring chance and put it off the post. But right before half time we fell apart again, the last five minutes being played deep in our defensive end. The second half was the same: we could not get possession and were constantly scrambling in the back to clean things up. Our defense finally paid for being out of position and we let one through midway through the half. We never got a decent scoring chance after that and our season ended with a 1–0 loss.

L just had nothing all weekend. I don’t know if it was the weather – Saturday was cool and the field was still sloppy; Sunday it was warmer but very windy – if she wasn’t feeling well, if the two weeks off ruined her soccer stamina, or if she had just checked out mentally. Whatever it was, these were probably the three worst games she’s ever played. She just showed no energy, shied away from going after the ball, wouldn’t make runs when we had the ball, and basically played extremely out of character for her.

As a coaching parent, it was very frustrating. I let her have it a few times Sunday when she would just stand and watch where she used to get in the middle of the action and make things happen. Afterward I had to remind myself that we played three good defensive teams this weekend – she had scored just one goal against them in three regular season games – and all three were older teams. For playing most of the season against girls two years older than her, she still had a really good season. I think it was her lowest goal-scoring season ever, but she still had 9 or 10 in 10 games. Most importantly, I think she understands the areas she needs to get better in if she wants to keep playing. She needs to learn how control the ball better. How to do more than just do a series of fakes and step-backs when a defender cuts her off. How to pass the ball to others when the defense keys on her. Rather than play a winter sport, she’s most likely going to do some individual training with a local high school coach. I expect between that, and maybe a growth spurt that helps her compete against bigger girls, she’ll be just fine the next time she plays in a league.[1]

I was secretly relieved we lost in the semis. If we had advanced we would have played the team that smoked us Saturday again, and their coach is an annoying tool. Plus right around the time of the championship game we had wind gusts over 50 MPH, so that would not have been fun.

Oh, and we had a basketball game yesterday, too, which would have made playing soccer again rough.

L looked just fine at basketball, at least in the first half. She scored four, ran the floor well, played decent D. In the second half she looked pretty gassed, though, and kept losing the ball when she brought it up against pressure. They won – almost blowing a big lead but hanging on late – and are now 5–1 with one game to play before the tournament begins.

Whew. No surprise that she was pretty tired and sore last night.

M cheered for the final time yesterday. Our 7th/8th grade football team lost 7–6 in the City semis. She was bummed she’s done with cheer. She really enjoyed it, although I think it was mostly the hanging out with her friends that she liked more than the cheering part. She’s made some comments about wanting to cheer in high school. We’ve pointed out that in HS you need to have tumbling/gymnastics experience, which she has zero of. So we’ll see where that goes. I think the majority of her St. P’s friends that go to high school with her will likely not cheer either.

Speaking of high school, we got the final pieces of paperwork in for her application last week. Now we wait about three weeks before we hear. Her shadow day is tomorrow.

OK, onto other stuff from the weekend.

Hey, KU won a Big 12 football game! We’re tied for last place with the tie breaker over TCU! If the season ended today, we would be 9th! I was not able to watch the game between soccer, a visitor stopping by, and then a family party that took us away from home. I was following along online and via text updates from friends.[2] I think I’m glad I wasn’t able to see the final moments of the game. It would have been sooooooo KU football to leave a second on the clock then mess up the squib kick and give TCU a chance to kick a winning field goal. In fact, I’m shocked that didn’t actually happen. But, hey, KU has three wins this year. They really should have four if not for the mysterious absence of Pooka Williams week one. That won’t be enough to save David Beaty’s job, but at least you can argue there’s been progress. The big question is what is he leaving behind. If he is fired, how many non-seniors will decide to leave? He kind of messed up recruiting so he/the next coach will have very few scholarships to give out for next year, so it’s imperative that the program hang onto as many of the young guys as possible. Do that and you can start to squint hard enough to believe a good coaching hire this winter and a good recruiting class next year means mediocrity isn’t too far in the future. Ah, mediocrity! How I’ve missed you!

