The Screaming Viking

It’s year end for the school, and with that comes the onslaught of ordering.  I like this time of year because I get a chance to play with a few new things.  It also gives me the opportunity to set things up the way I’d like them setup.  Like I’ve said before, there is nothing wrong with the way the previous guy configured things…I just have a different idea of how I want it to work.  I want to move towards a more “enterprisy” environment.  I want to be able to manage all the machines from one central point, and I want to do it as cheaply as possible.

So far we have received approval to build out 2 business computer labs.  I’m going to use iMacs for these labs running both lion and win7.  They are going to be setup to dual boot.  I think this gives us maximum flexibility.  For one of these labs they are looking at teaching multimedia applications and some web design.  We’re looking at dual monitor setups and all that.  I think it will be pretty decent by the time we are done.  The only real concern I have is getting enough data pipe to these machines.  I don’t think the network drops in that room was ever really designed to push as much traffic as these machines will potentially push/pull.  What I’m going to do is build out the room the way I want, then I’ll look at going back and attacking the networking situation later.  The way the building is segmented there is no real main switch closet.  There are a couple of locations that have auxiliary switches.  In the next few years I would like to run fiber…but I’m not sure how much that is going to cost.

Something else I want to do is replace all the ancient macs we have here.  There are 90 or more emacs, which at this point are long past their usefulness.  I wonder how much we’d save on power alone if these were replaced…  My thoughts are instead of replacing X amount each year, we finance it…replace them all at once and pay it off over a few years.  This is going to be quite a bit of work for me, but I think this would jump start us on to a regular replacement schedule.  Also, in five years maybe we would be looking at some kind of 1 to 1 initiative where we can downsize the desktop machines.  Right now I don’t know how that would work…but we’ll see.

If all this replacement action gets approved, it will keep me fairly busy over the summer.  Physically setting them up and moving things around will take a little bit of time, but the big time sink will be putting images on the machines.  With deep freeze it has to copy the size of the frozen disk with each image…that’s what takes all the time.

We’re also ordering a few iPads.  Not a whole bunch, I will probably have around 20 to mess with and get ready for the school year.  The management of the ipads is something that is a bit tricky.  I’ve decided to quite expecting that people won’t use them for personal stuff.  As long as they are ready for school and they have them for that…I don’t care what they are used for.

Gonna be a busy summer.

I haven’t had the time to post on here like I’d like to.  I could probably do some after hours at home…but I’ll get in the middle of a thought and be pulled away from the computer for some reason.  Since I wasn’t able to update occasionally, I’ll post one summary of the entire season.  It might be long, it might be short…it depends how long winded I get.

The 6th grade girls season is fairly short, seemingly even shorter than the Jr. High seasons.  Out of the gate I had 20 girls playing for me.  That is quite a large number for Bottineau, which usually sees participation in the 10-13 kids per grade range.  Working with that many kids was a little challenging.  I had around that many for the boys Jr. High, but I also had the entire middle school gym for practices.  For the girls I only had 1/2 the court.  I made the choice early that depart from my focus on conditioning and work more on basic skills.  Conditioning was still important and we did some of it, but it was probably 1/2 of what I’d done all year with other teams.  Having this many kids also afforded me the opportunity to sub people in and out so the “lack” of conditioning didn’t really show up during games.

In the beginning of the year, just as I’d done with the boys, I set my goal to be the tournament at the end.  I was going to make decisions during the season that might cost us wins, but it was going to give the students the opportunity to develop a bit more.  It is my opinion that far too much emphasis is placed on winning at these early ages.  Most teams have one decent to pretty good player.  If you focus on that pretty good player, run screens and all that for them…it’s not too difficult to win the game.  In the end this doesn’t really develop anyone and hurts even that pretty good player.

