Soccer To Me

The Oswego Panther Soccer Club hosted a tournament this Memorial Day weekend. Being the helpful sort and dedicated parents, Kim and I volunteered our services. Getting a break on next year’s fees increased our helpfulness, though not our dedication. We both took parking duty.

 I led off with the early shift on Saturday and Sunday. I came to realize you can really learn a lot about people simply waving them to a parking spot. I learned that some people are genuinely nice. They smile and wave as you direct them to their spot.

And some are asses, complaining about the distance of the parking slot to their child’s soccer field. The longest distance anyone had to walk was a few hundred yards, but that didn’t stop people from trying to negotiate special parking privileges.

 I learned that some idiots, I mean parents felt the need to drive 45 miles an hour, two feet from the car ahead of them because either 1) they’re late for the game or 2) they’re tired of sitting in line to get a parking spot. Folks, when your team is one of 146 participants, you have to expect there to be other people arriving and therefore there will be some delays.

 I learned that if you’re young and beautiful you get some perks. I say that because when I started my shift on Saturday morning I was loaded in an oversized golf cart, taken to a parking area and dropped off. No instructions on where to put the cars, etc. That’s ok. I’m a college graduate. I can identify the parking pattern and direct people in. But then right after my shift ended, my wife Kim (the young and beautiful that I mentioned above) arrived to do her shift. She texted me that she (and my oldest daughter Katelyn) were placed at a corner to make sure people DIDN’T park in a particular private lot. She was issued a reflective vest AND was given a radio!!! A vest and radio! I got a grass lot with gnats and no instructions. I learned a grass lot is what you get when you’re not young and beautiful.

 And I learned that to be a serious, devoted soccer parent there are requirements. You must own an extra large vehicle. Minivans are standard but if you could own an offensively large SUV that would be even better.

 Once you arrive at the soccer game you are not ready for the game (and let’s face it, not a worthy parent) if you do not have the following supplies: Cooler loaded down with plenty of drinks and snacks – don’t forget, this game is going to last an hour, you wouldn’t want to deprive yourself; at least three parachute chairs; a popup extra large umbrella to provide shade from the sun for an hour or protect you from any rain; a couple of extra soccer balls if for no other reason than so that they can roll wildly down the parking aisles as other cars are trying to park; a plastic Red Flyer Wagon to carry all of this; and please don’t forget the cell phone. You’re not a serious soccer parent if you’re not weaving down the parking aisle pulling the wagon behind you with one arm while the other has the cell phone plastered to your ear as you exclaim “I know right? So where are you? OH! I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE! You’ll want to take (insert name of local road) and turn left. The field is right there. Can you park next to us? We have the oversized SUV taking up three stalls, so we should be easy to find.”

 And I learned that since the soccer games take an hour, the parents with the offensively large SUVs have no idea what takes place in the parking lot after they walk out – not that I exercised that new piece of education.

Third Time's A Charm - Running With The Wolves

The Trilogy is now complete.  The 3^rd Annual Running of the Wolves 5K took place Sunday morning, May 6th.

Having run in the first two I needed something special for the 3^rd.  While I didn’t entirely embarrass myself in the first two runnings, I did run slower the second year compared to the first.  I needed to reverse that trend.  It’s time to get serious.  First thing I needed was a little divine intervention and found it at the race registration.

The stars were in alignment as I was assigned #25 for the race (as opposed to Sosa’s #21 last  year) - obviously paying tribute to former Cub and my favorite - Derrek Lee.

This would certainly send me off in the right direction to better my time of 35:12 last year (one minute, 4 seconds slower than my inaugural race).  But it wouldn’t be enough, so to make sure I could last the entire race, I bulked up, weighing in 15 pounds heavier than last year's race.  In retrospect, increasing weight for a distance race isn’t optimal, but the Twix and Kit Kat were going down easy.

