Friday, July 25, 2014

Always a bigger fish....(Grow the game)

So I'm in the middle of running tournaments at Lincoln Land.  My players and I do a great job of running things smoothly--from concessions to getting band aids for players to officiating and line judging.  I demand excellence and they have come through.  Our tournaments are BAR NONE the best summer tournaments in the state, maybe the Midwest.

So today, when we were done, I got a chance to spend some time with the USAV High Performance materials since I'm heading to Las Vegas Monday to work with the Future Select athletes. (It's a nice link and generally correct stuff....)

My brain hurts from it--in a good way.  I need to learn about 100 pages of material, from terms to drills to other procedures, and I realized today (on my third go-through of everything)--I'm clueless.  I don't know this stuff to the point of mastering it or the point where I am comfortable running it.  And you know what?  That's a scary thing to me--especially as I enter my 25th year involved with volleyball.

25 years and to be sitting, studying material and get that moment of "My God, I'm totally lost and clueless"--it's a humbling feeling.  Scary.  Because I know rationally that I DO know a ton of volleyball (otherwise, why would they select me to do this in the first place).  It's intimidating to see the work in this and the attention to detail--more than I can do for my program, though sadly the US national program has more resources available than I do at LLCC....

Things will be fine--it was only a moment of panic.  I won't be in charge because I'm new to their system.  They expect me to learn as we go--and they'll expect more next year if I am selected to assist again.  So I WILL be fine.

But it got me thinking--there's always a bigger fish in the sea, someone who is better or knows more.  Right now, the US is a volleyball powerhouse, a rival to Brazil at the very top of the sport.  There's much further to fall than there is to rise.  It would be easy for US volleyball to rest on its laurels and enjoy being a top dog.  But that's not how it works.

The people on top of USA Volleyball's administration--they're looking for ways to improve themselves, the coaching, the philosophy, how they deal with athletes--everything.  And they put just as much attention into the 10yr olds as they do the 18yr olds, the lower skilled players as well as the ones destined for international tournaments?  Why?  Why not focus on the top 10-12 in an age group?  Because a rising tide lifts all boats, that's why.

They are constantly looking to improve the system, improve the coaching--a constant process that I now get to be part of.  The US staff are looking for ways to continue winning, aware of the difficulties involved--but even at the top, those coaches STILL strive to improve themselves.

So I'll be fine--and I'll come back a better coach, and I'll help make those 32 kids better volleyball players, and I'll come home to LLCC and help my players and my club coaches and players grow within the game, and those 32 athletes will go home and do likewise--they'll share with their teammates, push them to get better, and bit by bit, inch by inch, the tide will rise and we'll improve volleyball across America!

Sunday, July 20, 2014

20 years ago, this week...NOT a good day (but with a good ending)

Twenty years ago was my last season involved with Ohio State volleyball and working as a D-1 coach (though I didn't know that would be the case...)  For OSU, that was a great season--led by a solid group of seniors, OSU won 35, won the  Big Ten, and reached the Final Four....I still have my Final Four ring.

Now, to be clear--I love Jim Stone.  He is a great mentor, a good friend, and has been since I started out there back in '92.  This isn't about him--I remained loyal to the OSU program until he retired.  I still root for the men's volleyball team because I feel Pete Hanson and Tim Embaugh are good people running a classy program--but that's the extent of my loyalty to that school.

You see, twenty years ago this week, the academic side of Ohio State tossed me out.  If you're reading this, you probably know me.  I'm not an idiot.  I'm a decent writer and frankly, I'm a pretty damned good teacher--whether it is English, History, or even Psychology.  No offense to anyone, but I've never met a better U.S. history teacher.   I need to go a little further with this--in terms of writing, I've done some novels, some articles, and even presentations.  I've written historical games.

This is NOT to go "Oh, wow, Jim, you are so wonderful...."  I merely want to show some credentials.
Because it was this week that Allan Millett, Joan Cashin, and James Bartholomew, my PhD committee, unanimously failed me on my doctoral exams.  The funny thing is--Millett, my advisor, told me that was going to happen in advance.  Twice actually.

The second time was in December of 93.  He said "If you don't quit working with the volleyball team, you won't pass your exams no matter what you do."

Professors have no rights on my free time.  If I turn in 'A' quality work (my GPA was 3.85, so yes, I was turning in 'A' work), then if I want to spend my time from 2-5 calculating hitting percentages, serve-receive numbers, and entering freeballs into drills--that's my business, right?  I wasn't skipping class or anything else.

