D's Notebook

Tag: cross country (Page 1 of 3)

Kid Sports: A Controversial End

November 13, 2019 /

We finally – FINALLY – wrapped up the fall sports season last night. It was a strange and disappointing ending.

L’s basketball team’s first opponent in the City tournament was a team that was undefeated. All those wins came in very convincing fashion. We figured it was another team loaded with six graders who play year-round and we’d be lucky to stay in the game for a quarter.

Our assessment about their talent was accurate. However, as the teams were warming up we noticed St S only had five players. Their coaches wandered over and said they were missing four players, including three starters, because they were all home sick with a stomach bug. They still looked better than us but at least we might have a chance.

We were tied at four after one quarter. We trailed 10–8 at halftime. We were hanging in there. We couldn’t do much on offense as their zone defense thoroughly confused our girls. But we were making plays on defense and our tallest girl was getting tough rebounds.

In the third quarter we had a girl go off for seven points and we took a 15–11 lead into the final period.

St S got within two but were still hanging back in the zone as the time ticked down. After a time out in which our coaches told our girls to be patient, not force anything, and to run clock instead of risking a turnover, we burned 30–40 seconds before there was yelling from the stands and whistles from the ref. I looked up from my spot at the scorer’s table to see the St S coach standing in the middle of the court, trying to call a time out. While her team was on defense.

The refs walked her back to her bench, reminded her that she can’t call a time out while on defense, and then assessed her a technical foul. We hit one of two to go up three again with about a minute left.

On the ensuing possession we had a pass deflected out of bounds under the basket. On the inbound play we got an open shot for our best inside player right at the basket. It rimmed out.

St S went down, worked the ball around to their best remaining player, who put up a shot from the left wing with about 10 seconds left. She swished the shot and there was a whistle. The referee nearest us called the basket good and a foul on one of our players. From my view I could not see where the girl’s feet were when she took the shot. She was near the three-point line, but I could not tell if the shot was a three. The referee’s hand never went up on the attempt to indicate a three, and he never put both hands up after the shot was good. When he walked over to call the foul, the St S coach asked, “It was a three, right?” The referee paused, got a nervous look on his face, and then nodded yes. I think he had no idea and guessed.

Tie game, they’re shooting a free throw to win.

Fortunately the free throw missed but we couldn’t get a shot off and went to overtime where we ended up losing by one.

After the game the two coaches from the next game came over and told our coaches that A) the shot at the end of regulation was clearly not a three and B) our girl who got called for the foul on the shot was shoved by a St S player into the shooter. Then a parent from the team with the bye who would play the winner and was (illegally) recording the game for scouting purposes walked over and showed our coach video of the shot that showed the shooter had both feet over the three-point line.

A bummer of a way to end the season. The refs let them play for the most part and it was a pretty clean game. I think that ref was both caught up in the moment and not used to girls taking threes at this level and thus he didn’t check the shooter’s feet when she released the ball. Our girls played really, really well on defense. St S was still more talented than us, even while missing their other players. But we hung in all night and had a chance to win.

Perhaps it is better that we lost. Saturday’s quarterfinal would be against the team that beat us by 30 early in the season. We’ve gotten better but, barring a stomach flu bug at St C, we had no chance against them.

L usually doesn’t get super upset after loses. She might be bummed for a bit but that passes. Last night she was as emotional as I’ve ever seen her. I think it was more about how much fun she had playing and the new, sixth grade friends she made and won’t be able to play with again for two years, than the result itself. Often after games L will complain about the refs or about opposing players who are overly physical or use rude language. Last night she just rode home quietly, sniffing occasionally. When we got home she went into her room and hid for awhile before she came down to eat, her eyes red and puffy.

Before we completely close the book on the fall sports season, I have to quickly share something about L’s last regular season game, played a week ago.

They played a team that had 11 girls, and their coach apparently viewed them as giving him 55 fouls to play tough defense with. We had a 14–4 lead in the third quarter but with two minutes left, the game was tied. The crowd was going nuts, our girls were completely out of it, and things did not look good. Fortunately our best player scored five-straight points and we won.

The headlines from the game, though, were that over 40 fouls were called, only 16 against St P’s. St L had two players foul out and when we told their coach he didn’t seem concerned at all. He just pointed to a girl on his bench to check in. He had two other girls finish the game with four fouls. Between all those fouls, a ton of physical play, and the usual number of turnovers, it took us 90 minutes to play a regulation, 5th/6th grade basketball game. It was utterly ridiculous. By comparison it took us about 70 minutes to play an overtime game last night that included both teams using all their timeouts. After the game we also learned that one of the opposing girls, after throwing one of our players to the floor, said, “Get off me, bitch.” I guess it wasn’t loud enough for the refs to hear because she didn’t get a technical.