I made the decision to focus on the pick and roll for our offense.  No matter who brought the ball down someone would “set the edge” and roll to the hole.  That’s it…that was our offense…pick and roll pick and roll.  Off that pick and roll, we worked on the movements for the other girls on the floor.  The biggest idea I pounded into their head was to dive to the rim…always dive to the rim.  From everything I’ve seen, it’s natural for athletes to stand in one place and think they are open.  I wanted to ingrain the idea of moving…the easiest way to do that was to have them dive to the rim.  Another concept I had to pound home was to have the girl step infront of the defender.  Make sure you are between your defender and the ball so there is a clear passing lane.  And that was really it.  Three basic ideas that I wanted to have them really focus on.  After work with the Jr. High girls, I had determined that these ideas where what I wanted them to go into next year with.

I mentioned earlier that I made decisions that potentially cost us wins.  Having 20 kids, I decided to break up the team as much as I could for games.  I’d break them down into 2 groups of 10 for jamborees.  If we had 3 games, each team got one game and the entire team got one game together.  We had two regular road games, so I broke the team up for these games as well.  I didn’t want parents to travel to see their kid play for 3min.  Also, I think this helps the kids develop a little better.  More min in less games is better IMO.  I decided to break the teams up as evenly as I could.  I didn’t stack a team to win, because that would have caused the other team to get slaughtered.  The girls learn more in a close loss than they will in a blow out win.  This did end up costing us some victories, but in watching the girls it certainly helped their development.

There were three girls that really surprised me with their progress over this year.  All of them improved, some a great deal and some just a little bit…but each one of them improved to some degree.  In my mind, at this age, that is a success.  The three girls I mentioned though I can point to their improvement coming because of breaking up the team.  They had opportunity for more min, but because “the talent” was spread out, those three got the opportunity to step up in to an important role.  It took a few games…but man did they really come through.  In practice I could see that little bit of skill and potential peeking out…then they started to show it in games and I think the positive feed back coupled with the extra time helped them try harder and harder.  They did very well and I look forward to seeing how they develop in the years to come.  Hopefully next year they are able to have prominent roles and don’t end up getting buried again.

We had two tournaments this year.  One that I didn’t know was going to be a tournament, I thought it was just a regular jamboree.  The team played hard and we ended up with 3rd out of 8 teams.  Not bad for an early season tournament.  At that point we had worked on no offense, just basic individual skills…so I wasn’t disappointed.  The last weekend of the year was the tournament I was shooting for.  I had told the girls we are going to be playing for first and some people’s play time might be diminished a little bit.  I told them I was going to play the girls that gave us the best chance for success.  That might seem like it goes against what I said earlier about too much emphasis placed on winning at this age, but I don’t think it does so much.  We started the season with a goal of winning the tournament at the end of the year.  I made choices during the season that I knew would probably cost us games, but would help in the over all development.  I also think it’s important for the kids to understand why they are being asked to make sacrifices and why they might be in positions where they lose games.  They can’t really understand “I did this so when you are in high school….”.  Parents don’t really understand that either…they like to win.

The first game of the tournament went well, the girls worked out the rust a bit and we won fairly easily.  The score was within 10 points, but the margin of victory felt larger than that.  The 2nd game was the one I knew was going to be tough.  We played a mohall team that we beat at the beginning of the year, but lost to a couple of times since then.  It was going to be either them or us for first…both of us knew that.  Mohall never really got a look at the entire “A” team for this grade level, and I was hoping that would be to our advantage.  Before the game the team was dealt a couple pretty harsh blows that would haunt us.  One kid got hurt with a sprained ankle in the prior game.  She sat out almost all the first game and was hobbling pretty good afterwards.  I made the decision to tape her ankle and have her play the second game…normally I wouldn’t do that at this age level, but it was my kid so I can make that decision as a parent and coach.  She seemed to get around on it fine during the game, but it was in her head and I think she was protecting it a little bit.  The second blow was that my backup point guard was sick and elected to sit out this game.  I do have a couple of other girls that could handle the ball…but the difference between those girls and my starting point is significant.  The difference between my backup and starting point is not so much.