Five game World Series are strange beasts. A team winning 4–1 makes it seems like it was a boring series. The Royals-Mets series in 2015 proved that wrong, with two extra-inning games and a third that had a lead change in the 8th inning. I think this year’s will go down as fairly boring, although games three and four were the exceptions to that.

No, I did not stay up for all 18 innings of game three. Hell, I went to bed at the end of the 9th. Although, strangely, I could not sleep and kept waking up. After I saw the score Saturday morning, I was convinced my body knew there was an epic game going on in LA and wanted me to go downstairs and turn the TV back on. Game four was thoroughly enjoyable to a non-partisan fan. Dodger Stadium was coming unglued after Yasiel Puig’s home run in the 6th that put LA up by four. But, man, these Red Sox are relentless, and once they got that first run back, you knew the game, and the series, was over. The 9–5 final made it look like another blow out. But those last four innings were fun to watch.

I was really hoping for a seven game series, and not just to stretch the end of the season. I wanted to see how Alex Cora managed his pitching staff over seven games. I loved the way he mixed and matched all series to get his best arms on the mound in any situation. But I wondered if they could keep that up if the series had returned to Boston. David Price was simply amazing last night, and all series for that matter. I’m not a huge fan of his; he often seems like a joyless, bitter human being. But that performance last night was fantastic.

  1. She’s making noises about taking the spring season off from competitive soccer and playing CYO soccer. I’ve tried to tell her CYO soccer is kind of a disaster, but she really wants to play with a couple friends who aren’t skilled enough to play in her league anymore. We’ll see…  ↩
  2. The ESPN app feed glitched in the fourth quarter for about five minutes. It would update down and distance but not the clock. People were texting me that there were 30 seconds left but the app still said 6:00+. I have a friend who was following the game from Spain and she said it did the same thing to her. I think the app couldn’t believe KU was about to pull off the W.  ↩

Weekend Notes

October 1, 2018 /

To get the week rolling, I’ll knock out a variety of subjects in one post.

First, apologies for the lack of a playlist or video last Friday. We added one, final task to phase one of our home improvement process and that was getting wrapped up on Friday. I have to say, our house looks pretty fantastic now. A week ago Friday our living room furniture arrived. It was nice to have that but after our designer “fluffed” everything Thursday and Saturday, it has transformed from nice to spectacular. She did an amazing job and our house feels like it came out of a design show. Now to keep the kids from ruining it…

C ran last Thursday night. It was a small meet, so we were all hoping for higher placements by our kids. C was fourth much of the race but faded and finished 10th, running right about the same time she’s run all year. This coming Saturday is the City championship meet where she’s run the two fastest times of her life. I hope she has another big run in her and can place for the third-straight year.

L had two soccer games over the weekend. She scored two goals in a 3–2 loss Saturday. She ripped an absolutely vicious shot that the goalie got her hands on and pushed just over the bar that could have tied it. Sunday she was held scoreless in a nervy, 2–1 win. We were playing a team filled with 5th graders, some of whom go to St. P’s, and we gave up their goal in the first two minutes of the game. But our defense rallied, our other top player scored two before halftime, and we hung on for dear life in the second half.

L went scoreless largely because she had her first nasty soccer injury in the first half. She took a clear to the inside of her knee that knocked her out of the game for about 10 minutes. She was able to go back on when another girl got hurt – we had only one sub to the other team’s five – but struggled to get move.[1] We started her on defense in the second half and once she was able to loosen the knee up a little, she begged to go forward again. That kind of made me laugh because she clearly wanted nothing to do with playing on the back line. She was never really right the rest of the game, but this morning she was fine other than a really nasty bruise and cleat marks on her leg.

M had the big, milestone family event of the weekend: we submitted her application for high school Saturday night. She decided to go through the early admissions process so that she will find out whether she gets into Cathedral the week of Thanksgiving instead of early February. We’re pretty sure this is all a formality. She has good grades and test scores, and has a parent, aunts and uncles, and a grandfather that all went to school there. Still, we wanted her to take the process seriously. There were three essay questions that we worked with her on. She kept giving us sarcastic answers when we gave her prompts on how to improve her initial efforts. I threatened at least once to send her to a public high school. Or to submit her dumb-ass answers and see what the admissions committee thought of them. She got her act together and we were able to push Submit Saturday evening.

