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31 years coaching experience/Worked Camps/Clinics on 6 Continents

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Are We Going Mad or is it Just Me? Probably Just Me.

From my vantage point.

Choosing Jesus is possibly a bad thing, but justifying actual theocracies is ok.

The United States is bad, but countries that deal without 2% of what the USA does is great.

Walls are ok when it has to do with any other country, but not with the USA.

Anti-Israel Jews are heroes, but conservative African Americans are sell outs and black Americans are only allowed to think a certain way.

You can't define a woman, yet we have people in positions of power fighting for women's rights.

The police in the USA are evil, yet you will defend the "moral" police in other countries as part of their culture.

People here fight to keep the freedom we have and that's bad, but you celebrate that women can drive in a foreign country...I mean it is 2024.

Women's sports are good, yet you support it being infiltrated by non-biological women.

I was a pretty hardcore conservative in high school.

Then in my 20's I found some empathy in me and swung to the opposite end to the Left.

Then as I grew in my experiences and then my faith I straddled the middle of the political spectrum.

But what has happened in the last 8 years in something that my most ardent Liberal friends feel like they're being pulled to the middle and that is because the Left is moving even more to the Left.

So Bill Maher, Alan Dershowitz and other traditional Liberals are looking around and agreeing with many "conservatives" on many issues because as the Left moves further left, the center is moving towards them.

I hope for the sake of everyone that we look in the mirror and see what we're doing.

Because it makes little to no sense.

But maybe, just maybe it's because I am aging and..."hey kids! Get off my lawn!"
















Monday, February 12, 2024

Teacher's Kids


Teaching is about relationships.

It probably always has been, but kids today need that relationship.

Teaching is getting the information across to the students.

It's not about lesson plans.

It's not about standards.

It's not about having the right signs up in your classroom.

It's not about using technology.

It's not about being deemed an effective teacher by someone who rarely comes into your class.

It's not about checking boxes.

It is about connecting with the students and hoping to inspire them to learn.

How do you measure that?

I don't know how you can officially do it with metrics and measurable data because a good teacher doesn't always have the best test scores.

All teachers can manipulate data to show that they have taught info by test scores, but that's not teaching either.

Teaching is about having kids in your classroom at the beginning of a school year, they learn, get smarter, but want to continue learning after they leave your class.

Want to see a good teacher?

Look at teacher's kids...how well do they do?

From my experiences, I can tell you it's not because of anything that happens in a building from 8 AM to 3 PM, but what happens in a building from 3 PM until the next day...in their homes.

The Outrageousness of Comparison


The Nazis and Adolph Hitler were able to come to power due to the ending of World War I.

What happened there directly led to Hitler taking power.

Let's look at some of the things that happened.

Germany, which did not start WWI but got involved due to the entangled treaty system, had to accept full responsibility for the war.

Germany had to give up land and economic areas to keep them weak both militarily and economically. 

They lost the Rhine land which was a huge loss economically.

Germans were living in Czechoslovakia and Austria.

Hitler and the Nazis took power with the argument to make Germany strong again.

Once these elected people took more power, they took back the Rhine land.

Once this elected and supported group took back that area, they invaded Austria and Czechoslovakia to unite the Germany people.

Under today's ideals, the Nazis were fighting back against colonialism and fighting to unite its people in a homeland that they had deserved and lived in for years.

From there, Hitler and the Nazis invaded Germany and spread out...they were not stopped, but appeased and their violence not only against all of Europe, but the Jews specifically could have possibly been stopped.

After WWII, Israel formed and the Jews said "never again!"

This is very similar to what Hamas has done in Palestine, except now, there is no appeasement.

War is terrible, but the blame must be put on who creates the violence.

It's not the country that has over and over given up land for peace with Jordan, Syria, Egypt and even Palestine.

That country has had to do extreme things to protect itself because every time it tries for peace, more violence is done against them.

The group that Israel is fighting today, if not stopped, wants the total annihilation of Israel.

You're either ok with that or you are not.

I am not.

And I hate that Hamas brought this upon the people in that region.

Thursday, November 30, 2023

Good Guys?

It is unpopular to state anymore, but there are good guys in this world and there are bad guys.

And the good guys are not the perfect guys, but they're still the good guys.

Have you ever noticed that the people who want a democracy (50% + 1) are those that are in the majority?

Oh, yea...just watch when they're not in the majority and how much they call certain issues "unfair", "discriminatory" and any other bad name you can come up with.

Yea, a democracy is nice if you're in the majority, but thank God we live in a Constitutional Republic where the majority can control issues, but the minority has rights and can be heard and can, through elections in states, etc gain an advantage.

