D's Notebook

Tag: youth sports (Page 7 of 24)

Weekend Notes

September 26, 2022 /

A jam-packed weekend full of events that may be of mild interest to my loyal readers.

FNL

Cathedral traveled three hours to play a horrible team – they were up 56–0 at halftime and held on to win by that exact score – so I walked across the street with my pal Nicole H to watch The Other CHS play the school our tax dollars support. It was the first, real, fall-weather night of the season, and it was terrific, other than the occasional sprinkles that surprised us. The Other CHS used a stellar defensive and special teams performance to win 50–19. I got to talk to Coach H for a few minutes after the game, which is always good.

KU Keeps Rolling

I was able to watch the entire first half of the KU-Duke game Saturday. That was good TV. A packed Memorial Stadium, KU making big plays on offense, and Duke doing enough to make it an interesting game. Daniel Hishaw’s 73 yard TD catch-and-run immediately goes up there with Monte Cozzen’s run in 1991 as one of the greatest plays in school history.[1] And Jalon Daniels’ TD pass to Luke Grimm was a thing of beauty on both ends. I was sure it was going to sail out of bounds, but it was perfectly placed and Grimm made an amazing catch to haul it in.

As has been the theme this season, I missed the second half going to L’s basketball game. KU made it interesting late but held on to get the win and go to 4–0.

I was a little concerned after the game. Duke is solid but I don’t think they are better than any team KU will play the rest of the season. Yet they hung with KU all day.

Then I remembered that the Duke defense never really stopped KU, and if not for several self-inflicted wounds, KU wins this game easily. So chalk it up to still winning despite not playing your best? I don’t know, this is all uncharted territory for me.

I do know the defense needs to find a way to stop giving up the big plays. If you’re going to commit to stopping the run, which the Jayhawks pretty much did Saturday, you have to be able to at least slow the passing game. KU’s secondary make big plays but also give up big plays. With their level of talent and depth, I’m not sure you can hope for much more than that. But I do think that’s problematic as we get into the heart of the Big 12 season.

It was fun to see national commentators jumping all over the AP voters for not including KU. I’m sure K-State fans are taking some joy in knowing their win over Oklahoma is probably what kept KU out of the polls. Still, it’s good that so many national voices have come to KU’s defense.

I really don’t think KU is one of the 25 best teams in the country. But based on their performance through four games, they deserve to be ranked. I believe I saw that, of the teams receiving votes this week, the Jayhawks have played the seventh-toughest schedule, so you can’t say they’ve had an easy go of it.

Still, polls are kind of dumb and I’m not going to get worked up about the “snub.” Use it as motivation to come out extra focused for Iowa State. Win that, and there should be no question that the Jayhawks will appear in next week’s poll.

Double Kid Hoops

We’ve reached the point in the calendar where L has two different basketball teams in action. On Saturday her travel team continued their efforts in the Back to School league. Once again it was kind of a disaster.

They played a team they’ve never faced before. These girls were all long, wiry, and scrappy. They grabbed like hell on defense, which has been a theme all season. We even had three refs for this game and they were totally uninterested in calling any on-the-ball fouls. And these girls could shoot the hell out of the ball. They hit at least 15 3’s. At one point they had a 3-on–1 break and the girl with the ball pulled up and drilled a 3. S, who knows nothing about basketball, looked at me at one point and said, “I think our girls should just shoot 3’s, too.” She’s grasped what modern basketball is about.

It was a humbling 41-point loss. Egad! We were missing our best inside player but I don’t think she was worth 41 points.

L had been sick all week and it showed. She could only play a few minutes at a time before she lost her wind. Yet she went 3–3 from the field, including a 3, and 1–2 from the line to score eight.

Sunday the CYO season started.

We were playing the school, St N, that beat L’s kickball team in the City championship game the two times they made it. We knew they were tall and big and had a really good player we’ve faced in travel ball. We were missing the same inside player the travel team was missing, so we knew it would be tough to compete with them on the boards.

Fortunately L had her stamina back and played the entire game. She played really well, clearly our best player. The only issue was she missed five layups. A couple were in transition with pressure, but she still should have made them. Two looked like fatigue got to her, short-armed misses. And other was just a tough shot that was low percentage. Throw in a couple missed jumpers and she went 3–10 from the field, 2–4 from the line, for eight points. She had a couple assists, a couple rebounds, a couple steals, a couple turnovers. Twos were wild on her stat line.

St N’s best player got hot in the second half and they built a 13-point lead. They had multiple possessions where they got 3–4 chances to score because we could not get our hands on rebounds. We got it down to six with the ball a couple times, but couldn’t either hit the shot to cut it to one possession or get a rebound. Their inside girl wasn’t very good until you fouled her. She was 8–8 from the line, including 6–6 in the fourth quarter. She was six inches taller and at least 60 pounds heavier than the biggest girl we had.

Put it all together and it was an 11-point loss. I think if we have our inside girl and can get some rebounds, and L is 100% we could have won it. But we didn’t really expect to win so keeping it respectable was a decent result.

We are lucky this year to have a loudmouth dad. I was running the clock so well away from him, but I could still hear him screaming at the refs the entire game. In the second half the fouls were 9–2 against us. It was 7–1 before we started fouling in the last minute. All those calls against us were legit; that’s what happens when you’re trying to guard bigger girls with guards. But the one against them was fishy, especially since their best player got three fouls in the first quarter then didn’t get another foul the rest of the game.

Our loudmouth dad came walking across the court when the game was over and the refs were gathered at the scorer’s table. He loudly asked, “D, does the foul button work for them? Because it seemed like it was stuck on one the entire game.” Terrific. I think I’m going to keep stats on the bench during road games so I never have to sit near him.

L is very excited about the CYO season because she knows the level of competition will be lower than what she’s faced in travel. Sunday she looked like the second-best player on the court. They switched their best player onto her in the second half and she was still getting shots. She just needs to prove that she’s improved by hitting them.

Chiefs-Colts

The Sunday game matched up with the Chiefs-Colts game – apparently all my football interest this fall will coincide with L’s games – so I was only able to see the last 20 minutes or so. Even then I was only half watching, because the Colts seemed to be sucking and I figured the Chiefs would do just enough to win on a day they seemed to be lacking intensity and focus. I wondered if another Colts loss could lead to some kind of changes in the coaching staff this week.

