I have some assorted items that have been sitting around for a week or two that aren\u2019t big enough for their own post. So you get back-to-back Notes entries.<\/p>\n
L is in her third week of basketball workouts at CHS. The first two weeks were before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. She\u2019s been getting up before 5:00 on those days. My alarm is set for 5:19 but I generally hear her banging around and wake up well before that. We are out the door around 5:35. I don\u2019t mind that, but I also don\u2019t love it.<\/p>\n
This week they added a Monday night workout to the schedule. That will continue until the third week of October when official practice can begins, which I assume will be every day.<\/p>\n
L said they\u2019ve gone well. A lot of scrimmaging and basic shooting drills so far. This week they are supposed to pick up the intensity a little and start working on a lot of defensive drills. She\u2019s also supposed to get a survey where she assesses her own play and then goes over it with the coaches.<\/p>\n
For what it\u2019s worth she\u2019s been hanging out more with older girls from basketball than with her fellow freshmen, and we\u2019ve been giving her shit about that. Two weeks ago she went to the football game with freshmen and she yelled at us, \u201cSee, I hang out with freshmen too!\u201d<\/p>\n
Her first travel tryout for next year was this past Sunday. There were nearly 100 girls there for all the high school teams. I talked to her coach from the past two years and he said the organization has been poaching good teams from other programs, which accounts for some of the numbers. I don\u2019t think that will have an impact on L since she won\u2019t be on an elite team. It made for a pretty packed gym, though.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been swimming a lot for the past six weeks, give or take.<\/p>\n
I can hear you. \u201cNo shit, dumbass. You have a pool. Why wouldn\u2019t you be swimming?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not talking about just getting in the pool and splashing\/floating around like I normally do. I\u2019m talking about swimming laps and turning it into a workout.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve never done this in my life. Mostly because I\u2019m not a great swimmer and never had the courage to get into the pool at the Y and bang out some laps.<\/p>\n
Fortunately the swimmable part of our pool is only about 30 feet long and it\u2019s not too complicated to turn into a lap pool. After a few weeks of doing it maybe once a week for about 10 minutes, since mid-August I\u2019ve been doing it 3\u20135 times a week for closer to 20 minutes. I\u2019m not going to pretend this is some awesome workout. I swim one way without taking a breath, pause to suck in some oxygen, then head the other way. I\u2019ll do this four or five times, take a minute break, then repeat. Each time I finish my Apple Watch tells me I\u2019ve set a new record. Even starting from zero, I\u2019ll take that as a sign that I\u2019m headed in the right direction.<\/p>\n
My hope is the weather stays warm enough that with the occasional boost from the pool heater I can keep doing this for about another month to continue to build some endurance. Then we\u2019ll see if I\u2019m courageous enough to transfer it over to the Y and swim public laps. I\u2019m a little frightened of both the rules of etiquette at the pool and needing to stop and rest way more often than the other people swimming.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I\u2019ve been enjoying a different workout that reduces the stress on my always aching joints. And might as well keep using the pool as long as it\u2019s open.<\/p>\n
I also played pickleball for the first time ever last week. I picked it up pretty quickly had a great time. It was quite the workout. I\u2019m sure it being a hot, humid night helped. I went with my old neighbor to the church where he\u2019s a pastor. They converted an unused basketball court into two pickleball courts last year. We had seven guys last week, so a nice rotation that allowed you to sit out a game and cool off when you lost.<\/p>\n
Not sure if I\u2019m going to turn into one of those Pickleball People, although I have added that group\u2019s weekly meeting to my calendar. And I bought my own racquet? paddle? this week.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll keep you updates on my exploits should they continue.<\/p>\n
You may remember me mentioning Marcus Adams Jr. about a month ago in my summary of KU\u2019s summer. He was the recruit from California who reclassified into the senior class in April and committed to KU. When he announced that he would be a Jayhawk, he admitted the reason he picked KU over UCLA was because KU\u2019s NIL program paid better.<\/p>\n
From the time he committed there was a lot of weirdness about his situation. There were rumors he might actually go pro instead of enroll at KU. He took longer than the other new recruits to arrive on campus, but that was chalked up to the California academic calendar. Upon his arrival, there were almost immediate rumors that he was struggling in pickup games, and worry among the coaches that because he played at a lower level of high school ball, his game wasn\u2019t ready for a Power 5 conference. As those rumors began popping up KU was suddenly recruiting another long wing who could play this coming year (Johnny Furphy).<\/p>\n
Adams lasted about a month in Lawrence before announcing he was leaving. He landed at Gonzaga, but three weeks after committing there changed his mind again. Now he is enrolled at BYU. For a kid who thought Lawrence, KS was \u201ctoo country,\u201d I\u2019m excited to hear about his experience at a school run by the Mormons.<\/p>\n