I’m kind of glad basketball is over with.

M had her cross country banquet Monday. I only mention that because she won an award. She was one of three runners who earned the Most Improved award, hers for dropping her time by five minutes through the season. The best part was she had no expectations of winning an award, so she was too busy talking and only heard her name. When she went on stage, she had no idea what she had won. Later she posted a picture to her socials saying “When you finish last at every meet they give you an award!” I’m glad she has a sense of humor about it.

Kid Sports Notes

September 23, 2019 /

First off, obviously there are some changes here. I finally got everything moved over to my new site host and, hopefully, functioning properly. There’s still work to do: I need to pick a new theme that I like, I’m having some trouble getting footnotes to work, and the Markdown text language I’ve been writing in for years doesn’t seem to be converting properly, which is messing with my head. Ten years ago when I was constantly messing around with how the site looked and worked, those fixes were easy. Now that I’m out of practice, they are awfully tedious.

But it does seem like I can post from my desktop and I can once again include images in my posts, so we’re moving in the right direction.

Now for some kid sports updates.

The kickball season wrapped up last week. Neither C’s or L’s teams were super successful; C’s team won only one game, L’s team went 4–3 in a very tough division. Both girls had solid seasons. They both kicked pretty well and L was very good on defense. C has always played the suicide position next to the pitcher. She finally reached the age where that’s not as important, so we tried to move her to the outfield against good kicking teams, but she was uncomfortable out there. She made a lot less plays because she was out of the spot she’s been in since fourth grade. Amazingly we had only one night rained out all season, which is a new record. L said that was likely her final season to play, although I’m hoping I can talk her into one more in the spring.

While their teams didn’t do all that well, one of our fourth grade teams won the City championship last week. That was a big deal, ending at least an 0–7 stretch in kickball City championship games for St. P’s.

Cross country is getting close to wrapping up. For C it’s been a challenging year. She’s been saying all season that she doesn’t enjoy it as much as in the past. Her times have been a little slower, and it has not helped that our very warm September has meant she’s been running in heat every week. She had still placed in three of her first four meets, and in the fourth meet she missed placing by one spot and 10 seconds. Saturday she ran her best time of the year, her second fastest time of the past two years, and her best time ever on that course. She snuck into the top 25 to get another ribbon on a day when a lot of good runners were really struggling. It looked like she was going to finish the season really strong.

And then yesterday she could barely walk. We haven’t taken her to get x-rayed but based on how the pain had been building for a few days and its location, S is reasonably certain C has a stress fracture in her foot. So we’re pulling her out of this week’s practices and meet, putting her into a walking book, and hoping that with the next weekend off, she’ll be ready to run again for the City meet in two weeks.

For M, XC has been a struggle. The practices are hard. The meets are really hard. She’s often one of the very last runners on the course. She kept telling us that she was enjoying it, but we know that her performances are getting to her. Especially when she looks at her per-mile pace and compares it to C’s. We try to find some positive in each week, and I remind her how many girls on her team decide not to run every week. She might be bringing up the rear, but she’s out there trying. She did miss this weekend’s meet because she was sick. That may have been a blessing because the course they ran on was super hilly and it could have gotten very ugly. She has just two more meets left. I would guess that she will not run next year, but this season has served its purpose: it helped her ease into high school and gave her an instant group of friends. And she will always be able to say that she earned a (JV) letter in cross country if she can survive the last couple meets. It’s also been fun to hear her and C talking about running together. They struggle to connect at times and C craves her big sister’s approval. Although their abilities are very different, at least XC has given them some common ground.

While kickball has wrapped up, we are three weeks into soccer and about to start basketball for L. Her soccer team is 2–1–1, she is tied for the lead in goals and has the lead in assists despite missing a game. She’s playing well, often more in a midfield role than her traditional forward spot. But she’s also playing with a lot of girls who have a much lower soccer IQ and I think that frustrates her at times.

It’s been a little hard for me to watch from the sidelines. Although I was happy I did not have to coach her team this year, after doing it for three years I have a different perspective. I also don’t believe parents on the sidelines should be yelling at kids on how to play. So I tend to lean over to S and mutter, “What they hell are they doing?” or “Why does he have that girl playing that position?” I also get unreasonably bitter when L subs out, because it always happens at the worst time. Example: Saturday she started the second half on the bench. No big deal, it was hot, she ran hard in the first half. Naturally we get a penalty kick for a hand ball in the box. The girl we send to take the shot has no idea what to do and hits a dribbler the goalie saves easily. Last week when L took a PK, she blasted it into the corner where the goalie had no chance. Obviously, this was totally random; the coach didn’t know we were going to get a PK while L was out. Yet I was bothered. Fortunately L took a great corner later in the half that a teammate tapped in for a goal and the 1–0 win.

