10 Minute Rule

I never quite realized how competitive (or angry) I was until watching my boys play football today. The team I help coach picked up a win (2-0) while the other two boys landed losses (0-2, 0-2) with the eldest’s team looking flat out awful. That is where my story begins–with a culture that is not quite dedicated to winning. A parent said to me, “I don’t care if we win; I just want us to have fun and play well.” There is a disconnect between the idea of playing well and winning that doesn’t belong there. See, for many parents of youth atheletes, these two concepts remain independent. In some cases there is a legitimate culture against winning.

That brings me to the main point: Parents cannot see past their own children. I am part of the problem. When my son was benched a few years ago I immediately blamed the situation on a nepotistic coach who appeared to have more interest in putting forward a handful of key players than developing unskilled talent. Or maybe he just felt my kid didn’t have talent–either way there was no communication on how the kid could improve. This was the situation I dealt with today following our win. Two sets of angry parents had nothing but negative things to say about our organization and coaches from top to bottom. Why? Because their kids are not playing and in one case losing passion for the sport. Sound familiar? It did to me.

I have a soft spot for the situation and, for a second, I analyzed my entire history with this team and decided that this particular parent was smoking crack. Here is why: We play backups on both side of the ball, often playing an entire second offensive unit as our first unit of the game. Both of the kids in question are on that unit. This was not why the passion was fading. The passion was supposedly fading because the kid is a lineman and isn’t always getting it. Definitely isn’t liking it. He wants to be an NFL running back. He lacks the speed, agility, awareness, and communication to displace any of the 12 distinct players who have a chance to run the ball. Yep, 12. Out of 28. When I was an angry dad the number of kids who touched the ball hovered around 4. Out of 24. That number has since increased to six or seven and I applaud the coach for his growth. Still, 12? That deserves some measure of respect.

So that is the point: Respect. Those parents disrespected me despite me reaching out and trying to listen. In truth every time I reach out to listen to anyone I am disrespected. Being the nice guy means getting walked on and that is a crap lesson to learn.

Yet learn it I have.

It turns out I confused the draft quite badly.

What I thought was going to be a Sunday draft is actually a saturday draft right in the middle of a slate of kid games. So that happened. Or is happening. I am not sure how to deal with that. There doesn’t seem to be a buddhist meditation to help figure that kind of stuff out. Actually, the meditations remind me not to care so much, because such things do not actually matter.

I agree.

I’m still gonna play though. The shorter discourse on the destruction of craving suggests that nothing is worth adhering to. Still, I live in a world and personal existence of craving therefore, in an anti-buddhist way, I cling to a great many things.

Too many, in truth.

Some Thoughts:

1. Just saw an Amazon commercial where a family used a bit of costuming to make their dog resemble a lion and placed said lion in front of their infant child. It was supposed to be moving. I was moved to consider this the beginning of PTSD.
2. I am reminded that Zombie flicks tend to focus on stereotypes–usually outcasts–and slam them together with people who are usually the ‘insider set’ and make the outcasts the powerful ones. It is a delightful story form.
3. Someone born the year I graduated high school would be well into their twenties…
4. Somedays are so bad that you hardly get time to talk to the ones you love…

Today just the thoughts…

Some Thoughts:

1. The hardest part about being a youth coach is the inability to discern what the other team can do. This is made worse by the fact that there is stuff out there on the net if you look hard enough. I don’t and therefore don’t have the game footage I need in order to make informed decisions about how we ought to be preparing. So, we stick with a basic prep package–getting better at our craft, so we are ready for all comers.
2. I have incredible students. With such great people to work with comes the responsibility to step up my game and truly provide them with an experience they will benefit from and remember. Believe that.
3. Fast and Furious 8: Helen Mirren edition? What the heck happened there? I mean they exploded the cast like it was an expendables film. Did I mention Charlize Theron? No? Yeah she’ll pop in as the lead villain… They even found an Eastwood to throw in the mix. There was some reported beef between Rock and Diesel. Rock and a hard place? Too soon?
4. Speaking of too soon, they turned Captain Cold back into a villain. I think they had to because Wentworth Miller can carry that show by himself. They needed him to balance out what is a weak Legends of Tomorrow cast.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Let me start by saying that this Roosevelt quote does not just apply to the President but, likewise, ought to stand for how we choose to stand or not stand for the National Anthem. I heard an argument recently that CK should be fired or made to stand because he is doing this sort of behavior in the workplace and his job ought to control how he publicly acts. Okay, the argument has legs. I cannot say, no they should not be allowed to force him to stand for the pledge and also say yes, other employers should be allowed to force workers to serve customers they religiously (or otherwise) disagree with.

