My "B" team got their first win tonight, 38-14, which was really nice for a change, but the real damage was done by the "A" team, who wrecked shop BIG TIME with an 86 to 35 win over another 2-win team!
We weren't about to repeat LAST WEEK'S mistake!
The other team's coach was really upset, which, by the way, I understand completely. I mean, I can't tell you how many times some other team has laid a 40+ on one of my teams. You hate it and it leaves you with a big knot in the pit of your stomach, but you just have to take it, congratulate the other team, and thank them for pointing out your weaknesses.
I wasn't going to have another "let our foot off the gas and let the other team back into the game" moments, so we never let up.
Sorry!
Not only that, but we have a really big game coming up next week against the second-place team who, as of this writing, only has one loss. A loss to them means finishing second in our district because we lose the head-to-head tie-breaker and we'd have the same season record. All that said, we needed to use this game to tune up for next week.
Sorry, coach! You were in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong team!
We wanted to send a statement to the rest of the district as well. We want them to know that the old Cowboys are back! You know, the ones who were dropping 30+ point wins on practically everyone not all that long ago! Well, the pure fear factor to everyone else was worth the trouble.
Well, I hope it was, at any rate!
So, we're now 8-0 with one regular-season game to go, and then comes our tournament!
We want to take that one, too!!!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
Well, THIS one wasn't easy!
This week, my undefeated 7th-graders went up against a team that had only 2 wins coming into the contest.....
DANGEROUS!!!!
We won the game, but we had to fight tooth and nail for it! Final score; 58-54!
Games like this are dangerous for any number of reasons! First, everyone brings their "A" game when the first-place team rolls in, no exceptions! Second, your team is liable to come in overconfident having seen the other team's record. Third, the combination of the above AND a cold-shooting night from several of the better players on the team makes for one very exciting night indeed!
So, we're now 7-0 with two regular season games to go! This week, another 2 win team rolls in and then the second-place, one-loss team comes in for the finale! Should be exciting!
DANGEROUS!!!!
We won the game, but we had to fight tooth and nail for it! Final score; 58-54!
Games like this are dangerous for any number of reasons! First, everyone brings their "A" game when the first-place team rolls in, no exceptions! Second, your team is liable to come in overconfident having seen the other team's record. Third, the combination of the above AND a cold-shooting night from several of the better players on the team makes for one very exciting night indeed!
So, we're now 7-0 with two regular season games to go! This week, another 2 win team rolls in and then the second-place, one-loss team comes in for the finale! Should be exciting!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Well, that's about as easy as it gets!
Dear Blogfan,
You know I never like to take a win for granted. I mean, everyone knows the old "on any given Sunday" mantra; any team can go unconscious and hit everything they throw up on almost any occasion and, at the same time, the other team can go arctic frigid and not be able to make the simplest lay-up.
I know.....I know!
Well, that didn't happen last night! The team we played last night came into our game with the same record we had....if you're dyslexic! We came in 5-0 and they came in without a win; 0-5.
We left 6-0 and they kept their perfect streak alive as well!
I may have seen more inept teams at this level, but I can't remember when. They simply could not get the ball across half-court on us! The score at halftime was 30 to nothing! At the half, the other coach asked if we could run the clock during the second half. I said "sure, why not?" I subbed out all of my starters and played only 3nd and 3rd string guys the entire second half. With those conditions, we only scored 12 more points for a total of 42.
They scored 6!
Not 6 in the 3rd quarter, or 6 in the 4th quarter, or 6 in the first minute and a half of the third.....
6
TOTAL!!!
I felt sorry for them! Having been in their shoes more than I'd care to mention over the years, I did everything I could to keep it from becoming an embarrassment, but, short of simply stalling the entire second half, I don't know what else I could've done to keep the margin any less than I did.
I hope karma pays me back in the end!
The other battle I've been facing has come to an end very much in our favor! At this point last week, I had about 15 guys failing one or more classes and they were going to become ineligible as of a week from this coming Thursday. That would force them to miss their end-of-season tournament and their last regular-season game. Fortunately, their efforts in tutoring (and my size 12 up their backside) paid off. NOW, with grades final as of this afternoon, only 4 guys are being lost to grades! Woo-hoo! AND (and this is a big "and"), only one of those is an "A" team guy!
In the immortal words of the Taco Bell guy, we're "good to go!"