Her first basketball game is Wednesday night. They’ve been practicing 2–3 times a week. I got asked to help last week when both of their coaches, who I coached with two years ago, we going to be late. The team is super athletic. We have some size, lots of speed. And our center is a setter in volleyball and knows how to make quick passes out of the post to cutters. If they can learn how to hit shots they could be really good.

My expectation was that L would play off the bench. But from what I saw Friday, and from what she’s told me, I think she’s going to start at point guard. I hope she’s ready to face sixth graders who play year-round.

She’s been loving it, though. I don’t remember if I mentioned this already, but she told me a couple weeks ago that she wants to play basketball this winter and is reconsidering whether she plays club soccer next year because she likes basketball so much. It’s been cool to see her connect with the sixth graders, too. I’ve seen them run over and start talking to her as the walk into school in the mornings. One who lives near us invited her over to hang out this weekend. In some ways I think she connects better with them than her two classmates that are also on the team. Game recognizes game.

Weekend Notes

September 3, 2019 /

It was a good holiday weekend for the family and I.

It started with, as I mentioned in my Friday Vid post, 36 holes of pitch and putt golf. Later I met our friends the B’s from KC, along with Mrs. Coach Hebs, for lunch at a spot I had never been to before. Friday night we watched Coach Hebs’ team win their home opener in a rout over the team Cathedral beat in week one.

Saturday was supposed to be our second cross country week of the season. C’s team decided not to run in the CYO race, I’m assuming because of the holiday and people being gone. M was still supposed to run about an hour east of Indy. She and S left just as some rain was moving in near our house. In the time it took them to get to the host school, the storm had blossomed and featured heavy rain and lots of lightning. They hung out at a McDonald’s near the course while the meet was delayed for 45 minutes before the coaches decided to cancel it. I think S was thrilled to drive that far for nothing.

The rest of Saturday was pretty lazy. I followed the KU game online,1 napped, yelled at the girls a little. A pretty standard Saturday. That evening we went out the with B’s and Hebs, starting at another place I had not been to before. Two new places in one weekend! We need more guests from Kansas City because they seem to force us out of our old, reliable spots.

Sunday was supposed to be pool party day. And it was, just delayed slightly because of persistent rain in the late morning and early afternoon. Eventually the clouds cleared and it was a beautiful day with a hint of fall in the air. Plenty of beer, good food, and good times with friends.

Monday morning Billy B and his oldest daughter joined L and I on the pitch and putt course for about 14 holes. The girls kind of checked out around the turn and we got caught behind a group of six that had three kids in it. So we jumped from 12 to 17, played the last two holes and called it a day.

I spent the afternoon doing the very fun manual cleaning of the pool. One of the joys vinyl liner pools is residue from sunscreen, hair products, body oils, etc. collect along the waterline and need to be scrubbed off occasionally. I really should have done this a couple days earlier as Monday was sunny and hot. Then again, I was floating on a noodle while I scrubbed the liner, so it really wasn’t that bad.

The only bummer of the weekend is that I’m getting hit by a cold. The girls all had really bad colds a week ago and I thought I had dodged the bullet. But all weekend I could feel the cold just sitting in the back of my throat, waiting to for me to drop my guard so it could take over. Thankfully it waited until after our weekend guests had left and plans were complete before really hitting me last night. It’s one of those fun colds where your throat hurts and just when you get to sleep you start coughing and wake up. It was not the most restful night. After going more than two years without a cold, I’ve now had two in a little under four months.

And now we’re in September. Summer is officially in the rearview mirror, football has begin, L and I saw Christmas decorations when we were at Hobby Lobby Saturday, and you can start looking in that back corner of your closets where the long-sleeved shirts have been hanging since April and think about wearing them again.

1. It wasn’t on TV here because the Reds game was on.

Fall Kid Sports

August 26, 2019 /

Fall sports have begun. Right now we are actively involved in five sports, with another to begin tomorrow. Joyous times.

The fall kickball season started last Monday. We have nine teams at St. P’s this year, and got off to a great 7-2 start on opening day. The two teams to lose? My girls’ teams.

C’s team, which I’m helping to coach, gave up four runs in the 7th to lose by one. They did not play all that well and I was honestly shocked that we had the lead going into the 7th. C absolutely blasted the first pitch of the season, maybe her most powerful kick ever, but had bad luck when it went to dead center and hit a telephone pole that is an automatic ground-rule double. A foot toward left field and she has an easy home run. As tends to happen, that got in her head and she didn’t play well the rest of the game. I told her before the game I just wanted her to play and have fun this year. I wasn’t going to get on her when she made mistakes. I took that pledge back when we got in the car after the game, though, when I had to ask her why she failed to field a couple balls that are normally easy plays for her. Teenage girls are a challenge, and she’s going to be our most challenging in terms of moods and how we push her to work through them without pushing too hard and making them worse.