Then a fortunate penalty gave the Colts new life on their final drive and Matt Ryan did just enough to get the win.

So the Colts get a tie and loss against the two worst teams in their division, then beat the co-favorites in the AFC. Sports make no sense sometimes.

The win gave me no real hope for the Colts’ season, though. That offensive line is terrible. It’s amazing how quickly things can fall apart in the NFL. That unit was one of the best, if not the best, o-lines in the game just two years ago. A retirement, some injuries, and poor decisions on incoming players have wrecked it. And while I was hopeful Ryan could be a steady if unspectacular correction from the high-stress Carson Wentz experiment, he looks washed up and a worse option than Phillip Rivers was two years ago.

Also, there must be something in the water in Indy, because like the Pacers in recent years, the Colts are just constantly decimated by injuries. It’s hard to expect them to improve when their best defensive player can’t get on the field and each week brings a new swath of players who will miss the next game.

The only good thing is the Colts are in the weakest division in the league, so there’s still a path to the playoffs if they can get healthy and find a way to protect Ryan. Although Jacksonville may not be as shitty as people expected, which could change that math significantly.

Local Excitement

One final note. S and I were taking a walk Sunday morning when we saw and heard a couple police cars race by. We were about a mile from our house and they seemed to be stopping at a major intersection, so we figured there must have been a bad accident. But then more police cars roared by and we figured it was something else. It seemed like they were turning away from our house, so we weren’t super concerned.

As another batch of police screamed by, we crossed paths with some other walkers who told us they heard there was am armed intruder in a home. When we got back to the main road our house sits off of, we could see at least eight police cars in front of a house about half-a-mile south of ours. We later read there was someone with a weapon in the house that was refusing to come out. Whether they were an intruder or a resident we never heard. But the person was detained, no ambulances ever showed up, and things calmed down.

Not your typical sleepy, Sunday morning.

  1. The play was made even better by the FS1 announcer LOSING HIS MIND over the play. “LOOK AT HISHAW GOOOOOOO!!!!!”  ↩

Weekend Notes

September 12, 2022 /

The first full football weekend of the year. I have some notes.

Friday

We had the big 6A #3 Cathedral at 3A #1 Bishop Chatard game Friday. Or the girls did. S and I knew it was going to be an absolute shit show; BC has a tiny stadium in the middle of a packed neighborhood and it seemed like every Indianpolis Northside Catholic was going to go. So we went to dinner with friends while the girls enjoyed the game.

Although it wasn’t much of a game. I checked my phone at about 7:45 and CHS was up 21–0. They got it to 35–0 before half, had a running clock for the second half, and won 38–0. I watched the highlights Saturday, and pretty much every score was a long pass, or set up by a long pass. When you have four receivers who are 6’3”+ and your opponent is small, you have to take advantage.

Of course, Chatard has a better chance of winning state than Cathedral, so not sure the BC fans were smarting too much afterward.

I got home in time to watch the end of the Tiafoe-Alcaraz US Open semifinal. Frances gave it his all, but Carlos Alcaraz is just too damn good. We’ve been waiting for years for the next superstar to come along in mens tennis. Alcaraz might be that dude.

Saturday

Lots of sports.

Alabama-Texas was interesting, surprising, and entertaining. Not the game I expected at all, although I really didn’t think ‘Bama would blow them out.

I caught the end of the Marshall-Notre Dame game. What a disaster for the Irish! Marcus Freeman seems like a really good guy but he’s feeling the heat already about whether he was the right hire.

L had a basketball game Saturday evening. They played a team made up of lacrosse players. These girls were big, athletic, and had this really good offense that kept getting them open looks. But they were not basketball players. L’s team ran them off the floor, at least in terms of the score, winning 47–23.

L had six points on 3–7 shooting, including two sweet drives for layups. On one she got hammered and threw it up-and-in off the backboard as she tumbled to the ground. Her teammates went nuts and she came up with a look like “THAT WENT IN?!?!” Then she missed the free throw… Not sure what’s up with her at the line lately. Her jumpers look good but her free throw form is awful.

I was glad it was not a close game. The refs were ones who never call fouls unless they are hard fouls at the rim. And these lacrosse girls were mega-physical and handsy. Once L was leading the break and a girl was tugging on her off arm the entire time, slowing L down, and the refs didn’t call anything. Need to teach her how to flop.

AND HOW ABOUT THOSE JAYHAWKS!?!?!?! Two-and-oh! Highest scoring team in the country!

We listened to the beginning of the game on our way to basketball and I was regretting finding the Sirius broadcast when West Virginia scored on a 59 yard TD pass, KU had four penalties on their first possession, and then WVU scored again. I checked the score at halftime of L’s game and saw it was 21–7. I was glad I was watching hoops.

When we got back into the car it was 28-all and I was all-in. We heard KU take the lead as we drove home in an intense storm, and then watched the fourth quarter and overtime from home.

What a great win. This was a game pretty much every KU squad for the past decade would lose by 40+. But the Jayhawks settled down after the bad start, hung in there, and dominated for a long stretch. Then they not only won, but got the ultra-rare, double-digit overtime win thanks to Jacobee Bryant’s pick-six.

There was some whooping it up in our living room, and some questions from the girls upstairs about what the hell was going on.

It looks like after getting it wrong four-straight times, KU finally hired the right coach. It was bound to happen eventually. The Jayhawks are disciplined, more talented than in recent years, put that talent in the right spots, are prepared for their opponents, and don’t fall apart the moment they face adversity. A long way to go but things finally seem like they are trending up.

Naturally Nebraska lost about 30 minutes later, Scott Frost was fired Sunday, and Lance Leipold is reportedly high on the list of potential replacements.

I think that bloom will fade, as Nebraska is not going to hire a guy who goes 4–10 this year.

Unless KU wins eight, nine, ten games this year, right?

Sunday

The first NFL Sunday of the year. I missed most of the Colts game as L had to go do her team photographer duties for her CYO football classmates. It was pouring rain so I decided to sit in my car and read in case she wanted to bail early. She ended up staying the entire time so I read a ton and didn’t see much football.

