Tag: coaching (Page 3 of 3)

Hoop Tales

January 21, 2016 / DB

L. kicked off her basketball career a week ago. I wrote a lengthy accounting of her epic debut last Monday but didn’t get around to posting it before I had to leave town. Just because I didn’t share it with the world does not mean I’m not still on the hook for the resulting jinx.

She is playing at the high school where she and her sisters are 90% likely to go to school. The head girls coach there put together a pre-CYO league for 1st–3rd graders for this season. Since the league is new, they’ve kind of scrambled to put together teams. But the St. P’s families turned out in force: we have enough girls for two teams in the 2nd grade league (which 1st graders are rolled into). I watched the first practice as a spectator, but got roped into coaching L’s team once it became apparent we had enough girls to split them up.

So week one rolled around, the girls had once practice under their belts, and I was working with them for the first time. We were playing the other St. P’s team, which made matching up on defense pretty easy since they all knew each other. “Jane, go guard Erin!” We also had the bonus of three second graders while the other team had none.

And we had L.

Girl tore things up. She grabbed rebounds. She dribbled through traffic. She hit shots. She ended up with 12 points and 3 assists and we won 28–15. At one point she hit a runner in traffic and I heard a parent in the crowd say, “Who is that?” Proudest moment of my parenting life!

Then came week two. We played a team full of second graders. And they all seemed to have a clue about basketball. They stole the ball, they passed to the open shooter, they smothered us on defense. We hung close for most of the first half – I think we were down 10–9 pretty late in the half – but ended up getting smoked pretty good, something like 30–13. It could have been worse: the other St. P’s team was getting beaten so badly they decided to reset the score at halftime.

L. did ok. She does a decent job dribbling but since we have no offense, if she can’t get to the hoop or find an open teammate, she’ll just stand there and dribble. Or worse, dribble into a triple team and then stop. Her teammates didn’t help her out much. Despite me telling them to spread out and move around, all four girls would line up at the free throw line then move toward L. when she crossed half court. So all five defenders would swarm her.

In our girls, and my, defense, I missed practice last week so we couldn’t work on what to do on offense when you don’t have the ball. And our defensive awareness needs some work. One girl just ran in circles, never sure of where she was supposed to be. Another girl does an awesome job of face-guarding her girl. Problem is she never rotates behind her player, and if she receives a pass, always has a clear path to the hoop. And there were lots of moments where our girls forgot who they were supposed to be guarding and we gave up open layups while three girls were guarding someone out on the perimeter.

I keep telling myself it’s a learning experience for them. Most of the girls are playing for the first time. The girls who have played before all played on smaller courts. And basketball is pretty complex compared to soccer, the only other sport I’ve coached. It’s hard to articulate to a 7- or 8-year-old how she needs to look for an open teammate, pass the ball, then cut away while you’re on the court with them. I noticed when giving them instructions, some of the girls tend to stop and stare at me and give me their full attention. Meanwhile the defense is stealing the ball.

L. is clearly the best player on the team, but that’s a double-edged sword. She gets herself into trouble by dribbling too much. She could have scored 20 in their first game but kept flinging the ball at the rim from 10 feet on breakaways instead of taking the easy layup. Which, of course, we’ve never practiced so not really her fault.

We play with high school refs. They do a really good job teaching as much as officiating. They don’t call traveling. That’s good as only about a third of the girls remember to dribble. And those who do, like L., are constantly stopping their dribble then re-starting. Rather, the refs will cheerfully say “Keep your dribble!” They make sure teams get back after defensive rebounds. They try to stop double-teams. And they tell the girls “Good shot!” or “Good pass!” when they do something right. It’s all pretty laid back and focused on teaching and learning. But when your team is getting run off the court, it kind of sucks.

I’m hoping the schedule has at least one more team that is heavy with first graders. Otherwise it’s going to be a long season.

Girls Games

September 17, 2014 / DB

And now for some girls sporting notes.

M. ended her kickball season last night. Her team got another big win (45-11 after trailing 9-4 to begin the second inning) to end their season at 6-1. Unfortunately, that was not enough to make the championship tournament. Only the four division winners go into the tournament. And their one loss came to a team that went 7-0.

