Sports and Life

Courage comes in all kinds of forms and situations. There's no doubt that those men and women who've chosen to serve our country in the military possess courage. Just like there is no doubt that those men and women who serve as police officers and firefighters show their courage on a daily basis as they serve the public. Courage shows up in other forms too. It takes courage for some to stand up and speak in front of their peers, or what about the courage of those who've chosen to step into a classroom full of kindergarteners? Courage is found in the world of sports all the time.

Can you imagine the courage it takes to stand 60 feet 6 inches away from a Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson, or a Neftali Feliz 100 mph fastball with just a plastic helmet on your head and a wooden stick in your hands? And we laugh when those pitchers throw a curve ball that buckles the knees of the batters. How about those kids learning to play the game and take a hot grounder off their shins yet get back in front of the next grounder hit to them?

Courage is defined in the dictionary as the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger or pain without fear. In my 33 years of coaching kids, I've seen more courage by some really little guys facing their fears in baseball, football and basketball than I can even begin to mention. However, the greatest example of courage I've ever witnessed in sports was on the professional level.

Emmitt Smith is one of the greatest running backs of all time. He is the all-time leader in yards gained in the NFL, a Hall of Famer and member of the Ring of Honor for one of the greatest NFL franchises in existence. His display of courage against the Giants in the Meadowlands on January 2, 1994 is unmatched in my books.

At the end of a long run in the waning minutes of the first half, Emmitt Smith was driven into the ground and suffered a first degree separation of his right shoulder. He only missed two plays. He played the rest of the game with a hurt shoulder and finished with 168 yards rushing. Now, I've played football in my days (obviously not anywhere in the same solar system as the NFL) so I've got some experience and it doesn't take to a rocket scientist to know what kind of physical beating football players take. I've never separated my shoulder either, but it's quite obvious that it is extremely painful. Emmitt Smith not only took the beating he normally took, but did it with a dislocated shoulder. Now its not like the Giants didn't know he was hurt and were trying to be gentle with him. They were playing for the playoffs too. Emmitt was out there dragging his arm, running hard and actually used his hurt arm to stiff arm Lawrence Taylor! The only thing he asked was that the linemen come pick him up off the turf at the end of the play. You ask yourself why did he do it? Why didn't he take himself out? Do you know what Emmitt said? He said he knew that his teammates needed him. Despite his teammates urging him to take care of himself, he knew that he was needed and did what he had to do inspite of the pain.

I have a better understanding of what courage is now. Its something that's left out of its definition. Courage is the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger or pain without fear as they serve someone else. Think about it, the military, police officers and firefighters do what they do, not for themselves, but for someone else. Just like the kindergarten teacher who walks into that room to teach those kids, the person who stands up to speak for those they are representing, or that little leaguer fielding a ground ball for his team. Courage is not just about oneself, but about others.

Sports and Life

Life lessons are experienced in sports. Having been involved in sports my whole life, I've seen many exceptional and exciting games, but more importantly, I've been blessed to witness many more exceptional people. Those people who demonstrate those qualities that make them exceptional.

Growing up in Dallas, I've always been a Cowboys fan. My favorite Cowboys growing up were those guys on the Doomsday defense, Bob Lilly, Randy White, Cliff Harris and Charlie Waters to name a few. Of course, I loved watching Roger Staubach play. He had that never quit mentality that I loved so much. With all of the Ring of Honor, All-Pro and Hall of Famers on those great Cowboy teams, my all-time favorite Cowboy is #40 Bill Bates. Bates was an undrafted free agent who was too small and too slow to play in the NFL. He made the team because of his special teams play and was one of the hardest hitters to play the game. Bill Bates spent 15 years with the Cowboys, not too bad for someone that couldn't make it in the NFL. What was it about Bill Bates that allowed him to make a career in the NFL? Tom Landry once said "If we had 11 players on the field who played as hard as Bill Bates does and did their homework like he does, we'd be almost impossible to beat." What was it about Bill Bates that was different from the rest? Well, I've never had the priviledge to meet or talk to him personally and I haven't read his book, but I think I know what it was. Bill Bates was determined to be a NFL football player.