L’s team was playing at the same time, against the team that beat them in the City championship game last spring. This game wasn’t much better, with our girls losing by 16. I talked to her coach afterward and she insisted it was one bad inning that killed us and we were fully capable of beating them if we played them again in a division championship game.

That opportunity went out the window Thursday when L’s team lost their second game, this time by just two runs. I was at this game and I have to say, I have no idea what has happened to L’s team. Last season they had four girls who could be relied on the blast the ball every time they kicked, then 2-3 others who might give you a big kick. They all, including L, kicked like crap Thursday. Worse, they kept kicking it directly to the pitcher who made play-after-play. This girl was the best player on the basketball team that gave L’s team their only two losses last fall, which made it worse. She’s a really good kid, but come on, girls, show some pride and beat her in something! Or at least make her work for it! L made an egregious mistake on the base paths that really cost us, too. That was more frustrating to me than the loss.

Cross country began on Saturday, which was an absolutely perfect day here in Indy. Sunny, cool in the morning, only in the 70s by late morning. Just a delightful day.

I went with M to her first ever race. The varsity boys and girls ran a Hokum Karem relay to start the day, then the JV kids ran a two-mile race. My goal for M was to 1) finish and 2) not be last. Success! She finished, even kicking in fairly strong at the end to pass a few girls. She was not last! She was very close to last, though. More importantly, she cut three minutes off her time trial time, which she was very pleased with. Overall it was a good experience. Next week is tougher as she has to run a full 5K. And, if nothing else, cross country has served its purpose for her by giving her a way to meet people, which opens the door to meet other people. She’s already hung out with several girls she’s either met directly through XC, or through a teammate.

C’s race was also a relay, and she was paired with St. P’s best 8th grade runner. This is the traditional first meet of the season and C has always run the flatter, faster leg or the relay. This time they gave her the hilly half. I don’t know if it was the tougher side of the trail, or other issues, but S texted me that C really struggled. She was fighting a bit of a cold and that may have affected her a bit. Or it could have just been whatever was in her head last week. But it took her a long time after the race to recover and she was very upset by her performance.

She had already told us she wasn’t enjoying cross country as much as in the past, but hasn’t really explained why. We think some of it is how much she enjoyed track, and how she’d rather run for 20 or 30 seconds than 13 or 14 minutes. I’ve been trying to motivate her by telling her that her times from last year are better than a lot of the high school runners’ times. But I also realize that as girls bodies begin to change, often their athletic abilities change. I was in a conversation a week ago with a few parents, discussing what sports we thought our kids might stick with in high school. One mom said, “Once girls get boobs and an ass, everything changes.” C’s body hasn’t changed that much from where it was a year ago, but it is changing, and maybe this is all just part of that process. I hope she can find a way to make the rest of the season fun again regardless of her times.

As I may have mentioned, CYO girls basketball has been moved earlier in the calendar because of dumbness. Teams were announced last weekend and L made the 5th-6h grade A team. We had a long talk before tryouts about the pros and cons of A team vs B team. She was excited to have a chance to play on the A team, but understood there’s a sixth grade point guard who made the A team last year that she would back up. And there would be fewer of her friends on the A team. While on the B team she would start, likely be the best player, play a ton of minutes, and be with more friends. She told me she was good either way.

And then she went out and rocked her tryout. I heard from the mom of a sixth grader that her daughter told her after, “L was the best player there today.” I don’t know if that’s true, but apparently she played really well and earned her spot. Two of her classmates also made the A team. I was a little surprised because one of those is also a point guard and I thought they might pick either L or her to keep on a B team. But that girl can also be turned into more of a wing so it may not be an issue.

They’ve had two practices so far and L is enjoying it. I think the coach, a mom I’ve coached with before, is really enjoying having to plan around two kickball schedules, a swimmer, several cross country runners, and a couple soccer players when she tries to get practices on the calendar. Glad it’s not me!

Oh, and L starts soccer practice tomorrow. This will be her final year in a rec league. We’ve heard that registrations were way down this year, so we don’t know if she’s going to play the same two teams over-and-over, or if her league will partner with another to find games. Once again she’s on a team that is a random mix of girls, which can be trouble at this age because they end up playing teams that stick together from season-to-season.

Summer So Far

June 19, 2019 /

Here we are on June 19 and I can already say it’s been the strangest summer in some time. Mostly because it really doesn’t feel like summer yet.