Now, if we can avoid getting the "big head!"
We'll see!
You know I never like to take a win for granted. I mean, everyone knows the old "on any given Sunday" mantra; any team can go unconscious and hit everything they throw up on almost any occasion and, at the same time, the other team can go arctic frigid and not be able to make the simplest lay-up.
I know.....I know!
Well, that didn't happen last night! The team we played last night came into our game with the same record we had....if you're dyslexic! We came in 5-0 and they came in without a win; 0-5.
We left 6-0 and they kept their perfect streak alive as well!
I may have seen more inept teams at this level, but I can't remember when. They simply could not get the ball across half-court on us! The score at halftime was 30 to nothing! At the half, the other coach asked if we could run the clock during the second half. I said "sure, why not?" I subbed out all of my starters and played only 3nd and 3rd string guys the entire second half. With those conditions, we only scored 12 more points for a total of 42.
They scored 6!
Not 6 in the 3rd quarter, or 6 in the 4th quarter, or 6 in the first minute and a half of the third.....
6
TOTAL!!!
I felt sorry for them! Having been in their shoes more than I'd care to mention over the years, I did everything I could to keep it from becoming an embarrassment, but, short of simply stalling the entire second half, I don't know what else I could've done to keep the margin any less than I did.
I hope karma pays me back in the end!
The other battle I've been facing has come to an end very much in our favor! At this point last week, I had about 15 guys failing one or more classes and they were going to become ineligible as of a week from this coming Thursday. That would force them to miss their end-of-season tournament and their last regular-season game. Fortunately, their efforts in tutoring (and my size 12 up their backside) paid off. NOW, with grades final as of this afternoon, only 4 guys are being lost to grades! Woo-hoo! AND (and this is a big "and"), only one of those is an "A" team guy!
In the immortal words of the Taco Bell guy, we're "good to go!"
Now, if we can avoid getting the "big head!"
We'll see!
Sunday, January 10, 2010
football, basketball, and any other sport with balls
Sorry, did I really say that?
It's kind of like the Solar System Unit; you just can't avoid that costly "Uranus" joke, can you?
MDB and I had the opportunity to attend a couple of NFL games here in town this year and I have to admit something; I'm more amazed by the athletic prowess of these athletes now than I ever was! Why do I say that? If you've ever been to a game, you don't need to wonder. It goes something like this:
Kickoff, 5-minute TV timeout; first series team 'A', 7-minute TV timeout; 1st series team 'B', punt and return, 5-minute TV timeout. 2nd series team 'A', 2 minute station identification; 2nd series team 'B', break to the network for highlights, finish 2nd series team 'B', 10 minute break at the quarter change, etc., etc., etc.!!!!
OMA!!!! - how do these guys manage to stay warmed up enough to actually play football when they're actually PLAYING??? No WONDER there are so many pulled muscles in the NFL!!!
Speaking of the NFL, my beloved Browns hired Mike Holmgren as President al la Big Tuna in Miami and his first decision was to retain Eric Mangini as Browns Head Coach. Smart move, in my opinion. First of all, Mangini said (and I believe him) that he inherited "a mess" when he got there and he needed to do some pretty drastic things to turn things around. Since the Browns truly were "a mess" under Romeo Crenell, his claim isn't too hard to believe. Secondly, he had to turn over a large (and I mean LARGE) percentage of his personnel since they were used to how Romeo did things and would resist whatever change he brought about (obviously!). Finally, when his people and his system eventually caught on, the Browns finished with a 4-game winning streak and looked pretty good (especially on the defensive side of the ball!!!) doing it, so it would simply not have been fair to blow the Browns up AGAIN and not give Mangini a chance to finish what he started. Frankly, it's a wonder that Mangini isn't still in New York. As far as I can tell, the only reason he had eventual failure there is the fact that management crammed Bret Favre down his throat and the old man simply didn't have what it took to win over the course of a whole season! As long as Mangini was allowed to do things his way, the Jets were having success!
I have a feeling that the Browns are on their way up and the rest of the AFC North (with the possible exception of Baltimore) is on its way down. Too bad for Pittsburgh, too! I really love those guys with their silly little towels! NOT!!!