She cheered on Sunday and I was talking to a couple other dads about the process. One has had two go through it already. He said with their oldest, they were also anal about getting everything just right. Then, when they saw some of the other kids who got in, they eased way off for the #2. “I think as long as you can pay tuition, they’ll let you in. There’s one kid I know had straight F’s at St. P’s who got in.” He may have been exaggerating a little.

There’s still more to do. We have to submit grades and state test scores once her first quarter grades are in. She has to get two letters of recommendation from teachers, which she is dragging her feet on. And she has to go through an interview with the admissions folks in two weeks. But the ball is rolling and the first tuition check for high school is not too far in our future.

Finally, having nothing to do with kids, a few words about the Colts. M was cheering during most of the game but I was able to listen to a big chunk of their comeback on the way home, and then watch all of overtime. When the Colts lost because they went for it on fourth down with 27 seconds left inside their own 45, I texted a couple friends and said they had just set a record for the dumbest loss in NFL history. Just take the damn tie and move on.

But, you know what? I’m reconsidering that today. What the hell are the Colts playing for this year? Nothing. They will not make the playoffs, even given the surprising effectiveness of their defense so far this season. Andrew Luck had a monster game yesterday; if they had converted that fourth down and then he moved them up into field goal range, he would have been within shouting distance of 500 yards passing for the day. But he’s still not 100%, and if he ever can be again, it won’t happen this year. The offensive line still sucks. The running game and receiving corps remain suspect. This is a team that is at least one more good draft and free agency class away from being a playoff contender.

So why not go for it? The game is, basically, meaningless. If you convert, get another 20 yards, and Adam Vinatieri drills a game-winner at the horn to cap off an 18-point comeback, this becomes a mythical game. It becomes the moment everyone points to in a year – or two or three – when the Colts are playing for an AFC title again, as the turning point for the organization.

As it stands, the loss means nothing. It doesn’t set the Colts back in their rebuild. It may even help them earn a better draft position next spring. And, apparently, the players loved it, so it helps to bring a team together that had been struggling for several years.

Not saying I would have made the same call in the same situation. But I don’t think it’s as terrible a call as I did in the moments after it happened.

  1. Worth noting that Dr. Mom did take a look at her and pronounced her fit to play before we sent her back in.  ↩

Weekend O’ Football

September 10, 2018 /

It was a full weekend of football for at least some parts of our family this weekend. Here’s a breakdown.

Friday was a big local high school game. Cathedral, where our girls will go, was playing their biggest Catholic school rival, Bishop Chatard. BC has the most state titles in Indiana history. Cathedral is second. I believe Cathedral leads the stat in total wins and championship appearances, though. Or something like that. They play in different classes – Cathedral is roughly twice the size of BC – and Cathedral also draws from a much larger area, so they generally dominate the rivalry. St. P’s sends roughly equal numbers to each school, so Friday at St. P’s was a spirit wear day where kids got to wear the gear from their favorite high school. Apparently the halls were filled with trash talk throughout the day.

M was very excited to go, because a bunch of classmates were going to be there. It was her first high school football game hangout, OMIGOD! So I carted her, a friend, and L to the game.[1] The only issue was that we were in the early stages of our 48-hour rain event. When we got to the stadium, it was raining in torrents. It had actually started pouring right after school. Then I asked the girls if it was still raining this hard at game time would they still want to go. They responded with a quick “YES!” so that was that and we got thoroughly soaked just walking into the stadium. It was raining so hard that even the artificial turf surface was filling with large puddles in low spots. It was an utterly miserable night.

Fortunately, it stopped raining suddenly late in the first quarter. It drizzled a few more times, but the heavy rains held off again until after the game.

