Tag: coaching (Page 2 of 3)

Opening Day, Part 2

August 23, 2017 / DB

L has played her first two official kickball games, so I can finally share her exploits. Spoiler alert: she did not fail to live up to the expectations we had for her.

Monday was opening night for her team. They started off slow and trailed 25–9 after two innings. But they figured out things both at the plate and in the field, had a couple huge innings, and ended up winning 47–28. If you’re like me and not good at math, that’s a pretty solid comeback.

She singled her first two times up, kicking rockets right at people that stayed in the infield. After some advice from her coach who is also her parent,[1] she found a hole in her third time up and kicked a three-run homer. True to form, she was humble about the whole thing. Coming down the third base line, she had both hands up in the air with #1 fingers raised. Seriously, kid.

I take some blame. When she bought her Alex Gordon jersey in June, I showed her his finger point to the crowd after his game-tying home run in game one of the 2015 World Series. She does that all the time now. I think this was a partial homage to Alex.

Next time up she kicked a grand slam. Fortunately she kept her hands down this time. She also made several good defensive plays.

A good night and pretty solid first game all around.

Last night was game two. It was a blow out from the beginning. We were up 20–8 after one inning and won 44–17. Again she had two singles and two home runs. Well, kind of. Her second home run came with one on, and that runner was the 20th run of the inning, which is the max. So technically the inning ended when that runner crossed the plate. But since L destroyed the ball on that kick, putting it over all the fielders’ heads, I think we’ll go ahead and chalk it up as her fourth homer of the season.

She got her first injury last night, too. She was playing suicide and did a half-dive to try to catch a little popup. She got the ball in her hands but when she hit the asphalt it popped out. She skinned up her knees and elbow, but was ok. Road rash is an important part of kickball.

Yesterday was also our first – and hopefully only for this season – night with three games at three school at the same time. M’s team won easily, and I heard she got on base each time and even threw out a former classmate who switched schools a couple years back.

C plays on an all fifth-grade team, but in a league that has some sixth graders in it. They played a mixed 5th/6th team last night and got crushed. S said C played well, but got frustrated when an umpire called her out when she was clearly safe. She doesn’t get mad like I would in that situation, but rather gets really emotional. She can keep it together during the game, but as soon as it ends she loses it a little bit. Sounds like she played another excellent game in the field, too.

Speaking of the umpires…I normally keep my mouth shut. It’s a hard job, they’re volunteers, the game is fast-paced, and the diamonds are on parking lots so it is easy to confuse which lines are for the field and which are for cars. I always figured either as a parent watching or keeping score, it was never my place to question calls loudly.

But, as a coach of L’s team who knows the rules pretty well, I have a big problem with umpires who make calls based on an incorrect understanding of those rules. So in both of L’s games I’ve had words with the umps when they made a call that I felt was wrong not because of their judgement, but because of them not knowing the rules. The first night I argued a bit but let it go. I pulled up the appropriate rule and was ready to show it to him if he made the same call again.[2] Last night the umpire tried to say there was a 25-run limit per inning. The game was a total blowout and I didn’t see any reason for our girls to keep kicking.

“No, that’s the game rule,” I yelled out to him. “Twenty runs is the limit for an inning.”
“I’ve never played that way,” he responded.
“That’s the rule. It’s 20,” and I had our head coach send our girls out to the field.

This guy has been umpiring the entire time M has been playing, and this rule has never changed. That freaking kills me. The rule book is only 16 pages long – four of which are just about the specifications of the field – and this is a rule that comes up quite a bit. There shouldn’t be any question about it.

Yeah, I may be asked to leave a game before the season is over. Good thing is I’ll be rotating through the girls games, so when I’m with M and C I will (hopefully) go back to my restrained self and let the coaches handle it.

“Stop kicking it to the third baseman! Look where she is and kick it between her and the shortstop!” ↩
He called a girl who double-kicked the ball behind home plate out. The rules clearly state that if a kicker is in foul territory, as she was, this is a foul ball and a strike. ↩

Spring Sports Pt. 1: Kickball

May 10, 2017 / DB

Part one of the spring kid sports roundup will focus on the kickball girls.

First up is C, who is playing in her third season, and on a team mixed with 3rd and 4th graders. They’ve had a really good season, sitting 5–1 and tied for first with a game to play. They won their first three games easily, and then got destroyed in their fourth game. Adding insult to defeat, one girl on the other team kicked a ball that hopped a low stone wall, rolled into the street, and got hit by a car. You wouldn’t think a kickball getting hit by a car would sound like a gun firing, but it did. Worse, it was our ball. I really should have billed the other school $12.

They rebounded nicely and won their next game easily. They’ve been fighting rain for the last two weeks, and the forecast for their final regular season game tomorrow does not look promising.

They’re tied with both the team they lost to, and another team that they beat but which beat the team that beat them. So if all three teams finish 6–1, there’s going to be some kind of wacky playoff to figure out which team goes to the city title game.