Basketball is going really well this year so far!! My 'A' team has won 5 games and has not lost as of yet; a precarious situation for any basketball coach! Why precarious? Well, the dangers are numerous! First, in Texas, we have "no pass-no play" to deal with. Players who don't pass their classes are not eligible to compete in extracurricular activities. Grades for the third 6 weeks will be posted as of Thursday this coming week and ineligibility begins on Thursday the following week, which means that any of my players who become ineligible due to grades are finished for the season! Not a pretty picture for us if any of my "A" team players become ineligible! Second, our schedule has us playing only 4 more regular season games. Three of those four games are against opponents who have a total of 3 wins between them. In other words, they're not very good! The danger there is that we'll get soft and start to think that we're "all that," setting us up for a fall in our last game, which is against an opponent who has only lost one game, that loss coming to a team that we only beat by 5 points. In other words, they're pretty good! I'd hate to have 8 wins going into the final game of the year with a team with an overinflated estimate of their own abilities only to have it handed to us by a team who's hungry and more than ready for us! Lastly, we have a real chance at injury in any one of those games. We're perilously thin in the front court and any injury there could sink us very easily. I've already lost my starting '4' to a hand injury and his back-up is currently failing two classes. We could put ourselves in a position to lose that final game and wind up in a tie for first with the first tie-breaker being head to head competition. If we lose that final game and wind up tied with that team, they would win the championship despite having the same record as us!
Oooohhhh!!! My head is swimming!
Somehow, we've developed an adversarial relationship with our girls programs and I'm not really sure why! The 8th grade girls have a new coach this year and she seems to think that her program is the only one that counts despite the fact that they're not really very good and they don't seem to be in a position to really make anything happen this year! It's getting old!
Back to football! The Bengals lost (what a surprise!) and the Eagles got beat, rather badly, by the Cowgirls! All I can say is that it's about time that team from Dallas lived up to all the hype! However, who else out there is ready to finally agree with Rush Limbaugh and state that Donovan McNabb is perhaps the most over-hyped quarterback of this generation and the main reason for it is his race!
If Donovan McNabb were white, would anyone say that he's a perennial all-pro or, as the illustrious commentator Charles Barkley stated yesterday, the greatest quarterback in Eagles history? Uhhhh.....anyone out there ever heard of Norm Van Brocklin?
That's what I thought!
McNabb is good, no question; but the "greatest quarterback in Eagles history?" I don't even think he cracks the top 5!!! I mean, come on! Van Brocklin, Cunningham, Snead, Jurgensen, and Jaworski all played for the Eagles! I'm sure if I dig a little harder, I could come up with 5 or 6 more who are better than McNabb! Let's face it; McNabb is good and the Eagles will only go as far as he takes them but at this point, he's not even the greatest quarterback on the Eagles roster RIGHT NOW, let alone the greatest in Eagles history!!!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!
It's kind of like the Solar System Unit; you just can't avoid that costly "Uranus" joke, can you?
MDB and I had the opportunity to attend a couple of NFL games here in town this year and I have to admit something; I'm more amazed by the athletic prowess of these athletes now than I ever was! Why do I say that? If you've ever been to a game, you don't need to wonder. It goes something like this:
Kickoff, 5-minute TV timeout; first series team 'A', 7-minute TV timeout; 1st series team 'B', punt and return, 5-minute TV timeout. 2nd series team 'A', 2 minute station identification; 2nd series team 'B', break to the network for highlights, finish 2nd series team 'B', 10 minute break at the quarter change, etc., etc., etc.!!!!
OMA!!!! - how do these guys manage to stay warmed up enough to actually play football when they're actually PLAYING??? No WONDER there are so many pulled muscles in the NFL!!!
Speaking of the NFL, my beloved Browns hired Mike Holmgren as President al la Big Tuna in Miami and his first decision was to retain Eric Mangini as Browns Head Coach. Smart move, in my opinion. First of all, Mangini said (and I believe him) that he inherited "a mess" when he got there and he needed to do some pretty drastic things to turn things around. Since the Browns truly were "a mess" under Romeo Crenell, his claim isn't too hard to believe. Secondly, he had to turn over a large (and I mean LARGE) percentage of his personnel since they were used to how Romeo did things and would resist whatever change he brought about (obviously!). Finally, when his people and his system eventually caught on, the Browns finished with a 4-game winning streak and looked pretty good (especially on the defensive side of the ball!!!) doing it, so it would simply not have been fair to blow the Browns up AGAIN and not give Mangini a chance to finish what he started. Frankly, it's a wonder that Mangini isn't still in New York. As far as I can tell, the only reason he had eventual failure there is the fact that management crammed Bret Favre down his throat and the old man simply didn't have what it took to win over the course of a whole season! As long as Mangini was allowed to do things his way, the Jets were having success!