It does not happen in any other country that is not the USA, Western Europe, Australia/New Zealand, and maybe a few South American countries.

Those places are majority rule and it is done by force.

That does not exist here.

If you think it does, you should visit some place outside of your bubble and better  yet, go live there for awhile.

It's probably actually cheaper to do so.

Then come back.

And.

Kiss the ground that you live on where freedom actually means something.



An Orphanage?

In 1996 and 1997, I had the privilege of working with Jim Mathews at New Washington High School in New Washington, Indiana for two seasons. Coach Mathews ended up winning a lot of basketball games, took his small school to success in the old one class era, and I was able to learn a lot about the game from him.

But in my, now, 33 years of coaching, I think this one quote from him rings true every single year. "Perry, the best place to coach is an orphanage." Me obviously looking perplexed because at the time, I had been coaching for only four years. "Why?" and his response...."No parents."

Now before you get offended if you're a parent you have to understand how much a head coach has to deal with. For every player there are at least on average two parents, probably more today. There are four grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends, girlfriends or boyfriends and it's high school basketball in Indiana. Everyone is a fan or played and knows a lot about the game here, so everyone has an opinion.

I am a parent, so I get it.

We love our children and we want them to be successful and "get what they deserve" and not to be "treated differently".

So here's the problem that comes around each season.

If you're a freshman on the freshman team, you wonder why you're not on the junior varsity.

If you're a freshman on the JV, you wonder why you're not starting.

If you're starting, you wonder why you're not on the varsity.

If you're on the varsity, you wonder why you're not playing.

If you're playing, you wonder why you're not starting.

If you're starting, you wonder why you're not getting more shots.

And if you're getting a lot of shots, you wonder why any shot you take is a bad shot according to the coaches.

Now, you tell me where all this confusion comes from?

It is amazing how student athletes will do what they're told and do it to the best of their ability until outside influences start to get involved.

How do I know it happens?

Because I've been doing this for 33 years and I have children, and I hear what people tell my kids and it really is what Pat Riley calls 'the disease of me'.

We like to hear good stuff about ourselves and if what we hear isn't consistent with what is happening in my immediate situation, I start to question and doubt and be unhappy.

More often than not, student athletes don't realize they're supposed to be unhappy, they just know what they're hearing isn't consistent with what is happening.

And man...these kids do not want to let all of those outside influences down.

So an orphanage, huh? Nah, parents are awesome in how they're involved in their kids lives. 

Parents are awesome because they care and love their child and really do want what's best for the team (most of the time).

I just wish all of the outside forces would process what they're saying to kids because I really don't think they mean any harm, but it does make a coaches job harder.

But hey, that's why we/they get paid the big money.

Friday, November 17, 2023

So You Want to be a Teacher?


So you want to be a teacher?

Well, let me tell you a few things that they don't tell you.

No, it's not the money, it's not the student issues, or the parent issues, or dealing with admin who have forgotten what it's like to be in the classroom, you're told all that when you're going through college or at holidays if you have relatives that teach.

All the negatives you will just have to experience for yourself and you know full well what you're getting into.

However.

There are some things that they either don't tell you or you're not prepared for when you become a teacher.

Some of your students go home to horrific lives.

They're hungry, thirsty, emotionally neglected, physically neglected and you might just be the only person that shows consistent love for them. And when you find out the personal stories of some of your students, it will hurt you.

Some of your students are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

In 25 years of teaching, I still forget that this is the story. I see them as children who haven't had to deal with the horrors of addiction yet, but you'd be wrong to think that.

If you do the teaching job for too long, some of your students will die or commit suicide.

It's awful, but if you're doing your job correctly, it will be something that hurts you ever time it happens.

Some of your students will be involved in custody hearings, have their homes burn down, or lose everything.

As a teacher, and if you're doing it right, it will hurt your soul every time.

As a teacher, you will be dealing with life issues as well and those students will get you through some of the hardest times of your life, if you're doing it right.

Lastly, all of your students will remember you and you will remember them from time to time.

They will commit suicide, die, be incarcerated, be addicted, divorced, lose their own children, get cancer, be abused, be the abuser, commit murder and be murdered.

And it never gets easier to hear these things.

But....

Those current and former students will go on to do successful things and they will include you as inspiration and you may never know how to take it.

Take the good as you take the bad...into your very being because the good will more than equal the things that are negative, but the negative are so heavy.

So you want to be a teacher?

Know this if you're doing it right it's a caring lifestyle that will affect you daily, monthly and yearly.

And the things that will keep you up at night will not be lesson plans, lack of money (maybe) or admins that are doing the new data based educational "thing".

It will be the love of your students and how what affects them, affects you.

For the rest of your life.