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Remember the name Kiko Alonzo.

That and eight other names are linked to Chip Kelly from the Oregon days. Alonzo is a top notch LB and someone who, if healthy, can add a lot to a defensive scheme. How Kelly came to reacquire his college LB is  a bit of NFL gossip fodder. Alonzo was traded straight up for Shady McCoy–an elite NFL running back in the prime of his career. This led to an important question: Is Chop’em Chip Kelly crazy? I say yes–if you can call money ball crazy.

Consider Kelly’s history. He came into fame at Oregon by recruiting 3 star players with a lot of speed and putting them in a scheme that highlighted their talents. He coached as opposed to getting better mainly through recruitment. His scheme was so fast and unpredictable that few teams ever stopped him. I have doubts about how well that will continue to work in the NFL. From all I’m hearing he let McCoy go because the RB didn’t buy into the system. Kelly brought in yet another guy that does and seems to expect to replace McCoy through free agency or the draft. These days everyone thinks the RB is pretty easy to replace. The same can be said for the wideouts, as Kelly has failed to reign in any talent at the elite level save for Maclin who himself could be on the move.

I think Kelly believes in his system entirely. That system is based on a line and a smart QB. He has the line but not the QB. Maybe these moves are about making the space to get that QB in the draft. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him pick up more ducks along the way.

Yesterday my sleep-deprived brain to a stab at a very deep and meaningful post that resulted in little more than a possibly misleading introduction to the topic. My goal was to express an awareness of how differently I perceive education than the more vocal people in power. I’m a person that believes in truth vs. the creation of a myth that makes one look good. In other words, I still subscribe to the enlightenment principles that, in many ways, made western civilization possible. Instead it seems we are deepening into a religious society that is very much the mirror of the middle eastern societies we all too often profess to be unlike.

The key here is a lack of desire to pus ourselves–at least in the American diaspora–past the commercial materialism that holds us in place. The majority of Americans read at an eighth grade level–that is when they read at all. As a creative writing teacher I see about a third of my wanna be novelists start their first novel writing class having never completed a book. These are the people who want more and want to learn. The ones who don’t want more from an intellectual standpoint are the ones who represent the vast majority of the students I see and they just don’t care about the idea of learning purely for learning’s sake. If they’re going to learn anything there has to be a significant dollar figure, job, or opportunity at the end of it and I cannot blame them. This is the way we’ve cultured our society. We are creating a nation of zealots who follow the religion of capitalism with a dappling of christianity on top. As one christian think tank put it, “. . . God has given us the market process as the most powerful tool we have in a fallen world to serve each other by using our gifts.”

Perhaps in the end the real difference between us and a place like Iran is more than just power, size, and the ability to control the conversation. Instead the real difference might be how honest we are with ourselves about who we are. Over there, they seem to know exactly who they are and they own it. As a result they are villainized. Meanwhile, When Texas changed its official travel motto to ‘Texas: Its like a whole other country’ my mind flew to the socio-political make up of the state and it wasn’t a good thing. More and more the country Texas and many other parts of the U.S. seem like fails to resemble the U.S. I grew up loving.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Expect a waiver thursday because I have a lot to say about this latest trade of Shady McCoy and what that says about Chip Kelly. Foreshadow: It isn’t good and it has a lot to do with ego and moneyball.

When I check in with students about why they are in college they almost always talk about the job search and working towards a career. This is not isolated to community college. The majority of 4 year students I talk to are pursuing that singular goal. Perhaps this is me being an academic for once and worrying about the cause of education. When I see Scott Walker file to change the University of Wisconsin’s core philosophy from “Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.” to “meet the state’s workforce needs.” It hammers home the fact that we are in a different reality from what I wish it was.

On the side of highway 347 leading away from Maricopa City a billboard reads ‘Pack Out Your Trigger Trash’. If not for being an avid consumer of newspapers and other local media, I don’t know that the term trigger trash would make a lot of sense to me. The term refers to the spent cartridges and other paraphernalia that are a result of people shooting off firearms in the desert. I have no problem with this and I also have no experience with this outside of AZ. I say this to reflect the basic truth that AZ is different from other parts of the states I’ve been. It feels like a state trying to be the south but trying to be LA at the same time. This is all to raise the point that the concept of America as a singular unit seems extremely dated, especially in light of the increased social interconnectivity brought to us through the internet. If, especially in the net age, we seem far more distant and diversified across the 50 states, perhaps we should go back to seeing America as a conglomeration of cultures all driven by a single goal (read: security through capitalism) as opposed to one nation and one voice.