I did listen on the radio long enough to hear the Colts go down 20–3 but then turned it off to focus on my book. We got home in time to see the Colts tie it, then blow a chance in win in overtime. This franchise just does not do opening day well. I believe this is nine-straight opening weeks without a win. So maybe a tie is progress?

Still a super-disappointing beginning to a season in which the Colts were, allegedly, poised to be a player in the AFC title race. At least no one else in the AFC South won. You figure there will be growing pains as Matt Ryan settles in, but he wasn’t the problem on Sunday. At least when I was watching.

I forgot about the US Open final until late and caught the last four games of Alcaraz’s win. The first of many, I would bet.

I half-watched much of the SNF Buccaneers-Cowboys game. That old fucker Brady can still sling it.

Kickball Wrap Up (Forever)

September 8, 2022 /

Well, it’s over.

L’s team went out with a whimper in their final two kickball games, losing 21–7 on Tuesday then getting run-ruled 42–13 on Wednesday, ending the season at 2–5. I believe that was the first time they had a losing record.[1]

These two games were more of the same. We couldn’t kick or field, and it killed us. In the Tuesday game, against the team we beat to start the season, we were up 4–0 after one then gave up eight runs in the second and were dead after that. L went 1–3 with just a double. They against the division champs Wednesday we were never in it, down 9–1 after the first inning.

At least we closed out the game strong. As we came up for our last kicks in the bottom of the fifth our coach told the girls we needed home runs from everyone. The first girl kicked one. The next girl kicked one. The next girl got on base with a single. And then L came up.

Again, she had zero home runs on the season. Only once had she really been close. So far in this game she was 1–2 with a triple. This time she crushed the ball, her best kick of the year, sending it to deep center, between the fielders. But, as I’ve shared many times, outfielders get the ball in much quicker at this level. Didn’t matter. She was on her horse, as they say. The girl in front of her is super fast and L had almost caught her by the time they got to second. She was a step behind her at third and I could tell there was no way she was stopping. A good throw might have gotten her but the relay was off line and the girls scored right on top of each other.

Finally the elusive home run. And in the final kick of her career!

Three of the next four girls made outs and the season was mercifully over.

Although the results sucked I really enjoyed most of the games this season because I got to keep score with some good people. One mom has a son who is in C’s grade and they’ve socialized a bit, so we had some common ground. I had kept score with one dad before and he is more chill than me, so pleasant to work with. A second dad has three daughters the same ages as my three, and we’ve come across each other several times over the years. We had two games this season and great conversations while we watched our youngest square off. And a second mom I had two games with has been both the kickball and volleyball coordinator at her school, so we shared stories of all that comes with that. Wednesday she had another mom sit with us so she could teach her how to keep score (I assume this new mom has younger girls). When she introduced us, she said, “He’s the best scorekeeper I’ve ever worked with. He’ll explain everything and you’ll never get lost.”

Awwww, in my last game I got the best compliment of my life!

If you saw my Facebook post last night, I crunched the numbers for our family. Since M began playing in the spring of her third grade year, our girls played a combined 29 seasons of kickball. That works out to somewhere between 200–210 games. I figure I kept score or coached for 90% of those games, most misses either coming that first season before I was handed the scorebook or because I was coaching one girl while another played somewhere else. That’s a lot of kickball!

To be honest, I’m a little bummed I didn’t keep better records and know exactly how many total games we played and what the family’s overall record is. Alas…

I do know the girls combined to play in two division playoffs, two City semifinals, and five City championship games. M’s team was the only one to win a championship, and that was a shared title after a week of rainouts. C’s team was the only one never to make it to any kind of playoff, something she took personally for awhile.[2] Blame her assistant coach (me) for that. And I do know that our overall record, as a family, was well over .500. That was mostly thanks to an elite athlete on M’s team and then all those home runs from L for five years.

Folks who know us well will recall that my kickball story began the night S and I went on our first date. While making small talk as we waited for our table at dinner, I asked if she played any sports growing up. When she said CYO volleyball and kickball, I laughed in her face. Next thing I knew she was jabbing a finger in my chest and telling me that kickball was a real sport. Pretty sure I laughed some more.

And, famously, the real joke was on me. I married that Catholic girl from Indianapolis, moved here, had three daughters who went to Catholic school, and spent the bulk of their grade and middle school years representing St P’s on the kickball diamonds of Indy.

The first game of M’s fourth grade year, her coach walked over to me and said, “I hear you’re a sports writer. Can you keep score?” Soon I was reading up on the rules so I could understand what the hell was going on. About a year later when the kickball coordinator job came open, that same coach told me she thought I would be great at it. I made the mistake of sending one email asking the out-going coordinator what all was involved in the position. All it ever takes is one email to volunteer yourself for any school role, and for the next four years I ran the program. I helped coach L’s team their first year, although the moms who had all played kickball in their CYO days did most of the work. I helped coach C’s team for five seasons over three years.

It was a pretty good run. I hope the girls have as many great memories from their kickball years as I do.

  1. L didn’t play in the spring of fourth grade, when she decided she didn’t like kickball, and the team may have been under .500 that season.  ↩

  2. Their best shot was having a lead in the last game of the season going into the seventh inning against the team they were tied for first with, and then having a total meltdown and giving up 25 runs to lose. Ugh.  ↩

Holiday Weekend Notes

September 6, 2022 /

I’m guessing this was our last ever four-day Labor Day weekend, at least on the academic side of things. St P’s generally (but not always) gives the kids Friday and Monday off, while CHS just takes the actual Monday holiday off. Who knows what M’s schedule will be this time next year, but she won’t be here, so that means the remaining girls will be on the same schedule for the final holiday weekend of summer in 2023.

L took advantage of her extra day by doing some work for us and family members to earn some money. She’s been drafted as the St P’s football team videographer/photographer and has been saving up for a camera. With a final push over the weekend she was able to order it.

Her first project of the weekend was mowing her aunt’s yard, which she has done a few times. I followed her around with the trimmer, which is too big and too temperamental for her to use. As I was trimming I felt a white-hot heat on my right forearm. I dropped the trimmer, thinking it was in the process of blowing up or something. But I didn’t see any smoke and it started right back up.

