Friday, January 25, 2008

Just when you thought you knew everyone...

This is going to be pretty general and short (hopefully) because I still have to take out the trash and head over to the school (7:15) to get started on the preparations on our tournament (we lost by 12 last night but played great defense).

Anyway, one of the things that I really enjoy on the first day of the tournament is handing out coaches packets and meeting them. I met 2 coaches who are about 6'10" but are very soft-spoken, yet respected coaches in the boys game. But the best story came from someone that just made my entire LIFE!

Coach Kenny Blair... a football coach at Northeast Highschool is filling in for their girls' coach who had an unexpected death in the family and is attending to the family. I had the opportunity to speak to coach Bailey for about 30 minutes. From 1980-84 he played in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles... was a rookie the year they played the Raiders in the Super Bowl (Back when the roman numerals were still rather low). I was telling him that during those years, I was the BIGGEST Eagles fan. WHen I played outside football, I was either Ron Jaworski (now a commentator) or Warren (?) Carmichael. He was smiling ear to ear and just listened to me tell him how big those 2 were to me when I was little. "Just spoke to Carmichael 2 weeks ago." HOW BIG IS THAT?!?!!? Still keeps in contact with those guys. He went on to play for the Cardinals (when they were still in St. Louis) and has been a trainer for celebrities in Florida before coming here. His story is amazing! He spoke at the NFL Hall of Fame the last few years... He's trained players like : Shaq (but admits that he did NOT work with him on Free-throws), Allen Iverson, Tiger Woods, and others that I didn't make past those 3.

Most of all, what really caught my eye, was his passion for kids and his mission for them. He is such an encourager. Northeast isn't your Edmond-type school at all. There's a lot that goes on there... but here is a guy who teaches life-lessons in sports and has the experience the celebrity resume to go with it.

That was just so cool to talk about sports with a man who was on the field when I was experiencing them. I told him that I was so bummed when the Raiders won... and I gave them one more year before moving down the conference ladder to become what I am today... a Redskins fan! He got a chuckle out of that. :-)

Ok... gotta take out the trash and get to school!

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Just gotta love it

Ok... so I made probably the BIGGEST mistake this morning. I was putting away (ok I'm admitting to everyone that I didn't do this last night) Joel and Lindsay's leftover dinner away... put it down the sink... and saw a lime rine in the sink. HM... I'll run it all down the garbage disposal and make the sink smell better. OK... fine... but it's VERY LOUD! Needlesss to say, Lindsay (our light sleeper) woke up. Our little girl was up and I needed to leave to come to school. Well... I tried to get her to go back to sleep, but it just wasn't going to happen.
So what turned out to be kinda bad, got better. You know, that there's nothing like you little girl (or boy) who just let's you hold them, puts their head on your shoulder, and just hangs there. They feel comforted and it just gives me the warm-fuzzies all over. What was really funny, though, was that I guess she didn't like putting her head on my sweater, so she fought and fought flipping her diaper cloth until it landed on my shoulder where she could lay on it. It was quite humorous. I really hated to leave her and go to school. So I put her in my chair (she really likes my big chair) and she watched cartoons. Hope that she let her mom sleep in.
Big game tonight... down the street-rival Guthrie coming here. We have been playing well and I hope that we can keep this up!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

Love in an elevator... (Aerosmith)

Not really... but it caught your attention didn't it? :-)

Last weekend was a really tough one for me. Since our boys took their tournament trip to Hawaii in December... it was our turn to travel to our tournament... so we went to Ada, OK. Not exactly Hawaii, but it was fun to go somewhere outside of OKC and stay the night. The girls liked it and had a good time. And then we did have to play 3 games too. We won the first one big... 45-25. We then played Choctaw... who starts 3 girls over 6'. We hung with them and did things right and only trailed by 2 points at half. THen we quit making shots and stopped doing the things right we did in the first half... lost by 26. The final day, we were playing for 3rd place. We played a tough Ada team who shot 51% from the field and lost by 24 points. The only real good part of that Saturday... I took the girls bowling as a team and I bowled a 215. Only reason that I didn't bowl better was that in the 2nd and 3rd frames, I was trick bowling and showing off. I had strikes in 7 of 10 frames and in the 10th I bowled 2 strikes and an 8. It was cool.

So then this week was going to be the challenge. Long story short... we won Tuesday 63-49... that was really cool. And then on Friday, we knocked off the #6 team in our class (5A) 47-34 at their place... during Homecoming. It was an end to great week. We're starting to play better and gain some momentum. We play Guthrie on Tuesday and then we host our own tournament THursday thru Saturday. Hoping to get at least 2 wins (if not 3)!

Wish us luck!

Oh yea... the family is doing well too. :-) I really appreciate their support during basketball season. It's nice to come home and have the kids just hug the snot out of you... and especially nice when Jeanise is thrilled when we win... and comforting when we lose. You guys are great and I love you!

Monday, January 07, 2008

Monkey's off my back...

Not sure if that's a song title or not... but it should be. FINALLY GOT OUR WIN! We won Friday night... away at Chickasha... 50-45. We didn't exactly start off real steady, but we started really doing things right offensively in the 2nd quarter and on. It was a real battle and the girls really played together well. Some of the things that we've been working on during Christmas break really paid off.

Saturday night, however, didn't go as well. We lost to El Reno by 12. It was one of those nights where you just KNOW that someone put a plexiglass top over the rim and nothing was going in. We did a solid job defensively, but just couldn't get over the hump. We threw several different things at them, and they had to burn several time outs to make adjustments. Good to see that we can do that to teams.

Gotta run. Have 1 game tomorrow... RIVAL PIEDMONT! and then it's off to the Ada Tournament!

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Back in the Saddle Again

Well... WInter break is over and I started back to school today. Where most districts were SMART and waited until Monday to start back, we started back today. I shouldn't complain, though... we have MLK Jr. day as a Professional Day (others do not)... and we get 2 days to get back in the swing of practices before we play tomorrow night and Saturday night (others do not). Guess I should be happy about that.

Got back late from a freshman game tonight. I'm kinda worn out and tired from having to drive 1 hour to Harrah, OK. That's a job of a coach sometimes. I got to see my Freshman team in action and they're really improving. My freshman coach has really done a great job with these girls and I just hope that I can keep her on for next year! (she just finished at UCO getting her student teaching done and graduated in DEC.)

Well... I'm about to fall asleep. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and that we'll HOPEFULLY get our first win tomorrow night. Wish us luck!