D's Notebook

Tag: family (Page 3 of 45)

Weekend Notes

October 16, 2023 /

Another very good weekend that was focused on travel, football, and friends.

For the second time in three weeks I left Indianapolis to attend a Big 12 football game. This trip was to Cincinnati to watch M’s Bearcats take on Iowa State. Making the trip even better, I would be hanging with my buddy, Super Clone Fan #1 Sean, and we would get to spend some time before the game with our old pal O-Dog.

I drove down Friday evening, just ahead of the storms that were blowing through and wiping our very late summer warmup away. While I drove L was at the Center Grove – Cathedral game getting soaked. CG generally pounded the Irish, or at least until CHS scored two touchdowns in about a minute to turn a 21-point deficit into a seven-point gap very late in the game. They could not corral a second-straight onside kick, though, and ended the regular season with their third loss, 45–38. This is a bye week for 6A teams in Indiana, so CHS will begin the state playoffs in a week against 0–9 North Central.

I was fortunate to be invited to stay with Sean at his sister’s home. We hung out and had a few beers after my arrival, something we regretted a little the next day. The beer part, not the catching up.

The Iowa State-UC game was at noon, thus we were up pretty early to head to campus for tailgating. His sister works right across the street from campus and her employer has a private parking lot. She graciously gave us her pass so we could park very close for free in an almost completely empty garage. I think actual parking on campus for games is a true nightmare so this was a huge bonus to our day.

We strolled over and grabbed a spot on the edge of the main tailgating area to meet up with O-Dog. I hadn’t seen him in 16 years, give or take. Many of my readers know O-Dog and probably haven’t seen him in longer. I’m happy to report he’s exactly the same dude. It was like he picked up our conversation right where he left off the last time we saw each other. We fought a dicey cell connection to FaceTime with the central point in our respective friendships, John N back in KC.

We hung with O-Dog awhile, ran up to where his family was tailgating to say hello, and then hooked up with M. I had been checking her location all morning and it seemed like she was hopping from fraternity house to fraternity house. She finally found us right before the game and we headed in. It had been gray, dreary, and cool all morning but just as we got to our seats, the clouds disappeared to reveal a gorgeous blue sky and bright sun. We all muttered that we shouldn’t have brought our jackets (Foreshadowing!).

Sean got our seats from Iowa State so we were around plenty of other Clones fans, tucked into the corner near one endzone, 13 rows behind the ISU bench. This became more significant later.


That sunshine lasted about 10 minutes until thick, low clouds rolled in. Right before halftime it began sprinkling. Then misting more steadily. Most of the fans departed for cover under the upper deck at half. M and I walked around to find food and it was hard to move. The second half was filled with intermittent light showers, never heavy enough to soak you but still wet enough to make everyone kind of miserable. M took off in the fourth quarter. Her roommate had run a half marathon that morning and she wanted to find and congratulate her. I think she also wanted to get out of the rain. Sean, being the good Clone fan he is, wanted to hang around and see every minute of ISU’s impressive win, which I totally understood. By late in the fourth quarter the stadium was basically empty except for every ISU fan who had crammed into our area. I was glad no one tried to high five me. My Bearcats sweatshirt was a pretty similar color to a lot of the Clones fans gear.

As for the game, it wasn’t the most exciting contest I’ve ever been to. UC was a five-point favorite coming in. They missed an easy touchdown on their first possession and never recovered. Like every time I’ve watched them this year, their offense struggled to put positive plays together. In fact, their offense really seems to have regressed since Big 12 play started. And their defense, which was supposed to be a strength, fell apart as the Cyclones had more time to adjust their attack. Iowa State won 30–10 and it felt like a bigger beatdown than that. ISU seemed like a mess about a month ago but they look like they’ve figured some stuff out. I had them chalked up as a win for the Jayhawks but that is now in big-time doubt. Although UC might be so bad it’s hard to make any inferences based on Saturday. There was a lot of booing by the Bearcat faithful as the offense looked progressively more inept over the day.

After the game Sean and I walked around campus a bit, stopped at M’s dorm to say hello again, then headed to the main drag right off campus. We ended up ducking into Buffalo Wild Wings to get a bite and watch some other football, including the KU game. I’m glad I didn’t get to see that entire game, because I think I would still be upset about it. I did see three KU touchdowns. But I also saw a blocked PAT, a failed two-point conversion, and dropped interception that would have been a sure-thing pick six. All important since they lost to Oklahoma State by seven. And now KU fans are back to wondering where win number six is. I hate football. And sports. Again, glad I didn’t see the entire game otherwise I would be really mad about the result.

But, again, I guess that’s progress, right?

While we were in B-Dubs, this super drunk UC student came up to our table and pointed to one of our chairs. Thinking he was just asking to borrow it, Sean nodded. Instead the kid sat down right next to me and stared at the TV with the Oregon-Washington game on it.

“You guys watching football?” he asked, with slurred words.

Sure, we were watching football.

“You watching the Washington game?”

“Kind of,” I responded. “But I’m paying more attention to the Kansas game.”

“KANSAS GAME? WHY ARE YOU WATCHING THAT?” he said, as he looked at my UC shirt.

“That’s where I went to school.”

“You went to Kansas?” he asked, not in disgust but as if he had never realized someone could go to school at KU.

“Yep, I’m from there.”

“You’re from there?” Again, like he didn’t realize people lived in Kansas.

“Yep.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but the Bearcats are going to beat Kansas.”

“Oh really?”

“Yep, I guarantee it.”

“Well, from what I saw today, I’m don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“I guarantee it. I’ll bet you anything.”

“The Bearcats were terrible today. You know Iowa State isn’t even that good,” I looked at Sean and grinned as he protested, “and they pounded UC”

“I’ll bet you anything they beat Kansas though!”

We stared at each other for a minute, then I turned back to my game and Sean. After a few more awkward moments the kid shook our hands, wished us well, and went back to his friends two tables away. I hope he felt ok Sunday morning.

I headed back to Indy that evening. When you drive at night it’s only about 1:45 city-to-city, which is nice. I made it home in time to see a decent chunk of Notre Dame’s beat down of USC. I called the Irish frauds last week. I should apologize because USC are clearly the bigger frauds. I guess Lincoln Riley just doesn’t care about defense, figuring they can out-score everyone, even with their sloppy ass offense that sure seems to get in its own way a lot. I enjoyed the Twitter poster who called USC an “unserious team.”

Sunday was another dreary day. I watched some football but never really committed myself to any games. The Colts were entirely too sloppy to deserve my full attention. I saw someone on Twitter respond to the Indy Star Colts writer this week that they were happy Gardner Minshew was starting over the injured Anthony Richardson because Minshew “isn’t selfish.” I’m not sure what a rookie quarterback, who by all accounts is a great kid willing to listen and learn, and just runs the plays that are called, did to deserve being called selfish. Then I looked at this person’s Twitter bio. They do not like our current president, or vaccines, or masks. They do like our former president who faces multiple indictments and they really like guns. I wondered if their quarterback preference was based on some other factor than whether a player is selfish or now. Anyway, I was secretly glad that Minshew had a terrible day – four turnovers – and that Richardson signed autographs with his non-dominant hand for half an hour before the game. Although I guess sharing the ball with Jacksonville does prove that Minshew is not selfish.