C has had a really good year. She’s kicking the ball well, uses her speed a lot, and does a great job playing both pitcher and suicide.[1] She’s had two multiple home run games. Twice she’s made all three of an inning on defense. In my totally unbiased opinion, she’s one of the top 2–3 players in her grade at St. P’s. She just needs to do a little better with her decision making on defense, and keep her toe down to drive the ball instead of occasionally popping it up. Pop ups are outs when you get to 5th grade. If she can keep the ball on a line, that girl can run for days while the defense chases it.

M’s team is in an interesting spot. At a lot of schools, including St. P’s, sixth graders often do not play in the spring. But since this class finished second at city last fall, their best player rallied the class and made sure they had enough for a team this season to take one more run at the championship. We think this is the first time St. P’s has ever fielded an all sixth grade team in the spring.

For the most part, they’ve been killing teams. That should be offered with an asterisk, because most of the teams they’ve beaten are heavy with fifth graders. A couple teams even pulled up third and fourth graders to fill their rosters. Their games generally follow a pattern: score a bunch of runs in the first two innings and then back off until we hit the mercy rule inning limit.

They were 6–0 going into last night’s game against their nemesis, St. B’s. St. B’s beat them at city last fall, and is the only school that has beaten this class more once. But St. B’s came into the game with a loss, so we figured this wasn’t the same group of girls they had lost to 26–1 in the championship game in September.

Sure enough, the team they played was mostly fifth graders. But since it is St. B’s, they were still really good fifth graders. Our girls jumped out early, but St. B’s stayed without shouting distance all night. It was never close, but St. B’s was always a big inning away from getting right back in it. For the first time all year, we had to play the full seven innings. A burst in the sixth inning made it a comfortable 26–7 win. Our girls were excited to beat St. B’s, but were also aware that they weren’t playing their match in age or talent.

So our girls are on to City for the third time in four seasons! We’re pretty sure we know who we’re playing. Our fifth grade team played the likely opponents during the season, and their coach said they have a bunch of good kickers, but aren’t as good on defense as our sixth graders are. And our girls catch just about everything. Looks like sometime next week we’ll see if the old Defense Wins Championships theory holds in 5th–6th grade kickball.

M has had a solid year. She’s kicking better than she ever has. She’s gotten the ball into the outfield a couple times. She still looks to tap the ball and use her speed to get on if the situation allows it. She’s also played some at suicide and has thrown out a couple girls at first from the third-base line. As always, though, she loves being on a team more than anything. She’s one of the loudest kids in the lineup when it comes to cheering for her teammates.

Oh, one other highlight from the season. One night at M’s game, the umpire didn’t show up. Later we learned he looked at the schedule wrong and went to St. P’s instead of the school we were playing at. While the home team was on the phone with the CYO office trying to track the ump down, M’s coach came over to me and said, “You’re my ump if he doesn’t show up.”

Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge… Only I didn’t say fudge.

Five minutes later the home coach said CYO told her to grab some parents and play without an official ump. She called her athletic director and asked him to come back, but we would start the game with just me in the field. Perfect day to wear my purple St. P’s shirt! Yeah, this was going to be super uncomfortable. Even more so after M starting jumping around saying, “MY DAD IS GOING TO BE UMP! MY DAD IS GOING TO BE UMP!” She’s such a jackass. I told her to shut up or I was going to call her out every time she kicked.

Fortunately the girls took all the pressure off of me early. They scored 20 in the top half of the first, then got the home team 1–2–3 in the bottom half. From there we coasted through the minimum number of innings until the mercy rule kicked in. The only call I think I missed came in the top of the first. Our best kicker did her usual thing, kicking the ball all the way across the parking lot. I watched the girl in front of her touch third, but then looked to see where the ball was while the kicker passed third. Immediately the home parents started yelling, “SHE MISSED THIRD! SHE MISSED THIRD! TAG THE BASE!”

Oh shit. I wasn’t watching when she passed third. I had no idea if she touched or not.

Luckily the home team took me off the hook. Instead of throwing the ball to third, they gave it to the pitcher, who stepped inside the circle. In kickball that not only makes the ball dead, but ends any chance for appeal. The home coach even said that to her parents so they understood the rule. Which I thought was really nice, because I was about to piss myself at screwing up a call when it was only 3–0 in the first.

The funniest thing about that is that when I’m keeping score, we always stand right behind third base. And I always watch to make sure girls touch third. If one of our girls misses, I quietly tell them to make sure they touch the base when they come check in with us. But the night I’m umpiring, I miss it.

It was pretty nerve racking to be out there though. It would be one thing if I did it every week. But another to get pulled in at the last minute, and when your daughter is playing. I was just thrilled the result was never in question and I couldn’t screw that up for one team or the other. The other guy never showed up. I wonder if, after we went up 20–0, they called him and told him not to bother.

The position next to pitcher who fields bunts, covers home, etc. ↩

Winter Sports Wrap Up

March 22, 2017 / DB

I realized over the weekend that I never closed out our winter sports season. I think part of the delay was because of how winter sports ended for our two oldest girls.

Let’s start with M, whose volleyball team had a fine regular season, going 5–2. By the end of the season they had a number of girls who could consistently rip off a long stretch of serves in a row, including M. They also had several girls who could set well and a couple girls who could hit at the net.