“Well, shit,” I thought, “I think I just got stung!”

But I hadn’t seen/felt anything on me or seen anything fly away. I looked around and then noticed, on my nephews’ swingset/playhouse, the biggest wasp I had ever seen crawling around. I got a fly swatter from inside the house and nailed it. Seconds later several more Big Ass Wasps emerged from under the decking and I fled before they could get me.

Fortunately my sister-in-law had a couple cans of wasp/hornet killer. I unloaded one on the nest I could see poking through the frame and left her instructions to hit it again when the wasps returned for the evening.

Not going to lie: the sting hurt like hell. I don’t know if I’ve ever been hit by a wasp before, but this fucking hurt. Even today, Tuesday morning, the area is all swollen, red, and itchy. I’m not sure what flavor of wasps these were, but I’m just going to call them Murder Hornets because they were so big and the sting was so painful. Still, happy to take one for the team rather than one of my nephews.

IMG 5531

Don’t fuck with the Murder Hornets

Friday night was one of the more interesting sports following nights in my recent history.

I had the US Open up on the TV, watching Serena Williams’ final match that began at 7:00. At 7:30 the Cathedral game began, and I pulled up the audio on my phone. And at 8:00 KU kicked off their season on ESPN+, which I had on my MacBook Air.

Super Sports Fan #1 here!

It was a bit chaotic keeping track of everything, but I managed, selectively muting as conditions warranted.

I should probably write more about Serena’s loss. I think of my life not really hitting adulthood until right around 1999–2000. That made Serena the last athlete from my extended childhood or adolescence or whatever who was still active. Just another sign that we are getting older.

Props to her for such an amazing career, for coming back after having an insanely difficult pregnancy and childbirth experience, and for going out on her terms. I couldn’t believe she was still playing doubles with her sister Venus on Thursday. I think that effort clearly affected her in Friday’s match. Then I realized that she just wanted to play with her sister one more time and was willing to sacrifice her singles match for that opportunity. When you’ve won everything there is to win, you get to pick how you say goodbye.

Cathedral fell behind 13–0 but then ripped off 35-straight points for a 35–21 win. The game was three hours away so none of the girls went. The Irish had a ton of injuries going into the game, so played a number of kids who had not played the first two weeks. This week they play their big-time rivals BC, who are ranked #1 in 3A and just lost the the #1 4A school on the final play of the game.

KU rolled Tennessee Tech. Which should be expected, and I know non-KU fans are making fun of us Jayhawks for being excited about the win. Never forget this is KU football, a program that has found a way to do the un-doable for decades. Pounding an overmatched opponent is never a given for Kansas, and while one or two more wins is likely the max we can hope for this year, at least we checked off the easy win.

The team looked better, with more playmakers on defense than I can recall. But they still lack depth and things will be very different this week against West Virginia and pretty much every week for the rest of the year and the competition keeps getting tougher and tougher. But this game was the baby step we needed.

Saturday we headed up to S’s aunt and uncle’s in the morning. They live on a lake and offered to take the girls out to ski. M took a brief run and had no issues. L tried but could not get up. C was annoyed about having to wake up early on a holiday weekend and stayed in the boat. We took a nice trip around the lake and got off the water just before rain moved in.

Later in the day L had a basketball game. They were playing a team they’ve played many times. That team plays and practices all year, and added another good player since our last meeting. We were down 13–0 to start then went something like 5–22 from the free throw line and lost by 15. L alone was 1–6 from the line. She was 0–4 from the floor but had three rebounds, three assists, and three steals. She hit one shot that came after a foul was called away from the ball and was super annoyed by that. I was super annoyed she was missing so many free throws after all the practice shots she put up over the summer.

Sunday we had the local family over for our annual Labor Day gathering. It never got too hot or humid and the rain held off, so it was a pleasant day around the pool. I stay the hell out of the pool when the nephews take over. It’s more fun to drink and watch than constantly babysit your kids so they don’t sink.

Monday was your standard, lazy Labor Day. I watched some tennis – Frances Tiafoe upsetting Rafa Nadal was obviously the highlight, a truly enjoyable match. I was bummed Danielle Collins lost, but we don’t need to go into details about that.

(Another quick aside about tennis: Nick Kyrgios beating Daniil Medvedev Sunday was also entertaining. Not sure I’ve ever switched my opinion on an athlete as quickly as I have about Kyrgios. I thought he was a lunatic who needed to be shut down at Wimbledon. Now I think he’s one of the most entertaining, compelling, and interesting players on the tour. Not sure I necessarily love him, but I do root for him to stay in tournaments because they are a lot more fun with him on the court.)

I read a lot, we did some shopping as we prep for our next big trip, and we did some cleaning around the house.

Otherwise a pretty chill holiday weekend.

This morning we were socked in by low, thick clouds. When my alarm went off at 6:50 and it was still pitch black my first thought was, “Did I sleep through a month and it’s October 6?” Just a tangible reminder that summer is over.

Kickball Notes

September 1, 2022 /

This season was supposed to be L and her team’s final run to kickball glory. Even with a tough schedule we figured they would be battling in every game and, because of the strength of their division, remain in the mix for a City championship berth right up until the end of the season.

Instead it’s been a bit of a mess.

Things started well; they won their first two games. They beat a solid team by one, scoring six runs in the bottom of the 7th to comeback for the W on opening day. Next they run-ruled a perennially bad team. Then everything went to shit.

They’ve had three straight run-rule losses. They’ve lost by 26, 31, and 27 in four-and-a-half innings each time. In the last two games we’ve been behind 14–0 and 13–1 after one inning. What we used to do to other teams is now being done to us. Paybacks, etc…

Our coach, who is perpetually sunny and upbeat, looked at me after last night’s beatdown and asked, “What is wrong with us?”

The answer is pretty simple: the three teams that have beaten us all have players that look like young women while ours still look like kids. Last night we had a right fielder playing literally in the bushes that bordered the field and St J was still kicking the ball over her head. The three teams that have crushed us all had 4–5 girls who could not only blast the ball, but place it in the right spot. They either found the holes between our outfielders, or knew which of our girls had zero chance to catch anything kicked at her and sent balls her way. I think we’ve given up more home runs in those three games than we’ve given up in two or three seasons combined.