The big issue has been the weather. It was a moderately wet spring to begin with, then Mother Nature lost her damn mind in the middle of May. It’s rained something like every 4.5 hours since then. Every time you think the sun is going to come out and things are going to begin to dry out, storm clouds begin piling up on the horizon and racing in. Last weekend Mother Nature cracked her knuckles and really gave us two big middle fingers, dropping over eight inches of rain in several areas near here, while almost the entire area got well over four inches of rain. If you were to try walking in our yard right now, you might lose a foot when it sinks beyond the ankle.

So most days the girls and I have been sitting around doing nothing. I feel kind of bad when S gets home every night and asks the girls what they did that day and they answer, “Nothing.” But we just spent a lot of money in San Diego; I’m sticking to the Internet we’ve already paid for for awhile rather than bowling or trips to the mall.

Another downside to this weather is it has delayed a rather significant landscaping project we have going on. It is a project that was expected to enhance our enjoyment of summer pretty significantly. Howevah…we are currently three weeks behind schedule so the girls and I are just kind of looking out the window, dreaming of the day it will be done so we can start doing what we expected to do this summer. The good news is we have had a dry day so far and one of the biggest, final steps is being knocked out as I type this.

Yeah, I’m being coy. A selected few folks know about the project. If it wraps up in the next 48 hours, as we really hope it does, I’ll break shit down for you next week.

We did have a rather big change to our routine this week. M decided that she wants to try running cross country next year. This was purely a social decision. One of her teachers at St. P’s told the entire eighth grade class that a great way to get settled into high school is to go through summer conditioning for a sport. It would help the kids, the teacher said, meet some of their future classmates and teachers so they didn’t start the first day of the fall semester surrounded by strangers. M’s best friend is running, as are two or three other St. P’s friends, along with a few girls she knows from other middle schools.

Originally she thought about going through summer conditioning with volleyball, which really worried us. The CHS program is very strong, a ton of girls go out, and M has never played club, summer leagues, etc. We realized it might be fun in the summer, but she had zero chance to make the team. We did not want her to get crushed just as her freshman year was starting. Fortunately a couple of her friends came to the same realization, one of them found out that cross country is a no-cut sport and you can talk while you run, so they decided to give it a shot.

I was very curious how this would go. She infamously thought about running cross country in fifth grade and couldn’t make it two blocks on a training run before she quit. She has some speed, but I wondered if she was strong enough both mentally and physically to deal with the training. We’ve been up at 6:00 every morning this week to get her to practice and she’s done just fine. In fact, last night when I asked her what days she wanted to run the rest of the week – summer workouts are 100% voluntary and absences are allowed without question – she told me, with a sheepish smile on her face, that she was really enjoying it. That made me very happy. She’s been lucky to almost always be on good teams, but has never been a great athlete. We know it bothers her that her two sisters are known around school and in friend and family circles as being athletes. I’m glad that she’s trying something new, seems to be doing fine, and has already found enjoyment in it.

The only bummer is that 6:00 alarm. She decided to run with the summer school crew so she can be with her friends.[1] I was hoping she would have wanted to go in the regular session that starts later in the morning. But being with her friends motivates her and adds to the fun, so I’m fine with it. I usually go walk around the track and listen to podcasts while they are running, so it’s not a bad start to the day. Especially since it has been so dreary and cool so far. I’m sure we’ll have some mornings in July when it already feels like 90 and I’ll be as sweaty as she is after my walk.

Off to shake my fist at these clouds that are beginning to build in the southwest sky…

  1. She could not enroll in summer school – which apparently everyone takes now – because of our vacation.  ↩

Weekend Kid Sports

October 8, 2018 /

This was a weekend of sports endings and beginnings. And waitings, too, I guess.

C wrapped up her cross country season with the annual City championship meet. Once again it was hot and humid for the biggest meet of the year, which is always an afternoon meet to avoid high school sectionals. I will give her this: she might fuss and worry about the conditions on hot days, but she almost always powers through where other kids wilt.

Again, for the fourth-straight year, she ran her fastest time of the year at this meet. For the third-straight year, it was good enough to get on the awards podium. For the second-straight year, she claimed 16th place, this time out of 114 runners. That’s a lot of streaks!

I was actually worried about her before the race. She ran decent times all year, and placed in every event for the second-straight season, but it also felt like she plateaued a little this year. As nice as that consistency was, she never busted out that really fast run like she had done in the past. On several race days, she showed signs of nerves and discomfort before her run. So, Saturday, I really had no expectations for her to do well. I figured it was hot, she seemed off in the morning again, and there was a huge field to run against. I was just hoping she broke 14 minutes for the first time all year.