My point isn\u2019t to throw shade at Adams, which far too many have done. Recruiting is a hard deal and kids who are 17\/18 are placed under tremendous pressure in the process. They don\u2019t always end up making the best decisions. Which is why I think one-time free transfers are important.<\/p>\n
No, I want to throw shade at the people around Adams. When he did interviews while at KU he seemed super young. There was always a deer in headlights quality to him. I don\u2019t want to say immature, because I have no idea what his behavior was like. It just seemed like he wasn\u2019t super comfortable in that moment. Which is fine, not every freshman can relax when someone sticks a camera in their face.<\/p>\n
But given how he\u2019s committed to three schools in something like five months, I\u2019m beginning to wonder if he, in fact, is not mature enough for the moment. I feel like the people around him should have known this going in. One of the pressures on high school athletes is to get their pro clock running as quickly as possible, and often that pressure comes more from their handlers than themselves.<\/p>\n
Maybe Marcus Adams is going to be fine, both athletically and emotionally at BYU and my points are silly. The evidence so far, though, suggests that maybe the people who are helping to guide him through this process should have spent more time evaluating his maturity level than his game, and kept him in high school one more year so he was better prepared to select the place to spend his college years. There are worse things than waiting a year to start making money off sports. Especially if that year of waiting improves your odds of long-term success.<\/p>\n
One final note about the NFL, and Monday Night Football. What a bananas game! I was out picking up L so missed Aaron Rodgers destroying his ankle or achilles or whatever. I just saw all the Tweets saying it was the most Jets thing ever.<\/p>\n
And then the freaking Jets came back from 10 down to win the game in overtime, forcing four turnovers, making one of the greatest catches you will ever see, and getting a walk-off, punt return TD. Nuts.<\/p>\n
The Football Gods have been punishing the Jets, for some reason, ever since they won Super Bowl III. This seemed like the year when they might finally shake that off. They have a fearsome defense that is going to fuck up a lot of teams. Even if Rodgers couldn\u2019t play at an MVP level anymore, he was still an above-average QB, which might have been enough to win 2\u20133 games in January with that D. Now? This whole season is going to be a gigantic tease for Jets fans. I almost feel sorry for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have some assorted items that have been sitting around for a week or two that aren\u2019t big enough for their own post. So you get back-to-back Notes entries. Kid Hoops L is in her third week of basketball workouts at CHS. The first two weeks were before school on Wednesdays and Fridays. She\u2019s been getting up before 5:00 on those days. My alarm is set for 5:19 but I generally hear her banging around and wake up well before that. We are out the door around 5:35. I don\u2019t mind that, but I also don\u2019t love it. This week they added a Monday night workout to the schedule. That will continue until the third week of October when official practice can begins, which I assume will be every day. L said they\u2019ve gone well. A lot of scrimmaging and basic shooting drills so far. This week they are supposed to pick up the intensity a little and start working on a lot of defensive drills. She\u2019s also supposed to get a survey where she assesses her own play and then goes over it with the coaches. For what it\u2019s worth she\u2019s been hanging out more with older girls from basketball than with her fellow freshmen, and we\u2019ve been giving her shit about that. Two weeks ago she went to the football game with freshmen and she yelled at us, \u201cSee, I hang out with freshmen too!\u201d Her first travel tryout for next year was this past Sunday. There were nearly 100 girls there for all the high school teams. I talked to her coach from the past two years and he said the organization has been poaching good teams from other programs, which accounts for some of the numbers. I don\u2019t think that will have an impact on L since she won\u2019t be on an elite team. It made for a pretty packed gym, though. Swimming I\u2019ve been swimming a lot for the past six weeks, give or take. I can hear you. \u201cNo shit, dumbass. You have a pool. Why wouldn\u2019t you be swimming?\u201d I\u2019m not talking about just getting in the pool and splashing\/floating around like I normally do. I\u2019m talking about swimming laps and turning it into a workout. I\u2019ve never done this in my life. Mostly because I\u2019m not a great swimmer and never had the courage to get into the pool at the Y and bang out some laps. Fortunately the swimmable part of our pool is only about 30 feet long and it\u2019s not too complicated to turn into a lap pool. After a few weeks of doing it maybe once a week for about 10 minutes, since mid-August I\u2019ve been doing it 3\u20135 times a week for closer to 20 minutes. I\u2019m not going to pretend this is some awesome workout. I swim one way without taking a breath, pause to suck in some oxygen, then head the other way. I\u2019ll do this four or five times, take a minute break, then repeat. Each time I finish my Apple Watch tells me I\u2019ve set a new record. Even starting from zero, I\u2019ll take that as a sign that I\u2019m headed in the right direction. My hope is the weather stays