Unfortunately for the first time in quite awhile, BC was clearly the better team. Cathedral was kind of lucky to even be in it late before a last-gasp drive fell short. It was the first win for BC in the rivalry in six years. I’m sure there is no trash talking in the St. P’s halls today. M had a really good time. She has several friends at BC and ran into them at halftime. She was warned not to go over to their student section, because she would be greeted with chants of “YOU DON’T GO HERE!” because of her Cathedral shirt, which she thought was great. And she mocked some friends on Instagram afterward, so I think she’s prepared for her high school years and some of her best friends going to BC.

Saturday it poured here pretty much all day. We have a drainage area in our front yard that filled as high as we’ve ever seen it.[2] So why not lay around and watch college ball all day? I flipped around a lot; I’m still getting used to where our channels are on Comcast, plus trying to figure out what second-tier sports channels we had on Uverse that we no longer have. But I kept my remote thumbs busy.

The big game, of course, was the epic clash in Mt. Pleasant, MI between Kansas and Central Michigan. Coming off the loss last week to Nichols State, there was not much reason for optimism. It was more a question of how much we would lose by and if that lose would force the firing of head coach David Beaty.

Little did I know that Central Michigan might be the only D1 school that is shittier than KU. It helped that top recruit Pooka Williams was finally eligible and ran all over the Central Michigan defense. I fully expect to hear soon that Pooka never should have been cleared, we forfeit the win, and he never plays another down at KU.

But for one afternoon, KU fans around the world could revel in not only a win over a D1 school, but a road win no less! The first in nine seasons. This was no joke, people. America sat up and noticed. The CBS crew gave props to the Jayhawks after the Georgia-South Carolina game. ESPN chose the win as their “Mayhem Moment” as the fine Clemson-Texas A&M game closed. Things might finally be happening for KU football!!!!

Well, we’ll see about that. I think the most likely outcome for the season remains one win, although I don’t think this week’s opponent, Rutgers, isn’t all that great either. It seems like Beaty is a good guy who is trying to do the right thing. The problem is just bigger than him, and he was woefully unprepared to tackle it. This should serve as a nice pre-parting gift for him. An acknowledgement that he took the mess that Charlie Weis left and worked his ass off to try to get it turned around. Pooka Williams, and some of the other young guys Beaty has brought in the past two years, will be the stars when the next coach squeezes out a 6–6 season and goes to some shitty, December 21st bowl game.

Sunday Andrew Luck finally returned. We were in the midst of some house projects right at 1:00 kickoff time, so when I turned the game on it was just in time to see Luck about get his head knocked off. Yep, Colts are back to normal, doing their best collective effort to get the franchise player killed.

However, the bigger football event of the day was M cheering at her first CYO game. We had to make a trek about 45 minutes south to go stand in the persistent drizzle and chilly breezes so she and her classmates could root on the 7th–8th grade team. The cheer squad’s new uniforms are not in yet, so they wore their gym clothes for the game. I would have approved of them being given a pass until the uniforms come in, but the girls seemed excited about getting out there and getting the fans and team pumped up.

I had never been to a CYO football game before, so had no idea what the rules were, how long the game lasted, etc. It didn’t help that the host school’s scoreboard was not working because it got a little wet.

I quickly learned, though, that CYO football games are quick. They wrapped things up in exactly an hour, which is about as long as I wanted to be outside. There are no kickoffs, either. After a score the opposing team takes over at the 5, which seems a little deep. The field had goalposts but I never saw a PAT or field goal attempt, so not sure if both teams lacked kickers or the coaches just weren’t interested in kicking in the slop.

St. P’s won fairly easily. I have no idea what the score was, though. Because, you now, the scoreboard wasn’t working. Their best offensive play seemed to be moving everyone to one sideline after the snap, then having the guy with the ball cut all the way back to the other side and then race up the sideline. That worked for 40+ yard gains like four times.