She ran a really solid race. She was in the medal group the entire, and improved her position steadily. She passed a girl in the closing stretch to bump up to 16th, which was a nice way to finish the year. Her time of 13:47 was her third fastest ever. Ironically, or strangely, she still hasn’t come close to the ridiculous 13:13 she ran as a fourth grader when she finished 6th at the City meet. Last year’s City time was 13:24. That course brings out the best in her, although she seems to be getting slower on it.

Anyway, it was a good ending to a strange year. We had two meets washed out by storms. Two other meets were in brutal heat. Kickball kept her from practicing more than once a week most of the season. But her five runs earned her 9th, 19th, 5th, 10th, and 16th place finishes.

CYO does not mess around. The day after cross country ended, girls basketball began.[1] Yes, CYO girls basketball is a fall sport for some reason. I have really never understood why. Volleyball is their winter sport, but the boys’ volleyball and basketball seasons run in parallel in the winter.[2] Weird.

Yesterday was L’s first ever CYO basketball game. She has a huge team – 11 players – so their coach decided to run them out in waves, subbing every three minutes. That worked out pretty well yesterday. They got off to a 24–0 start, which I think is pretty good. It was 26–1 at halftime. Apparently he told them to stop stealing and pass five times before shooting in the second half, so the final was only 30–4. Soft…

L had a decent game. She had a bunch of steals. She had a couple assists. But she missed at least 853 layups. She was back into her old habit of going too damn fast and chucking the ball off the backboard so hard it has no chance to go in.

Her highlights, though, were destroying people off the dribble. She was blowing by people on the perimeter. She had a crazy crossover that damn near made the girl guarding her fall over. And she, somehow, went between her legs and left a defender in the dust. The best part of that was they were playing a school that is from a little more urban part of the city: their roster was about three-quarters black girls. When L was juking people, there were several “WHOOOO!!!”s and “DANG!”s from our opponents cheering section. L noticed. After the game she said, “I heard people saying ‘WOW!’ when I went between my legs!”

As I was congratulating her coach following the game – he and I coached this group together last year – he said something, jokingly, about was she ever going to hit a layup. She quickly had an answer, “See, dad, you need to get me a basketball goal!” Our new driveway isn’t ideal for a hoop so we’ve done our best to put that purchase off. Later she asked me if it was ok for her to dribble between her legs during games. I told her as long as it helps her make a basketball move that is necessary, sure. I have a feeling it was kind of an accident yesterday and now she’s going to try it again and start turning the ball over.

Oh, and the game was the general chaos you would expect. You could tell our girls have all been playing together for three years. The other team…well, I’m not sure any of those girls had played an organized game before. There was a lot of grabbing the ball and walking, uncertainty about how to inbound the ball, and so on. I told L after the game not to expect other teams to struggle as much as Sunday’s opponents did.

As for the waiting, Sunday worked out better for us than we had expected. L was also supposed to have a soccer game, which was to begin one hour after basketball. Our plan was to play basketball as long as we could, then run over to the soccer field. Fortunately, the soccer team was going to be missing three girls because of fall breaks, so we decided to forfeit that game.[3] We figured playing at least one girl down – and perhaps more if someone else didn’t show up – and then with two girls coming from basketball was going to make soccer ugly. Especially in the heat. Sadly we may have to forfeit next weekend, too, as we know three girls will be on fall break.[4] That’s kind of a bummer. There’s supposed to be a tournament at the end of the season, but we don’t know any details about that. I’m hoping we get to play at least one more game with this group of girls.

  1. Although some of the older girls had preseason tournaments last week.  ↩
  2. Along with wrestling.  ↩
  3. Seriously, fall breaks suck.  ↩
  4. Fucking fall breaks…  ↩

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.  ↩

Mo’ Kid Sports

September 18, 2018 /

Our kickball seasons came to an official end last night. A season that began with back-to-back rainouts at the same school ended with back-to-back make-up games at that school in 90-degree heat. Not the best bookends.

C’s season wrapped up Friday in pretty glorious fashion. Every girl was locked in and they cruised to a 44–5, run-ruled win. If we had played like that the previous Monday, we just might have had a chance against the team that won our division. C closed the year with a big home run. The head coach’s husband was taking pictures and got a great one of C just after contact, her right foot up in the air, her left several inches off the ground, the ball just about out of the frame as it rocketed to the outfield.

M’s season ended on the same field last night with a doubleheader make up of two rained out games. We began the first game up 9–1, as the season-opener was stopped just as we were ending the first inning. For three weeks our girls had that inning to think about. I’m pretty sure they all expected the day to be two easy wins. And, unfortunately, they played two rather disinterested games. Oh, and it turned out their opponents were pretty good. Despite that 9–1 lead, we dropped the first game 27–20. In the second game, we trailed by three in the last inning but scraped across four runs with two outs to take a lead. Our defense, normally the bright spot on this team, had been suspect all day. And we kicked the ball around the infield long enough to let the tying and winning runs in.