We also make a lot of small defensive errors that turn innings into bad ones. Last night in one inning L over-ran a ball and allowed it to drop, another girl dropped an easy fly ball, and two other girls ran into each other and allowed a ball to drop. Instead of only giving up 4–5 runs, we gave up the limit of 14. That’s been the story in every big inning this year.

Meanwhile we have no one who can kick anymore. L gets on base consistently (she’s 15–19 so far) but hasn’t kicked a home run all year. Or really been close to one. This is the same kid who had 22 home runs in a season 18 months ago. She can’t kick as far as she used to and the outfielders are better at this age, so on the rare occasion she gets ahold of one, they still hold her to a double or triple. None of our other girls who used to boot the ball are doing any better. I think we’ve had only two or three home runs all season, and have only had one 14-run inning.

There are two games left in their season. We play St B’s, the team we beat by one, on Tuesday and then the team that waxed us last night on Wednesday. I would like to hope that St J’s would take it easy on us in our final home game, but they have a one-game lead for the division and can’t afford to slip up. We are just hoping we can beat St B’s on Tuesday to get one more win before the girls hang up their kickball visors for the last time.

Weekend Kid Sports Notes

August 22, 2022 /

Kid Hoops

After a few weeks off, it’s back to the hoops grind for L.

Saturday her travel team kicked off a Back to School league that will play on Saturdays for the next two months. I think this is the first time her coach has put his team into the league, and he’s doing his best to keep it light. They won’t practice. He’s going to rotate starters every game. He wants girls to play different positions. Most of all he wants them to have fun.

S and I were at an engagement party so we missed their first game. L had six points in a three-point win. She hit two free throws with 11 seconds left to turn a two-point lead to four. Her coach texted me after the game and said she played well.

The St P’s teams for the upcoming CYO season were also released Saturday night. No surprise as far as L was concerned: she’s on the Cadet A team for the second-straight year. Her team has five eighth graders and three seventh graders. Five of those girls play travel, so we are excited about the chance to run a real offense! Although I am not coaching this year, I have been helping the guy who will coach get acclimated.[1]

Sunday six of those A team players played at the weekly CYO open gym. They won by eight. L played about as well as she’s ever played. I had her with at least 17 points and 5–6 assists. She and her travel team buddy took over the game in the second half after a six-point lead turned into a one-point deficit. Those two scored 12-straight points to put the game away. L was either hitting buckets or dropping dimes so her friend could score. I was a little bummed that they wasted it on a scrimmage that doesn’t count for anything. But it was really fun to watch. L is pumped for the season ahead.

Before the scrimmage began I was talking with the coach, coordinator, and my friend I’ve coached with for several years who is also helping. Apparently there was already a lot of bitching about how the St P’s teams were picked, what girls made what team, etc. Sounds like it was worse for some of the younger teams but there was controversy about who ended up on L’s.

I’ve always known that basketball brought out a whole different level of parent crazy than kickball does. I got a few complaints every year when I sent out kickball rosters but nothing like what the basketball coordinators get. Apparently girls are already threatening to quit because of the team they got placed on, and parents were sending long emails and texts to people who had nothing to do with the decisions airing their grievances. I’m so glad I am disconnected from the St P’s social circle and don’t have to get pulled into that nonsense (at least yet) and that this is our final year of CYO sports.

I know we were lucky. It has always been obvious where our girls belonged and there was rarely any lasting disappointment with their assignment. I get how it is a bummer not get on the team you want to be on. But some of these parents are delusional.

There is one parent who is already wearing everyone out with their complaints. I watched their kid play twice last week. She is not good. Every now and then she’ll hit a 3, but it’s just because she chucks as soon as she gets the ball. She can’t dribble, she can’t guard, and if she tries to pass it is most likely going out of bounds or to the other team. But one of her parents was a very good high school player and, thus, thinks that their kid is also very good.

It’s fine to have your kid’s back. But do it with some acceptance of reality. Plus I think for a developing player, especially one who is in the younger half of the age group, it can be better to be on a B team and play a lot than be on an A team and get far fewer minutes.

HS Football

The Indiana high school football season began on Friday. Cathedral has a terrible schedule this year. They couldn’t fill one spot so only have eight regular season games. Just two of those eight are home games. Two of the road games are over three hours away.

Friday’s opener was up in Lafayette and M and several of her friends caravanned up to watch the Irish get an easy 43–12 win. On the radio it sounded a little sloppy. They return a stud junior QB and several terrific receivers. One receiver is going to Purdue, a tight end is going to Western Michigan, and a defensive lineman has a final four that includes LSU. But their offensive line is all brand new and seemed to struggle opening holes Friday.

Making matters tougher this year is that CHS has moved up to 6A after winning two-straight 5A state titles.[2] Given they’ve only lost to the two-time 6A champs over the past two seasons, CHS opened the season ranked behind that team at number two. They get a big test this coming week when they travel to play the likely number three team in the state (that team was #5 last week, but numbers three and four both lost on Friday).

There could be more growing pains along the way this year than the last two. But they have a lot of skill position talent and if they can stay healthy and develop that O-line, they’ll likely be as good as anyone in 6A come playoff time.

  1. He’s a St P’s dad but all of his kids are either in high school or college. The new basketball coordinator wanted to get a non-parent coaching to try to help with various issues that have popped up in recent years. I was super supportive of this idea as non-parent coaches are generally better for these competitive teams and it kept me from having to coach. I’ll be just fine keeping score and popping into the occasional practice if asked.  ↩
  2. CHS is a 4A school by enrollment.  ↩

Weekend Notes

August 15, 2022 /

Some catchup from the last few days.

Shots Fired…Literally

Friday night we had our old neighbors from Carmel over for dinner. They like to rib us about moving from Carmel, which has little violent crime, to Indianapolis, which like most big cities has some issues. I joked that we hadn’t heard any gunfire from our home in over a year.

Later that night I was in bed, asleep, when I heard one of the girls talking to S. I rolled over and M and C were standing there. I heard them say something about hearing gunshots and police being outside our house. My eyes popped open and, indeed, there were flashing lights reflecting off the trees in our backyard.