My hypocrisy goes only so far.

So too does my sense of how much this matters. I return to the topic purely out of disappointment in what can only be termed exceptionalism. This is not at all about a QB and has everything to do with the idea that we have a vocal part of this nation that really wants things one way.

But it is the other way.

It is the way that allows freedoms to go in both directions–the direction you agree with and the one you do not; where people can preach white power and be socially denounced and people cam preach black power with similar results. Where black lives don’t actually matter all that much unless we are talking about votes, athletics, or figuring out who is the cause for all the bad stuff–especially violence–in America. Where blacks constitute nearly 1 million of the 2.3 million residents of the highly privatized and profitable criminal justice industry.

I get why people want to stand up, r just sit down and draw notice to a situation that doesn’t make us look good as a nation, and as a result people clearly do not care to see let alone solve.

Colin Kaepernick not standing for the national anthem is not a story. Period. One man’s choice to exercise his freedom of speech shouldn’t be treated like national news. Honestly, it is not that big of a deal. He’s making a statement. Let him. Hell, defend him because that flag and that song and the piece of parchment they represent grant him the power to do so.

Moving on…

Well, not entirely. Stop acting like the national anthem is entirely about supporting our military. This is something that becomes convenient in times of war–especially in the days and years following 9/11. When they play it at the olympics it isn’t about our soldiers alone. No, that song is about one nation, supposedly indivisible with supposed liberty and justice for all. Yep, all of that is debatable given the history of our nation and the terrible conditions for some classes of people (who were not deemed human at multiple points throughout history to provide a convenient lawyerly workaround) not too long ago.

Really moving on…

This political nonsense is eating valuable football talk time. Getting back to that I ought to reveal that I had my first of two fantasy drafts this year and I am surprised by the results. Even in a PPR league there is a lot of speculation that RBs are the prize. My second league is not PPR and I am starting to think I need to refocus my attention on a thin crowd of backs. Who to pick? The safe bets are predicated by experienced lines and softball schedules. AP only has three weeks where he is not guaranteed 100 yds+. He makes the top of the list, with some speculation about the Tennessee backs to follow. They both looked amazing during pre-season, mostly because of a line that blows folks up. Still they both looked great, which is not great for fantasy.

More to come. I waxed political too long and am out of time, so maybe tomorrow with some picks.

I’m taken aback by the power of Spotlight.

The team and it’s stories, featured in the Spotlight film, is a real thing. I recently visited their website and was very impressed with their ability to tell relevant stories in a world that seems more obsessed with stories that have little lasting significance than stories–real human stories–that have lasting impact. The Spotlight film focuses on the paper’s exposure of sex abuses in the Catholic Church. Over the last 10 years the story has been largely forgotten, but there was a scandal–a rash of priests abusing minors–that stretched upwards to the Vatican. It is easier to shut our ears and eyes to the important stories than it is to actually accept that things happen. Accepting the reality of such things means that we either act or live with the fact that we did not act.

Neither is easy and that is why news is often so very shallow and meaningless.

That brings me back to Spotlight. They continue to tell the difficult stories and inspire me to do the same. I’ve been working on a plan to do so. I am moving towards an academic space where I can help students tell the tough stories–tell their stories. My focus this semester is on students asking questions and digging deeper, looking for the truth beyond the obvious and the cover up and the easy.

I’m borrowing this concept from NFL.com which uses it to reflect on a slate of games. I teach instead of play, so I will reflect on a slate of classes for 10 minutes or so.