The game started and it was clear very quickly that the refs were going to call things much closer than we had ever seen before in a game at this level.  I’m not going to bash the refs, the calls were even both ways.  They were fair as far as I was concerned.  Calling things closer though made us adjust the way we play.  Unfortunately we didn’t adjust quickly enough and my starting point got in to foul trouble early.  She sat out for quite a chunk of the first half.  This was a pretty harsh blow now having my #1 and #2 guards out.  We had a couple of girls try to bridge the gap, but we lost some ground.  We went in to 1/2 time down by 8 points.  It doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but with girls at this age group 8 points is quite a bit.  The 2nd half started off a little better, but we just couldn’t make up that ground.  The girls fought, played decent defense and didn’t drop back more than 8 points but couldn’t chip away at it either.  I called a time out with 5 or so min left on the clock to give the girls a pep talk.  They responded and cut in to the lead a little bit…but just couldn’t tip the scale.  I called a time out with 2 min left to setup a press…and that helped a little but we still didn’t get over the hump.  We ended up dropping the game by 4 points.  This was the championship game and we came up a bit short.

Since we were not going to get first place, I elected to play the girls that had been sitting for the day.  All of them were angry about not getting much time, and I don’t blame them.  You practice to play, and now not being put in the game is frustrating.  I told them all this in the huddle before the game…I told them I’d be mad too.  I told them to go out there and earn their play time.  They worked hard and played quite well.  The girls hustled after most every ball and there were only a few lapses of focus and concentration.  We ended up winning that game by 2 points.  I didn’t want to drop it, so I scattered in some of the girls that had played quite a bit that day…but the bulk of the time went to girls that hadn’t played.  I think, overall for the day, the play time wasn’t so bad…everyone got in a bit.  For each individual game though…the time was skewed.  We didn’t end up getting first, which was a little bit of a disappointment to me, but the girls played hard all through the day and showed quite a bit of improvement over even the previous week’s games.

We ended the year with a 1/2 squad game against TGU.  We had played these girls earlier in the year in bottineau and won.  Today, with 1/2 a squad…we did very well.  The girls held them to single digits and we put up 30+.  The ball was moving and everyone was getting 5-7 foot shots…so many close shots missed.  If we had made an expected number of shots (I expect 30%) we would have put up around 50 points.  The girls were moving the ball and getting that many offensive opportunities.

The girls improved in virtually every aspect of the game.  Defensively, they started rotating to cover open people without thinking.  They moved the ball around well and started to look for other people with a better look at the rim, and on the fast break they started to look to give up the ball instead of thinking about them having to score.  Overall, I think these girls are well prepared to enter Jr. High…whether it’s me that coaches them or someone else.  They have the basic skills to build on and be successful.

Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/2012/05/09/season-end/

Message from Kevin Seitzer - Mike Matheny is the new St. Louis Cardinals Manager.  Mike lived with me in Milwaukee his rookie year.  He’s one of the most respected, wonderful people you will ever be around.  Mike coached his kids after retirement and this is a letter to the parents on his team.  This may be the BEST letter I’ve ever read regarding youth baseball and is exactly what “The Mac-N-Seitz Way” is all about.  Please enjoy and help us get there!

Letter from Mike Matheny…..

I always said that the only team that I would coach would be a team of orphans, and now here we are. The reason for me saying this is that I have found the biggest problem with youth sports has been the parents. I think that it is best to nip this in the bud right off the bat. I think the concept that I am asking all of you to grab is that this experience is ALL about the boys. If there is anything about it that includes you, we need to make a change of plans. My main goals are as follows:

(1) to teach these young men how to play the game of baseball the right way,

(2) to be a positive impact on them as young men, and

(3) do all of this with class.

We may not win every game, but we will be the classiest coaches, players, and parents in every game we play. The boys are going to play with a respect for their teammates, opposition, and the umpires no matter what.