Yep, a team that had lost six regular season games in nine seasons coming in got swept in a doubleheader and finished the year with three losses. Not exactly the way we wanted these girls to end their kickball careers.

After the game M was a little teary. Likely more because she jammed a finger in the last inning than because she was emotional about her kickball days being done. I reminded her how when she was in third grade, she said she absolutely did not want to play in the spring.[1] We told her that she had to at least give it a try. She not only played that spring, but was super excited to play in the fall of her fourth grade year. And never stopped after. I also reminded her that in ten seasons, she had a ton of great memories she would hang on to for years. I don’t know if that helped her, but it made me feel better.

Our weekend was full of sports, too.

L finally got on the soccer field, errrr, pitch with games both Saturday and Sunday. They were two very different experiences.

The league L is in partners with a couple neighboring leagues to make sure we have enough teams at the U12-U16 levels. And our first opponent was a true club team. These girls had been playing together for several years and were, the head coach and I were guessing, the product of a tryout process rather than a blind, random generation of kids like our roster was. We hung in for the first 10 minutes or so, but it got real ugly after that. We lost something like 10–1. We gave up two penalty kicks because of handballs in the box. We probably should have given up two more but our ref didn’t seem super interested in calling anything that wasn’t blatantly obvious.

It didn’t help that our opponents were huge compared to ours. They all had to be early 2007 birthdays, and were tall and thick, where our team was full of late 2008 girls who are either short or have cross country bodies. It really looked like we were in the wrong league, both in terms of talent and size. Oh, and we were missing four girls, so we had zero subs. And one of our players took a shot in the nose and had to sit out for several minutes until it stopped bleeding.

For the first time since she started playing, L looked totally outclassed. It took her a long time to figure out how to get and keep possession. And then she would dribble into the teeth of the defense and get surrounded by three girls who were all 5’4” and thick. She did set up our only goal by taking a ball deep down the side and crossing it. But for the most part she was humbled.

Sunday we played a team that looked only slightly smaller than Saturday’s opponents. Again it was a very even first 10–15 minutes until they broke through with a couple goals. We pulled one back when L made a good run, got completely wiped out inside the box, everyone stopped waiting for a whistle that never came, and one of our other girls pounced on the loose ball and put it in.

The second half was another story. I don’t know what happened, because we mostly let the girls sit and hydrate to recover from the heat at halftime, but we absolutely dominated the first 15 minutes of the second half. The head coach and I got all over L for giving up on a ball right in front of us because a bigger defender was chasing it down, too. She got pissed, charged down the field and stole the ball back. Moments later, she pulled a Roberto Baggio, collecting a ball deep in the defensive end and dribbling straight up the field before ripping one by the goalie. Really, these goals should not happen at this level. I think the defense was just tired. Their goalie then scored on herself and we were tied.[2]

L got another goal to put us ahead, and missed two dead easy chances that literally made me fall over in disbelief. She looked like she belonged Sunday. We got a fifth goal late when their goalie gifted us another and we got out with a 5–3 win. The mood of the girls was like 1000% better than Saturday, shockingly. One girl, Saturday, kept saying, “What’s the point? Why are we even trying?” I was going to start calling her Lucy from the Peanuts because of her attitude. After Sunday’s game she had a big grin on her face and I asked her, “Isn’t it better when you don’t give up hope and keep playing?”

Because of other sports, I hadn’t been able to be around the entire team until this weekend. I’m not sure how good we’ll be, since we’re so young and small, but I really like a bunch of the girls. We have a few who are super athletic and a little stubborn, and refuse to give up if a bigger girl takes the ball away. We have three girls who work really well with L, and they could become difficult to stop once they learn how to play together. One of those girls can slide all over the field and cover any position while making fantastic passes to her teammates. And a bunch of them have fun personalities. We have one girl who complains a lot. At halftime she was complaining about how hot it was and how she hated running. Our smallest girl, who is this tiny thing with glasses and braces but is also really good, said in her little voice, “Don’t you run track, though?” Not everyone heard it but I busted out laughing, “Dang, O! You just roasted her!” and the whole team lost it. O sat there with a proud, sheepish grin on her face.

C also ran Saturday afternoon. We kind of hate this race because A) it’s huge; I think every school in the area is invited and B) it is always in the afternoon so the runners at the high school that hosts can run in their meet in the morning. So we’re always out in the open and it is usually hot. Saturday was just nasty hot and humid.