For the first game of the city tournament, they faced a team that had only won one match all season. Our girls won the first set rather easily, with M closing it out with seven straight from the serving box. As tends to happen, for some reason, the entire team lost their focus in set two. M and the two other girls who had served best in set one won a combined four points in set two. They never really got into it and we went to a third set to see who advanced.

It was tight through the first 4–5 servers for each team, but St. P’s was always playing catchup. They got the serve back down 14–7 and won five straight before a ball into the net ended their season. It was a frustrating loss because they seemed to be a lot better than their opponents. But they lost their serves and their confidence in set two and never got them back.

M continued her steady improvement. She had some games where she served really, really well. She was almost always good for a point or two when her turn came up. Her passing got better and she was one of the second-choice setters. She was the loudest kid on the team. You couldn’t not hear her yelling “COME ON GUYS!!!!” anytime they lost a point. Most of all, she really enjoys the game.

As for C’s team, as you will recall we had not won a game through our first four of the regular season. In game six, our girls played as well as they had played all year. They won set one, lost set two narrowly, and in set three raced out to a quick lead. They got the set to 14–7 and needed just one point to win their first match of the year. You could see the excitement and the preparations to celebrate on our girls faces.

I was keeping score this game, so rather than being on the bench I was sitting at midcourt. The other team won a couple points, and then our best player muffed an easy pass. And then another. 14–11 and I could see every ounce of confidence just drain out of our girls. 14–12. 14–13. 14–14. In youth volleyball it’s just first to 15, you don’t have to win by two points. Another good serve, another poor return, and the set and match were over.

Huge bummer. They were so close. There were some tears.

In the next game we got our asses thoroughly kicked by a team that had like eight girls who could serve better than anyone on our team. And in the tournament, same thing: we just got hammered by a team that had a roster full of servers. These games were tough to watch. It’s like the other teams had fifth graders and our girls were all third graders. You now it’s bad when the other coaches, who were all moms/aunts/big sisters, give you sad, “I’m sorry for your girls” faces when you shake hands after the game.[1]

Our girls did improve over the year. The head coach and I just couldn’t figure them out. They would be silly and laughing and loose in practice, but as soon as the games started they tightened up and stopped chasing the ball. As I mentioned before, the head coach played in college – and was really good I should add – and I think she struggled to figure out what she needed to say/do differently to get the girls to put what she taught in practice into their game performances. I told her after our last game that a good chunk of these girls will probably be a lot better next year, and the base she gave them will be responsible for that improvement.

This was my first time coaching volleyball and I realized how complex the game is. I played a lot of volleyball into my early 30s and I always just played without thinking too much about strategy, positioning, etc. I’ve coached soccer and basketball before. Soccer, at the youth level, isn’t too tough to relate to kids. Basketball can be complex, but I’ve focused on the basics which I think are fairly easy to grasp. But volleyball, with knowing when to go after balls, when to let your teammate get it, how to move around the court, etc. is deceptively complex. I often found myself at a loss at how to help our girls. My contributions generally were yelling “You have to call the ball, girls, and if you call it, you have to go get it.” I told the head coach I was pretty much there to throw and shag balls in practice and stay out of her way.

C has a chance to be a decent player. She was the most athletic kid on her team. She can hit the ball hard. But she is just so unfocused. She’ll hit a couple perfect serves, then go through a couple games where she was lunging for the ball and couldn’t get it in to save her life. She got to the ball better than anyone on the team. But almost every time she would wind up and hit it as hard as she could instead of gently passing it over the net. I kept telling her, use your legs to pass, but every time she’d start with her hands near her ankles and end with them above her head. One game she just hit the shit out of the ball and knocked it straight up into the gym rafters. The look on her face was classic, like she had just broken a window or something. She would get excited when we played in gyms with really high ceilings.

So volleyball is done. C started kickball practice last week. M starts Friday. L has her first soccer practice next Thursday. Spring sports have already sprung.

Not in a condescending way, either. Like they were genuinely sorry for beating us so badly. ↩

Winter Sports, Vol. 2

February 22, 2017 / DB

Time for another Kid Winter Sports Roundup.

L finished her basketball season last week. Our team went 3–4, losing to the eventual champions in the tournament.

We started the season 1–3 so obviously finished strong. Our best game of the year was our final regular season game, when we played the team we were tied with for second place at the time. They jumped on us early – leading 8–0 and 11–2 – and I was feeling a little helpless on the bench. Then a dad who helped me last year but was on the bench for the first time this year slid over and said, “Have M (his daughter) set a screen for whoever has the ball. She learned how to do that in fall league.” This is interesting and useful information!

I called a timeout, we showed our two ball handlers how to use the screen, told M where to stand, and sent them back out. First possession, points! Unfortunately it wasn’t always that successful. Our girls kept missing close shots. Our two best players (one of them is L) for some reason refused to use the backboard when they had a layup. So despite getting clean drives to the rim over-and-over, they kept tossing the ball across the rim rather than off the boards. Criminy!

With about 4:00 left in the game, we were down 23–16. I called a timeout and told the girls we could totally win the game. But we had to get every rebound and every loose ball from here on. No more standing there and watching the other team grab the ball while it rolled on the ground.

