Schools Out!!

School has officially ended in Campbell County. I should be a free man.

Why do I find myself back in my office on Monday morning at 7:40?

Put me up for employee of the year. Then slap me.

I actually have arrived at this hour for a couple reasons mainly to finish a paper that I've procrastinated on for my class that starts at 9. I guess I should be doing that instead of blogging.

We're on the back stretch of a 10 game set in 6 days. This is probably he most difficult time that I've had coaching in my brief career. Purely coaching. Obviously Trinity's level of difficulty will never be matched.

It's actually been a lot of fun to be challenged as a coach. It makes me feel like I'm actually able to coach. To balance 15 kids... ages ranging 14-17 isn't easy. For 90% of them, they played Babe Ruth last year, which consisted of abour 20 games. That means in these 6 days we're playing 1/2 of that schedule, and we've already played more games than they ever have previously.

I've found especially lately that some of the skills that I developed/learned while banging my head against the wall at TBC have been especially helpful. For instance, I've been sick for about 4 1/2 weeks. Wednesday or so last week I finally broke down and went to the doctor.

I have pnuemonia in my left lung. Which would explain the extreme difficulty in breathing, along with other wonderful symptoms. I knew I was sick... not admit to the hospital sick... but sick all the same.

I did talk my way through not going to the hospital.

During that time, I operated on little sleep and felt/proved that I could be productive.

The other side of my learning curve for the coaching has been the psychological approach to my team. SO much of coaching is psychology. I knew that at the college, but was just trying to develop it at that point. This team has allowed me to really implement what I want and the players have responded better very well.

I think everybody in the world knows that coaching and athletics has something to do with motivation. Yet the average onlooker knows little of the challenges of a coach when it comes to crafting motivation. I'm absolutely still learning, it's just been nice to actually see result from players you've cultivated for three months.

Back to the 10 game stretch. I talk about motivationg... we're 2-4 so far since Thursday. Ouch. In that we played a 19 year old team on Thursday and dropped two games by a combined 3 runs. Friday we played terrible and lost to Belle Fourche's varsity squad in two games that were only seperated by four runs. Most my kids are 15, one is 16 and two are 17. I also have two 14 year olds.

Yesterday we basically played a team at the same age. Won the first one 7-5 and it was BY FAR the worst game they've played all year. Motivation happened after that game. We won the second game 17-7 in a 5 inning mercy.

We play a really tough squad today in Rapid. Then finish this streak up tomorrow at home against another tough Rapid team. Then Thursday we head to Lewiston, Montana for a weekend tourney.

On my off day Saturday Samantha and I went to my parent's subdivision to hit up some yard sales. There's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 houses selling their junk on Saturday. I'll post up some pictures later and talk about our purchases!