I raced downstairs as C told me what she had heard and seen from her bedroom window, which looks out the front of our home. She said at 11:30 she heard a bunch of gunshots then saw a car make a quick U-turn on the main street our house sits off of.

When I got downstairs there was a police car blocking that street directly in front of our house, about 200 feet from our front door. Half a block down there was another police car, half a block beyond it a third. We could see police officers walking around with flashlights as if they were searching for evidence. Soon we saw them placing little evidence markers on the road. This was going on literally within shouting distance of our house, we’re talking 400–500 feet.

This was no bueno.

M must have been watching a lot of police shows lately, because she made the observation that no one must have been hit/hurt because there were only three police cars and no ambulances. I thought that was a pretty astute comment from a privileged kid like her.

As we watched the activity in the street, I pulled up the history from our front door camera and rewound backwards. Sure enough, at exactly 11:30, the quiet night was interrupted by a serious of gun shots. Seconds later you could see the lights of the car making the U-turn in front of our house. But no other cars ever appear.

The cops did their work for about an hour then left. It was a little hard to go back to sleep after that excitement.

Saturday morning I checked Nextdoor and saw a post from one of our neighbors. They had gone out and talked to the police when they first arrived. Based on what the cops found, they were assuming it was just a single car shooting into the air rather than shooting at another car, someone in a house, etc. They found 12 shell casings, which seems excessive to me. But I’m not a gun person. Maybe that’s a normal thing to do on a Friday night. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like the bullets hit any homes and, since it was 11:30 PM, there weren’t any people out doing yard work, grilling, or just hanging out as we had been doing a couple hours earlier.

There wasn’t a thing about the incident on the news Saturday. There were at least two murders in Indy that night, so some idiot emptying a clip on a dark street without any injuries didn’t move the needle.

An unsettling reminder of the world we live in.

Oh, L slept through the whole thing. And S didn’t get out of bed. I believe her comment to the girls was, “Tell your dad about it,” and went back to sleep. Apparently they are less affected by nearby gunfire than the rest of us are.

Fan Girling

The night before the first day of each school year, CHS seniors gather to TP the Hill. They take thousands of donated rolls of toilet paper and throw them over all the trees that line the main entrance to campus. Then on the morning of the first day, the students like the street and greet families by tossing toilet paper at their cars. It’s a mess, but it’s fun.

Wednesday night I volunteered to help serve food at the picnic before the TP-ing. I was given the highly coveted task of handing out hamburger buns. It was fun to see some kids I hadn’t seen since middle school, and to be greeted by M’s many friends. I even had a nice interaction with her boyfriend.[1]

If you are a college hoops recruiting junkie you probably know that, by one measure, the top senior in the country is in M’s class. He showed up, surprisingly, wearing a Team USA t-shirt (from a camp he was cut from) rather than any gear for Michigan State, where he recently committed. When he came through the line I offered him a bun, he accepted, said “Appreciate you,” and moved on.

A few minutes later M came running over.

“I saw you Fan Girling when X came by!” and made a face like I was starstruck.

I shook my head, “I was not ‘Fan Girling’, I just gave him a bun. And I’m disappointed he didn’t comment on my hat.” I was wearing my KU national champs hat. Not sure if he even glanced at it.

Anyway, I thought M accusing me of Fan Girling was pretty funny, even if inaccurate. I figure it was payback for me making fun of her Harry Styles obsession. Which is fair.

Hoops Tryouts

L had her tryout for the St P’s team Saturday. She said that she barely got to play. They mostly used her to set up other people so they could see how they played. She understood why – the evaluators know who she is, what her game is like, and that she had another tryout the next day – but was still bummed she didn’t get to ball more. That season starts in about a month.

The Sunday tryout was for a Cathedral-sponsored team that will play in the gap between the CYO season and when travel ball picks back up in March. She is excited to play with some girls she met at camp in June, and to learn from the high school team’s staff.

Her travel team jumps back onto the court this coming week, playing in a two-month Back to School league. She will re-tryout for that program in two weeks, although she will stay on the team she played for this past year. It’s just a way to get another $30 out of families.

Her (likely) final kickball season starts on Tuesday.

So Long Oooey Pooey

This weekend Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis announced that it was splitting into two schools. IU will take over most of the campus and call it IU-Indy. Purdue will still control the engineering and computer science programs, likely as an extension of the West Lafayette campus.

The reason given was simple: branding. While IUPUI billed itself as offering the best of both schools, no one really got it. And the name was endlessly mockable. I guess this will help them get more applicants/enrollees?

I did most of my graduate work on the IUPUI campus, but don’t have any real connection to the school. I doubt many people have strong feelings about the split. I think we will all miss the name, though.

  1. It is official, she has used the term around us.  ↩

Weekend Sports Notes

July 18, 2022 /

Some sports happenings over the past few days.

Royals

As if being shitty wasn’t bad enough, ten Royals players “did their own research” and decided not to get vaccinated against Covid, preventing them from traveling to Canada for the series with the Blue Jays over the weekend.

Just an exhausting moment. As I am barely interested in the team or sport right now, this does not make me want to come back.

Let’s move on…

Pacers Go Big…Almost

The Pacers have never been big players in the free agent market. Good players who are healthy generally don’t want to come to Indianapolis, and the Pacers have generally run a tight financial ship and refused to overpay to get talent to come to town.

That nearly changed last week. They signed restricted free agent Deandre Ayton to a massive offer sheet. Ayton had a strained relationship with the Phoenix Suns who seemed lukewarm on bringing him back on a max contract. There had been rumors for weeks the Suns and Pacers were talking about a deal that revolved around Ayton and the Pacers’ Myles Turner. If those talks were serious, though, they never resulted in a trade agreement.

So the Pacers sent out only the second offer sheet they’ve ever tendered, the biggest in league history, for Ayton. For about three hours Pacers fans were debating whether to be excited about the prospect of Ayton joining a young roster or to worry about Ayton getting hurt or just sucking and turning the deal into a disaster that sunk the franchise for the 2020s.