Also, CYO football seems to be kind of shitty. I say this as someone whose mom made him stop playing football after fifth grade when I would have had to start playing tackle, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience. But, man, these kids couldn’t run, catch, throw, block, or really do much other than run into each other.

After the game, the St. P’s coach told his players to go thank the cheerleaders and give them high fives. I began muttering, to the other parents of cheerleaders who were huddled around me, “Nope, no touching of the cheerleaders. Just stay away from them…” Yep, we’re getting to that age where I’m starting to worry about idiot boys touching my daughters.

Sunday night I stayed up to watch the Chicago-Green Bay game. If you stayed up, too, you know that was one that we will never forget. Aaron Rodgers doing something to his knee in the first half and leaving the game on a cart only to come back in the second half and lead a furious comeback that ended with a 75-yard, game-winning throw to Randall Cobb. The dude is amazing. And we’re going to find out in a couple hours his ACL is shot or something and his season is over, right? The NFL is terrible.

  1. C was supposed to go with a friend she had gone home with.  ↩
  2. At 8:00 Monday morning there is still a significant amount of water in it.  ↩

Fall Sports Kick Off

August 20, 2018 /

Opening day of fall sports, which is always both exciting and stress inducing. I have to admit, it is nice only having to worry about two kickball schedules this season. And somehow we lucked out and have no nights with two games. We do have three different stretches with three games in three nights, so we’ll still be busy. Only having two kickballers does not mean we’re not busy, though.

M’s team begins defense of their spring city title tonight. We’ve heard two of the teams on our schedule have been practicing four nights a week to get prepped for us. Our girls first and only practice will be the 30 minute warm-up before tonight’s game. Cocky? No, just too many schedules to manage. Plus the head coach said, “We won our title, I’m going to give them a break.” Oh, and they only practiced once last season, and that was before their playoff game. In fact, I think they’ve had a combined four practices over the past three seasons. This is standard for these girls.

C’s team has games Tuesday and Wednesday. This is a big year for them, playing in the top division of the 5th/6th grade group. It’s also the first time this class has played together as a true A team. This team drives me a little crazy as they have the potential to be really, really good but there’s something about C’s class that doesn’t quite work. There are good players who cry if something small goes wrong. Another good player who, once her meds wear off, will literally stand in the field and stare at people on the sidelines until you yell at her to pay attention. C doesn’t have either of these problems; she’s tough as nails and always locked in. She will cry after she’s been hit by a rocket in the face for the third time, but also refuse to come out of the game. However, she’s not the alpha like the girl who has lead M’s team since fourth grade. She’ll lead by example but not crack the whip and get everyone in line. I think this team needs that alpha to maximize their potential.

C is still running, too. Officially she has three cross country practices per week, but with kickball she’s generally running just once. Her first meet is this weekend, the annual relay that kicks off the CYO season. That will be a good start as between weather and kickball, she hasn’t run in almost two weeks.

L’s soccer team begins practice tomorrow. Some weeks they will practice twice, but for the next few weeks I think it will just be one night. With the crazy CYO sports calendar – short seasons, girls basketball in the fall – she actually had her tryouts for basketball yesterday.

We do have another addition to the family activity schedule: M has decided to cheer. Well, I should say the alpha in M’s class decided to cheer and drug along about half of the class. M told us this last spring and we kind of laughed, rolled our eyes, and thought, “Yeah, we’ll see.” Then when sign ups rolled around, sure as shit, that group still wanted to cheer.

There was much eye rolling amongst the parents of the group about this. None of these girls have cheered before, and we believe most of them have no interest in doing it in high school. It’s just another activity to do together in their final year at St. P’s. Several parents expressed disgust at the idea of hanging out at cold football games in October to watch their girls cheer. Another, who coaches other sports, said it was a complete waste of time. And these were moms complaining, which cracked me up.

I’ve come around to the idea. M was excited about it, she’s with her best friends, and it gives her something that is hers. We know it’s tough for her to be the older sister to two siblings that are known through the school for their athletic achievements. I’m glad she is having fun and just hope she doesn’t get dropped on her head or something.

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