ENG 091 ONLINE
The idea of teaching dev english online has met with a great deal of resistance. The overwhelming opinion of the detractors is that dev students are not equipped to deal with learning from an online environment. This is the result of a great deal of speculation and assumption about the dev community. Many educators come to this opinion through experience. Some don’t. For me it isn’t as black and white as the level may indicate. After all, being selected to be in a dev class means you earned a certain score on a writing test. It says nothing about your life outside of that page.

That being said, I have three students who never even logged in this week. They weren’t built for this and it showed. Others run the standard gamut of dev learning, with some ‘in for’ grammar issues and other lacking basic principles of ENG learning. Too soon to know how this is going to go.

ENG 091 F2F

Same as above in terms of diversity, but I can say these kids are going to need to be eased into the learning because they are throwing some serious shade on the language and its essays. There was talk about writing having little to no value and that doesn’t fly with me.

ENG 102

I’m happiest here this semester because I dove right in and got started. One class is already on the first movie of the semester and the others may catch up this week. Once that is over we are reading Killing Pablo and starting to think about what it really means to write about research or to research itself.

Some Thoughts:

1. Only have time to cover classes and not the writer’s life (or the novel writer’s class) before the time hits 0 and still drop thoughts.
2. Here’s a thought: I love writing.
3. I love a certain lady too.

This looks to be one of those early nights. You know the ones where you crawl up in bed with a good book and a glass of wine or Netflix and chill (without the silly sexual connotation). I’m drained from a long day of football and feeling the effects of a longer week of school. This week was full of ups and downs with the low point unfurling itself on the field of the JPW game early this afternoon. The coach forfeited rather than risk any other players getting injured by a team that was clearly winning. He blamed lack of protection, which he later attributed to bad referee work and poor execution by his offensive linemen. This, obviously, did not go over well with players or parents. It set a negative tone for the season and made it seem as though quitting is actually okay.

It isn’t.

I’ve been reminded to take a step back and see this in the greater scheme of things. Yeah, this isn’t going to cause the planet to spin off its axis (though according to the butterfly effect theory it might), but it did undermine what I’ve been teaching as a parent. That is never a good thing.

In other news I am ready to get back to writing as soon as I can. This is a good moment for me, and I hope to grow very soon and very quickly.

Tonight marks the end of the first week of classes and the beginning of what looks to be a hectic fall of sports. I gotta admit I’m not terribly excited about all of it. One night ago I was researching the team my team is going to face and short of figuring out a bit about who they actually are, it didn’t do much for me. I should have been writing. That is quickly becoming a mantra–one I believe I ought to repeat until I no longer need to. Until I should have been writing morphs into I should’ve written even more.

Priorities have shifted for me in my old age. I received Madden 17 in the mail on Thursday and have played less than an hour of the game since I unpacked it. That time went to various chores and audiobooks, proving the game to be lower in the hierarchy of my attentions than it had been in previous iterations. I have not even played enough to give a good feedback blog about it.

So that is how things are now. I’m looking for time and space to be a better writer and teacher and my kids are playing the role of antagonist by merely being adorable and wanting me to hang out with them. Fortunately they can get over competitive and grouchy and scream at each other, reminding me of the reality of having them.

Or at least having them when you’re trying to get your crap done.

I googled the term Reality Tuning because I was expecting it to already be a thing. It isn’t and that vexes me. In this era of unparalleled access to the world, I would expect someone would have come up with the term already. Nope. To me the term represents the tendency of individuals to limit their informational access to a specified subset of information that conforms with the world/worldview they wish to exist in. We have so many options and so many screens of data and so many avenues of escape that it is in fact possible to tune your reality to whatever you like.

Some Thoughts:

1. I learned something from this recent political campaign. There are two sets of rules. One set belongs to people who are presumed to be fair and just. The other is for the people who are presumed to be, for lack of a better word, corporate. We all know Trump is an ass, so there aren’t any real surprises when the dude acts as he does. On the other hand, Clinton is held to a far higher standard. These standards are so high that Trump can honestly complain when she says anything to disparage him or to reflect his behaviors. I suppose it isn’t new information but a reinforcement of what I’ve believed all along.
2. I haven’t played Minecraft in weeks. I miss the crafting and the associated meditations.
3. Mr. Robot season 2 is a hero’s journey.