warm enough that with the occasional boost from the pool heater I can keep doing this for about another month to continue to build some endurance. Then we\u2019ll see if I\u2019m courageous enough to transfer it over to the Y and swim public laps. I\u2019m a little frightened of both the rules of etiquette at the pool and needing to stop and rest way more often than the other people swimming. Anyway, I\u2019ve been enjoying a different workout that reduces the stress on my always aching joints. And might as well keep using the pool as long as it\u2019s open. Pickleball I also played pickleball for the first time ever last week. I picked it up pretty quickly had a great time. It was quite the workout. I\u2019m sure it being a hot, humid night helped. I went with my old neighbor to the church where he\u2019s a pastor. They converted an unused basketball court into two pickleball courts last year. We had seven guys last week, so a nice rotation that allowed you to sit out a game and cool off when you lost. Not sure if I\u2019m going to turn into one of those Pickleball People, although I have added that group\u2019s weekly meeting to my calendar. And I bought my own racquet? paddle? this week. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll keep you updates on my exploits should they continue. College Recruiting You may remember me mentioning Marcus Adams Jr. about a month ago in my summary of KU\u2019s summer. He was the recruit from California who reclassified into the senior class in April and committed to KU. When he announced that he would be a Jayhawk, he admitted the reason he picked KU over UCLA was because KU\u2019s NIL program paid better. From the time he committed there was a lot of weirdness about his situation. There were rumors he might actually go pro instead of enroll at KU. He took longer than the other new recruits to arrive on campus, but that was chalked up to the California academic calendar. Upon his arrival, there were almost immediate rumors that he was struggling in pickup games, and worry among the coaches that because he played at a lower level of high school ball, his game wasn\u2019t ready for a Power 5 conference. As those rumors began popping up KU was suddenly recruiting another long wing who could play this coming year (Johnny Furphy). Adams lasted about a month in Lawrence before announcing he was leaving. He landed at Gonzaga, but three weeks after committing there changed his mind again. Now he is enrolled at BYU. For a kid who thought Lawrence, KS was \u201ctoo country,\u201d I\u2019m excited to hear about his experience at a school run by the Mormons. My point isn\u2019t to throw shade at Adams, which far too many have done. Recruiting is a hard deal and kids who are 17\/18 are placed under tremendous pressure in the process. They don\u2019t always end up making the best decisions. Which is why I think one-time free transfers are important. No, I want to throw shade at the people around Adams. When he did interviews while at KU he seemed super young. There was always a deer in headlights quality to him. I don\u2019t want to say immature, because I have no idea what his behavior was like. It just seemed like he wasn\u2019t super comfortable in that moment. Which is fine, not every freshman can relax when someone sticks a camera in their face. But given how he\u2019s committed to three schools in something like five months, I\u2019m beginning to wonder if he, in fact, is not mature enough for the moment. I feel like the people around him should have known this going in. One of the pressures on high school athletes is to get their pro clock running as quickly as possible, and often that pressure comes more from their handlers than themselves. Maybe Marcus Adams is going to be fine, both athletically and emotionally at BYU and my points are silly. The evidence so far, though, suggests that maybe the people who are helping to guide him through this process should have spent more time evaluating his maturity level than his game, and kept him in high school one more year so he was better prepared to select the place to spend his college years. There are worse things than waiting a year to start making money off sports. Especially if that year of waiting improves your odds of long-term success. NFL One final note about the NFL, and Monday Night Football. What a bananas game! I was out picking up L so missed Aaron Rodgers destroying his ankle or achilles or whatever. I just saw all the Tweets saying it was the most Jets thing ever. And then the freaking Jets came back from 10 down to win the game in overtime, forcing four turnovers, making one of the greatest catches you will ever see, and getting a walk-off, punt return TD. Nuts. The Football Gods have been punishing the Jets, for some reason, ever since they won Super Bowl III. This seemed like the year when they might finally shake that off. They have a fearsome defense that is going to fuck up a lot of teams. Even if Rodgers couldn\u2019t play at an MVP level anymore, he was still an above-average QB, which might have been enough to win 2\u20133 games in January with that D. Now? This whole season is going to be a gigantic tease for Jets fans. I almost feel sorry for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,69,13,58,66,50,30],"class_list":["post-12189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-basketball","tag-chs","tag-high-school-sports","tag-kansas-jayhawks","tag-nfl","tag-pool","tag-youth-sports"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12189"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12191,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions\/12191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}