S and I took a walk after the Colts game, and L came along with us. She’s officially cleared to start basketball again today, which is good since it is the first day of the winter sports practice calendar in Indiana. Her coach is still going to hold her out of scrimmaging but she’ll be back on the court for the first time in over a week. Wednesday we find out what team(s) she will be on.

We also started breaking down and storing the pool furniture. I kept the pool open longer than I ever have, since I figured I would keep swimming as long as I could. But it’s been so cool the last two weeks that I should have had it closed when we normally do. My last swim was 12 days ago. The crew will be here on Thursday to shut it down for us.

This is a short week at CHS, with fall break beginning Wednesday. We will head back to Cincinnati Saturday for family weekend. We won’t go to the football game but are spending the night downtown. This will be our first chance to explore the city.

Weekend Notes

October 9, 2023 /

Going to flip things up a bit, as our family had a rough week that’s worth getting caught up on first.

Squad News

Monday M got diagnosed with mono. She’s been sick for weeks and it took a turn last weekend, so she went and got checked. She told us she could see the test turn positive from across the room. So she REALLY has mono, I guess. She had a terrible couple of days but after starting on some steroids, improved pretty rapidly.

She ended up coming home for the weekend – UC is off Monday and one of her local buddies offered her a ride – so she was able to have some downtime away from the dorm. When she was awake she seemed pretty normal, but she did sleep even longer than usual. Hopefully she’s on the right path for recovery. Funny how when your kid gets mono everyone you know has to tell you the story of the person they knew who missed a year of school when they got it. I know one of those people, so I understand some of those stories are legit.[1]

Otherwise she seems to be doing great at school.

That wasn’t our worst health news of the week. Friday morning L cracked heads with a teammate in practice and failed a concussion test after. She went to class for a bit but started to feel bad and I picked her up around 11. She had all the classic symptoms – headache, dizziness, light sensitivity – and they were pretty bad both Friday and Saturday. Sunday they hadn’t improved much but she was feeling a little more like herself.

The girl she knocked heads with is a good friend of hers. She stopped by Sunday to give L a bag of candy, which was nice.

Obviously we’re being very careful. She’s anxious to get back to school and on the court. We told her to slow her roll, it’s better to miss some time and have to make school work up and catch up in practice than get hit again before she is healed and miss even more time.

C didn’t have any issues last week. But we are still working to get her back issue figured out. She’s had an injection that didn’t work, seen a back specialist, and a spine specialist. Friday she goes back to the spine specialist for a more advanced injection he hopes can give her some relief.

HS Football

Friday was the first time Cathedral played Roncalli, the Catholic school on the south side of Indy, during the regular season in 13 years. They used to play every season and often played in the state tournament before Cathedral moved up two classes.

Roncalli won a state title three years ago and were very good last year but are a little down again. Friday the Irish killed them 42–0, extending their winning streak in the series to 13.

I only heard a few possessions as I was picking M up right when the game started. She laughed because one of her UC friends graduated from RHS and was going to the game. He said he was only going because his dad was making him and it was stupid to go because “We’re going to be down 30–0 at halftime.” It was, indeed, 28–0 at half.

Now it’s on to the final week of the regular season, the big Center Grove game. Center Grove is ranked #2 in the state but #23 in the country, so pretty much the same old same old down there.[2] Because a huge crowd is expected and CG is still complaining about having to play on real grass two years ago, the game has been moved to Butler’s stadium. Not sure if I’m going or not yet. I have a big day Saturday and have yet to determine if going to a game Friday night fits with those plans.

The Irish have adjusted their offense and played much better the last four weeks but it will take their best game of the year, by far, to hang with the three-time defending 6A champs.

Late Night

Friday night was also Late Night in Lawrence. Someone asked the question online if Late Night is washed. My response was “Of course it is.” The concept is 40 years old and pretty much every variation has been tried. If you expect anything more than silly/dumb skits and a ragged scrimmage you’re asking for way too much.

Where Late Night used to be the first chance for fans to see new players, we’ve now seen their highlight videos, seen them play on ESPN as high schoolers, seen viewed clips from summer pickup games, etc. In the transfer portal era we’ve even seen some of them play against their current teams. One of my buddies shared that he thought a guy who played for KU when we were in school was white until Late Night, which I thought was hilarious. No such issues these days.

(Lengthy aside: an underrated big day on the college hoops calendar back in our time was the first game after classes had started for the second semester. We always anxiously watched the tunnel the players came out of to make sure everyone was eligible. There was always one guy you were worried about. There was nothing like that moment of relief and elation when you saw Terry Brown or Alonzo Jamison walk onto the court in uniform. Of course today, when athletes take enough hours in the summer and online to stay eligible, kids have no idea about this flavor of anxiety.)

I say accept Late Night for what it is, the ceremonial start to the hoops season, and don’t ask any more of it.

College Football

We had a front blow through Friday night that crashed the temperatures. Saturday and Sunday were both cool and blustery. Which made each day perfect for sitting on my ass and watching football.

The Oklahoma-Texas game was awesome. I was super entertained for the three-plus hours it took the Sooners to pull out the win. And while I hate both schools for leaving the Big 12, I always lean OU in that game since they were a Big 8 school, so I was pleased with the result.

I was super nervous about the KU-Central Florida game. We knew Jalon Daniels would not be playing, which meant KU would feature the run. UCF’s defensive strength is their interior line. Seemed like it could go sideways pretty easily. I was both nervous about losing and about what an L would mean for the season. Drop this game, at home, and the road to bowl eligibility gets a lot tougher, many of the hopes of August quashed in early October.

Silly me. The Jayhawks manhandled those fools. One snap into the second half it was 31–0. Methodical marches down the field. Great defense (in the first half). A punt return touchdown for the first time in nine years. A 75-yard TD to open the second half. Other than the D getting torched in the second half and keeping one of the Indy boys from getting to play quarterback, it was almost a perfect game.

399 yards rushing on the day Tony Sands went into the Ring of Honor was perfect, too. In an ironic twist, my buddy Sweets, who missed Tony’s then NCAA record game in 1991 was unable to watch Saturday. We let him know about it.

So, Jalon… Super concerning. Especially since he apparently didn’t even come to the stadium to watch. Which is weird.

I have four theories, offered in order of likelihood:
1 – His injury continues to baffle doctors and he wasn’t actually in Lawrence but somewhere else seeing a specialist.
2 – He’s already had some kind of surgery and they’re trying to hide it.
3 – KU and Daniels/his family disagree on the best way to treat the injury and because of that he stayed away.
4 – Daniels has shut himself down for the year and was told to stay away from the stadium if that was his choice.