With that being said, I need to let you know where I stand. I have no hidden agenda. I have no ulterior motive other than what I said about my goals. I also need all of you to know that my priorities in life will most likely be a part of how I coach, and the expectations I have for the boys. My Christian faith is the guide for my life and I have never been one for forcing my faith down someone’s throat, but I also believe it to be cowardly, and hypocritical to shy away from what I believe. You as parents need to know for yourselves and for your boys, that when the opportunity presents itself, I will be honest with what I believe. That may make some people uncomfortable, but I did that as a player, and I hope to continue it in any endeavor that I get into. I am just trying to get as many potential issues out in the open from the beginning. I believe that the biggest role of the parent is to be a silent source of encouragement. I think if you ask most boys what they would want their parents to do during the game; they would say “NOTHING”. Once again, this is ALL about the boys. I believe that a little league parent feels that they must participate with loud cheering and “Come on, let’s go, you can do it”, which just adds more pressure to the kids. I will be putting plenty of pressure on these boys to play the game the right way with class, and respect, and they will put too much pressure on themselves and each other already. You as parents need to be the silent, constant, source of support.

Let the record stand right now that we will not have good umpiring. This is a fact, and the sooner we all understand that, the better off we will be. We will have balls that bounce in the dirt that will be called strikes, and we will have balls over our heads that will be called strikes. Likewise, the opposite will happen with the strike zone while we are pitching. The boys will not be allowed at any time to show any emotion against the umpire. They will not shake their head, or pout, or say anything to the umpire. This is my job, and I will do it well. I once got paid to handle those guys, and I will let them know when they need to hear something. I am really doing all of you parents a favor that you probably don’t realize at this point. I have taken out any work at all for you except to get them there on time, and enjoy. The thing that these boys need to hear is that you enjoyed watching them and you hope that they had fun. I know that it is going to be very hard not to coach from the stands and yell encouraging things to your son, but I am confident that this works in a negative way for their development and their enjoyment. Trust me on this. I am not saying that you cannot clap for your kids when they do well. I am saying that if you hand your child over to me to coach them, then let me do that job.

A large part of how your child improves is your responsibility. The difference for kids at this level is the amount of repetition that they get. This goes with pitching, hitting and fielding. As a parent, you can help out tremendously by playing catch, throwing batting practice, hitting ground balls, or finding an instructor who will do this in your place. The more of this your kids can get, the better. This is the one constant that I have found with players that reached the major leagues….someone spent time with them away from the field.

I am completely fine with your son getting lessons from whomever you see fit. The only problem I will have is if your instructor is telling your son not to follow the plan of the team. I will not teach a great deal of mechanics at the beginning, but I will teach mental approach, and expect the boys to comply. If I see something that your son is doing mechanically that is drastically wrong, I will talk with the instructor and clear things up. The same will hold true with pitching coaches. We will have a pitching philosophy and will teach the pitchers and catchers how to call a game, and why we choose the pitches we choose. There is no guessing. We will have a reason for the pitches that we throw. A pitching coach will be helpful for the boys to get their arms in shape and be ready to throw when spring arrives. Every boy on this team will be worked as a pitcher. We will not over use these young arms and will keep close watch on the number of innings that the boys are throwing.

I will be throwing so much info at these boys that they are going to suffer from overload for a while, but eventually they are going to get it. I am a stickler about the thought process of the game. I will be talking non-stop about situational hitting, situational pitching, and defensive preparation. The question that they are going to hear the most is “What were you thinking?” What were you thinking when you threw that pitch? What were you thinking during that at bat? What were you thinking before the pitch was thrown, were you anticipating anything? I am a firm believer that this game is more mental than physical, and the mental may be more difficult, but can be taught and can be learned by a 10 and 11 year old. If it sounds like I am going to be demanding of these boys, you are exactly right. I am definitely demanding their attention, and the other thing that I am going to require is effort. Their attitude, their concentration, and their effort are the things that they can control. If they give me these things every time they show up, they will have a great experience.

The best situation for all of us is for you to plan on handing these kids over to me and the assistant coaches when you drop them off, and plan on them being mine for the 2 or so hours that we have scheduled for a game, or the time that we have scheduled for the practice. I would like for these boys to have some responsibility for having their own water, not needing you to keep running to the concession stand, or having parents behind the dugout asking their son if they are thirsty, or hungry, or too hot, and I would appreciate if you would share this information with other invited guests…like grandparents. If there is an injury, obviously we will get you to help, but besides that, let’s pretend that they are at work for a short amount of time and that you have been granted the pleasure of watching. I will have them at games early so we can get stretched and loosened up, and I will have a meeting with just the boys after the game. After the meeting, they are all yours again. As I am writing this, I sound like the little league Nazi, but I believe that this will make things easier for everyone involved.