We sent them back out, ran our screen play, and drew a foul. My best player hit the first free throw then missed the second. My tallest girl, T, crashed in, got the board, and for the first time all year shot right away rather than backing up and waiting for the defense to collapse on her. Swish! 23–19.

The next 3:00 were awesome. We got every damn rebound. We got every damn loose ball. L scored six of the last eight points of the game and we won 29–23. That’s a 13–0 run to close, if my math is right.

When I gathered the team afterward, I told them all how proud I was of how hard they played. They did exactly what we asked and it was awesome to watch. I singled out each girl for what they did, but then I said, “Everyone was great today. But T was our player of the game. She didn’t let the other team get a single rebound in the last three minutes.” Man, the look on her face! It’s little moments like that that make coaching fun.

There was some controversy going into the playoffs. Somehow despite finishing second (out of four teams), we got stuck playing the first place team. I’m not going into the explanation I received, but I think the first place coach was more pissed than I was. We’re pretty good friends so I wound him up a little once I knew he was upset. It eased my annoyance to ramp his up!

We hung with them for the first half, but couldn’t in the second. We were down by 18 or so at one point, but made a late run to lose by just 12. They have three of the five best players in the league and went 8–0, so it was a respectable loss. We missed so many shots, though! They were better than us but if we shot a little better we would have been right in it at the end again.

L had a decent season. She started wearing glasses last summer and played without them. I think that affected her shooting. She told us she had trouble seeing sometimes. We didn’t think it was worth the money to buy sports goggles from her optometrist and have her wear them for just two hours a week, so we ordered some $40 ones online. They ended up being worse than if she went without so she played half-blind. She missed so many shots close to the rim and I can’t help but think it was because her vision and depth perception were off. She had a couple games where she didn’t score at all. But the last two games of the year were by far her best. If there was an all-league team, she might have snuck onto the first team, or been at the top of the second team.

M and C are wrapping up volleyball. M’s team is one of the 5th/6th grade B teams, and is pretty solid. They have one really good server and a couple other girls who can bring it most nights. They’re learning how to run offense and not just stand in one spot. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. They’re getting better, though.

They had to play without their best server on Sunday. Before we dropped her off, I told M that she and all her teammates just needed to pick up two extra service wins a piece, and that would make up for missing J. Apparently she shared that with the whole team. More about that in a second.

M came around to serve midway through game one, with her team up 13–7. Her serving has been better this year, but she’s never won more than a couple points in a row. I’m not sure what got into her, but she looked more confident than she’s ever looked. She calmly bounced the ball a few times, took a step, and smacked it into play. She did that 12-straight times and closed out the game! Other coach even tried to ice her by calling a timeout and she was all like, “Naaah,” and just kept serving winners. We were pretty pumped on the sideline and she looked awfully proud of herself on the bench between games. I must say that the team they played was not the strongest they’ve faced. But points are points, bitches.

After they closed out game two, one of our coaches came over and said, “That was perfect what you said to them, about every girl just needing to pick up two points to make up for J not being here!” I have my moments I guess.

M’s team has a winning record (not sure if they’re 4–1 or 3–2) and just one game left before the tournament.

I’m helping coach C’s team and that’s been a whole different experience. In 4th grade, if you get the ball over the net on the serve, you’re usually going to win the point. And our team just can not serve. We have one girl who can bomb it pretty good, but she’s also crazy inconsistent and is as likely to serve it into the net or long as run off a stretch of 4–5 points.

It’s always random what division each team ends up in, and unfortunately every team we have played always has 5–6 girls who can consistently hit it over the net from the service box. That’s just a killer when the girls are all learning how to return serve, pass, and help each other out.

It’s been a little frustrating to watch. The mom who is our head coach played division one volleyball in college. She’s awesome at teaching the girls and very patient. But in games, both of our competitive sides start coming out and we mutter back and forth to each other as we continue to miss serves. We haven’t won a match yet, and have only got a match to a third game once. But we have two more games and then almost two weeks before the tournament. So hopefully there is time to get a few of our more athletic girls serving better.

C is doing ok. She’s probably the most active kid on the team, and has started moving around to follow the ball more. Her play fits her personality: she’s a little flighty and has trouble dialing her enthusiasm back. When she gets a chance to pass, she winds up and smacks the crap out of the ball, often sending it up into the rafters or way out of bounds. I keep telling her to keep her hands below her chest, she nods at me, and then ends up with her hands over her head as she wacks the ball again. That’s alright, though. Aggression we can work with.

Winter Sports, Vol 1

January 18, 2017 / DB

An early winter sports update, starting with L’s second year of basketball.

She is playing in the pre-CYO league run at her future high school by the girls coach there. I’m coaching her team again this year. This time around I have eight girls – four second graders, four first graders – all from St. P’s. In fact, of the four teams in the league, three are from St. P’s.

I had two of the second graders last year, and both have improved quite a bit. They are hitting some shots and can handle the ball a lot better. My new second grader is our tallest player,[1] is a good defender, and understands how to turn and shoot. L is probably our best all-around player, although she is way too cocky and tends to start giggling when guarding people she knows.