I can’t see JD not being around to support his teammates if he was able, so I doubt options 3 or 4 are the explanations. As the father of a kid with a back injury that experts have struggled to identity and treat, I totally get #1, which is no doubt way worse for a football player than just a random high school kid trying to get through her day.

He’s not been the same since he took that hit against TCU last year, and back injuries are never any joke. I’m hoping there’s a reasonable explanation and a path towards getting healthy and playing again before this season is complete. It would be very KU football, though, if his season/career is over.

Once again KU should be super happy Jason Bean decided to come back. He has some flaws, and I worry about how he’ll manage once teams dare him to make throws consistently. But he’s a hell of a second option and definitely good enough to win another game or two.

And I keep telling myself don’t let the drama around Daniels distract from a second-straight 5–1 start. Last year KU fans were thinking, “Can we win one more game?” This year it is “How many more can we win?” It’s kind of weird to hear national broadcasters praise KU football.

After KU I flipped between the evening games, but mostly watched Notre Dame – Louisville. That turned into an ass-kicking. The Irish, again, are frauds.

At some point in the evening S complained that she felt like she hadn’t accomplished anything all day. I pointed out she went to a friend’s house to take out some stitches and took M to both Costco and Target.

I, on the other hand, had been sitting on the couch watching football for nine hors at that point.

C helped me out, though. “Hey, you yelled a lot for awhile so you got your heart rate up.”

She’s my favorite for the moment.

Colts

What a weekend for the Colts!

Saturday they announced they had re-signed Jonathan Taylor after his holdout and that he would play on Sunday. I was torn on this. He makes the Colts better, but they are now paying like five guys a quarter of their salary cap, and three of those guys have concerning injury histories. Another potentially bad contract as the team tries to rebuild around Anthony Richardson. But, when healthy, Taylor will take pressure off of Richardson.

Sunday Taylor played a few snaps, but his replacement, Zack Moss, had the game of his life. Nearly 200 total yards, 160+ on the ground against one of the best run D’s in the game. Moss makes a hell of a lot less than Taylor, so now the new contract looks kind of dumb?

Moss was huge in the Colts beating Tennessee and pulling into a tie for first place. Which was even more impressive since Richardson got hurt for the third time this season, leaving the game with a shoulder injury. Apparently my teams can’t have good, young quarterbacks.

Again, great to have a competent backup, in this case Gardner Minshew.

I wrapped up the weekend watching a good chunk of the Cowboys-Niners game. Woodsheds, ass kickings, and whatnot. San Francisco looked awesome, which makes me even more sure that one or more of their stars is going to have a leg amputated or something next week.

  1. What up, Em?  ↩
  2. Brownsburg is ranked #1 in Indiana, but only #50 nationally. Cathedral is #8 and #212.  ↩

Labor Day Weekend Notes

September 5, 2023 /

It wasn’t that long ago when Labor Day weekends were big, involved deals for us. When we were lake house owners, that would always be the last blowout of the year. Lots of friends or family down for two final days of floating, swimming, boating and fun.

We’ve backed off that pace quite a bit and these weekends are much more laid back. We did have some friends over Sunday evening. I spent about 10 hours smoking a pork shoulder which turned out well. I may have had a beer or two too many, though, and Monday morning was a struggle. Sadly that “beer or two too many” limit comes a lot quicker than it used to.

Here’s what else went on during our final weekend of the summer.

HS Football

It was a PERFECT night for football as Class 6A #6 Cathedral pounded #9 Penn 35–6 Friday. The Irish were up 35–0 at halftime and all the starters sat out the second half. The fourth or fifth string let in a long, impressive touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to ruin the shutout.

This is homecoming week with big rival, Class 3A #1 Bishop Chatard on the schedule.

KU Football

My first point, one I will repeat next week, is that playing a college football game on a Friday night is generally stupid. When you are a program that has struggled to be successful and generate fan interest for over a decade, it is super dumb. So big thumbs down to KU for deciding to play the first two games of the season on Friday nights. Sounds like they had a decent crowd last week, but I bet playing on the night when almost every high school in the state was also playing cost them a few thousand more asses in the seats.

I didn’t get to check the score until halftime of the CHS game, when it was tied at 7-all late in the first quarter. That alone confirmed that Jalon Daniels was not playing.

I was able to listen to the first drive of the second half – a KU touchdown – and then watch the rest of the second half. Obviously I was the key as the team shook off some inconsistent play and did what you’re supposed to do to FCS teams. It was just a few years back when KU was losing these games, so a 31-point win without the starting QB was just fine.

As I only saw part of the game, I won’t offer any assessments.

College Football

OK, we all owe Deion an apology, right? I mean all of you who doubted him. Because I, of course, did not. I believed he would turn Colorado around immediately. Never had a single question.

It was good to have a full slate of games, even if I spent four hours of the day in the car between here and Cincinnati. More on that in a moment…

Auto Update

My appointment to get an estimate on the girls’ car was last Thursday. My big fear was that they would need to open the back tailgate to assess the damage, not be able to get it shut, and we would lose the car because of that.

Turns out that shouldn’t have been my worry.

They crawled underneath the vehicle, looked for about five minutes, and told me the impact bar was compromised and the car was no longer drivable if we wanted insurance to cover the repairs.

Great.

I already got an initial estimate but the car is supposed to be disassembled today for a full inspection, so I guess we’ll see. Turns out the other kid’s family’s insurance company uses the same body shop as one of their preferred vendors, so hopefully no issues getting payment hammered out. The shop told me Mazda parts aren’t too difficult to find, and ballparked it at 2–3 weeks for repairs.

All that means I’m back on the school driving grind for awhile. The only bonus to that is I get to sleep an extra half hour since I don’t have to wake C up as early as when she drives.

A Weekend Visitor

As for that trip to Cincinnati, last Wednesday M texted us and said she had looked at her schedule of sorority events and realized this was the last weekend she had a chance to come home for awhile. The catch was that while she did not have a ticket to the Bearcats’ season opener Saturday, she did want to hang around for “tailgating and fun,” which I thought was a hilarious way to put it. She asked if we could pick her up late afternoon to bring her back for a quick visit. We didn’t have anything on our calendar, so we said of course.

I drove down and picked her up around 5:00. I checked the UC score when I parked and they were up on Eastern Kentucky something like 45–7 just before halftime. It was very hot in Cincinnati and people were already streaming out of the stadium to return to tailgates or just get out of the sun with the game firmly in control.

Long-time readers with great memories may recall the years I picked M up from CYO camp, when she would talk nonstop for the entire 90-minute drive home telling me every detail of her week away. This time she had three weeks of material and talked the entire two hours home. I didn’t mind.

She seems to be doing well. Classes aren’t too hard. She and her roommate are getting along great. She really likes the girls in her sorority. She’s made a co-ed friend group in the dorm.