This isn’t just about trigger trash. Today a student ‘slipped up’ in his presentation and complained that minorities shouldn’t receive any greater benefits than, and I am quoting here, “regular Americans.” That ‘I am a white male’ American default remains extremely problematic, especially given the shrinkage of the caucasian population percentage as compared to the American whole. Yet, many hold on to this vision as a fundamental part of their understanding of the American dream not to mention their push to come to America.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The KFC popcorn chicken commercial that has kids complaining about their old chicken once tasting KFC is the best possible divertissement for not eating KFC.

Dear World Wrestling Entertainment,

I regret to inform you that you are blowing a solid opportunity. Despite my repeated attempts at dissuasion, my three boys insist that professional wrestling is God’s gift to boys. They watch your shows religiously. They trot down the stairs shouting Yes!Yes!Yes! and performing F5’s on various stuffed animals. They buy in to your brand. The problem is that they are starting to see through your story lines.

This is not about wrestling being fake. The kids are smart enough to know that the moves being performed are incredibly high risk and have tried them on each other enough to know that there might be more than a little fabrication at work here. They don’t care. What makes them care is a good storyline with a guy they can cheer for and a someone worth booing. That is really beginning to fade in the WWE. In truth, the only thing keeping them tuned in is the hopes that some aged superstar will pop up and remind them that the legends in the video game are still at their old tricks.

The new breed of wrestling story lines do not work. My boys age from 5-10 and are already tired of the authority. Brock Lesnar is Yeti–they’ve seen glimpses and one real match but nothing worth becoming fans over. John Cena is, well, nobody here has a clue what you’re trying to do with that guy. The boos are confusing the 5 yr old and he is quickly loosing interest.

I get it. The story lines are up to the final say of Vince McMahon, a man that once fueled his trump-like ego by actually becoming a wrestler and defeating the superstars he helped prop up. Thankfully he’s too old for that so he sends out Hunter Hearst Helmsley to do it for him. Seriously, nobody wants to ‘Play the Game’. What these kids want is clearly drawn lines and a variety of superstars and matches that propagate the two main shows. They want to see multiple tag teams fighting for something that matters. They don’t want to see the same two teams battle every single night. They want to see new stars and old mix it up. They want surprise and mystery and comedy. They want to be wowed.

In the words of your rising superstar, ‘Feed me More’ and make sure what you’re feeding me isn’t more of the same. I’m done trying to make my kids give up wrestling and tired of explaining why the WWE brand sucks.

 

The caption on CNN read, ‘Why Taylor Swift took viral bikini photo’. Mind you, this isn’t one of those click through ‘one weird trick’ sites, this is C freaking N N. Or maybe this is CNN. 1.6 million people viewed the bikini photo. I’m guessing less viewed the ridiculous attempt at journalism about the photo. What does it all boil down to? A famous skinny girl took a pic in a bikini with a handful of friends and tried to make it about the oppressive nature of paparazzi. Personally I think its got more to do with our national sexual repression. Of course, that is just the way I carve out my little slice of reality.

It all boils down to the way we each perceive reality. I don’t deign to assume my perceptions are any more or less accurate than anyone else’s. I will admit that I color my perceptions based on life training, want, and need. It is that colorization that leads to silver linings, to spousal abuse and anger-fueled rants, to drunken admissions, to drunken attacks; to beer goggles. We largely allow ourselves to see the world the way that best suits our mood, ego, and subconscious wants and needs. Being aware of that is the best trick any of us can learn. Once we know how we trick ourselves it makes it easier to set about learning how and when not to.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. My 8-9 team and their parents reminded me today that coaching is something I truly love and am rewarded by doing.

