Monday

Twenty-nine years ago, this Monday (selected since it is the first day of the school year now at Iowa State), I started college.  Of course, back then the first day was mid-week and move-in was on a Sunday with two days scheduled to buy books, register or fix schedules.  My goodness, I was a 'hot mess' back then, though with good reason.

If you are reading this, you already know me in all likelihood--but there's some trivia you likely don't know.  Did you know I never graduated high school?  It's true.  I left a year early and the headmaster was a bit...no, not a bit--he was a 100% tool, so that he blocked me from going to MIT, but couldn't stop Iowa State--my parents got involved and most bureaucrats have a fear of private sector lawyers, but I digress...

As a 'compromise', I was told I could go to State, but that I'd need to finish a list of graduation requirements they would create just for me.  Of course, Iowa State didn't care...once I was on campus, paid my bills, and wasn't flunking out, they didn't give a crap about my high school stuff.  And once State was good with me, I didn't really care about graduating high school, so I never did take the classes I was supposed to.

Yup, a BA and two master's degrees--and no diploma.  Bet you won't find anyone else in America who can say that.

But now--my son starts his junior year there.  Junior year was awesome for me--Foster House president, brother floor to Henderson, and with a great cabinet to run things-_Dave, Mikey, Arnel/Trent, Ron/Chris...quite possibly the best start-to-finish year of my life, really.  I want him to have the same luck I did--not just in the classroom, but my growth as a person.  That's the greatest thing Iowa State gave me--it sounds cheesy, but it gave me most of the things valuable in life--a tolerance/respect for differences whether of opinion or culture, the ability to ask "Why?", to continue learning about any and everything.   It's the year I found that I liked literature, first thought of writing stories (Robert Boston's fiction class), that The Great Gatsby truly is a masterpiece.  It was the year of VEISHEA in Chicago with Paul, Brian, and Jeff watching the Cubs take two of three from the Giants...Jamie Moyer on the mound for a 1-0 loss to Rick Reuschel on a Jose Uribe homer....ahhh.

Is there a point to most of this?  Nah.  Just love for my son and alma mater, the best university in AMerica.

Things I've Learned Coaching Volleyball

I've done something like this before, but as we approach the end of pre-season, I thought I should remind myself:

1. You don't win as an individual in a team sport.  The team wins and everyone is part of that.
2. Much like theater, there are no small roles--only small people.  The player who succeeds in very specific circumstances is just as important as the player in for six rotations.  Strive for a bigger part, but take care of business for the sake of the team.
3. Sports are better when you are having fun.
4. Coaches need to be grateful for what they have--for D-1 coaches complaining about flying commercial, remember me sitting on a charter bus...and I haven't forgotten the D-3 coaches driving vans OR the high school teams on school buses with no leg room and no A/C on 90-degree days.
5. Young people learn better by doing, not just standing and being lectured.  I need to continue to teach using different ways.
6. In a successful season, I learn as much from my players as they learn from me.
7. This year I've already learned that I *can* change.  It's hard breaking habits, but it's not bad or wrong to do so.
8. For every coach out there who is win-at-all-costs and willing to cut corners, there are a dozen doing it for the right reasons, maybe more.
9. Volleyball is a game.  It can help teach life lessons, but it is not life. 
10. Stand behind a cart if throwing/hitting balls that will be hit back hard...safety tip #54 right there.
11. It is possible to work, get a ton of stuff done, AND have fun at the same time.  Done wrong, you can work, not have fun, and not accomplish anything.
12. You win with people.  You can have a ton of talent, but if the talent won't work, won't be a team...you won't win.
13. I'm not going to be a billionaire this lifetime.
14. I need more confidence.  I need to realize I'm actually semi-competent as a coach...that I have//can/will make a difference to people.  It won't change the world drastically, but in time...oh yes, in time....
15. The players I've had trouble with inevitably have troublesome parents.
16. At crunch time, I didn't compromise my ethics/integrity--not at Satan's School for Girls and Boys and not in building LLCC's program.  Programs can have success with integrity--it doesn't need to be one or the other.

http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/p/Performance-Training/The-Human-Side-of-Coaching_GB-00939.html  --Call me biased, but I think this is a great book for coaches written by me (see? Now you get my bias).  Don't expect magic drills...this is about working with parents and administrators, using teaching theory (even if you aren't a teacher) to improve training, and even how to work with multi-sport athletes.  Most important--it's easy to read!

USAV High Performance Vegas--the big lesson

So I'm done with my first High Performance camp and am now sitting in the Las Vegas airport.  After 4.5 bust days, it's the first chance I've had to really write anything down.  So, instead of some properly organized writing with paragraphs, etc...because I'm tired, we're going to roll with bullets and odd random thoughts.

1. I think the joy shown by 11 and 12 year old athletes is one of the best things in sports--not just volleyball.  But I also think that sometimes that gets suppressed by parents who are only think of pro-ball or the Olympics for their child.  The kids today aren't likely to make the Olympics in a decade or more--but I think their passion will continue for the sport.
2. I appreciate that the parents who remained in Vegas followed the rules.  They didn't bother the kids during the day and happily sat and watched the game-play segment at night.  They were encouraging.  I don't think it's coincidence that I was dealing with good kids and that they had good parents.
3. I must admit to skepticism initially with the classroom sessions offered by USAV in conjunction with True Sport, part of the anti-doping movement, but not after the first one.  Short films on key issues for athletes--a nice 5-10 minute talk by an Olympian, followed by guided discussion.  The topics for Future Selects were Nutrition/Hydration for Athletes and Bullying.  I wish the Bullying session could've been longer--I thought it was a great hour that truly mattered to the Future Selects and Selects who were in the classroom.
4. The documentary, Court and Spark, on Olympian Courtney Thompson was great--a story of effort and work, especially since she isn't an incredible natural athlete or exceptionally tall.  I know a lot of parents and athletes who should see it to understand the commitment necessary for success (in this case with volleyball).
5. UNLV does nothing for me.  Everyone was nice, the gym was great...but walking around feeling like I'm being baked just isn't my thing.  Even with humidity, I'll stick with two-digit temperatures. 
6. I'm always stunned by how many people prefer working with older kids rather than younger ones.  My practical answer would be--if you don't like working with the age group, DON'T MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE for that age group.
7. I've learned a lot about airline procedures (Southwest and Delta) regarding minors flying, especially "Unaccompanied Minors".  Just as important for my sanity, they were really helpful with me needing to pick up different people multiple times--or on the way out where I am currently sitting with a "UM".
8. The USA Volleyball "swag" is pretty sweet...with the coaching stuff, it even makes me look good.  With the athletes, it's pretty cool to see groups in red, white, and blue shirts.  The kids liked getting them--and there is something to be said for having the logo of the national program on your gear.
9. Kayla, the camp 'director' was great--forced to deal with a lot of non-volleyball logistics.  Ditto Denise Sheldon--I think out of the 100 or so kids, 99 were probably put right where they should be in terms of skill.  That's a pretty awesome ratio--and only possible with a lot of hard work with the HP Tryouts/Evaluations.
10. While I liked working it, evaluation paperwork for campers...that's a beast and I only had a little to do.  Yikes.  Of course, I'm complaining, but I don't have a better alternative system that could be setup.

There it is--Vegas HP in a nutshell.
Time to fly Southwest and sleep most of my way back home.

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!

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.

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....

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.