"Believe"



[Back]: Nick Suter, Cody Barry, Elijah Andrushenko, Brady Shearer, Dante Kelly, Tanner Tutterow, Kyler Brudwick, TJ Brown [Front]: Anthony Schulz, Lake Sullivan, Alex Martin, Dalton Neer

Trust on 3...

This weekend a team that a good friend of mine and I coach finally achieved the ultimate goal of all competitive sports teams. We won a tournament, and beat two very good teams in the process. We competed on the big stage in front of a rather large crowd and came out on top.

For three years we (nick and I) have been preaching to "believe" in the hard work they put in, day in and day out and to "trust" the system, each other and the coaches. This all came to fruition this weekend and it was a great satisfaction to be apart of bringing these kids the joy I took for granted as a player in my AAU days.

The first day we lost to a good team, but we didn't quit. We made it to the semi-final game by winning our pool and came up against a Lynden team that is very talented, one that we hadn't beat in two years. We won that game on pure team effort. A couple kids really stepped up and provided a spark off the bench, defensively and from beyond the arc.

In the championship we played quite possibly the best defensive performance I've seen as a coach, it was amazing to see this kids trust in the system and each other the way they did, they didn't reach and foul if they got beat off the dribble because they knew they had someone in the help-side position there if they needed. Our posts got every single rebound that came there way and our guards had very little turnovers.

All in all I think this is the kind of win that pushes a team to the next level, the smiles on their faces was worth every hour that I've put into this team and I bet they would say the same.

Moral of the Story:

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.” - Malcolm S. Forbes

"Impossible is Nothing"

Definitions of impossible on the Web:

not capable of occurring or being accomplished or dealt with; "an impossible dream"; "an impossible situation"

totally unlikely

something that cannot be done; "his assignment verged on the impossible"

"Impossible Is Nothing"

As a fan and a player I've been apart of some amazing sporting events that most people would have told you were "impossible" growing up playing AAU basketball we were fairly competitive and won a lot of tournaments around Whatcom county and occasionally down in Seattle and across the mountains in Eastern Washington. Being part of a team where something "impossible" is achieved is one of the best feelings you can imagine. Every once in a while a signature win would come along and define our season, for example when we were in seventh grade we played a team called the Ice Men in the Western Washington University tournament. The Ice Men were a select team that picked kids from all over Seattle, pretty daunting task for a bunch of po-dunk kids from the small town of Ferndale. I don't know if I ever received a pep-talk that resonated more to me than this one but the only thing one of our coaches said (Scottie Locker) was, "hey boys, they're big, they're fast and they're strong... but they put their pants on one leg at a time like us, lets go out there and play our game and see what happens!" Not too lengthy of a speech but we went out and these (considerably more talented) kids got whooped but a team that purely wanted it more. This win defined our season and gave alot of us an outlook that anything can happen on any given day. We ended up beating another Seattle team the next year (The Seattle Pirates) in the championship of the same tournament to defend our title.

As a fan I've witnessed some truly remarkable upsets as well, Ferndale High Schools "impossible" run to the state championship game my senior year, does anyone realize they were picked to lose every single game in the playoffs that year? They were two or three inches from beating a top ten ranked team in the nation. I got to see UW beat third ranked USC at home (I rushed the field) and UW beating Nebraska in the Holiday bowl. All of these games were a David vs. Goliath situation and I am truly lucky to have witnessed them all.

As a coach I've been apart of a few buzzer beater victories (and losses) but I am yet to be apart of that "impossible" victory where it defines a season and for some kids shapes a lifetime. I guess my message to them would be that in order for this to happen you need to believe that you can truly do it before you can because as another great coach (my dad) once told me "if you believe you can't do something, you're right."

Moral of the Story

“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” - Walt Disney

Double Standards

Title Nine
      

Warning: This blog post is based solely on opinion and experience with little scope to the rest of the country, if you are offended please please accept this apology in advance.

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance...

—United States Code Section 20

This rule or law is amazing in principle, however I truly believe it is completely lost in translation towards the application end of it. As a student at a high school (and middle school) where i saw this rule implemented on more than one occasion it was always in the form of letting a girl play football or letting a girl wrestle and I'm all for that. But the lost in translation part for me was the fact that as a boy we weren't allowed to play volleyball (something i would have potentially been interested in) and we weren't allowed to do cheer leading (something i had zero interest in lol).

Please correct me if I'm wrong but i feel this is a complete and total violation of this rule, unless of course these sports team didn't receive financial assistance (which they did... i believe).

Gym Time In Ferndale

As most of you who read my blog know, I coach a competitive youth basketball team and have for three years. The most frustrating thing about coaching a sport such as basketball in the town of Ferndale is the fact that their is next to zero allowance of gym time given to kids who make a competitive team. For developing the youth athlete's who will more than likely be the athlete's playing varsity sports (and in turn raise money for the school through ticket sales... etc.) we sure devote little time to them as a community.

For example (hang with me we're going to do some Math): Ferndale school district has 7 elementary schools, 2 middle schools (each with two gyms) and 1 high school (with two gyms) that makes for 13 gyms (7es + 4ms + 2hs = 13) available every single night in the town of Ferndale (not counting the boys and girls club and the YMCA because our taxes don't pay for those places... for the most part). That is 130 practice slots available per week in the town of Ferndale (13gyms x 5days x 2practice slots per night)... so how is it that the AAU program (bias towards my team) is not able to get a full gym for 2 hours per night for only 2 nights a week?