Nope.  I was naïve.  Life doesn't work that way.  I knew it from the first question I was asked.  My fields were Tokugawa Japan, US Military, and Modern US History, so the first question I was asked--discuss the difference in opinion between Churchill and Atlee related to British efforts against Japan.   Hmmmm...Tokugawa Japan is gone by the 1800s and Churchill/Atlee aren't American.  Great....I didn't study the right things.

After the smoke cleared, I was told I knew little about history and that my writing was so deficient that I offered no hope of passing an advanced degree (never mind that I already held an M.A. in Composition/Writing)

When it was done, I called Stone.  He said he wanted to have a beer to celebrate....but I'd told him if I was more than 60 minutes late, the news would be bad.  It was 90 minutes.  He was stunned that they did it.  I think at the time he felt guilty--somehow partially responsible.  He wasn't. It was absolutely my choice and because of my time in his program, I'd make the same choice again for what I learned on that court.  Probably good he met me--in those hours, I learned to empathize with those stories of grad students going on shooting binges.  I thought about it--I can't lie.

Hard to believe that was 20 years ago.

But it ended well.  I realized that day that I need to teach--in a classroom or a gym.  I don't want to be a bully picking on grad students because I was picked on myself when I was a student.  History is NOT about memorizing little nuggets of trivia.  It's about critical thinking, it's about applying the past to the present, about knowledge of other cultures and times.  History can bring others to life if taught well.

Yes, it ended well.  I moved back 'home' (because it wasn't quite home yet) to my wife pregnant with our first child and here, I had the chance to teach for a few colleges, coach at Satan's School for Girls and Boys and now Lincoln Land.  I've helped 100+ young people succeed in college or found them scholarships--I've seen them grow into doctors, accountants, moms, dads, state troopers, combat medics, writers, artists.  None of that would have been possible without Millett's ego driving me away.

That choice helped make me a better person--because it made me know how it felt to be incredibly bullied--I learned the difference between instructing and teaching. 

Without their decision--I don't get 4+ novels published, start Jolly Roger Games, coach volleyball at a high level (or get to work with USA High Performance).  No Jolly Roger--no trip to see the Scorpions in concert in Germany, no meeting guys like Alan Moon, Richard Launius, Jason Matthews.

Yeah, this is all a rant, disjointed.  But seriously...life is not easy.  It WILL suck from time to time.  But it is how we deal with the adversity that determines who we are, who we become.  I survived it.

And still got to teach history AND coach volleyball.

(Now if I could just remember all the seniors off that '94 team....Laura, Jenny, Carrie, Gabi...Tricia(?)....sigh, the memory fades a little down the road.





Sunday, July 6, 2014

Sing a Song...or at least read some lyrics....

You have to sing this either like you're Frank Sinatra or Judy Collins.  Except between you and the NSA, it's a secret.  I promise.

 
My government's rich
It doesn't play fair.
Me here at a desk in DC
You're over there
So where are my drones?
Isn't it great?
The polls all approve
We keep blowing things up
Before the targets can move...
Where are the drones?
Send in the drones.
So many targets to seek and destroy
seeing explosions and feeling the joy.
Making speeches on TV with my usual flair
Sure of my lines
But nobody cares...
Don't you love farce?
Our government to fear
Trade freedom for a moment of security
But we are sincere..
So where are the drones?
Send in the drones
Oh dear God, now they're here!
Weren't we rich?
Weren't we secure?
Giving it all up for power impure
So where are my drones?
I need some more drones...
Don't worry, don't fear....


Thursday, July 3, 2014

Thought of someone today...

I was talking with someone about a relative of theirs who died recently, and mentioned that as long as the deceased are remembered in some fashion, according to African theologies, the dead aren't really dead.

So today, I took the Mustang to a car shop for pricing on a paint job, etc--and this became important.  Heritage Classic Cars is next to a truck stop in Effingham, and for some reason, that got me thinking about Ken Irion.

Ken was a friend I met during college.  I met him through Jeff Arnold, if I remember right--sometimes with friends, it seems they were always there, always will be....  We became pretty decent friends while he was in Helser Hall at Iowa State.  After his sophomore year, Ken moved out and in to Koinonia, a Christian home owned by the Methodist Church across from Friley.  Church and being active within it was important to Ken.

In any event, I got to thinking of him because of the truck stop.  Ken was from Bettendorf and for a night out, his parents and he would go out to the I-80 Truck Stop restaurant (which IS good food) and seeing a truck stop restaurant triggered my thoughts.