I have a feeling that the Browns are on their way up and the rest of the AFC North (with the possible exception of Baltimore) is on its way down. Too bad for Pittsburgh, too! I really love those guys with their silly little towels! NOT!!!
Basketball is going really well this year so far!! My 'A' team has won 5 games and has not lost as of yet; a precarious situation for any basketball coach! Why precarious? Well, the dangers are numerous! First, in Texas, we have "no pass-no play" to deal with. Players who don't pass their classes are not eligible to compete in extracurricular activities. Grades for the third 6 weeks will be posted as of Thursday this coming week and ineligibility begins on Thursday the following week, which means that any of my players who become ineligible due to grades are finished for the season! Not a pretty picture for us if any of my "A" team players become ineligible! Second, our schedule has us playing only 4 more regular season games. Three of those four games are against opponents who have a total of 3 wins between them. In other words, they're not very good! The danger there is that we'll get soft and start to think that we're "all that," setting us up for a fall in our last game, which is against an opponent who has only lost one game, that loss coming to a team that we only beat by 5 points. In other words, they're pretty good! I'd hate to have 8 wins going into the final game of the year with a team with an overinflated estimate of their own abilities only to have it handed to us by a team who's hungry and more than ready for us! Lastly, we have a real chance at injury in any one of those games. We're perilously thin in the front court and any injury there could sink us very easily. I've already lost my starting '4' to a hand injury and his back-up is currently failing two classes. We could put ourselves in a position to lose that final game and wind up in a tie for first with the first tie-breaker being head to head competition. If we lose that final game and wind up tied with that team, they would win the championship despite having the same record as us!
Oooohhhh!!! My head is swimming!
Somehow, we've developed an adversarial relationship with our girls programs and I'm not really sure why! The 8th grade girls have a new coach this year and she seems to think that her program is the only one that counts despite the fact that they're not really very good and they don't seem to be in a position to really make anything happen this year! It's getting old!
Back to football! The Bengals lost (what a surprise!) and the Eagles got beat, rather badly, by the Cowgirls! All I can say is that it's about time that team from Dallas lived up to all the hype! However, who else out there is ready to finally agree with Rush Limbaugh and state that Donovan McNabb is perhaps the most over-hyped quarterback of this generation and the main reason for it is his race!
If Donovan McNabb were white, would anyone say that he's a perennial all-pro or, as the illustrious commentator Charles Barkley stated yesterday, the greatest quarterback in Eagles history? Uhhhh.....anyone out there ever heard of Norm Van Brocklin?
That's what I thought!
McNabb is good, no question; but the "greatest quarterback in Eagles history?" I don't even think he cracks the top 5!!! I mean, come on! Van Brocklin, Cunningham, Snead, Jurgensen, and Jaworski all played for the Eagles! I'm sure if I dig a little harder, I could come up with 5 or 6 more who are better than McNabb! Let's face it; McNabb is good and the Eagles will only go as far as he takes them but at this point, he's not even the greatest quarterback on the Eagles roster RIGHT NOW, let alone the greatest in Eagles history!!!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!
Thursday, January 07, 2010
5-0, here we go!!!
Well, dear blogfan, we started off 2010 just as we finished 2009; with a lopsided victory and a comfortable maintenance of our first-place credentials, 48-17!
What was interesting this time was the official. He's a guy who's coached at one of our upcoming rivals (a team we have traditionally had a hard time against) for many years but recently retired a couple of years ago. He came to me after the game and told me that our group was the best 7th-grade group he'd seen in a very long time!
Pretty high praise!
Our challenge now is to make sure everyone passes their classes, no one gets injured, and we don't get overconfident!
We'll see how it goes!
What was interesting this time was the official. He's a guy who's coached at one of our upcoming rivals (a team we have traditionally had a hard time against) for many years but recently retired a couple of years ago. He came to me after the game and told me that our group was the best 7th-grade group he'd seen in a very long time!
Pretty high praise!
Our challenge now is to make sure everyone passes their classes, no one gets injured, and we don't get overconfident!
We'll see how it goes!
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