I truly believe that the family is the most important institution in the lives of these guys. With that being said, l think that the family events are much more important than the sports events. I just ask that you are considerate of the rest of the team and let the team manager, and myself know when you will miss, and to let us know as soon as possible. I know that there will be times when I am going to miss either for family reasons, for other commitments. If your son misses a game or a practice, it is not the end of the world, but there may be some sort of repercussion, just out of respect for the kids that put the effort into making it. The kind of repercussions could possibly be running, altered playing time, or position in the batting order.

Speaking of batting order, I would like to address that right from the top as well seeing that next to playing time this is the second most complained about issue, or actually tied for second with position on the defensive field. Once again, I need you to know that I am trying to develop each boy individually, and I will give them a chance to learn and play any position that they are interested in. I also believe that this team will be competitive and when we get into situations where we are focusing on winning; like a tournament for example; we are going to put the boys in the position that will give the team the best opportunity. I will talk with the boys individually and have them tell me what their favorite position is and what other position they would like to learn about. As this season progresses, there is a chance that your son may be playing a position that they don’t necessarily like, but I will need your support about their role on the team. I know that times have changed, but one of the greatest lessons that my father taught me was that my coach was always right…even when he was wrong. The principle is a great life lesson about how things really work. I hope that I will have enough humility to come to your son if I treated him wrong and apologize. Our culture has lost this respect for authority mostly because the kids hear the parents constantly complaining about the teachers and coaches of the child.

I need all of you to know that we are most likely going to lose many games this year. The main reason is that we need to find out how we measure up with the local talent pool. The only way to do this is to play against some of the best teams. I am convinced that if the boys put their work in at home, and give me their best effort, that we will be able to play with just about any team. Time will tell. l also believe that there is enough local talent that we will not have to do a large amount of travel, if any. This may be disappointing for those of you who only play baseball and look forward to the out of town experiences, but I also know that this is a relief for the parents that have traveled throughout the US and Canada for hockey and soccer looking for better competition. In my experiences, we have traveled all over the Midwest and have found just as good competition right in our back yard. If this season goes well, we will entertain the idea of travel in the future.

The boys will be required to show up ready to play every time they come to the field. Shirts tucked in, hats on straight, and pants not drooping down to their knees. There is not an excuse for lack of hustle on a baseball field. From the first step outside the dugout they will hustle. They will have a fast jog to their position, to the plate, and back to the bench when they make an out. We will run out every hit harder than any team we will play, and will learn how to always back up a play to help our teammates. Every single play, every player will be required to move to a spot. Players that do not hustle and run out balls will not play. The boys will catch on to this quickly. The game of baseball becomes very boring when players are not thinking about the next play and what they possibly could do to help the team. Players on the bench will not be messing around. I will constantly be talking with them about situations and what they would be doing if they were in a specific position, or if they were the batter. There is as much to learn on the bench as there is on the field if the boys want to learn. All of this will take some time for the boys to conform to. They are boys and I am not trying to take away from that, but I do believe that they can bear down and concentrate hard for just a little while during the games and practices.

I know this works because this was how I was taught the game and how our parents acted in the stands. We started our little league team when I was 10 years old in a little suburb of Columbus, Ohio. We had a very disciplined coach that expected the same from us. We committed 8 summers to this man and we were rewarded for our efforts. I went to Michigan, one went to Duke, one to Miami of Florida, two went to North Carolina, one went to Central Florida, one went to Kent State, and most of the others played smaller division one or division two baseball. Four of us went on to play professionally. This was coming from a town where no one had ever been recruited by any colleges. I am not saying that this is what is going to happen to our boys, but what I do want you to see is that this system works. I know that right now you are asking yourself if this is what you want to get yourself into and I understand that for some of you it may not be the right fit. I also think that there is a great opportunity for these boys to grow together and learn some lessons that will go beyond their baseball experience. Let me know as soon as possible whether or not this is a commitment that you and your son want to make.