Ken started as a science and engineering major, but changed to English.  It wasn't that he couldn't do the math (failed Engineering students usually become business majors anyways), but there was something missing for him, so he spent his next year studying as an English major,  except he was a semester behind with the English degree requirements.  But that was when things changed, going into the spring of 1989

Ken figured out that he wasn't interested in the degree and he decided to quit school--fifteen credits away from graduating.  Instead, he decided he wanted to help people, so he volunteered to do missionary work abroad.  That volunteering led him to the Ukraine, helping with food and relief after Chernobyl, a nuclear meltdown three years earlier--before the end of the Cold War.

Ken went to Kiev--Ukraine's biggest city.  Some of the stats afterward showed that casualties from Chernobyl (volunteers helping to clean up, etc) afterwards totaled maybe 0.2% of those who helped.  But somehow, the extra radiation in the area four years on, was enough to trigger thyroid cancer--apparently, if you are predisposed to thyroid cancer, the iodine-131, etc released by Chernobyl causes your chance of malignant cancer to skyrocket.

And that's what got Ken.  I figure he ignored it initially--must've been a flu causing a sore throat or just sleeping on it wrong causing neck pain.  But if it's malignant, that gives it time to spread.  Ken died over there in the Ukraine.  He's buried there--likely because of the radiation.  I have no idea if his parents ever got to go visit the site or anything like that.   I sent a sympathy card to his parents, but what more can you do after that?

Ken was a good guy with a good heart.  ...it's funny how sometimes days or even years can fly by and then memories return that are vivid as if you saw the person only minutes ago.

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Volleyball and the Power Puff Girls

The last post I wrote was about friends and an appreciation that comes with time.  So when I put my computer away in the bag, went to meet my daughter, I heard something thwap the side of the bag.  I don't normally think about it--it's normal because on the side of the bag, I've got a keychain, given to me fourteen years ago.  It looks like this:

That's right--it's Mojo Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls.  It's been with me everywhere I've gone.

Back at the end of the 2000 volleyball season at Satan's School for Girls and Boys, we had senior night for the team's three seniors: Beth, Emily, and Stacey.  At the time, the players also wound up getting something for me as coach--usually a funny tie (I still have them all...), but in this case they also got me the Mojo keychain because each of the seniors received a keychain as well--a different Powerpuff Girl for each of the three.

I asked "Why am I getting Mojo Jojo?" (which caused some surprise initially that I'd know who he was...sometimes high schoolers forget that coaches are often parents...or maybe just like cartoons). 

The answer came from junior Jody, "Because you're their pimp daddy."
Fair enough.

The thing is--fourteen years later, all three seniors still have their keychains, too, though because they've been used as regular keychains, they've all had the paint worn off.  I think only mine has the paint on it still, but I'm not sure.  Think about it--little one-dollar trinkets, given as a senior night gag really, and more than a decade later--everyone still has theirs. 

I think that says something about the whole team--and just as importantly the bond between those seniors (one of the two most successful groups to play at SSGB) and between players and a coach.

It is a great memento of a wonderful season.  (You can read more about it in my coaching book here....)  But I like it not just because of the season, but because of those three seniors and what they've done since that point.

Emily: Physician and mother of two.
Beth:   Department Head at a community college, mother of one.
Stacey: CPA and mother of two.

Successful women professionally and happy in their personal lives--everything a coach could ever want for his players.









Saturday, June 28, 2014

An appreciation of friends

So yeah...been a while since I had the time and wherewithal to write a blog entry. 
I had an interesting conversation with my daughter today about friendships--interesting questions.

How do you define friendship?  Can it be defined--or is it "it just is".  
Does age matter?  Does gender?
Can you stay friends with people you've dated or "liked"?

The funny thing is I know a -ton- of people, I'm friendly with about 98% of those and at one level those are 'friends'.  There's not a word to describe them other than that--and they are people I DO care about--past players and coaches (Laura, Kelly), some former students and a couple staff from Satan's School for Girls and Boys, the people I work with at Lincoln Land, etc.

But then there's an inner circle of friends--for lack of a better way of putting it.  I think that that's a function of time as much as anything else.  When I look at that inner circle, the length of time I've known those people tells a tale:
Baron:  40 years
Dave:   29 years
Erik:     30 years
Eric:     39 years
Larry:   32 years
(And then the 'youngster'--Mrs. Dietz):
Julie:    24 years

And none of that is meant as a slight to other good friends--it just shocked me how long I've known the friends closest to me--which is probably a function of everyone getting older, I suppose.  But how do you explain that to your daughter--someone who hasn't been alive half as long as some of those friendships have existed?  Since she went to Uni--she's only really known the same set of people for 4-5 years....no friendship can run that deep when it's such a short amount of time.