The only bummer was she found a fraudulent charge on her debit card a week ago. Fortunately it was for only $2.00 and the bank reimbursed her. Glad she has learned the lesson that it’s a good idea to check your account frequently before a single bad charge can turn into a bunch of them that wipe out her balance. She’s been able to manage between Venmo and the balance on her Bearcat Card. Hopefully her new debit card will arrive this week.

Friends who have already been through this will likely agree with me, but one of the greatest sounds you will ever hear as a parent is when your college student comes home and she and her siblings are all upstairs, screaming and laughing together.

She saw one friend while she was home, did some laundry, took some naps, and hung out with us. Pretty low key.

S took her back on Monday afternoon. It was a quick but good visit.

As of now we aren’t scheduled to see her again until Family Weekend in late October, although I may go down for a football game earlier in October.

Friday Football Notes

September 1, 2023 /

A rare Friday post about something other than music promoted by the beginning of college football and an interesting night at a high school game earlier this week.

KU Football

I was thinking last night that there have been very few falls in my life when KU fans were genuinely excited about the coming football season. I’m talking about the excitement that comes with the chance for a really good season, not just “Hey, if everything breaks right, we might win six games this year!” excitement.

As best as I can recall, 1992, 2007, 2008, and 2009 were the only years that the Jayhawk faithful could great the coming season with honest-to-goodness optimism.

After last year’s 6–7 season, with almost the entire offense back, the 2023 season has joined that list.

And then this morning I woke up at 5:15 to take L to basketball, opened up Twitter while she was getting ready, and the first message I see says that Jalon Daniels’ back injury continues to bother him and a few “insiders” do not expect him to play in tonight’s season opener.

Just freaking great.

I guess we’ll find out later today whether those rumors are true, but nothing about them is good. Daniels has labored all month in practice with some kind of back issue. If he can’t play next week against Illinois, and beyond that, or can’t be close to 100%, all those fun expectations for this season get tossed aside.

I was reluctant to be too optimistic about this season simply because of Daniels’ health. He has been injured every season he’s been at KU. It seemed to be asking a lot for him to get through the next 12–13 games unscathed. If you told me he would play this entire season, I think KU has a realistic chance to win eight games, perhaps more if the defense can find a way to be even halfway decent.

But if he’s already battling a lingering injury before the season starts? Throw out any hopes for an upper-division Big 12 finish and second-consecutive bowl game. Jason Bean is a nice backup, and KU fans should be very thankful he changed his mind and decided to return.[1] He’s not a quarterback that will get you through the non-con at 3–0 and then find a way to win 3–5 games in the Big 12, though.

Once again the Football Gods decide to kick KU fans in the shins. It’s not fair to Daniels that so much of the program’s success will be determined by his health. It is our truth, though. Lance Leipold and his staff are excellent at developing talent. Maybe they have the program far enough along where they can still be in just about every game whether JD plays or not. A lifetime of mediocre-to-bad football has me conditioned to expect the worst.

Expectations

I’m reluctant to make a call on wins with JD’s status unclear. I listened to a KU pod this week where they threw out a few hypotheticals that were kind of fun.

Would you rather KU win nine games and play in a legit bowl game but lose Leipold at the end of this season, or win just four games and keep Lance? I’m 100% take the wins.

Would you rather beat Kansas State or Texas? This one is tricky. K-State is the smart answer. Texas is leaving the Big 12 and we’ve never really thought we could play on their level. K-State has proven that you can create a winner in the state of Kansas and are the model KU should follow: smart recruiting with great coaching. Plus a loss to KU might knock KSU out of the Big 12 title chase.

But…I’m going to Austin for the Texas game. It would be pretty dope to see KU get its second-straight win in Austin as the Longhorns depart for the SEC.

Mind says K-State, heart says Texas.

The third hypothetical was the most unrealistic: would you rather Jalon Daniels be a Heisman finalist (they may have even said win it) or KU make it to the college football playoff? Both seem extremely far-fetched, and that’s even before we knew of Daniels’ status for tonight. I would lean towards the CFP. But one of the hosts pointed out how Robert Griffin winning the Heisman was a massive moment in the growth of Baylor football. I get that, but I still would take the team success with a super cool QB who just missed making the trip to New York as a Heisman finalist.

Freshman Ball

Monday L asked me to take her to the Cathedral freshman B game against Carmel so she could stand on the sideline and take pictures. She had fun and got some good shots. Find her on Instagram if you’d like to see some samples.

Since this was a B game and both teams had played on Saturday, I believe they rested most of their freshmen starters, or rotated them into positions they don’t normally play. As you would expect, the game was rather ragged, with Carmel grabbing a 13–12 win, the difference being they were 1–2 on PATs while the Irish were 0–2.

My big takeaway was that you have to be a very patient person to coach freshmen. I reached out to a friend of mine who coached for a few years after he got out of college and his response was, “I am a very patient person. But coaching freshmen almost killed me.”

There were kids standing around on the sideline when they’re supposed to be in the game. Guys lining up in the wrong spots. Running the wrong plays. Players just flat fumbling the ball when no defender is within ten feet of them. Holding on every play. So many false starts or offsides calls.

Here’s a sequence that summed up the game: Cathedral had a beautiful drive that got them into the red zone late in the first half, fueled by about 65 yards of rushing by the quarterback. Then they had holding on four straight plays, a false start, and a personal foul. Next thing you know they are punting from their own side of the field and the punter lets the snap go right through his hands. Carmel covered, scored about four plays later, and hit what became the game-winning extra point.

Again, these were freshmen, mostly playing out of position or who don’t normally get into games, so I give them lots of leeway.

Since there weren’t a lot of people in the stands it was easy to hear the coaches. In warmups I heard one of them scream at one of L’s middle school classmates, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, BEN RICHARDS?!?!”[2]

While the offense was running through their warm up sequence the head coach screamed at the quarterback who was indecisive on an option-read play “ACT LIKE A QUARTERBACK AND MAKE A PLAY!” Same kid who ran the play to perfection three times on that doomed drive in the game, so I guess he was paying attention.

My favorite coaching moment came in the fourth quarter. All the kids who are usually starters but being held out were acting like your normal, bored 14–15 year old kid. They were dancing, talking to people in the stands, and throwing balls on the sideline. In general not paying attention to the game.

The Irish forced a turnover with 4:00 left and were trying to drive down to take the lead and these kids were still throwing a ball around. It whizzed by a coach’s head. He turned around, intercepted the next toss, heaved it into the stands, and screamed at them, “THIS ISN’T FREAKING MIDDLE SCHOOL. KNOCK IT OFF AND PAY ATTENTION!”

I laughed out loud.

My other favorite part of the game was the mom who was sitting near me. Her kid was the quarterback. She was intense and involved, but I’m not sure she knew much about football. Every time he got tackled she would yell at the refs, “Hey! Get them off him!”