That single loss was a bummer. The other team scored eight runs with two outs in the fifth and the St. P’s girls couldn’t recover, losing 26-19. One bad inning on defense away from the playoffs. Which I don’t think the girls really cared about. The coaches and their humble scorekeeper (me!) were bummed out. Especially since the 7-0 team pulled a bit of a fast one, getting one of the other teams from their school to forfeit rather than reschedule a rained-out game to ensure the St. P’s couldn’t catch them. There’s always some drama…

I think M. had a lot of fun this year. She got better, although we still need to work on her kicking and get her to understand her role in the field better. When she plays an infield position or in the outfield, she’s really good at getting to the ball, collecting it, and getting it back to the pitcher. Last night she played one of the suicide positions, the two players who stand by the pitcher and have to deal with most of the balls kicked in the infield, and was often at a loss at what to do.

The other two girls began their soccer seasons two Sundays ago. L. has scored five goals in each of her first two games and is up to her usual bad-assery. Even though she’s not yet six, I bet we could have moved her up to U8 this year and she would have been fine. But her team is all kids that are either in kindergarten with her at St. P’s, or kids who will go there next year, which she loves. She and L., who is in the other K class, have become fast friends. They’ve played together in both games and have terrorized the boys trying to stop them. When I’ve made it to school early for pickup while the K classes are still outside, I always see those two together organizing their classmates in some kind of activity.

The real fun is C.’s team, which as you may recall, I am coaching. As in head coaching. All by myself. Well, a couple dads who know soccer much better than I do but have to travel a lot are helping out when they can. But the planning of practices, setting the lineups, etc. is all on me. Which was thoroughly frightening at first, since I never played soccer and am doing it all by trial and error.

That’s compounded a little by our team having a lot of kids who either have never played soccer before, or have not played in several years. Fortunately, most of the kids are at least fast and like to run, which can mean a lot when you move to the bigger U10 fields.

Fortunately we had three weeks of practice before our first game, so I was able to get them used to each other and working on their skills. Still, when we began our first game, I realized we hadn’t spent nearly enough time on how to move the ball around the field. The goalies didn’t understand that they didn’t have to stand on the goal line to pass out to their teammates. The defenders didn’t understand how they had to work together, or how they were not tied to the penalty box when the ball went forward. The midfielders didn’t understand how to work together up front, or how to get back to help the defenders.

All that showed on game day as we lost 5-2, with all the goals against coming on plays where the defenders stood around and watched the other team fire on goal.

So we worked on that before the second game. And it appeared to pay off. We got a 5-1 win in week two, giving up the only goal in the last ten seconds of the game. The kids did better on every part of the field, we actually had some passing in the attack, and we thoroughly dominated possession.

The highlight, for me, was the first goal of the game. C. was one of our midfielders (We play two defenders, three midfielders because telling them we had two midfielders and one forward seemed to confuse them) and as she often does, got way ahead of the defense, but was out on the wing. She cut the ball into the box, there was some back-and-forth with the defense and our team as they all knocked the ball around, and eventually she collected it and fired it in. Dad got a little fired up. Not only was it her first “real” soccer goal – one that came with a goalie playing – but it was the first one for our family, as M. was usually playing defense in her U10 days.

We have two boys that are pretty fast and can shoot. We have another girl that isn’t as fast as C. without the ball, but with the ball she can fly up the field and knows how to shoot. We have a girl I was a little concerned about because she isn’t very fast and is very quiet, so I had a hard time telling if she was grasping everything. In our first game I put her in as a defender and she did awesome, getting in front of the ball and either taking it away or clearing it out each time she had a chance.

The best part is that almost all of the kids are always smiling and laughing. I think it helps that several of them don’t have much soccer experience. It’s literally a game to them and they are excited to get out and play. The boy who is probably our best player doesn’t have that same attitude, and I think it’s because he knows the game more and is thinking more about winning and losing. Which I can identify with, as I was hyper-competitive when I was a kid.¹

A month of practices and two games in, I’m feeling more comfortable. I still wish I knew better, instinctively, how to teach the kids game-specific stuff. But the dads who are helping out do a great job helping me there.

We play a team that is 2-0 this week. Hopefully I’ll have the kids ready.

“Was?!?!” my wife would say. I’ve mellowed but I still have my moments. ↩

Walking Off The Weekend

September 23, 2013 / DB

Your weekly weekend wrap-up, featuring a two-hour stretch from Sunday that was as good as any sports moment this year.