Three of my first graders get lost on defense constantly. A pair of them are twins, and in both of our games I’ve called them the wrong name at least once while trying to tell them to stay with their girl. Another first grader, bless her heart, looks scared to death 90% of the time. Each time I check her out of the game and ask who she was guarding, she gets a look of pure panic on her face. The fourth first grader is a lot like L: she’s fast, can shoot, goes after the ball after shots, and plays decent D. When those two are on the court together, we get a lot of fast-break opportunities.

Through two games, we are averaging 25 points per game. Which, based on last year’s scores, is just about right.

Ah, but the real story is how we got to that average.

Week one we scored six points. Week two we scored 44.

I know, right?

A lot went into that variance. Week one we played what I think is the best team in the league. They somehow ended up with the best athlete in the league and the most height. They just dominated us on the boards. And my girls could not hit a shot to save their lives. We caught the rim and the backboard over-and-over and nothing would drop. There were also a lot of week one jitters in there. We were awful matching up on defense and gave up too many open looks. Still, we only gave up 28 points.[2] I knew if we could learn to rebound and get some shots to drop we’d be fine.

This past week’s game was a lot better. We jumped out to a 12–6 lead. Then I got us lost in some bad defensive matchups without seeing them and we were on the wrong end of a 20–2 run to end the half. At halftime I told our girls it was my fault we lost our lead. I promised to keep them in good defensive matchups if they would just keep rebounding and working to get good shots.

So we promptly ripped off a 10–0 run to start the second half.

Coaching, man. Coaching.

There was also no defense in the second half. It was like the Louisville-Houston game in the 1983 Final Four: just up-and-down basketball for 20 minutes. On offense we kept beating the other team down the court and even made the occasional pass to an open teammate across the lane.

We had a 4–6 point lead for most of the last ten minutes. We got to the last minute and had a four-point lead. L got a defensive rebound and took off. She was 10 feet ahead of any defenders. I’ve been working with her on controlling her speed when no one is in front of her. She tends to go 1000 miles and hour and then fire the ball off the backboard, giving it no chance to go in. She had done better at jump-stopping and hitting short jumpers all day. So, naturally, this time she pulled up from 10 feet, threw the ball in the general direction of the rim, and hit nothing.

The other team went down, worked for a shot, and cut the lead to 2 with 10 seconds left. They called a time out to kill the clock, but were out of time outs. It’s a 1st/2nd grade league so the refs just had us inbound the ball. I should have called a timeout myself and told the girls to get the ball up the court and don’t stop, no matter what. Instead our girl with the ball dribbled right into a swarm of players, froze, lost possession, and the other team took off toward their hoop as the clock counted down.

If there was video of me in this sequence, you would see me screaming, at the top of my lungs, “STOP HER!!!!” Their player had a wide open lane with a chance to tie the game, while my girls chased and looked at each other, unsure what to do.

Fortunately, the shortest girl in the league had the ball. This girl looks like she’s four. She collected herself, tossed up a shot just before the buzzer sounded, and barely got it six feet off the ground. I went over and collapsed against the wall for a moment.

Our girls were happy that we won and I was immensely relieved.

This coming week we play a team that I think is a pretty even matchup for us. We practiced last night and they seemed to be understanding the idea of not chasing the ball and staying between your girl and the basket on defense. Then we scrimmaged and half of them were standing on the wrong side of the ball.

M and C are both playing volleyball. They’ve been practicing for a couple weeks and start games next week. M is playing for two coaches she’s had before, and they’re starting to have them run actual offense. I haven’t seen them practice, but I think M is going to be one of the setters. She really enjoys playing.

I’m helping coach C’s team, which is kind of a funny story. Her coach is a mom I know a little bit. She doesn’t have a daughter in 4th grade, but coached last year as well, so I figured she just liked coaching and this was part of her time/treasure/talent contribution. When I told her I’d be happy to help as my schedule allowed, I thought about mentioning how I used to play a lot of rec volleyball and even won a 4-on–4 league one year! I’m glad I left that out, because when she sent out her introductory email to the entire team, she mentioned how she played D1 volleyball. I looked her up and she’s still third all time in assists at her alma mater. Yeah, my little 4-on–4 championship experience will really come in handy!

C’s team is funny to watch. This is their first year playing, and most of the eight girls are big goofballs. Like most fourth graders, they struggle at returning and passing. But we have a few decent servers so hopefully we are decent.

Which isn’t saying much. My team is small. ↩
Actually 26. One of my first graders hit a sweet, 10-foot jumper. Alas, it was in the other team’s basket. ↩

Mr. Commish

August 25, 2016 / DB

A few of my KC friends asked how the kickball thing was going. Well, it’s going, that’s for sure! Since this isn’t an entirely private site, I’ll share only some of what has filled the last month or so for me.

As coordinator, my job is to make sure we get everyone registered by the deadline,[1] recruit coaches, put the teams together, order and distribute uniforms and equipment, communicate with the CYO office about when our teams can/can not play games, sort and approve practice time requests, making sure all participants have all their healthcare paperwork submitted, and put out any fires that develop along the way. This fall was a little busier than usual as this is the first year that there is a third grade league in the fall. So two new teams added to my administrative tasks. We ended up with right at 100 girls playing on eight total teams.