That debate only lasted a few hours because the Suns quickly matched the Pacers’ offer. Which could be a good thing. Offering $133 million for a big man in the current NBA seemed ultra aggressive, especially for one like Ayton, who is a good player but certainly not among the league’s elite.

It was cool the Pacers tried to make a splash, at least. Now I wonder where they go. They seem set up to remain on the outside of the eastern conference playoff picture next year, but also not bad enough to enter the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes. They have a ton of cap room and a lot of picks stacked up for the next few years. Plus they still have to figure out what to do with Turner, an elite shot blocker and serviceable 3-point shooter whose total game does not match his ego or financial desires. Do they package Turner and some of their picks for a difference maker? Hang onto Turner until the trade deadline to see if he meshes with their new lineup (and can stay healthy)? Or do they move Turner now, take on a bad, expiring contract, and hope they are crappy enough to get deep into next year’s lottery and then make rapid improvement?

Kid Hoops

L’s team decided to get together for one more tournament. Saturday they played two teams they played two weeks ago, including the team that knocked them out of that tournament. They pounded that team pretty good, although they were playing without their best player. We were three players short, including a starter, but not sure that was an even trade. In game two they got a 14-point win over a team we have now beaten three times. This was our best performance against them.

In Sunday’s semifinal we had a five-point lead early in the second half but lost by 10. Our girls just got waxed in the last 10 minutes or so. The other team was too fast on both ends, our girls neglected to play any help defense, and we missed a ton of easy shots early that could have had us up by double digits early in the game.

L had a mixed weekend. She shot the ball like crap going 3–20 overall. Saturday she hit the top of the backboard with 3 pointers from behind the NBA line.[1] Apparently she’s been working out too much. In the second game she missed two wide open layups and another two contested ones. But she did score six in that game. And she turned the game around with her defense. We were down seven when she checked in. Five minutes later, when she checked out, we were up six. In that span she had two points, two rebounds, two assists, and three steals. She just shut down their point guard, getting steals on three of four possessions. We never looked back after that.

We’ve been doing some good shooting over at the YMCA, so I don’t know if she was just sped up, if her contacts weren’t locked in, or if it was the classic case of the improvement she’s making in practice not translating to games yet. Whatever the explanation, her shooting was gross. Afterwards I reminded her, though, that back in January if she ever took a 3-pointer, it was usually two feet short. Now she’s shooting them 3–4 feet long from behind the NBA line. So she has the range, she just needs to lock in the accuracy.

The Open

Jeeeeez what a let down. Rory McIlroy seemed like was finally going to break his eight-year major-less streak, playing beautiful golf all weekend. He was a little less stellar Sunday, missing six putts by a combined six inches, but still played well enough to win.

Except Cameron Smith went nuclear and hit every freaking putt on the back nine. Shooting 30 on the last nine of a major – six birdies and three pars – is pretty dope. Rory couldn’t even finish second as Cameron Young snuck by him with a final round 65.

There was no meltdown round this time. Rory played great all four days. Perhaps he was a little too cautious Sunday. Or the nerves caused shots that gave him short birdie looks the first three days to leave him much longer looks in Sunday. Whatever the cause, it felt like a massive letdown when he couldn’t close it out. Sometimes you just get unlucky and end up on the wrong side of a legendary closing round by another golfer.

It was really a magnificent tournament. St. Andrews is barely hanging on against modern players and technology, but it produced a terrific weekend of golf. Saturday, when six or seven players all seemed to be in the mix, was amazing to watch. It came at a perfect moment for professional golf, which has seen the 2022 season dominated by the break between the PGA and the Saudi-backed LIV tour. But you also have to wonder when we will see a tournament like this again. The 2023 major season could be drastically different as more players defect to the LIV, which could affect their ability to play in future majors. Perhaps it was that, more than Rory coming up short, that made the end feel a little extra somber.

  1. The tournament was at Jeff Teague’s gym, and we played both Saturday games on the NBA court, which is longer than the other two high school courts at the facility, and only has the college and NBA three point lines parked. Not sure why they had kids as young as fifth grade playing on it without the high school arc marked.  ↩

Emergency Sports Post

July 1, 2022 /

Some MASSIVE sports news dropped on Thursday. With Monday being a holiday, who knows what can happen between now and when I get around to sharing some thoughts. So a quick-ish, emergency post about…

UCLA/USC Jumping To Big 10

WHAT?!?!!? Where the fuck did this come from? I have to say, I am utterly amazed that the UT/OU to SEC and UCLA/USC to Big 10 stories remained so quiet right up until they became done deals. It really doesn’t make much sense to me that there weren’t more leaks in each case.

Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC makes sense in a lot of ways. But the two LA schools joining the Big 10 is pretty fucking nutty. I know this is all about money, both grabbing as much TV revenue as possible and about balancing out money athletic departments are going to start losing as NIL funnels money directly to players. But this seems like a way to massively increase AD expenses in the new Big 10, with some schools literally having to fly across the country to play conference games. I suppose you can have the LA teams make an east coast swing, and Maryland/Rutgers can do the opposite. But are you really going to take the women’s soccer team out of class for a week a couple times a season to play conference games, and then pay to fly them and put them in hotels for that stretch?

I guess this is just another step closer to the power athletic schools ending up in one or two giant leagues, renegotiating all the TV deals, then splitting into geographic divisions that look a lot like the old conferences we knew and loved.

Strangely, for the first time since this wave of realignment began over a decade ago, KU is actually in good shape. The Big 12 made good moves to grab Cincinnati, Central Florida, Houston, and BYU and seems stable. Now whoever ends up being leftover from the Pac–12 will be ripe for the picking. The Big 12 would always be the third or fourth strongest of the power conferences, in terms of TV revenue potential, but the conference would stay alive.

Plus there are the persistent rumors that KU is one of a handful of schools sitting pretty for if/when the Big 10/SEC decide to expand further.

Then there was the ridiculous rumor floating yesterday that KU was looking to join the Big East and go independent in football. I say ridiculous because that makes absolutely no financial sense when the Big 12 is still an option, KU football is not in any position to go independent, and the guy pushing it had a number of college hoops “scoops” that were very wrong. Then again, there have been a lot of rumors that seemed absolutely dumb that have come true during this whole process, so I guess you never know.