This was no ordinary weekend. No, we had visitors! The Nesbitts traveled from Kansas City (with the Belfords also traveling here, but staying with the Heberts) for the Missouri-Indiana football game Saturday. There were plans to attend the local high school football game Friday, but rain ruled that out. ¹

Saturday we cruised down to Bloomington for several hours of excellent tailgating and then the big SEC – Big 10 matchup. ² Fortunately for those of us who weren’t terribly interested in the outcome, IU made it a game for a little while, and then MU pulled away at the end of the third quarter so that we could leave a bit early. These 8:00 kickoffs are rough for old folks with sitters watching the kids 90 minutes away.

It was great to have good friends visit and to enjoy absolutely perfect weather for football on Saturday.

Sunday was a soccer day for us, and we got the ideal schedule, at least from the parents’ perspective. Three games, all at the same time. S. had to do some shuffling around to catch glimpses of each girl, but I was tethered to L.’s field as a coach. She scored two goals, and seemed a bit down on herself for just scoring that many times. Never mind most of the kids in the game didn’t come close to scoring and the competition was a little better than last week.

I was able to swivel my head and see C.’s field, but missed her scoring her first goal of the year. By the time we got to M.’s field, after the two younger sisters had slapped hands with their opponents and gathered their post-game snacks, we got to see the last 4-5 minutes of the U-10 team’s game. And they were clearly either up big or down big because M. was playing forward. Turns out her team won easily and she was happy, so it was a solid day all around.

Race home in time for the Colts game. As I’m watching their bruising first touchdown drive, I’m following the Royals game on my phone. When Eric Hosmer doubled to lead off the tenth, I turned the TV down and toggled the audio on MLB. Bases loaded, no outs, became bases loaded two outs. The Royals seemed to be Royaling the chance to win away.

3-2, two outs, and, well, many of you know what happened next.

Justin Maxwell ends the home season with a swing that will never be forgotten, no matter what happens over the final week of the season. It’s a shame the Royals aren’t just a game back and Cleveland was playing someone difficult this week. Because Maxwell’s home run could be like one of George Brett’s three home runs against California in that epic September 1985 series, when the Royals won three-of-four and leapfrogged into first place on their way to the World Series title. But, even if it’s not perfect, that was a pretty amazing way to end the final home game of the year, clinch a winning season, and send a capacity crowd home happy.

By the time I listened to all the post-game stuff on the radio, got the kids inside, and began getting dinner ready, the Colts were up 10-7 at halftime. Surely the 49ers would make adjustments at the half and take control of the game in the third quarter. But the Colts’ defense kept containing them and forcing them to punt while the offense missed a couple chances to increase the margin.

A missed Colts field goal seemed to set the Niners up to take the lead early in the fourth quarter, but the defense held once again and the offense put together another long drive, with Andrew Luck running the bootleg to put the Colts up 17-7. A Colin Kaepernick fumble followed by Ahmad Bradshaw’s second touchdown gave the Colts two scores in 72 seconds, and a huge road win.

As I wrote last week, I thought the trade for Trent Richardson was a great move for the Colts. I was a little surprised that so much of the national reaction was mixed. When I read Bill Simmons’ reaction Sunday morning, I started to get worried. This line was especially sobering.

After the Colts lose in San Francisco this Sunday, they’ll be 1-2 with a home-and-home against Houston, home games against Seattle and Denver, and road games at San Diego, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Arizona and Kansas City remaining. They won’t be favored in any of those nine games. It’s true.

I mean, wow. I hadn’t thought of that at all. And, as Simmons wrote, if Luck gets injured this year the season is completely shot and they traded away a top quarter of the draft pick for a running back with serious questions.

Turns out the Colts didn’t lose Sunday, though, and who knows if San Diego, Tennessee, Arizona, and the Chiefs will be as dangerous when the Colts play them as they are now.

I still don’t buy all those questions about Richardson. We’ll have to wait and see how he fits in in Indy. And who’s to say that if the Colts do suck this year and they would be in position to draft in the top five next April, the guy they picked then would be any better than Richardson? I still say it’s a perfectly reasonable risk to take given the rest of the roster.

And, more importantly, I’m hoping this new level of toughness the defense showed on Sunday is a regular thing going forward and not a one-week fluke after last week’s loss. They shut down a very dangerous offense, on the road. Keep that effort up and life should become much easier for Luck, Bradshaw, Wayne, and Richardson not needing 30+ points to win. Now, if they can just find a way to protect Luck better. He can only take that beating for so long.