Beyond having visitors from out-of-town and back to school prep, a big reason I didn’t post much here for awhile was everything listed above. For roughly three weeks I was spending pretty much all day each weekday working through all those tasks.

The only real wrinkle in the process came when almost an entire grade of girls decided to focus on other sports this fall. We went from 19 in that grade playing a year ago, to just three this year. That meant I had to combine them with another grade and then come up with the best way to build a team or teams from that group. Ideally a kickball team has 11–15 players on it. Twelve is the perfect number.[2] I had 18 girls for this team, which was too much for one roster, not enough for two. For about 10 days I went back-and-forth with parents from the two grades trying to figure out the best solution. Not everyone was thrilled with the process. One parent and student quit when I announced we were going with a single team. I was told that at one point in the middle of all this, pretty much the entire team quit, but a few level-headed parents talked the other families back onto the team.

There was a little more drama in that process than I’m sharing here. I think a few parents aren’t pleased with me personally more than the process. Fortunately none of them have let me know about it, so I don’t have to take it personally! The important thing is most of the girls got through it, are playing, and hopefully having fun.

Beyond that there was only one other small issue that involved a parental complaint, and that one was as much a request that I do things differently in the future than a threat to yank a girl off a team.

Lots and lots of emails. Many calls and texts. Running around to buy kickballs[3] at the only place in the area that carries them, which is about 30 minutes away. Buying scorebooks at another location where St. P’s gets a discount. Picking up new uniforms from the supplier. Arranging to meet coaches to hand over their gear. There have been at least 100 small logistical tasks that I’ve checked off over the past month. I have a folder where I stash all my kickball-related emails. A month ago there were a couple dozen emails in there, mostly forwards from my predecessor in the role. Today I have over 700 emails in there.

I got to wield one other power yesterday. Indiana got pummeled by heavy storms that included tornadoes yesterday afternoon. Fortunately the worst of the weather hit about an hour north of here, but most of the Indy metro area was in one tornado warning or another for about 90 minutes. When we got home after school, our sirens were going off. I took a look at the radar, saw the storms were going to stick around awhile, and I made the call to postpone all the games we were hosting. I sent a text to S telling her that M’s game was off, adding that I was “very powerful!” since I called everything off. She wasn’t as impressed as I was. And given that the area around St. P’s suffered serious flooding in the storms, it’s not like it took a genius to cancel outside activities for the evening.

The season started last week, so things are beginning to slow down a little bit. There are still a lot of questions from our first-time coaches, which is good because it means I have to investigate things and learn the rules or develop policies quickly. But I’m already thinking ahead. There are some aspects of how we evaluate players and pick teams that need to be overhauled. I have just a few months to figure that out, since kickball is a twice-a-year sport and we’ll be doing all this again next spring.

Which typically moves a couple times because St. P’s parents are notorious for waiting until the last minute to sign up. ↩
Ten girls play in the field, and each player must play at least two defensive innings. Everyone kicks, though. ↩
The Mikasa S3030, if you were wondering. ↩

Election Days

May 2, 2016 / DB

A classic bait-and-switch subject line! You might think I’m about to drop some thoughts on the races for the Democratic and Republican nominations for president, as we are on the eve of the Indiana primary. You would be thinking wrong, though.

My interest in and passion for politics has been beaten up, brutalized, and nearly destroyed over the last eight years. Most of that is a result of the toxic political climate we live in, an era where it isn’t enough to disagree with someone and work to prevent their policies from being implemented. In fact, there has been very little debate based on pure policy in the Obama era. Rather, it’s an era where public demonization is standard. One where you don’t say, “This is bad policy, let’s try something different.” Instead you say, “Obama hates America. His policies are destroying America. And anyone that supports him hates America.” Etc.

Which means those folks have won, at least where I am concerned. I won’t get into political debates, I barely follow the news anymore, and I’ve disengaged almost completely. Which is the goal of the people who do nothing other than tear down rather than offer alternatives. They want people to either vote out of fear, or to remove themselves from the process. I hate that I’ve let them win, but I also find it easier to let them beat me out of the process.

Nope, this post isn’t about that at all. It’s about how I just won the first elected position of my life.

I am the new head of the kickball program at St. P’s.

This was not an office I sought, at least initially. I was kind of interested in joining the athletic commission, which also requires being voted-in. But a few of our kickball coaches approached me about filling the vacant coordinator role last week. I asked around, got a feel for the job, and decided, “What the hell?” I have two girls playing kickball already. And L will be playing the minute she’s eligible. I have no interest in coaching 13–20 screaming girls. The best way to support the program, beyond keeping score, is to take on the administrative role that guides it.

I heard there was another parent interested in the role, someone I know pretty well, who has coached before, and is almost universally beloved at St. P’s. If she wanted the job, I’d vote for her over me. But I also heard she had just thrown her name in because she was afraid no one else would. I contacted her last week and she confirmed she really didn’t want the job. She’d be happy to help me in any way, but she was more focused on her job and getting her two extremely athletic girls to all their games and practices.