The way it used to be (way back when I played), in 5th grade you got the last pick of gym times and as you got older your team got a higher and higher pick alternating every year with boys and girls. we had two weekends of league every year where we got to play at "home" which believe it or not to a 5th-8th grade kid is rather cool, during times when school was closed due to a holiday, gym time was accessible for free, the Dylan Crayton Tournament (a tournament put on by the Ferndale Boys AAU Program every year) gym time was either donated or extremely cheap... The way it works now, girls pick first (5th through 8th) then boys pick (not ranked by age, more ranked by who got their request in first). We play zero home league games, gym times during holidays have to be purchased from the YMCA or another third party and the Dylan Crayton Tournament gym time is astronomically priced by our lovely athletic director at the local high school (which is kind of ironic because everyone who plays for the AAU program lives in Ferndale and pays taxes for their kid to attend the school district... food for thought).

The only thing I'm saying here is that the school district is providing less and less outlets for kids to do something the excel at (and enjoy) causing their to be ahigher price for the outlets that are available. Yet they stand around wondering why the drug problem in the town is sky rocketing.

As a taxpayer in the town of Ferndale you should be outraged by the very little amount of support a kid who is pretty darn good at a sport receives, yet their are activities and gym times for days for the kids who just play for fun.

Moral of the story:

“They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself” - Andy Warhol

sCam Newton

Anyone who would take sCam Newton in the first round would be a complete fool. Why? sCam Newton has JaMarcus Russel written all over him from his off the field troubles to his sketchy on field performances when people game plan against him. sCam Newton won a national trophy, sCam Newton won a Heisman trophy but both of those awards are direct reflections of the team he played on. Oregon did a great job of shutting him down in the BCS National championship game, a defense that was touted as "small" by the rest of the nation.

His off the field issues are a direct reflection of his character, people claim they are picking on him because he was a Heisman finalist. Where are the rumours about Andrew Luck? Where are the rumours about LaMichael James? there aren't any and that's because very rarely accusations are ever 100% fabricated, not saying he took money or that his dad took money. I am saying that it's pretty tough to not notice your dad rockin a new sports coat and range rover from his construction salary.

On the field over-rated-ness, Quarterbacks who can only run don't end up making a good cross over into the NFL. Auburn had the 5th best rushing offense in the nation and only the 66th best passing offense, mainly due to sCam Newton's stellar running and people being to stop it but when a team was able to stop it (like they will be able to in the NFL) he didn't wow people with his arm (especially in the Nat. Championship).

All in all sCam Newton was an amazing college football player but do not be surprised when he is a career back up in the NFL. and PLEASE  do me a favor and ignore anything that comes out of Mel Kiper Jr's mouth. I mean seriously what does this guy even know about Quarterbacks and the NFL, "Brady Quinn will be the 1st quarterback taken" and "Tim Tebow won't go until late third round" good one Mel, keep up the good work!

Moral of the Story:

“Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It's not hard. Character is doing what's right when nobody's looking.” -anonymous

Tears of a Coach

As a player on a sports team you see the game (whatever game it may be) in the first person, you're right there in the heat of battle making the mistakes yourself and you (for the most part) control your own destiny. The youth today has changed so much even from when i was a kid. It might be due to the fact that I'm a young coach and therefore come off as inexperienced and therefore not as smart as a parent who coaches. However you would think that after several years of proving yourself to a team with the knowledge you have acquired over a career and the freshness this has from happening less than a decade ago, that these kids would just trust you.

As a Parent (or fan) of a player on a sports team you see the game in the third person, the luxury of being able to sit in the stands and say what you would have done is nice. I know being a husky fan and questioning willingham for years, but after being a coach and experiencing a practice where you work on something so hard and you tell the kids exactly what it is they need to do and then they go out and don't do it, weather it's from their parents telling them it's not important or a lack of execution really is one of the most frustrating things in the world.

As a coach of a team (no matter what kind of team) you see the game from (what i made up) the second person, you're like the composer of a symphony. You control the outcome (somewhat) but not the individual performances. it is your responsibility to prepare your team for the upcoming task at hand. Weather that be mentally, physically or a mixture of both it is your job to maximize the potential of those who look to you for guidance. it is also your job to take responsibility when those kids don't execute and your team loses.

As someone who has been in all three situations i would like to take a second to point out the overlap of all three. As a player it is your responsibility to play your hardest and do whatever it takes for the team to succeed. As a parent (or fan) it is your responsibility to provide your athlete with the tools needed for success (i.e. a ride, proper guidance to listen to their coach... etc.) and to cheer them on, not tell them what they did wrong, not tell them what to do during halftime. As a coach it is your job to prepare your team to succeed, by developing a game plan, by getting your team in the correct mental state and by being a leader when its time for the game to take place.

As a coach i would never ask a kid to do something that would be detrimental to them, as a player i would never think twice when a coach asked me to do something and as a fan or parent (not a parent yet) i vow to never second guess a coach, player or team due simply to the fact that as fans and parents we don't know what goes on in practice or in the huddle of a game therefore who are we to judge?

Moral of the story:

"When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself."
- Wayne Dyer