Between the walk-off grand slam and the Colts terrific performance in San Francisco, Sunday afternoon was a great capper to a fantastic weekend.

I can sit in some rain to watch some football. We weren’t so sure the kids would hold up as well, though. ↩
Or B1G as the Big 10 now refers to itself, even in graphics on the Big 10, errr, B1G network. ↩

Weekend Notes

September 16, 2013 / DB

Well, that was pretty easy. As you can tell by reading this, the site is up and running just fine. It took me about half an hour to make the final changes and move the site over to its new home. I’ll write about the changes in the next day or so, but the important thing is that everything appears to be working fine.

The weekend was chock full of activities for us.

Friday night was a series of special nights for our girls. M. and her buddy next door went out to eat and to shop with their moms. C. and her pal went with the neighbors’ dad to a jump place and McDonald’s.

Which left L. and I. I did not have a game to cover – I covered the county tennis meet on Thursday – so I asked her where she wanted to eat. And after shooting down her first two ideas – McDonald’s or Wendy’s – by reminding her we could eat at those places anytime, she shouted out, “Barbecue sandwiches!” Alrightie, then! So we went to a local ‘cue joint where she had the had pulled pork, I had a combo plate, and we had fun eating together. After that, I took her for her first ever round of miniature golf. She played it a little more like hockey, following her ball and batting it forward constantly, but she loved it.

To top off the night we hooked up with the big sisters and other parents at another neighbor’s home where a fire was roaring and the kids made smores while the parents drank beer and enjoyed the fire.

Saturday was a damn perfect day here. It was one of those fall days I kind of hate, as it was gorgeous outside, but there was lots of football on inside. And we have a couple new soccer channels so I could flip between soccer games in England, Italy, Spain, and France all at the same time. It’s a fine way to avoid Big 10 football. C. had a friend over to play, so they made cake pops for us all to enjoy. In the evening, S. and I got to go to a very nice restaurant for dinner with her partners. There’s never anything wrong with eating steak.

Despite all that, Sunday was the highlight of the weekend. It was our first week of soccer. The girls’ teams all opened the season a week ago while we were flying back from Boston, so they were anxious to catch up.

C.’s team is the opposite of her team a year ago, which featured three large, older boys who could power through the other teams at will. This year’s team is tiny and very young. And they were playing a team that was much bigger. It didn’t go all that well. But C. just runs around with a smile on her face and giggling the entire time she’s on the field. She got an assist late in the game.

I missed M.’s game, but her team lost a tough 1-0 contest. It sounds like she spent a lot of time on the field, but as has been her way over the years, she’s still kind of skittish early in the season and tends to shy away from action.

I missed her game because I was coaching L.’s team at the same time. Man, was she excited to finally play a game! Remember, this is the kid who would wear shin guards, cleats, and a hand-me-down uniform to her sisters’ games last spring. Her team is also pretty young, and we have some issues getting everyone to show up. But we had all five kids, it was warm but not hot, so things were looking good.

It didn’t take her long to score her first goal. Then another quickly after that.¹ Two goals in her first five minutes of action! The rest of her team did great, too; I was worried after some dicey practices that involved multiple meltdowns. I think every kid scored at least one goal. One girl scored two. Another boy scored three. And L. ended the game with five! I know, we don’t keep score, blah blah blah. But L.’s team won because homegirl scored three second-half goals. She knows how to finish strong.

So I had lots of high fives to hand out as the regular head coach was gone and I was on the field the entire game. I hate to read too much into one game this year, and C.’s team’s performance last year, but kids seem to score goals when I’m coaching them. It’s a gift, I guess.

The weekend wasn’t a total success. The Royals dropped two of three in Detroit, with an obligatory maddening managerial decision that affected the outcome Sunday. The Jayhawks lost their make-or-break game in Houston Saturday. The Colts let the Dolphins come to town and beat them. And I’m headed to 0-2 in fantasy football.

But that stuff would just have been icing on the pie. As I sit here watching Sunday Night Football on the big TV,² drinking my first Sam Adams Oktoberfest of the year, I can let those disappointments slide and savor an otherwise tremendous weekend.

Her age level is three-on-three, no goalies, although there is always a kid that turns tail and runs to guard the goal when their team loses the ball. ↩
As I recall, I used to say around this time of year that the basement was open. ↩