The very best moment, though, was when Cathedral got the ball down to the one yard line. Her son is probably 5’7”. She yelled down to him, “JUST JUMP OVER THEM!!”

I liked her enthusiasm but that seemed misguided. Fortunately he didn’t listen to her and snuck it in under the linemen. She made several other very unorthodox suggestions.

She also thought a PAT that was five yards short and wide was good. I just realized that she may have been drinking.

Anyway, I’m glad I was just there to watch casually and could laugh at all the silliness rather than get worked up by it.

  1. Fun fact: KU’s third and fourth string quarterbacks are both from the Indianapolis area!  ↩
  2. I’ve changed his name to protect his innocence.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 21, 2023 /

Even down a kid, it was a pretty busy week. Although some of that activity was due to the missing kid.

Jinxed Myself

I mentioned in last week’s post that I was off the hook for driving to/from school for awhile. Well, not so fast…

C got rear-ended leaving campus by another student on Monday. No injuries, thankfully. Her car is still drivable, fortunately. But at some point it will go to the shop and stay there for a bit as it gets repaired, putting me back on the daily driving grind.

HS Football

Friday was opening week for high school football in Indiana. I took the girls downtown to watch Cathedral play in Lucas Oil Stadium against Lafayette Jefferson. It was a pretty easy 55–14 win for the #2 Irish. I didn’t think their offensive line looked very good, and there were some holes in the defense at times. But the skill players are very good.

It was a perfect night for football. The Colts were even nice enough to open the roof and window for the fans.

We’ll find out a lot more about how good the Irish are this week when they face Brownsburg, who beat them last August before CHS returned the favor in the regional round of the state playoffs.

Weather

Saturday was as nice a day as you could ask for. Sunday we finally got reminded that it is summer, and we have a fairly brutal week ahead of us. Right now it looks like we’ll top 100 at least once, although the heat index was already above 100 yesterday. Last night I walked outside around 11:30 to make sure everything was straightened up around the pool and it felt disgusting. Not sure how we managed to avoid the humidity for so long, but it made me appreciate how great this summer has been even more.

I won’t complain too much as I know a lot of my readers are facing way worse heat, and have been for some time.

New KU Stadium

Kansas finally revealed plans for the new football stadium. There have been so many false starts for a stadium renovation over the years that you always have to take these announcements with a grain of salt. But it seems like this time it’s really going to happen.

I loved the renderings the school released. Yeah, the lights look a little strange, but as long as they work I’m not sure why some people were so fired up about them. The current stadium is a dump and has been a dump for decades. Don’t let the little details get in the way of the big-picture end point of KU having a really nice stadium that is a good place to watch a game for the first time ever.

KU-Illinois

Pretty cool that the Jayhawks and Illini are taking their “secret” basketball scrimmage – I’m not sure why everyone calls them secret when we all know they are happening – public, moving it to Champaign, and using it as a way to raise money for the people in Maui. Savvy of Illinois to open up ticket sales to KU fans. I guess they think not enough U of I fans will show up just to boo Bill Self to fill the arena.

Brunch With Friends

We were delighted to have bunch Sunday with the Roeders from KC, who dropped their son off at Notre Dame over the weekend. I think all of my friends scattered around the country should send a kid to college in Indiana so we have an excuse to get together.

Rush Week

I’ve saved the biggest topic for last, with M participating in Rush Week at UC.

She gave us periodic updates throughout the week and it always seemed like it was going well. Each time there was a cut, she got called back by the maximum possible number of houses. We talked to her on Thursday, when it was down to five houses, and she told us she had really connected with a girl at one house who said she thought M embodied what their sorority was about. That was her clear #1 choice, but she also had a clear #2 followed by the other three that were a jumble together at the bottom.

Then the #1 house dropped her Saturday going into the final round, which really bummed her out. Her #2 kept her, but she wasn’t crazy about the other house that called her back for the last set of visits. What seemed like a pretty straight-forward week was suddenly very stressful. I’m sure it was more stressful for her being in the midst of it. As parents we were concerned that things wouldn’t work out and she would have a huge disappointment right before classes began.

Fortunately she got an offer from her new #1, Pi Phi. We talked to her Sunday afternoon and she was happy, although very tired and a little sick.

The Pi Phi house is pretty new at UC, only opening in 2010. I don’t know what that means for its quality. She doesn’t know any of the girls in her pledge class, which she thought was good. M’s roommate got into her first choice, and her high school buddy and her roommate both got into houses, so their little friend group all landed on their feet.

After she matched I did some searching to find pictures of the house, info about it, etc. I came across this site that listed the reputations and stereotypes of several of the biggest sororities. This clearly isn’t scientific and we found it hilarious. Pi Phis are said to be a top-tier house, but “fake, social, pretty, and not service-oriented.” That made me laugh. I sent it to her and her response was “Ur fake. And Mid.” Ok, then.

I haven’t told her yet that I knew a few Pi Phis at KU – where it was the oldest house on campus – and they were all super granola rich girls. Like girls who were wearing Birks and flannel before it was cool, but still drove BMWs. Not sure how she’ll take that. She better not expect a BMW.

M’s friends at IU and Miami don’t have rush until the spring semester. I kind of like that system, although having to walk to all the houses in the winter would suck. At least they have a semester to build up a group of relationships as something to fall back on if rush doesn’t work out. If you’re the one girl out of your group who doesn’t get into a house, it can still be awkward, so I guess there’s no perfect way or time to do rush.

Her first college class is at 11:15 today.

Weekend Notes

August 14, 2023 /

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

First Week at CHS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Week of Lasts/Goodbyes

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

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

Moving Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Loaner

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

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

Flory

Finally a big time Indiana recruit picks KU!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love this kid already!

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

  1. Raef LaFrentz, who was generally #1 or #2 in his class, Danny Manning, and Wilt Chamberlain.  ↩

Weekend Notes

July 31, 2023 /

No major events from the weekend to share. We were busy, though. The weekend was all about preparing to be social then actually being social around the pool.

Saturday night we had L’s basketball team over for a final get together to celebrate the season. Eight of the nine girls came and most of the parents hung out. The girls had a good time and enjoyed their final night together as a single team.

Sunday afternoon we repeated the gathering, this time with our three closest neighbors. It was the first time we have had these families over together despite the newest of them living by us for two years now. That’s what happens when you have big lots and aren’t right next to each other, I guess.

Anyway it was a fun evening. That newest family moved here from Kansas City, and a few of my readers even know them. The husband of that couple went to Missouri for law school while the wife went to KU for two years before transferring elsewhere to graduate. We don’t know the couple that lives between our houses nearly as well, as they are almost never outside to say hello to. But we did know that the wife of the couple is originally from Kansas and moved to Indiana to go to Purdue. So I was both shocked and thrilled when, after getting their baby up from his nap, he came over wearing a onesie with a big, beautiful Jayhawk on it. Apparently momma did not lose her love for KU when she became a Boilermaker.