Except for the elite runners, who cruised to wins, everyone was having a really hard time. In C’s race, all St. P’s runners were on the verge of tears and barely able to stand at the end. She finished 18th with about the same time she ran last year. S and I had to walk with her, helping her along, until we could get her to shade after she finished. She was the fourth St. P’s runner and the third in her grade. Now that kickball is done I’m hoping a little extra training will push her up a few spots in the next few meets.

  1. Back then third graders could not play until the spring season, and then only on mixed teams with fourth graders.  ↩
  2. Speaking of things that shouldn’t happen at this level, goalies should not kick the ball backwards over their heads into their own goals.  ↩

Kid Sports

September 11, 2018 /

Once again, that bitch Mother Nature has been playing havoc with our family sports schedule. I’ve lost track of how many practices, games, and other events have been wiped out over the past month. Seriously, it didn’t rain here for like six weeks, then, as soon as fall practices started, we began getting multiple downpours each week right around the time a kid was supposed to be doing something.

Here’s where we stand now.

M’s kickball team will not defend their City championship. They won their first two games – another game was stopped after one inning because of rain with them up 9–1 – before they ran into a buzzsaw. We had heard St L had been practicing four nights a week to come after our girls. We weren’t super concerned at first, because we had never had trouble with them. But we also heard they had a bunch of soccer players that had not played since fifth grade that were coming back for one final run at City.

And, damn, those chicks were good.

We were up by five or six runs after two innings but then got blasted. We narrowly avoided getting run-ruled after six innings and scored enough in the 7th to only lost by 16. It really wasn’t that close, though. We’ve never played a team that could kick like St L’s. Every girl through their entire lineup could absolutely blast the ball. Even their tiny girls who looked more like 6th graders could boot it. Our lineup is good, but also has several holes in it and we just couldn’t keep up.

That was a bit of a bummer, but I thought it was a good sign that all our girls recognized they got beat by a better team and came to terms with the loss pretty quickly. My memory might be a little off, but I believe this was only the sixth regular season loss these girls have had in nine seasons of kickball. And only their fourth regular season loss when playing against same-aged girls. Pretty impressive.

A night later we had an exciting one-run win over another one of our big rivals. I missed this game running the other two sisters around.

M’s team has a double header on the schedule for next Monday. Those will, likely, be the last two games this group ever plays together.

C’s team won their first three games and had their biggest game of the year Monday night against St. S, a long-time nemesis for her class. They were undefeated too, but where we were scoring between 20–30 runs a game, St. S had scored over 50 runs in all five of their games. Before we started, I joked with our coach that if we could just hold them to 30 and kick well ourselves, we had a chance.

Things got off to a bad start when three of our girls went to St. S instead of our field. Two of them caught their error quick and arrived before the game started, but the third girl rolled in in the second inning.

We somehow held them scoreless in the first, scored three in our half, and were up 5–2 after two. Then came the proverbial “bad inning”: we gave up 12 runs, eight after getting two outs. We dropped two balls in the outfield, bobbled a bunch of balls in the infield, and were on the wrong side of a close call at first.

We never got back in it and lost by 15. So no City for C’s team. She’s had a steady, if unspectacular season. Girls don’t kick it to the suicide spot as much as they did when they were younger, so she’s made a lot fewer plays than she did a year ago. But she still generally makes them when the ball is kicked her way. And I always laugh when another team tries to run on her and she races some girl down from 50 feet away. Her kicking has been hot-and-cold, like always. She has a few home runs. She’s also booted some deep balls that have been caught. Such is life in sixth grade. She has scored from first on kicks to shallow center a couple times. Once she almost ran down a teammate who was a base ahead of her when they were both coming home. She was giggling the whole time.

St. P’s will send at least one team to City this season. Our 7th graders are undefeated and two games ahead of everyone with one to play. And L’s classmates are still undefeated, although they have two tough games this week against teams that each have one loss. I’ve been giving L grief all season about “What if they go to City without you?” She always looks like she’s filled with mixed emotions when I ask.

Cross country has suffered from the weather, too. The first meet of the year was cancelled Labor Day weekend because of heavy thunderstorms. While S and I were in New York, C ran and finished in 10th place. It was her fourth fastest time ever, which was pretty good considering she’s barely practiced because of kickball and the weather. A friend sent a picture of her just after she finished and she looked like she was going to throw up. Then last week’s meet was wiped out because of heavy rains. I’m kind of anxious for kickball to get wrapped up so she can have a couple weeks of good training before the City meet in early October.

And L’s soccer season has yet to begin. She was supposed to play two games the weekend before Labor Day, but as all teams had just started practicing that week, both were postponed until October. Then last week the fields were flooded. So this Saturday will be her first game of the year. I’m counting on tornadoes or a blizzard or some other crazy weather to keep them from playing.

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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