At long last we’ve come to the end of a trying flag football season. Yesterday my 10-12 team closed out with another loss. We are at the point where it seems pointless to give them the special awards, because they showed such limited effort through many of the games. They got down early and then got down on each other. It is hard to reward that. It is hard not to feel responsible for that myself, but I don’t know that I entirely am. A grandpa (of a kids whose parents I have still never met) stopped me before the game started and thanked me for coaching with patience. It felt clear to a lot of the parents that this season was about learning.

The other two were about winning. Going into the 8-9 double header we have a clear statistical defense player of the year (DPOY) and Fab 4 vying for offensive (OPOY). Despite my own kid’s admission that he was working for DPOY, OPOY is closer to his grasp. The Hustle Hawk award is out of his reach, but a possibility for his baby brother down on the 6-7 squad.

I’m doing something different with that team for the last game. I’m sacrificing offense in order to stack the D with the top 5 flag pullers. The goal is to lead with defense and demoralize the opponent. I have some kids with offensive flash and some raw kids who need to get touches in order to really show what they are capable of. I’m excited to see what they can do and what we can do as a team to close things out in both age groups.

Four weeks ago I watched a coach strap a tiny go pro video camera to his head and tape the game he was coaching against my team. Twenty four years ago I held a giant video camera the size of a small pig that was described as a huge advancement in miniaturization. The go pro had better resolution. The fact is we live in a time that is so vastly different than the era of my youth that it is practically unrecognizable.

I get the naysayers. In some ways we are still battling through Maslow’s hierarchy, using this new technology to act out ancient social conflicts. This is true–nothing about our wants and needs has changed in a fundamental way. We still want power, safety, sex. What is new and changes our world fundamentally is how thoroughly we wage these conflicts in cyberspace; non-material reality.

We are now too often passengers in our lives, living through the captured images of life spooled through the internet.

Three teams worth of a flag football season is coming to an end. The last games are tomorrow and saturday. Having my littlest Toms play to the next age group was a good idea. He was challenged by the league and had to learn how to move and juke in a way that 4-5 never required. Offensively he stands second on a very talented team in rushing touchdowns. Defensively he needs a lot of work. The five really shows on D, and that’s to be expected. Good D requires a level of practice and repetition he hasn’t had a chance to achieve. Next year he’s going to be in full Beast Mode on D. In this last game I expect to see him turn it up on offense and try to capture one of the three big awards for the season. He’s only got a outside shot, but even getting close is a big deal. Some of these kids–the ones in line for the awards are 8 or almost there and here he is a five year old trying to compete and lead on a one loss team. Nice.

8-9 is a similar situation. My seven year old played up and regrets it at times–so much so that he decided to play 6-7 soccer just for a chance to be utterly dominant again. He’s been dominant at times on a very good squad about to put their perfect record on the line in a double header this saturday. I don’t know about his award chances. Like I said, he’s dominant at times and background noise at others. His mind goes so fast sometimes that I wonder if he moves past the game while he’s still playing it.

10-12 is a hot mess. I started this blog talking about a one loss team and I’m going to end it talking about a one win team. Heading into tomorrow we’ve only managed to win a single game. It isn’t easy dealing with the size differential, but the lack of practice and energy really killed us. I suppose the worst part of it all is that we remain the only team in the league that doesn’t play starters. We put 5 kids on one side and 5 on the other side and go. Everyone plays equal minutes. Tomorrow I’m going to try it the way the other coaches do. I’m going to see what it looks like and how we do and how the players react. I want to learn as much as I can for the next season.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Bryan passed away. Those of you who read the blog are aware of my connection with him. I’m pretty numb at this point. The brevity of human life is at once wondrous, beautiful, and disturbing.

I had a topic all queued up to discuss but then I forgot it. I wasn’t near a pen when I dreamed it up, and given my present level of fatigue, I had little chance of actually remembering it long enough to write it down. All this is to say that I have very little to say. Call it a cyclical brown out–the dulling and misfiring of neurons centered around creative brain activity.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Every time I flirt with the idea of quitting writing I am instantly made aware of the impact it has on my life and spirit. Hell, I have the pen to prove it.
2. I’m at that point where I am bombarded by waves of negativity every single night. There is no value in responding and no value in just taking it on the chin. Is there a third option?
3. Summer is around the corner…. just in time.
4. If I hear one more story about an AZ person who we should all care about because he showed up on TV…. This didn’t happen in NYC.