So in our little three-house line in Indianapolis we have one full Jayhawk, one partial Jayhawk, and one Jayhawk lover. Even the MU guy told M, when she mentioned how we visited Lawrence last year, “Oh, you would have 100% gone to KU if your dad had taken you to a basketball game.”

The only other big moment of the weekend was M getting her move-in time at UC. Our 15 minute window to access the drop-off area is at 10:00 AM, August 12. Fortunately since she is rushing she gets into the early window, three days before general move-in begins. I’m sure it will still be busy. And either 98° or pouring rain.

Weekend Notes: Living That Buckeye Lifestyle

July 25, 2023 /

Three-fifths of our family spent the weekend in Ohio. You want details? I got details!

Kid Hoops

L and I went to Cincinnati for the final travel tournament of the year. We’ve never done well in these events but were looking forward to one last shot to prove ourselves on the national stage. We had six games, so I’ll keep the breakdowns brief.

We played Friday and Saturday at the event’s main gym, a building in Hamilton, OH that had 30-ish courts. It was big and nice and as the final stop on Under Armour’s summer circuit, there were some elite high school teams and lots of college coaches around. We peaked into the side where most of the high schoolers were and a few courts were packed with coaches watching. More on that in a bit.

Luckily our first game was Friday afternoon so we got up at a normal time, packed, and drove two hours straight to the gym.

Game One, Friday

Lost to a team from New York by 11. We were down 16 at halftime, trailed by as many as 20, but cut it to seven with about 5:00 to play. They pushed it back up to 15 then we went on another run that included two 3’s by L, the second cutting the deficit to six with 1:00 left. We couldn’t get any closer. This team ended up winning our age group, beating a team from Indy that features one of L’s friends in overtime.

Game Two, Friday

We played a team from Cincinnati and, again, fell behind early. This time it was something like 11–3 before we went on a 20–4 run and were never threatened. We led by 15 with about a minute to play but got sloppy and won by just nine.

Game Three, Saturday

To wrap up pool play we took on a squad from Nashville. Hey, once again we started slow, down 9–0 to start. But we battled back and were up by three at the half. We led by five midway through the second half, had two good looks to stretch it further that missed, and then went cold. Thanks to 3–4 free throws after a personal and technical foul, we tied it at 44. But they smoked us from there and we lost by nine.

Game Four, Sunday

Into bracket play. We were feeling good as the other three teams from our division had already won their opening games, all by double figures. After finishing third in our division we took on the #4 team from another division. They were from Canada. They were awkward and not very good. But they were so awkward that they kept getting in the way and our girls could not shake them. It was a 2–5 point game for the first 26 minutes until we finally put some baskets together and won by 15.

Game Five, Sunday

Semifinal time, against a team from Dayton. These girls were absolute bruisers who took us out of everything we wanted to do. We played solid D, too, so it was a brutal slog of a game. We were down four at halftime, went on an 8–0 run to open the second half, then gave it right back and played from behind the rest of the half. It was just a two-point game in the final minute but we never had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead. We had to foul and ended up losing by five.

I said it was physical. One of our girls took an elbow in the face that drew blood…and she was called for a foul. The next play the same Dayton girl threw her to the ground…and again we got called for a foul. Not these refs’ best day. Also one of them apparently had to drop a deuce at halftime, as the girls stood around waiting for 10 minutes until he slowly walked back to the court. Then apparently he got into it with the other ref, telling him that he “fucking sucks.” They both sucked but I give this guy extra umbrage. He called L for a travel that was not a travel, wiping out her only basket of the game, so it was personal for me.

Game Six, Monday.

Third-place game, against those Cincinnati girls we beat Friday. As a bonus, in addition to our tallest, most athletic girl who we were missing all week, we lost two other girls for this game. One had to leave for a funeral, the other got strep and went home early. That left us with one sub against a team with 10 players.

They pounded us pretty good, and from the jump. The lead got up to 20 once, we cut it to 10 twice in the second half, but generally played terrible and could never match their effort or physicality. The final was 50–35 but it didn’t feel that close.

As for L, she scored 32 points for the weekend. Which sounds decent until you consider she had 15 of those in our first game again the New York team. That might have been her best game of the summer, as she scored 11 during our comeback attempt. She could never get it going in the other games, although she scored six against the Canadians. She was ok on D but was often limited by more physical guards shoving her on offense. Like playing in the varsity games in June showed, as much as working on shooting and ball handling, she needs to get stronger to compete at the high school level. She slept all the way home and was super sore when she got up this morning.

My favorite moments of hers from the weekend? When she hit the 3 to cut the NY game to six she was right in front of us and she screamed when it went in. She played her ass off in this game, and it was cool to see it pay off with good results. In the Nashville game she had an awesome blow-by hoop and earned a foul to give us the lead, although she missed the free throw. And in the Dayton game, she fouled a girl pretty hard, knocking her over. She immediately helped the girl up and checked on her. After the game they hugged. I asked what that was all about and she after the foul they talked the entire game, the girl starting it by saying no one had ever asked if she was ok after a hard foul before.

I’m proud of L for being a good teammate and hard worker, and especially proud when she has really good games. But I love that she usually handles herself really well and does things like that. There are a lot of shitty, immature, insecure players in these games, and it would be easy to follow their lead.

That was a sad way to end our travel season. It was a pretty good year. We won three tournaments and lost two championship games by one point, once in double overtime. This weekend was the only time we didn’t either play for the championship or lose to the eventual champ.

It was also this group’s last time all playing together as one team. In Indiana (and I assume in some other states), once you start high school you can only play travel ball with two teammates from your high school program. Although we have six different schools represented on our squad, we have four players from one school. So, at a minimum, we have to drop one of them before next March. That’s been a subject of whispered conversations all season. There’s no great answer to it. Even if we can keep eight of these girls together, a good player – and more importantly a nice kid/family – is going to be forced out.

There are other changes as we move forward to high school that add uncertainty, but I think the majority of this team – players and parents – would prefer to stay together at least one more year if the rules allowed it.

Tryouts for next year start in August, so we need to begin thinking about if we want to explore other programs as a hedge. The good news for L is that the varsity coach at CHS also coaches in her travel program. So we think L will have clearance to stay there. She doesn’t want to lose this good group of friends she’s made over the past two years, especially her closest friend who is going to a rival high school anyway.

Lodging

Once again we had a hotel fiasco. Despite its size, this was not a Play to Stay tournament, where registering automatically gets you access to blocks of rooms set aside for participants. Our coach also waited until three weeks ago to start looking into rooms. We all booked at a place together but a mom on our team, who is from Cincinnati, suggested we not stay there as it wasn’t in a great part of town. So another mom spent hours on the phone calling around, not finding any good alternatives that could take nine families.

Eventually our coach found an extended stay place in Mason, getting approval from Cincy mom that it was a nice area.

Then we arrived.