Determination is defined as a pronounced decision. Bill Bates made the decision that he was going to be successful and do what he had to do to make it happen, but I believe that you can't have determination without perseverance. Perseverance is a persistent course of action in spite of difficulties or discouragement. Bill Bates is the poster boy for determination and perseverance. Too slow, too small to play, but he did it anyway. How about those Cubs fans? Is there a more loyal bunch of fans than the Cubs fans? Doesn't that take a lot of determination and perseverance to stay with the Cubbies? I know for a really long time that's what we thought about the Rangers fans too!

You know, there are numerous times in our lives when we need to make a pronounced decision follow up that decision with perseverance as we face difficulties and become discouraged. There have been many times in my life where my decisions were wishy-washy or with the first sign of difficulty I'd waver or lose focus or just plain give up. I was taught to never give up on the ball field or the court and to be honest, I don't think I ever did. Every game I played, I went down playing hard. I wish that I'd had that same determination and perseverance in some other aspects of my life.

It's been awhile...

Well, it's been awhile since I've sat down to blog and there's been a bunch of stuff going on. Normally when I say there's been a bunch of stuff going on its got something to do with my kids. Not this time! This update is all about me.

Let's start with inclusion teaching. Last blog, I talked about inclusion and that it had started off much better and it has continued to flourish. In the 7 inclusion classes that I have this year I actually co-teach the class. In the 4 Math Models classes its working great. Some days I do the notes and some days I do the examples. We work great together and I hope that the school allows us to work together for many years to come. In my 2 Geometry classes, its not quite as smooth. The teacher I work with is great, but I don't know my geometry as well and its harder for me to teach it. I'm learning though and we are working well together. Given time, I can see the same success in Geometry as I have in Math Models. My freshman Algebra class is a whole other story. First of all, its freshman. Enough said. Second, its the last class of the day. WOW! Outside of that, the teacher I work with is phenomenal. He is super organized and is a great teacher of detail. I am really at ease teaching Algebra, but not in his class. He does such a great job of teaching the kids to use highlighters, using their calculators and ways to eliminate answers on multiple choice tests. I know the material and believe that I can teach it too, but not the way he does. I enjoy watching him work. He's good.

Let's move from high school to college. A mere 24 years after I finished my undergraduate degree, I had to do something about getting a Masters degree. I didn't want to do it, but I didn't have a choice if I wanted to keep my job at North Mesquite or work in the MISD. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I had to do something. I heard about a program that the district and Texas A&M Commerce were offering called the Secondary COHORT program. The program consisted of 6 COHORT classes and 6 electives in 3 years. The COHORT classes would be taken 1 at a time in the Fall and Spring semesters. Each COHORT class would meet 5 times spread out over the semester. The electives were up to me. One option for the electives was to bundle 30 hours of Professional Knowledge classes offered by the district. With a wife, 4 kids and my desire to be a part of their lives, this sounded like the best option for me. So, in January, 2008 I started on my graduate degree. Last Wednesday, December 8, 2010, I finished my degree. I am now the proud owner of a Masters degree in Secondary Education. It was a unique experience for me. I enjoyed the COHORT classes, the people I got to know in my class, the teachers and the knowledge that I learned that has made me a better teacher, but it was hard. I stressed over every assignment and struggled writing every paper. When I finally turned in that last assignment, you can't believe the amount of stress that left my life. I guess the good thing about all of the worrying and all of the stress is that I finished with a 4.0. Not bad for a guy that barely survived undergrad school!

I saved the best, er...the worst for last. Halloween weekend, I was having problems with my eyes and when I woke up Monday morning I had double vision. After a trip to the eye doctor, I went to a Neurologist who said I most likely had a diabetic stroke, plus my blood pressure was high. I didn't know I was diabetic nor that there were blood pressure issues. Went and had an MRI and MRA on Wednesday (That's another blog someday), Cardiologist on Thursday, Endocronologist on Friday. Basically, I was messed up! The good news was that if I took care of myself I'd get my vision back. The bad news was it would take 3 to 6 months. Until then I have to wear an eye patch. Well, that was 6 weeks ago. During that time, I have taken control of my diet, taken my medications, lost 20 lbs and started walking 3 to 4 times a week. Now its just a matter of being patient until the eye gets better. There's more medical stuff to tell, but this has gotten long and I'll save it for another post.

High expectations

So, I went to a staff development training last Thursday to learn how, for the umpteenth time, to write IEP's. Besides the fact that no one can figure out the right way to write IEP's, I heard once again that Special Education teachers weren't pushing their students, weren't teaching and had low expectations. You know what? I'm sick and tired of hearing it. I have decided that from this moment on, I am taking offense to being told I had low expectations for my students.

