Oh....those are Pretty

My lovely wife the other night was talking about what her favorite song was as a kid. I can still remember my first favorite song of all time......."Rhinestone Cowboy" by Glen Campbell. Yep, in fact he is one of the reasons I am as cool as I am today. Owe it mostly to Glenny C. really, I mean he is the one that taught me to not really mind the rain and really a smile can hide all the pain. But know this....and know this for sure, you better know that you're down when you're ridin' the train that's takin' the long way.

Finally......The big day

Well apparently there is a birthday month....Then weeks.....Then days.....

My only question is, once you actually have the big birthday....Does the rest of the month then count or does it really not matter after the actual day.


Well happy birthday sis...Oh and I think we need to correct my lovely wife, it is only number 28 this year....sheesh you would think she could subtract or something.

Love ya and hope you have a most wonderful day!

Thanks To All the Kids...

As the day began I barely had time to eat breakfast, but I managed that along with a shower before heading down to the football field to watch the games before ours. It was a perfect morning and even a more perfect day, with enough chill in the air to give you goose bumps but a second later the sun would warm you nicely.

Well the boys did it, they stepped up with determination in their eyes, knew exactly what they were needed to do and did it. They stood up and were not intimidated by the challenge, never once thinking they couldn't play with the team that beat them soundly twice earlier in the season.

The best part of the day was that both teams played flawless football, no stupid penalties and drives that lasted minutes on end, making every possession more and more critical.

From the first snap though the boys never let up, scoring the first two touchdown and completing the two point conversions after the TD's since their are no field goals. 16 to 0, and then it happened. Right before half the eagles scored 16-6 and then got the ball first after halftime. The question was could our boys hold up to the barrage of the eagles that had never gone into a halftime losing. You new they were going to come out fighting. That is just what they did starting on their own 20 yard line, they drove down the field, holding the ball, taking three plays to complete first downs, the chess game began. Being 6th and 7th graders it is only a matter of time before they wear down and make a mistake....So who makes the mistake?

Well they did, on 4th and 5 and holding the ball for over 5 minutes they fumbled the snap...it didn't matter who recovered it was our ball anyway. Couple of snaps later we were in the endzone again and it was 22-6....And that was the way it ended up. The team that couldn't score an offensive touchdown for 4 games scored 7 TD's in the last two to win the Sheboygan Youth Football Championship Lightning division.

I can't help but enjoy the kids on this team, they came in as athletes and by the end of the season they transformed into football players. I have to thank every one of them for a truly wonderful time that will bring me back again next year.

GO BADGERS!

Every K.I.S.S begins with K.....

Recently I wrote about the kids that I am helping coach football. The season was getting ugly in that we couldn't get the offense to score a touchdown.

That was two games ago and what I realized is that we needed to employ the K(eep) I(t) S(imple) S(tupid)......method. Yep the KISS method has been in place and let me give you a idea of what happened last night.

Start of the game we received the ball first, our return man ran up the middle then broke to the outside and was tackled on 40 yard line....So we got 60 yards to go to score our first touchdown. I convinced the head coach to stop calling wide plays...Like pitches and sweeps because the kids have to far to run and they get called for a hold or a clip because they couldn't get to the outside, I know seems logical now doesn't it.

So first down and ten with 60 yards to go.....The kids come out of the huddle....Line up.....And a flag goes flying before the snap....Craziness, right? I know....

Well our center didn't have his mouth guard all the way in...So 10 yards....Ok so now we are 1st and 20......Out of the huddle and 70 yards to go for a touchdown. Down....Set.....FLAG!!!!!!........

Ok, now we haven't even snapped a ball yet and we get a mouth guard out of the mouth and now we get a false start because he lost balance....So much for our KISS method. The Head Coach looked at me and I told him to keep the course....We haven't even snapped the ball yet, no need to freak out.

So lets re-cap here..No snaps and we are 1st and 30....On our 20 yard line and 80 yards to the touchdown.....

So finally we get the snap...The quarterback hands the ball off to our running back and he hits the hole next to the center (the one whole for those who played football).....I see him make a move on the linebacker waiting and it was off to the races....He hit the 40...the 50...the 40...the 30...the 20...A dive at his feet...the 10....Stumbling at the 5.....And catching his balance in the end zone for a touchdown.....

As the coaches were all running down the sidelines I sat back with my arms in the air....The head coach turned and looked at me....."What the hell are you smiling about" he says....My response "the incompetence of our kids"

by the end of the night we had one kid with three touchdowns and about 178 yards rushing and another with one touchdown and 80 yards.

The result is that our boys get to play for the championship on Saturday at 11:00...The team they play....Well it is the only team that has beaten us this year..And they have done it twice. Thank god for third chances, right?

Watch that first step.....It is a doozy

As I turned into the alleyway the other day to pick up Dominic from school, I see him on top of the playground equipment. As he sees me driving up it was like he has an escape route all planned. He runs across the suspended bridge where he comes to the stairs....He climbs the stairs and gets to the monkey bars which he jumps right to the third rung and starts to go across two at a time, all the while looking back at me to see where I am in the alley way...Like a race to the finish. He then finds the slide to which he jumps into and slides down so fast as though he is headed to the bat cave. He then starts to run across the playground....He sees me getting closer....He runs faster with his backpack bouncing up and down.....He is going to beat me......It is going to be close.....WHAM!!!!

yup...Face first into the metal pole......Remember bugs bunny cartoons when one of the characters runs into something and the arms and legs keep going forward....It was something like that only there was blood.....Yup....Lots of blood gushing out of his nose....

Look it hurts enough to get hit in the nose but between the blood and the tears...Oh yeah and the dizziness....I couldn't help but giggle.....Well it WAS kind of funny.

After seeing the school nurse and a couple of blood stained tissues and of course a treat when we got home, all was right with the world.

I love a challenge

I know I haven't posted in a while, but really I have been busy.

Mainly it has been my football team.......No not the Packers, can't control that. It is the 6th and 7th graders that I am coaching. Here is the deal, we have a great bunch of athletes, better than most teams in the league. The problem is we have to create football players out of these athletes.

We are currently 1-2, both losses have been by the same team who have less talent but execute their four plays better than we can run 10 plays. So the the divine ones voice is ringing in my head at this very moment. "when everything is out of control, stop and go back to square one", so that is just we are going to do. As a coaching staff we need to stop yelling and screaming at these kids to try to motivate and go back to square one, teaching the basics of football. So the head coach and I sat down yesterday, arranged the line ups slightly and wrote up four plays, three runs and one pass. Simple, simple, simple, simple. We don't care if we win another game but they will learn the basics of football better than any other team in the league....four plays, four plays, four plays.

Make the lightbulb turn on.....That is the goal.....