Yes, it was a nice area. Until we turned down the street where this place was. It seemed more aimed at folks having rough times than business travelers spending weeks in town. When we checked-in Friday night there were a series of pretty rough looking, but very friendly, people outside smoking weed. The pool looked murky. The inside of the hotel had seen better days. Fortunately the room L and I had was very clean, if reeking of a combination of Indian food and weed. A few of us parents sat by the pool and drank a couple beers while we watching the Friday evening traffic. It was interesting.

Saturday when we got back from our game, there were two fire trucks and an ambulance outside. Turned out they were there for one of the other buildings, and it was a false alarm. The firefighters acted pretty nonchalant, like they had been there many times.

Two of our families were staying at other places, one at a Marriott. We had all tried to stay there initially but it was booked full. A parent called Saturday afternoon and enough people were checking out Sunday that we could slide over there for our last night. Plus the parent already there had a code that got us a greatly reduced rate. Still, we had one more night in the dump.

We ordered pizza for dinner and the dad who took the boxes to the dumpster said he was 90% sure a bunch of dudes were smoking crack behind it. We noticed a lot of very down on their luck looking folks hanging around before the sun went down. Apparently the parking lot turned into a party after we retired for the night.

Whatever, we survived two nights there and happily checked in to the Marriott before our first game Sunday. That new place seemed like one of the hubs for the tournament. We ran into three of L’s friends from CHS, a couple girls we know that she played against in middle school, and another friend from St. P’s. L rode the elevator with an assistant coach from UCLA. And a few parents saw Kim Mulkey in all her bedazzled glory Monday morning.

Other activities

With two early games Saturday we had the afternoon and evening to kill. There was talk of going downtown – we were about 25 minutes outside the city – and going to the Reds game or wandering through the Over the Rhine area. Some people wanted to go to King’s Island. Not everyone wanted to do any of these things so we settled on spending time at Top Golf and Main Event. The girls had fun, the parents had a few drinks, and it worked out fine.

It’s always interesting traveling with a big group. Friday night we went to a restaurant right in the middle of the dinner rush. When we asked if they could seat a group of 18 – divided up however worked easiest for them – the poor girl working the hostess stand seemed overwhelmed. We only had to wait an hour, enough time to run to the hotel and back, and then she realized to ask us if we wanted to sit outside and be seated immediately. Which was fine as it was a gorgeous night. Then she seated us at tables with 15 seats so three of us had to find our own table, which confused the waiters for a moment. At least we got to eat.

M in Toledo

Thursday night M drove up to Toledo to spend the weekend with her future roommate at UC. They’ve met once before and have been talking a lot, but this was their first time spending entire days and nights together. A trial run for the next 9 ½ months. It went great.

M had a fantastic time and really got along with G and her family.[1] There isn’t a ton to do in Toledo, but she met a lot of G’s high school friends and saw her local hangouts. They went to a Mudhens game, sat in the front row, and got a picture with the mascot.[2] They saw the Barbie movie and loved it. All-in-all, they had a great time.

It was also her first extended car trip on her own. That made us a little nervous, especially since there were huge storms between here and Toledo Thursday. But she waited an extra 45 minutes to leave and managed to dodge them. She made it there and back safely.

They will move into their dorm room in 18 days. Oh, and M turns 19 today.

Double audible gulp.

  1. Her name actually starts with an S, but since we already have an S in these posts, I’ll go with her last initial.  ↩
  2. M was amazed that I knew the baseball team was called the Mudhens.  ↩

Weekend Notes

July 5, 2023 /

A lot to get caught up on after a long holiday weekend.

July 4th

Our standard family pool party for the Fourth of July. Almost all the locals were over for a daytime gathering. I smoked rather than grilled burgers for the first time and they turned out pretty good. All the young ones were well behaved, and it seems like both generations of sisters got along for the day, too.

We had neighbors over for drinks in the evening after the family had cleared out. No driveway fireworks this year.

Kid Hoops

Thursday was the last night of summer league games. CHS played a team they lost to by six earlier in June, and both coaches agreed to stack their rosters so that it was a true A game. Which got L excited.

She played pretty well in an eight-point loss. She hit a shot right before halftime to give us a 20–19 lead. But we were on the wrong side of a 9–2 run to start the third quarter that was pretty much the game. L was not on the court for any of that run. When she played, it was an even ballgame. When she sat, our offense bogged down and the defense was disconnected.

She scored six for the night on 3–4 shooting, and had a rebound, an assist, a steal, and a turnover.

She wasn’t super pleased with her play afterward, but I told her about my rough +/- numbers and how I saw her affect the game. There are definitely girls better than her on the team. There are girls with more potential or who are better than her in individual aspects of the game. But of the girls in the 20-ish player pool the JV teams pulled from this summer, no one organizes the game better than her.

Her first summer of high school hoops was a success. She fit in, she got more confident as the season progressed, was high scorer in at least two games, earned the coaches’ trust, and most importantly, she made some new, good friends. I’m excited to see how she improves once fall practice kicks off.

Not much rest for her. The travel team goes to St. Louis Friday for a tournament.

Over the weekend we went to the Y to shoot three times. She came up with a new workout that required her to make 300 shots. Mid-range, floaters, and 3’s. Off-the-catch and off-the-dribble. Lots of free throws. It took roughly an hour to get through it each day. I worked up a good sweat rebounding and passing.

Weather/Power

What a weird weather week.

We began with a terrible bout with the Canadian wild fire smoke. A couple times we had the worst air quality of any city in the US. Wednesday morning we were up to #2 in the world. Never say that Indianapolis can’t compete on the world stage!

It was much worse than our first run with the smoke a month ago. Two days the sky resembled the winter sky right before a big snow storm. Those days we couldn’t even see the sun, let alone take eerie pictures of its light refracted by the smoke. There was also a strange, metallic smell to the air.

Then Thursday a Derecho storm blew through with winds over 70 MPH. Our power went off at 3:57 and did not come back on until 3:00 Saturday afternoon. We filled up coolers with ice and transported our important items from the freezer to a relative’s home, but lost pretty much everything else from our fridges and freezers. S said it was time to replace a lot of our condiments anyway. Our house got pretty toasty each afternoon, but at least our basement remained cool. It was completely comfortable sleeping down there.

At one point nearly 80,000 people in Indianapolis were without power. I was obsessively checking the outage map and watched it slowly tick down a few thousand at a time, only for it to shoot back up after more, if less intense, storms came through both Friday night and Saturday morning.

When our power came back on there were still around 20,000 people in the city without power. I think most of them were back up and running by Sunday evening.

We had zero damage at our house. The neighbors to either side of us kept their power. It was just a thin row of 7–8 houses behind us that all come off the same line that got knocked out. Obviously the big downside of living in an area with tons of old trees and old power lines.

The big surprise was that our pool survived without turning bad. I was worried that sitting in the heat, covered, with zero circulation or filtration would be a recipe for stuff to grow quickly. It has turned cloudy in less time before. But Saturday night it was clear and tested out fine. I shocked it and ran the pump a little higher than normal and it was fine to swim in on Sunday.