I think that is especially important with dating relationships--now that I'm older and MAYBE wiser.  Kids always seem to think they have a perfect relationship, everything's so intense because it's all new--but only time can assure the friendship sticks, puts down roots so to speak for the long run.  I want to laugh--because I suspect my mom understood that even though it was never discussed.  So now I have to wait 15/20/30 years before my kids go "Hey, dad..." with an insight into friendship...and then I can whip out a link (or whatever we'll do in 2044) to this and say, "Ah, hah!" and point out my wisdom for their benefit.

All that's a long way around saying I'm blessed with a great circle of friends.  I should probably tell them they are appreciated more often--then again, that'd probably get me ridiculed and taunted (I've known these guys a long time...)

But really--how do you define friendship, something unique in a relationship between two people?














Thursday, May 29, 2014

Observations (The 1965 Mustang)

SPOILER: No pictures.

Before my mom died, one of the things she told me--made me promise--was that I couldn't just invest any inheritance, that it shouldn't be used "only" to pay for college for the kids, that I HAD to do something 'frivolous'.  Well, then Pete died, and I've been dealing with the stupidity of Pete's lawyer (Mike Roeder)--add in a health crisis, the usual life events, and I kept putting off that promise to mi madre.

Finally, last month, I started looking to  fulfill that promise.  The intent was to buy a new Mustang or new-ish at least, and I found a couple of cars that fit the bill perfectly.  I contacted the dealers (one in Pekin, one in Milwaukee) and they said everything was great, no problem--and then when it was time to actually pony (nice pun, huh) up the money, suddenly, they both "sold" that car and said they were looking forward to showing me others 'just like' the car I'd been looking at.  Ahhh, the old bait-and-switch.

Disappointed, I actually had GoogleAds pop up some vintage Mustangs--a couple looked pretty sweet, and that included a 1965 Mustang out in Ohio.  The dealership (Village Motors) and salesman (Josh Martin) in Millersburg was nice and efficient--and generally open with what they knew, and with that (a total, surprising relief compared to the other dealers), out to Ohio we went, and on Tuesday, I completed the promise to Mom, buying that Mustang.

It's not perfect--it's got some flaws:
1 - There's a hole in the power steering fluid pump somewhere.  That's for sure.
2 - The driver door has issues--internal panel is partially off and the window doesn't roll up
3 - The cloth on the interior roof/ceiling is loose (I'm told that's a sign the car's seen a lot of cigarette smoke).
4 - The previous owner put in a "real" stereo system 20 years ago.  Hah.  Hah-hah!
5 - The paint is dinged/chipped in places--on the driver door, I suspect the door was hit by something at some point accounting for all of the issues.
6 - The passenger door latch is missing.

It also has "traditional" foibles:
1 - It's a '60s car, so it drinks gas like a college student inhales beer.
2 - It steers like a pontoon boat.  I'd forgotten that since it's been years since I drove Pete's old pickup, longer still since I drove the beloved '73 LTD.  (Turn the wheel 30 degrees and you're just barely starting to turn...)
3 - It's a deathtrap.  Lap belts only, no belts in the back seat, and everything inside the passenger compartment is sharp/pointed/hard.  Of course, if you don't hit anything, you have no problems, right?
4 - No A/C (other than 'natural air'...aka windows)
5 - No cruise-control or things like power-jacks, USB outlets, etc

But...

1 - The current paint job is an awesome champagne/burgundy.
2 - I have enough room to stretch my legs out straight while driving.
3 - It looks beautiful.
4 - There is a big engine in it (v8, 289) and it works VERY well.
5 - It is fun to drive. 

#5 is the biggie.  Seven hours back here without cruise control, but I didn't mind.  It was fun to drive.  I didn't worry about a radio or anything else.  It was so different, much more 'natural', but I'm not sure that comment can make sense to people who have never driven a pre-1990ish vehicle.  It's you, the car, and that's it.

So now the object is to get all the "big issues" (the pain, the driver door, the power steering) taken care of.  Then it's time to remember that I used to (probably still can) do a lot of the basic things that I haven't had to do since the LTD.  Mmmm...mmm...mmmm.

Oops--AND, I'll have to drive this up to the QC so Erik Johnson and I can show off the cars (he has a modern Corvette), then try and get to Keokuk for a couple hours (Uncle Mike has a modern Mustang).  And then maybe next summer--maybe Julie and I take a couple days to just drive Route 66.

I do this because it's awesome, but always--I love my mom.  She'd be happy.