I had just cooly eliminated my only competition for the job. The Clintons would be proud of me!

Anyway, last night was the meeting where new officers and coordinators were voted in. I got some ribbing from a couple dads I’m friendly with who coordinate other sports that I had “snuffed out” my competition. When kickball came up, I was introduced and the director said I was the only candidate, so the job was mine.

By acclamation, bitches!

The out-going coordinator handed me a couple tubs of extra jerseys that need to be recycled/donated, a couple bags of balls, and a promise to send me all the documents she has to help me do the job. She is hyper-organized, which will be good for me as she shares her records. She was also phenomenal at the job, which makes it tough to maintain her standard. I kind of have no idea what I’m getting into.

I know I have to send a lot of emails about getting girls registered, recruiting coaches, communicating with the CYO office for scheduling, etc. And I’ve always excelled at sending emails, so that won’t be a problem.

It’s also my job to get uniforms collected and stored in the next week or so as the spring season wraps up. Then get them distributed in the fall. I have to help start a whole new set of teams, as there will be a fall, third-grade league for the first time ever this fall. And I get to be the arbiter of conflicts. I’ve been assured that there have only been a couple complaints from parents in recent years. But if/when they surface, I get to deal with them. Someone remind me to check my sarcasm before I respond to the parent complaining about their daughter getting on the C team instead of the A team, when everyone who saw the tryouts knows this kid is lucky there’s not a D team.

It also has the chance to be a really cool experience. Like it or not, sports are often the face of a school, even at the grade/middle school level. When I’ve kept score, parents from other schools have told me how they never have problems when they play St. P’s teams, or how they enjoy coming to St. P’s because they always feel welcome. Beyond making sure the girls have a great experience, I can’t think of a more important goal than continuing an atmosphere where our teams, coaches, and parents compete hard but with respect and kindness and in a manner where other schools enjoy playing our teams. Even when we’re kicking their asses!

Make no mistake about it, we’re going to win. A couple coaches are already in my ear about ramping up the tryout process and I’m totally down with that.

To wrap this up, I’d like to remind you of one of the funnier stories from the early days when S and I were dating. One night I asked her if she played sports growing up. She said yes, she played kickball. I laughed in her face. She just about punched me as she said, “KICKBALL IS A REAL SPORT!” I checked with my female friends who went to Catholic schools in Kansas City if they played kickball growing up. “Sure, at recess,” was always the response. As I have learned, organized kickball is a very Indianapolis, Catholic school thing.

Almost 16 years later I have two girls playing, and another who is 18 months away from her first game. I keep the book and get kind of fired up during games. And now I’m running the damn program.

What a world. What a time to be alive.

Coaching Follow Up

February 22, 2016 / DB

One thing I forgot to include in my post this morning that Stace’s comment kind of reminded me of, was a Tweet from writer Drew Magary over the weekend.

https://twitter.com/drewmagary/status/701159608707117056

That is 100% true. We were getting our asses kicked on the offensive boards Saturday. I think the other team had something like 15 OBs as they opened up a 10–0 lead to start the game. I’m not even exaggerating.

I grew tired of saying “Keep your hands up!” and “Rebound, girls!” and finally started yelling “GO GET THE BALL!”

Good times!

Kid Hoops Update

February 22, 2016 / DB

We closed out L’s first ever basketball season over the weekend, losing by 10 in our tournament semifinals. We were down by 20 at one point but somehow whittled that down to 8 with a couple minutes left. We ended up going 2–5 for the year, only beating the other St. P’s team both times we played them. Coincidentally perhaps, they were the only other team that had as many first graders as we did. So if nothing else the girls got bragging rights back in the school hallways!

Despite that record, the girls all really improved. In fact, we really should have beaten the team that ended up winning the tournament in our final regular season game. We could not buy a shot all day, but were down just 3 with the ball with about 3:00 to play. We got a foul and a girl who was 4–4 for the year from the line had a chance to cut it to one. She missed both.[1] Over the next three minutes we missed five shots right at the rim, including three lay ups by my daughter. We ended up losing by 7. Sad to admit that it took me a couple hours to get over that one. Beyond hanging with a good team for 40 minutes, the other cool thing was that all six of our girls scored, which is a huge accomplishment. One of our players would spend large parts of the game doing everything she could to avoid having to touch the ball or guard anyone. Sometimes she would stand near half court and watch what was going on while her parents yelled at her to find who she was guarding.

Despite being younger, shorter, and less experienced that all but one team, our girls got a little better each week. In week one L. was clearly our best player and I wasn’t sure what the other girls could contribute. By the end of the year I had a girl who was fantastic on defense and another who had turned into our best scorer. Sadly, I could never figure out how to teach them to run any kind of offense. Our girls generally either dribbled until they could take a shot or lost the ball. Sometimes we passed, but rarely was it to a specific teammate who was open. More often it was just chucking the ball somewhere in a panic. Our best offensive play tended to be dribbling around the perimeter over-and-over, never looking at a teammate, then suddenly realizing the defender had gotten lost/disinterested and taking the clear lane to the hoop. Then we still often missed.