OK, Divine Intervention and bulking up taken care of, what’s next?  Research!  My co-worker Katie told me about an article “The Couch-to-5K Running Plan” by Josh Clark.  I trained by printing off the article. Actually I didn't want to do too much too fast, so I had Katie  print it off for me. I did read it though. Well, actually I got winded a few paragraphs into it so I set it down but the idea was solid. 

Batting cleanup – science.  Aerodynamics to be specific.  I cut my hair one notch shorter than normal to provide the sleek line.  What I forgot at the time was that I wear a hat when I'm outdoors to protect my folically challenged dome from the sun.  Aerodynamics may have been cancelled out by the bill of my cap (not to mention the sluggishness of my gait).

Since shoes make the runner, I went out the week before and grabbed some comfortable Nikes that were on sale. According to their designer, Nike shoes are guaranteed to not tear an ACL. I needed all the help I could get.

And finally, like last year, perhaps the most important piece of equipment is a fully charged IPod.  I have found from the previous two 5Ks that not only is the music uplifting and can set a nice pace, if you crank the volume loud enough you can't hear your lungs wheeze and crackle.  Tim McGraw took me out for the first half and Straight No Chaser carried me home.

Did it work?  Was I successful?  Well, let’s define success.  Did I better my two previous times?  No.  I scorched the finish line at 36:23, coming in 5^th in my age group.

Did I escape with injury?  Definitely.  Just some stretched, tired leg muscles.  But no torn ACLs, slipped disks or high ankle sprains.  On the extra high side, my daughter Ally won a medal for finishing second in her age group and both she and my other daughter Kristi knocked five minutes off their times from last year.

And in the end, that’s what is really important.  Continuing a family tradition with my girls, times be damned.

Are You New Around Here?

Something that has been bothering me for the last year, maybe more, is why major league ballplayers seem to not know how to play baseball. Maybe it’s something that has been around forever, but for some reason I am just painfully aware of it the last few years. More and more I’m seeing players make fundamental mistakes. Even stranger is that I don’t notice it in the NFL, NBA or NHL. That could be because the NFL and NBA are nothing more than a distraction to get from the World Series to Spring Training and the NHL is, well, for Canadians.

 Further compounding the mystery are the announcers who will mention it and (if it’s a rookie) say “he’s new up here, he’ll have to learn to hit the cutoff man”. I get it if he mechanically threw the ball and missed the cutoff man, we all make physical mistakes. But how do you not know to hit the cutoff man, or move back to your base on a line-drive or take the extra base if the cutoff man is missed?

 These are basic laws that were taught to all of us in little league. In my mind, if you can’t learn these basics (and execute them) then you don’t advance to the next level. And if you don’t advance to the next level you sure as hell don’t get to the Major Leagues.

 I can understand if a ballplayer is just SO GOOD that they completely outclass their peers in Little League, high school, maybe even college. So possibly they skate by, missing some of the fundamentals (no need to hit the cutoff man if you can throw a laser to home to nail the slow moving runner). But by the time you get to the minor leagues, Rookie through AAA, you are moving closer to the skinny part of the funnel.

 The announcers or coaches will talk about a player’s mistake like the player is new to baseball. He’s new to the majors, sure, but he’s been playing baseball for the better part of fifteen years. The rules haven’t changed (aside from T-Ball, where now EVERYONE has to bat, score isn’t kept and EVERYONE gets a trophy). But it’s still four bases, six outs per inning and home team bats last.

 When I got married nineteen years ago, I was new to the marriage thing. But I wasn’t new to life. Just because I was married didn’t mean I didn’t know to get up and go to work in the morning, use a fork and knife to eat, and take a shower each day. It wasn’t like I all of sudden turned soup, salad and steak into finger food and Kim said “well, he’s new to marriage, he’ll figure out where the utensils are.”

 If you could hit curveballs in the minors and then can’t hit Roy Halladay’s, that’s simply the Selection Process weeding out the weak. But when you run to second as the batter bunts the ball in the air to the pitcher, . . . that’s what my five year old does because he doesn’t know the game. How can you be promoted to the highest level of baseball in the world with execution like that?