Thanks,

Mike Matheny

Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/2012/04/26/set-the-tone/

Been real busy with lots of stuff so I didn’t get the time I would have liked to post as things were happening this season.  I guess more accurately, I didn’t make the time to post.

It was an up and down season for the Jr. High boys this year.  The biggest challenge for these guys was numbers.  I started the season with 5 7th graders, 2 had pretty harsh back injuries, 1 is a hockey player and then there were the 2 others.  1 back injury was a slip on the ice just after practice started and the Dr. sat him down for a couple weeks.  One has what looks to be a pretty serious back problem that is going to take lots of work to correct.  The hockey player is a solid athlete, but he made it clear in the preseason meeting that he was setting hockey as his priority.  He would make practice and games when hockey didn’t interfere…and over all I’m fine with that.  It won’t work when he gets into high school, but at the jr. high level I’m fine with it.  He gets a little bit more conditioning and different muscle movement.  There is a slight change for injury, but overall I don’t think that’s significant enough to stay out.  Of the other 2, one is tall and pretty athletic, the other is a shorter guy and a pretty good player.  Both have the potential to be good players at the high school level.  This caused me to play some 8th grade at the 7th grade level…so I had to count quarters and all that.  For the 8th grade that played lots of min in the 7th grade games it was a good thing.  They got more time on the floor, touched the ball more and had to play bigger roles on the team than they would have if they had just played with the 8th grade group.

For the 5 starters on the 8th grade team, we had all the starters for 4 games.  We won all those games…and the majority of the other games were within a couple of points or went to OT.  There were 3 games we got blown away in, two of them were Monday games.  These boys didn’t have good practices on Mondays so it’s not surprising they didn’t have good games on Monday’s.  Going forward I’m going to have to find a way to get the energy level up for the early week game/practices.  Maybe have an open gym shoot around on Sunday or something…just so Monday doesn’t feel like the first day of the basketball week or they aren’t shaking off two days of rust.

This was the first “full” season of the read and react offense for any age group I’ve worked with.  I don’t want to call it a full season because of the way practices work out for our Jr. High kids.  A full season for them feels like it’s only 1/2 a regular season for the high school.  Everything gets really compressed for both the boys and girls.  It’s tough to implement change during the season due to the lack of practices.  For the most part, the boys seemed to really understand the concept in practice.  For whatever reason though, during the games they would freeze up.  They are so use to the mechanical robotic way of playing that when they have options they freeze up…at least that’s my assessment.  During the games, when they did actually run through the cuts and reads…we got a layup almost every time.  They saw this and understood it…but I think a touch of laziness infected a couple of guys during our offensive sets.  It’s a shame too, because this 8th grade group has a ton of potential.  They have each position covered, and a few bench players that fill in well or bring their own uniqueness to the floor (spot up shooting being the big one).

When we started the season, I had the tournament at the end of the season in my sights.  I didn’t much care about any games between the beginning and then…I just wanted a great performance in the tournament for both teams.  Both teams opened up the tourney very well.  The 8th grade played a team that we over matched pretty handily.  It would have been easy enough to choke, or play down to their level…but we focused on the things we wanted to do and executed well.  They moved well on offense, ran the break…I was satisfied with their performance.  The 7th grade, on the other hand, played far and away better than I had seen them play all season.  Guys were diving on the floor…crashing the boards, they worked the ball inside…it was nice to see.  We went into over time, and won by 4 or 6 points.  It was the type of performance I expected from them all year.