In a related note, our refrigerators are very clean and organized.

Taylor Swift

I mentioned in Friday’s playlist that M was off to Cincy to watch Taylor Swift perform. She said the show was awesome.

M just got her tickets a week before the show. She received a text saying that some new tickets had been released. She was worried it was a scam, but noticed the message came from the same number her other Ticketmaster texts came from, so she decided to quickly buy two tickets and hope they were legit. She messaged some friends and they asked if she could try to get two more. The link indeed worked again so she bought four total tickets at face value 10 days before the show. She checked the secondary market and seats in her section were going for more than $2000. Pretty crazy. She was in the lower level in the Bengals stadium, with a great view of the main stage.

The grandparents of one of the friends that went with her live in Cincy, so the girls stayed at their house. The grandfather also met them near the stadium so M could park in a good spot hours before the show, took them to his house to drop their stuff, then back to the stadium. She’s living right these days.

Just a nice bonus this trip allowed her to miss out on about 24 hours of our power outage.

Football Recruiting

I will not address KU football recruiting until December.

Home States

Finally, not only did I just pass my 20th wedding anniversary and my 20th blogging anniversary, but also marked my 20th year living in Indiana. A few years ago I went through the exercise of figuring out how long I spent in each of the four states I lived in.

That was harder than you would think because of the college years, splitting time between two states. I decided to give Kansas ¾ credit for my first three years at KU, then full credit for the last couple after I gained residency and stayed there most of the summers. I’m not sure if that works out exactly right, but it seemed close and fair.

Anyway, my 20th year in Indiana means I’ve officially lived here longer than any other state. That still doesn’t sound right. My current tally looks like this:

Indiana 20 years
Missouri 19 years
Kansas 12 years
California 1 year

Kid Notes

June 14, 2023 /

There’s been a lot of talk about M here lately. Maybe too much talk. A few words about her sisters.

Middle Sister

C has had a pretty quiet summer break so far. She has filled M’s spot working for their aunt the chef on weekends a couple times. She will take that job over full time in August so this has been good preparation for that.

It’s good that she’s made a little money. Once school ended any reservations she had about driving disappeared. She’s been zipping all over the place. It helps that a couple of her closest friends can’t drive yet and she’s been running them around. Monday she had been gone for a couple hours and texted me asking if she could pick L up from summer school. So I guess she’s enjoying driving. I hope that means she’s a little more comfortable than she was back when I was riding with her in preparation for her driving test.

We’ve had to have the talk with her a couple times about “Hey, it’s great you’re spending time with your friends, but you might want to slow down on the trips to Target, the mall, or meals out because you’re blowing through your meager bank account balance pretty quickly.”

She has allegedly reached out to a couple places about working but they either haven’t called back or told her they aren’t hiring. Kid needs to find some way to make some cash, though.

(Not So) Baby Sister

L is a week-and-a-half into summer school and seems to be enjoying it. Friday when I picked her up and asked how her day went she said, “I made five new friends today!”

I asked her if she just walks around and talks to random people.

“Sure, what else am I going to do?”

I used to say she was destined to be class president because of how she brought people together. She might be on that track again.

Tuesday she told me three boys asked for her Snap account. Oh boy…

The basketball has gone pretty well. She’s fit right in at practices and is having fun.

Last Thursday she played in two JV games. She didn’t do a whole lot as the offense was pretty raged and the girls were clearly uncomfortable playing together. A couple looked like they had never played organized basketball before. L scored two in the first game, four in the second.

In that second game she played against two of her travel teammates, which was fun. Their travel coach was there to watch as his daughter was playing on a different court before us. Nice that CHS won that game by 25.

Then Tuesday night she and a few other JV girls got invited to play up in the varsity league. I was both excited and nervous for her. I didn’t want her getting killed by some 18-year-old woman. I wasn’t sure how much she would actually get to play, so told her just to have fun, listen to her coach, and pay attention to what the older guards were doing.

She played a fair amount and did better in those games than in the JV ones.

She looked comfortable and generally ran the right stuff, especially when she was on the court with varsity girls. When it was 4–5 freshmen together things got ugly. One of those youngin’ spells turned a 10 point lead into a six point loss. In their defense, the freshmen only gave up about half of a 19–4 run, and when the starters came back in they didn’t do anything to change the momentum.

She was 0–5 in the first game. Three of those misses were runners in traffic I could tell she rushed. I told her after the game I could tell she kind of went, “Oh crap, I’m wide open!” and tried to get rid of the ball before someone rotated to her. Another miss was a half-court heave at the first quarter buzzer that hit the front rim.

In game two she was 1–5, the only make a two with her foot on the 3-point line. She looked more aggressive in this game. She played several minutes with four starters and did not look overwhelmed.

CHS as a team maybe shot 20% for the night. I told her not to worry about her misses as long as she was taking good shots when she was open.

I don’t know that either team they played was super good, or that either of them had their full varsity rosters. But my biggest takeaway was that L just needs to get stronger. The times she struggled the most Tuesday were when older girls got a body on her. She struggled to handle that pressure, and it was obvious that she was a 14-year-old getting bodied by 16 and 17 year olds. Once she starts true strength training I expect that to be a huge help.

She’s always been smart on the court, and that will improve as she and her teammates get more familiar with what their coach wants them to do. There is still plenty of room for skill improvement, but her shooting is so much better than it was this time last year.

Keep improving the overall game and add some muscle and I’m feeling good about her high school basketball future.

(Late update: I did not mention how much she played. I would say she clocked roughly ten minutes in both games. These games are 10 minute quarters with a running clock.)

In related good news, she claims her knees haven’t hurt for nearly three weeks. I was very worried about her being on the court three straight days this summer. So far, at least, it seems like the knee pain that has plagued her for over two and a half years has receded. Fingers crossed that doesn’t mean she is completely done growing. I’d love for her to add another inch or two before she’s done.

Other than being tired, she was raring to go when I dropped her off at 5:41 for this morning’s workouts.

Mr. Scorekeeper

As I have done so many times over the years for CYO sports, it seems I have become the official scorekeeper for the summer league team. Which I don’t mind. It keeps me calmer, lets me listen to the coaches, and helps me to learn who all the CHS girls are. As a bonus if we have any crazy parents (I haven’t figured that out yet, but it seems inevitable) it keeps me away from them.

This probably makes me a bad person, but it drives me a little nuts how no other parents have come over and said, “Since you did the first game, can I do the second one?” It was the same story with L’s winter league team through CHS. I would do game one then hope to sit in the stands for game two, only for L to run over and ask if I could run the clock again. In four months of games, no other parent ever volunteered to split duties with me.

If it was more in my personality type, and I wasn’t a freshman parent, I would send a message out to all the parents with a signup sheet for the rest of the summer.

Instead I’ll just be smug that I’m always the one checking in with the coaches to see if I can handle the book for them.

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