Not only do I have to hear that I had low expectations for my students, I have to listen to my peers agree to it! "You have to admit, that our students were progressing..." NO! I do not have to admit that my students were progressing. My students were progressing. It just took several years to get the right tools in place to assess the SPED students and actually track the data.

Seriously, you want to know what's offensive, forcing students to take classes that they are ill prepared to take. Let's force all students into general education classes when they don't have the skills to be successful. I'm pretty good with numbers and do okay in math, but just because you put me in an aeronautical engineering class doesn't mean I'll get it! I couldn't even pass Trig in high school! Students with learning disabilities have just that, a disability. Does that mean they can't be successful in the general education classes? No it doesn't. As a matter of fact, I have several current students who are doing an outstanding job in their general ed classes. I also have several students who are so far over their heads, that they've begun to shut down and give up.

The thing that everyone seems to forget is that each student is an individual and its not a one size fits all solution to preparing students for after high school. Not all SPED students need resource classes, but some do. If teachers aren't teaching the students, don't have high expectations and aren't moving their students forward then find new teachers! This is my 11th year to teach and 10 years ago, I didn't have a clue what I was doing and it was extremely difficult to have high expectations went you don't know what you're doing, but that's a whole other post. It didn't take long to figure out where my students were and what weaknesses that had and with that information I was able to teach my students skills they needed to be successful in the world. As soon as that happened...BOOM! Teach grade level material, period! Doesn't matter if they can't add, subtract, multiply or divide, they can use a calculator for that; they need to know slope, system of equations, conics, etc... They can use a calculator? Sure they can, unless of course they are taking the accuplacer test to get into college or the asvab test to get in the armed forces.

We aren't preparing students to be successful after high school and everyone is going to have to pay for it.

Change

Change is a necessary part of life. Sometimes change is good, sometimes change is not so good. I have to say that my life is full of all kinds of changes these days. Trying to deal with all of the changes in my life is probably the biggest reason why I haven't updated my blog lately; Mostly, because I don't think that I'm ready to talk about all of it. For the most part, I don't mind change. I like to keep things simple and change messes that up, but change brings excitement and I like excitement too. The cool thing about all of this is that I have an ace up my sleeve. What is that ace? Easy. I know that God is in control and that as long as I follow His lead all of the changes in my life I'll be able to handle because, God won't give me more than I can deal with. Not bad, huh?

What's been happening...

WOW! So much has happened since I last updated this thing. I was drawn to it to write, but never felt as if I knew what I wanted to say. I guess that I'm going to just have to start typing and see what ends up on this thing!

Ok, so here's the breakdown.

Patrick's graduation. Moose was able to survive a bad case of senioritis and actually finished pretty good. There was time there I was not too sure though. He really enjoyed wood shop and I can see Moose setting up his own wood shop one day. He was pretty impressive with the things he made. I think the hardest thing he did all year, was to give his testimony at church on Senior Recognition Day. I know he was really nervous, but he really did a good job. Made his dad tear up and his mom cry. I was really proud of him. Since graduation, Patrick seems older. I don't know if its the facial hair or what, but he seems older. I watch him when he's with others and he's still the big goofy kid he's always been, but it seems different now. I guess graduating high school is a passage into young adulthood, I don't know.

Shelby's an Aggie. Talk about a whirlwind ride, I wasn't sure this thing was ever going to end! She applys and is denied, she talks to them and they determine that they didn't review her whole transcript, so they (A&M) do it again. They post on Friday that a decision is made, but don't update what that decision online forever! I think it was the following Wednesday before we actually found out. I can't tell you how many times I checked and Cindie checked that website looking for an answer. I'm so happy for her. She really wants to go to A&M and now she gets to! She's happy, Mom and Dad are happy, Josh is happy, Patrick is happy and Zach is estatic! He gets to be the only child at home. I think he's going to find out real quick how much he misses his siblings.

Josh home from school. Josh walked in the door and started working. He substituted almost every day he could. I think he really likes education and I know without a doubt he will be a great teacher and coach. He really cares about the kids. Now that school's out, he finally found a job as a security guard. Another uniform. This is the kind of job that teaches you how important an education is. Between work, an Anatomy class and Jenny, I don't get to talk to him too much these days, but that's what happens as they grow up. It's a hard adjustment for me, but I get it. I'm just not a fan of it.

