Day: January 22, 2025

I started playing this phone game called Retro Bowl. Its one of the games that can be played without the internet so it was a fun-filled experience to kill time on the myriad of flights I endured over the past few weeks. Anyhow, the game was fun. What caught me by surprise was the impact of coaches. You can hire coaches for your staff like with most FB games these days, but the star rating of the coaches really impacts the star rating of your O/D and impacts the performance of the players wildly. I am thinking about this as I am watching my son’s DB coach walk away towards ACU. They are getting a real one. Meanwhile, my kid’s reason for going to UNC just evaporated. That means yet another season with an entirely new staff which is further modified by it not being the staff we intended. He hasn’t had the same coaching staff for more than a season since he was twelve and started playing high school football. Yeah, the 12 thing catches me off guard sometimes too.

Meanwhile, back at the farm 7s season is springing to life and the hype train has already rolled into the station. My youngest is struggling with the concept of not playing for one of these marquee teams. He plays for two teams presently–one of them is faux marquee. He plays for a squad called the Tukee Tropics, which is the school team. He also suits up for TrueBuzz Athletics, which is apparently a pathway to receive underclassman offers. However, he knows as I do that underclassman offers are meaningless. You cannot sign those. It is what happens Jr year on visits that sets you up to sign a contract Senior season. It is only that signing of paperwork (which is going to replace the traditional offer moving forward) that makes an offer worthwhile. Offers, as we’ve learned through practice, are fleeting and temporary things driven by team need and player rankings at the time. Underclassman offers are great for your own hype and do get some other teams to notice you, but they mean little. Still, it doesn’t lessen the sting of seeing many of his youth teammates get offers while he hasn’t even had the chance to speak to a coach. He will have a chance to attend camps this spring and summer. Maybe that will help him as he transitions from sophomore starter to Jr. He needs to find the confidence in himself, IMHO. Camps will only make you feel small otherwise.

Usually Tuesday is a time to look back, but I am not feeling it tonight. I didn’t really know what to look back towards. So, I thought I would wander through…

Some Thoughts:

1. Jelles Marble league keeps coming up with fun ways to race marbles and make the competition fun and exciting. Now they’ve just dropped Marble League All Stars–16 teams who’ve been champs or are carrying heavy hype in some way. The Raspberry Racers, who won it all in 19′ are featured as the #3 seed. Episode one (Bobsled) dropped. World, I give you Marbles.
2. Sports are really spiraling now. I need to do a ten minute feature on the recruiting stuff. For now I will just say that it makes more sense for a talented player to collect millions in 4 years of college then it does to try to have a ten year career and continue over that time frame to risk injury.
3. School is going a lot better than expected given the level of preparation. I didn’t get myself right this semester, but as I am preparing over this and last week, I have managed to come up with some solid elements for the class. I need to take another week to get it all locked into place.
4. Getting things locked in and getting a rhythm going has been difficult. It also has failed to be a priority in my daily existence. There are two schedules–each reflective of whether or not I have the kid with me. It changes when he is here, because of the transit times. I need to be mindful of how to use and manage that time as well as how to account for the ‘extra’ hours when I am not focused on getting him where he needs to be and getting him right.
5. Trump is in Charge. He’s already dipping his toe into assholery.