L. had a solid year. She was, generally, one of the best dribblers in the league. And if she had a path to the rim she took it quickly. But she also refused to use the backboard when she was close to it, which cost her a few buckets each week. She ended up averaging around 8 points per game, but never matched her week one total of 12. She did have one sweet move Saturday. She was on the left side of the lane, accidentally did a killer-crossover, lost her defender, took a stop to the right, and swished her only jumper of the season. I let out a “WHOOO!” and was sure Tim Hardaway would have approved.

As for the coach, it was an interesting experience. I had coached, or helped coach, soccer four times before. Then I always used the excuse of never having played soccer as a defense against any struggles I might have. But, as I learned watching M. play kickball and C. play softball, sometimes it’s harder to coach the game you know. There is plenty of nuance and complexity to soccer, but at its core, you’re trying to score in this goal and trying to defend that one. Once you get past U6 soccer, I think most kids understand that.

Basketball seemed a lot harder to teach. I, and the parents who helped me, had a hard time teaching the girls how to move the ball on offense. One night at practice I worked on blocking out on rebounds, as we consistently got killed on the offensive glass by the older, taller teams we played. The problem teaching both of those concepts is no one really looks at the ball. They’re all kind of running in circles, or staring at the person they’re guarding. They don’t know to run to space, get their body in front of the defender, and then be ready for a pass. The dribbler is just staring at the ball, trying to keep control of it, rather than keeping their head up and looking for an open teammate. And on defense they rarely had any idea of when a shot went up, so even if they understood the concept of boxing out, they didn’t know when to utilize it.

The bottom line, though, is that the girls had fun. Even when we were getting smoked by the two best teams, they would be all smiles after the game. Following Saturday’s game, L. proudly said, “That’s the most baskets I’ve scored this year!” I was so shocked that I couldn’t be a good parent and just let her believe it. “No it’s not!” I responded. “You scored more than that at least four times this year.”

To be young, oblivious, and just happy to be on the court!

Same girl had TWO three-point plays on Saturday. She’s a second grader, but not any taller than L. She also has two older sisters. I joked with her mom after one game that you could tell she has big sisters, because she always faked a shot before she took it. She’d had her weak stuff thrown at home for years! ↩

Changing of the Guard

January 27, 2016 / DB

I like the ambiguity of that post title.

Am I writing about the Big 12 basketball race? We’re only halfway through the season, but it is looking more likely than it has ever looked that KU’s 11-year title streak is going to end.

Or am I going back a few years and writing about the machine that is Apple and how it seems to be, finally, slowing down a little bit?

Or does it have something to do with the stacks of paperwork I’m going through to deal with my stepdad’s affairs?

Turns out, none of those, although I will share some comments about the Big 12 race/KU next week.

Rather, the title is about my own personal thoughts, and how they got a little bit away from me after L’s first basketball game.

As I shared last week, she had a fantastic first game, scoring 12 points and leading her team to a win. The next week, against a team of all second-graders, both she and her team struggled.

Then this past week we played another team full of second graders. A few of them were quite tall. We hung with them early, and were only down by two points with about 8:00 to play in the first half. Then we ran into an age/size issue. The other team chucked up shots, missed, then grabbed the rebound and tried again. And again. And again. Until they finally made it.

I was on the sideline yelling, “Hands up, girls! Rebound!” The only problem was every girl on the other team was taller than all of my girls. And we hadn’t really talked about defensive rebounding in practice. So the other team had three tall girls standing around the basket playing volleyball until they finally scored while one of my short girls stood in their midst reaching helplessly for the ball while her four teammates stood around the perimeter and watched.

A dose of poor coaching in there, for sure, but it was mostly genetics and birthdates that were the determining factor. Late in the half I looked to the scorers table, where a dad from both teams was sitting, and asked, “Are we tracking offensive rebounds? If so, I don’t want to know the numbers!”

We didn’t score again in the first half and were down by about a dozen points at halftime. The second half was more of the same. Our girls couldn’t get shots off, the other team shot and rebounded until they scored. We ended up getting smoked pretty good, losing by about 30. I didn’t really look at the scoreboard much.

After the game I found out that the other team was not only just second graders, but had already played in three tournaments together as well. So even though about half of them couldn’t dribble, they had a general idea of what to do. They guarded. They ran to spots and then made good passes. A couple times they passed out of wide-open shots because they had been taught to pass to someone closer to the hoop.

L. struggled a little bit. She over-dribbled again. She struggled to get a shot off. I think she only scored four points. Once she had a dead layup but decided to throw a bounce pass across the lane to a teammate that wasn’t open. On the one hand, it was a really good pass. On the other, she made it tougher than it had to be. As I told my assistant after the game, “I felt like being the asshole dad who screams ‘TAKE THE SHOT! DON’T PASS THE BALL!’”

Oh well, this whole year is a learning process for our girls. And for me.

Anyway, after the game I laughed at myself. Following our first game, when we played other first graders, looked really good, and I felt like I had an idea what to do during games, I thought to myself, “Man, we are good! We’re going to win the tournament and we might even get asked to play up in the third grade league when they are short a team!”

Looks like I was wrong about that. I should probably wait until I see every team in the league play before I start crowning a champion.