The second day of the tourney brought a challenge for the 8th grade team.  We were again short one of our key starters.  He’s a post player, a solid in shape guy who also handles the ball quite well.  We went from 8 guys to 7, which is big when you figure in potential foul trouble.  Also, to make those numbers I brought up the taller quicker 7th grade player.  He plays with all kinds of hustle and, as I said before, has the potential to turn into a pretty nice player….the issue with bringing a guy up like that is the basketball IQ difference.  He can somewhat fill that gap, but no one can replace what we lost being short that guy (or any of our top 7 for that matter).  We came out of the gate hard and it was a back and forth game.  The challenge we faced from the opponent was their very tall (6’5?) and quite athletic big man.  Our strategy was to run them hard, they (he specifically) are not as conditioned as us, and to smother their guards.  It’s a sound idea and if I had to play those guys again I would do the same thing.  I do have a few complaints about the officiating but I’m not laying the blame for the loss entirely on them.  I do give them 50% of the credit though…there were some aspects that were called very poorly.  The biggest problem came at the end when we were down a couple of points and couldn’t get a foul called.  My guys were slapping at the ball…running in to them…nothing, no foul calls.  One key play, their guy literally ran down the side line out of bounds with the ball and didn’t get called for it…with the official watching him do it!  My jaw dropped…I hollered, their coach looks at me, nods and says “yep, he was out”.  Huge play..would have been our ball at our end with a 3 point deficit.  We were shooting pretty hot…big opportunity taken from us.  I was not happy about how this game was called at all.  There came one point where their coach and I were yelling “foul” as my guys were mugging their player…no whistle.  It’s shocking that the officiating would change from calling the touch fouls to not calling the muggings when we are clearly going to foul.  Everyone in the building knew we were going to foul, the officials knew but didn’t call it.  All this teaches the boys is that if they want to get a foul call they need to tackle someone or make contact in such a mannor that it might potentially cause injury…just to get the call.  That’s not a safe situation.

The 2nd game for the 8th grade was against a fair opponent.  The boys were really morally beat down from how the previous game went and you could see it in their play.  Over the course of this game we ended up with 4 guys with at least 4 fouls and 2 guys fouled out early in the 4th.  The foul count at the end of the 3rd quarter was 7 to 3.  Normally if you see a spread like that you think one team is settling for jump shots…but nope, not the case.  My guys were crashing to the rim and getting knocked literally on their asses.  This game was officiated far worse than the previous.  The officials calling things so lopsided has a couple effects on the game.  First it obviously puts one team at a disadvantage, but it also takes a mental toll on the players.  They start to feel like they are being picked on or whatever you want to call it.  As a coach, it’s my job to train the players to work through this, not to think about it and just focus on the game.  I do what I can, but this type of mental conditioning and toughness takes years to develop.  At this age level, they are doing fairly well.  Once again, this game was one where they called tons of fouls on us then at the end when we were going to foul we couldn’t get them called.  I had 3 guys surrounding the ball, all tackling the guy, they actually pushed him back, he walked they clung to his arms…nothing.  I was disgusted.

The boys played hard, there were a couple of mistakes but that’s to be expected at this age.  They didn’t make any huge errors over and over again and they certainly didn’t make any more mistakes than the teams they played.  Us being down a guy though did mean that we had to play that much more mistake free to get the win(s).  I am happy with their effort and with their over all progress for the season to this point.  I was a little skeptical at points, but when it came to tournament time they seemed to execute quite a bit of what I’ve been trying to teach.  Going forward I think this group will do well if they keep working in the off season.

The 7th grade team struggled mightily on the 2nd day.  For as great as they played the first day…they played that poorly the 2nd day.  I’m not sure what the difference was, if it was early…maybe a few guys didn’t quite get enough sleep or something…I dunno.  It just wasn’t a good day of games.  I’m not going to sit and rip on them though, every team has bad days and this day just happened to have 2 games in it.  They played on the same level for both games.  We came back on Tuesday and played against mohall, one of the teams that they lost big to on the 2nd day of the tourney and we beat them…so I’m chalking it up to an off day.  Over the course of the season this team has come quite a ways as well.  They still have some work to do, but they are getting there.  There is one guy that played for the first time this year, and while he still needs to develop the skills, he does excel in the hustle areas.  He dives for the ball, runs hard up and down the floor, rebounds well…he does some of the things well that are hard to teach.

It was a fun year, and it will be interesting to see how these guys develop over the course of their high school careers.

Article source: http://www.hillbillycoach.com/2012/03/14/boys-jr-high-2/