Kevin Durant Demands a Trade

I literally laughed out loud when I got the text from a friend sharing this news. After a week of drama about what Kyrie Irving would do got squashed by Kyrie announcing he was returning to the Nets, KD drops this big ass bomb in the NBA, bringing the free agency market to a screeching halt just as it opened.

I get the old man bitching about how players angle to play with their buddies and create super teams. I generally don’t agree with that line of thinking, because I believe when you become a free agent you’ve earned the right to choose your own path, even if it’s different from how superstars would have traveled in the 80s or 90s.

That said, I think when you sign a contract and recruit guys to play with you, you can’t jump ship halfway through your contract when you sour on the situation. You have to live with it and do your best to make it work, even if that means some pain along the way.

Still, I kind of love what a drama queen KD has become. He’s one of the most fascinating players in the league, because he’s different that almost everyone else. He’s not as “crazy” as Kyrie, as ruthless as LeBron, as adept at social media as Joel Embiid. But he’s close to each of them, and when you put it all together, you get an absolute content machine, which makes everything he does insanely compelling. Even if it can be exhausting at times.

Basketball Camp

I missed most of this breaking news as it happened because I was at L’s final day of basketball camp. I got there a little early to watch the scrimmages and the awards presentations.

She had a good week. She met some new girls and became friendly with them. You never know what girls will actually end up at a private school, but she is hopeful a couple of them are in her class in a little over a year. She told me on day two the head coach talked to her about the travel program L is in, how she thinks it is a great one, and how she thought it had made L better (we aren’t sure if she’s seen L play before, although the two local Catholic school coaches do pop into CYO games when they have time). When I dropped her off on Thursday the head coach greeted L by name and several of the varsity players came over and said hello.

Anyway, they got to the awards and went through a few for performance in individual drills and stuff before getting to the final award, Teammate of the Week. When the head coach called L’s name, all the high school girls went nuts, with the best player yelling “YEAH L!!!!” really loud. On our way home she told me how that girl, who is in M’s class but was new to CHS last year so they don’t really know each other, kept following her around all week, giving her pointers. So she made a connection with the head coach, with the current players, and with the girls who could be in her class when she gets to high school. It was a successful four days.

Travel Hoops Wrap Up

June 27, 2022 /

Travel basketball came to a disappointing end for L over the weekend.

Her team lost in the semifinals to a squad they had beaten twice this year. That team went on to win the championship by four points. So it was right there for our girls and they blew it.

Saturday’s pool games were two very different contests. In the first we played a team we beat by 10 two weeks ago. They are super big, very physical, but not very good.[1] They make the game ugly, and our girls don’t like ugly.

We were in control the entire game Saturday but just couldn’t put them away. We held on to win by seven. L was cold, just scoring two while tossing up a bunch of airballs from 3.

Two things to note. It was approximately 800 degrees in the gym. OK, that’s a slight exaggeration, but the AC was not running and it was very hot and steamy. We were down two girls – to be fair the other team only had one sub – and several of our girls looked like they were going to puke after the game from the heat.

Also, we were missing our most physical player. She’s not a mean girl, but she’s one of those kids who gets a nasty look on her face and battles constantly once the game starts. We missed her in this game.

In game two we crushed a poor team that only had five players. They forfeited their first game because they didn’t have even those five to the gym in time. L bounced back and had seven in this game, including a steal and layup, a long two (that was really a 3), and a 3 (that was really a 2). Refs were having trouble with the 3-point line. Might have had too much sweat in their eyes to see it.

Sunday it was on to play the team we beat twice in Bloomington two months ago. We crushed them in that first game, then they had a lead on us for most of the second game until we pulled it out late. That big win was deceptive, though, as our best player went on a personal 12–0 run that turned a comfortable lead into a blowout.

I think that game killed us Sunday.

We led 13–9 a little over halfway through the first half. Then we gave up an 11–0 run going into halftime. That run stretched out deep into the second half and eventually we were down 30–18 with about three minutes to play.

Then we suddenly started hitting 3’s and getting steals. We got it down to two with 20 seconds left and our best free throw shooter at the line for two. She missed both, but thanks to a lane violation got to shoot her second again and made it. Down one.

We stole the inbounds pass, had a shot inside that got blocked, and then were inbounding under the basket with 15 seconds left. Instead of hitting our best shooter, who was wide open in the corner, we threw it inside where the ball bounced around and eventually ended up in the defense’s hands. They missed a free throw and we couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

Just a bummer of a loss. Our girls were slow to rebounds and loose balls. The other team, to their credit, found some zone defenses that we could not solve. I think having our missing starter would have helped, but I can’t guarantee we would have won had she played. We are probably the better team, but they were the better one for those 32 minutes. And then they went and beat one of our program’s other 2027 teams for the championship. Our girls really wanted to play their sister team for the last trophy of the summer.

L scored five in the semifinal. She blew by her girl for a layup to start the game and she hit a 3 during our run late. She started all three games but she was not on the court late in the game Sunday. She sat the final few minutes when our coach played our two “bigs” together, which he usually will not do, because it seemed to turn things on the defensive end.[2]

Thus ends L’s first year of travel basketball. I think it was a personal success. She is definitely a better player than she was when she started with this program last fall. A year ago the only way she could score was to get to the basket. After lots of work she’s finally developed consistency and confidence in her jump shot and become more comfortable playing off-the-ball. She’s played against higher level girls and held her own. She made some new friends. It also helps that she’s still growing. It was a pretty solid season.

Today she is off to the Cathedral camp. She doesn’t love camps, but we agreed it was time to go to the one run by the coaches she’ll be trying out for in two years so they get to know her. After that we have six weeks to really crank it up on our personal workouts. We both have a list of goals and are working on a plan on how to get her better for when CYO ball starts in September.

  1. I say this as a compliment, not to be mean, but they all looked like big, farm girls. They’ve been wrangling small animals their entire lives. Skinny, suburban girls don’t phase them.  ↩

  2. I say “bigs” because our entire team falls within about a 2.5” height range. These are just the two girls who are most comfortable playing inside.  ↩

« Older posts Newer posts »

Archives

© 2025 D's Notebook

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