Zach is Zach. He constantly makes me laugh, he's completely spoiled and he knows it. He's still a great kid and I am looking forward to having more quality time with him now that graduation is over. He played baseball again this year and he did okay. He pitched a few times, played a good second base and was a surprisingly good little catcher. I was proud of his effort and his willingness to do whatever needed to be done. He may never be the star of the team, but he will be the glue that holds a team together. He's a great kid.

I think that's enough for now. I'll try to write more now that it's summer.

Are you serious? It's T-Ball!!!!

One out, runners on first and second. The batter waits with baited anticipation. The umpire places the ball on the tee; the pitcher makes a throwing motion, and the batter swings with all of his might. The ball flies between the shortstop and third baseman, hits the ground on the edge of the dirt and rolls into the outfield grass between two five year old outfielders who watch the ball pass by before realizing they need to give chase. The runners take off as the crowd yells with excitement. The runner from second scores with ease. The runner on first stops at second and smiles. His coaches and fans yell for him to run and he takes off for third. By this time, the two outfielders have fallen down, and begun wrestling for the ball. Finally, the left fielder comes up with the ball and heaves the ball toward the infield. The ball doesn't make it to the dirt and the shortstop runs to the ball. The batter has reached first and is headed for second. The runner who started on first, stops at third and smiles. By this point his coach is red-faced and about to pass out from a lack of oxygen as he "encourages" the five year old to head home. He takes off for home. The shortstop throws the ball toward home. The batter stops on second base and raises his hands to the sky in triumph. The ball hits the dirt and rolls right to the catcher at home plate. The runner heading home sees the ball, turns around and runs safely to third base. Time is called.

An average play in any T-Ball game played any in town, in any state. I was an umpire in this game. It was a great game. The team out in the field was losing the game. They played great and managed to tie the game to force an extra inning. Alas, they lost the game.

The final outcome of this 5 year old T-Ball game is not the point. The outcome of a 5 year old T-Ball game should never be the point! I was utterly appalled at what took place at this game.

Before I start my rant, let's come to an understanding. I believe that if you play the game, you play to win. If you don't play to win, then why keep score? My belief in playing to win does not mean win at all costs. Some costs are too high. I do believe that it is important that children learn how to win and lose with grace. Sports are a great teaching tool for that very thing (Another blog on another day!).

Now for the rant... I cannot believe some of the things that I heard coaches say during this game. The coach of the winning team was so incensed that his team gave up the lead, that during the game he called a practice on Mother's Day and he didn't care if it upset families. His team wasn't playing to their capabilities and they were going to run, and if they didn't show on Sunday, then they were running more on Monday. He continually berated these 5 year olds throughout the rest of the game. Threatening them to run after the game, do pushups, sit on the bench and not play...the list goes on and on.

The other team's coach was just as bad. After the play above, the head coach said that he wished he had run the kids more at the previous practice, and he wouldn't make that mistake again. He also decided that he wanted to argue that the runner heading home should be out for running out of the baseline. There was no attempt made to tag the runner. As a matter of fact, the runner didn't get within five feet of homeplate or the catcher. The coach said to me, "He must of run away from the tag, I taught my players to tag the runner." So, basically, the coach didn't see the play and really just wanted to argue. I let him say his piece, and explained the rule to the coach. He continued to be defiant, so I tossed him! I actually enjoyed that part. The guy was a jerk. I really wanted to toss the other coach too, but there was no cause.

There are a couple of key points I want to make.

1. This is 5 year old T-Ball! These are 5 year old kids that when the game is over don't have a clue as whether or not they won the game. They just want to play.

2. If you are going to coach youth sports, know the game, know the rules and focus on the fact they are just kids. All you should really focus on is teaching the fundamentals of the game. In this case, catch, throw, hit and run. I'm not saying don't play to win, I always play to win, just do it with some class.

When I coach kids, its always about the kids. As much as I think I would like to be a major league manager, I know that this is not the time for me to live out that dream. I hate to lose. My family can attest to that, but come on people, they're kids!!!! I've seen guys making $25 million dollars a year make errors, what would make me think a 5 year old won't??? Adults need to get a grip. Just some information...most colleges don't give full rides to baseball players. It's not a money sport, so they don't get the money that other sports do. Second, do you realize the odds of making to the major leagues??? Astonomical!! So lighten people, let the kids have fun and teach them what the game is all about.