Friday, November 28, 2008

Thank You for the Knowledge

There's nothing like being home for Thanksgiving. I've been fortunate enough to return to Pittsburgh for all 27 Thanksgivings of my life, including all four years while attending William and Mary, all five years living in Northern Virginia and now this year while coaching at Davidson. Everything has been going very smoothly, including travel, Patty coming with her family, seeing all of the relatives and friends, and the food. Yesterday was loads of fun even with four lop-sided football matches. Those poor Lions...

Today has been great because I got to watch the Pitt/West Virginia game at home with my dad. This was fun on a number of fronts:

First, Pitt won. They had a terrific first drive and an excellent fourth quarter on both sides of the ball. The prospect of playing in a New Year's Day bowl increases with this solid victory.

Second, I was at home on the comforts of my couch. I guess I really can't claim it as "my couch" but I'm very grateful that my sister allowed me to use it.

Third, I got to watch the entire game at home with my dad. He's pretty much taught me everything I know, especially about how to be a knowledgeable fan. I'm sure many of us have memories of watching sports with your dad or mom or sibling. When I refer to the file cabinet in my brain for random sports trivia, I usually can recollect that precise moment where I was and who I was with. These memories very special and I know I won't lose them anytime soon. Today will go in that file cabinet.

Currently I'm watching the Nebraska-Colorado game and the analyst is commenting how "knowledgeable" Nebraska Cornhusker fans are. Personally, I think it's pretty high praise for a fan base to be nationally labeled as "knowledgeable." I know that I'm not a Cornhusker fan, but I bet the people of Nebraska have a lot of families that share similar memories as me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, November 24, 2008

Living the Moment

This weekend for me was spent at the Davidson Invitational, coaching our fine athletes for a three-day competition against similarly talented southern schools ranging from Old Dominion (CAA men's power) to Limestone (Division II power.) This also marked Week 12 of our season, almost exactly the midpoint between our first Labor Day practice and the conference championships in late February.

The team was using this meet as a great opportunity to see how tough we could remain in a preliminaries/finals format, selecting 5 or more races per individual, and not resting or wearing faster equipment, unlike the majority of the competition. For Davidson students, this week and the days leading to the Thanksgiving break are quite strenuous with schoolwork - many papers, exams, and late nights. Logging 24 hours of pool time over three days definitely puts a dent into studying.

This meet, too, was probably the third to fifth most important competition of the student-athletes' season. There will be bigger races as the season unfolds and the monotony of being in the same environment for a month can feel bland and uninspiring. Yet, amidst fatigue, academic anxiety, and the sheer competitive environment, across the board, the team swam extremely well. I could write at length about each individual and their many successful races and has me very enthused at what awaits us in the coming months. But I want to hone-in on eight individuals in particular.

These individuals did all win (get first-place) at some point over the weekend. They are very dedicated workers, very competitive, very self-motivated. This is not to say that others on the team do not possess these attributes, because they certainly do. The proof in achieving best times is evidence of the former.

The separation, however, comes by living the moment.

John, our head coach, often uses this in describing someone who understands the stakes and embraces the challenge. Many athletes and teams are capable of winning, but to absorb the opportunity and capture the victory remains elusive, especially when the stakes are at its zenith. No, the stakes weren't incredibly high this weekend. The competition, though, was very good and not as beat-up from training as we were.

Opportunity.

We should not have broken any college records at the invitational, yet we broke three. Those three record-setting performances came from three individuals that anyone would love to root for. The other five victors, too, are high-character, hard-working kids that enjoy being Wildcats and are enthralled with leading their squads. They don't gloat, they don't cut corners, and they don't worry about what they can't control. They live for the moment. They embrace the challenge.

This is what made this past weekend so enjoyable and so profound. In ten days, we'll be in Gambier, Ohio against faster swimmers in a charged environment. Our plan has been to make this meet in Gambier our fastest of the fall. As a team, we have had a very successful twelve week run and our twelve weeks ahead look very promising. It certainly will be difficult to better the swims we've posted at this point in the season with little rest, the lengthy travel, and the burden of knowing finals await the kids when they return.

Opportunity.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Watching the Wildcats

This past Tuesday evening, the Davidson Wildcats were in Norman, Oklahoma to take on the Sooners in a Preseason NIT game for the right to go to Madison Square Garden. A bunch of the coaches and members of the athletic department met at the only sports hub in Davidson to watch the 9:30PM tip-off on ESPN2. It was pretty neat and I'm glad I went, especially since social settings + sporting events usually don't mix well with me. Davidson fell short to beating Oklahoma by just four points after trailing by 21 with 13 minutes left and by 15 with 5 minutes left. Everyone was down, but not deflated - it was a quality showing by the Cats against the #12 team in the country.

Mostly everyone at this point knows about Stephen Curry. He pretty much put the Wildcats on his back and carried them all the way to the Elite Eight before falling 2 points short of beating national champion Kansas. Personally, I didn't know much about Davidson's team last year (or at any time) and didn't know what the big deal was. Even as he torched Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin, I just assumed that he was one of the players that is getting hot at the right moment and that it would only be a matter of time before he cooled.

That's not really the case with Steph.

Trust me, you've got to come down here to watch him play.

I don't think I've ever seen, in person, someone get the green light to shoot FROM ANYWHERE. Even as he continues to refine his passing and point guard skills, witnessing Steph at work is pretty cool. He's not selfish. He's not over-ambitious. He's a shooter in the purest sense of the word. Yes, he did throw up one air-ball and one missile straight off the glass. But that didn't deter him and probably never will.

So, when I was watching that ESPN2 telecast and Steph started accumulating all of those points, and the bar would erupt as the Oklahoma's lead shrank, I couldn't help but chuckle knowing I saw this team and that guy live. Davidson will have a huge following this season and who knows if it will last forever or if they are really bandwagoning to watch Curry shoot 500 times. It's pretty clear, though, that he's a remarkable player and I would really like to claim that I'm getting YOU tickets to come down here and watch him play.

Now that Davidson lost to the Sooners and since each of the 16 teams in the Preseason NIT are guaranteed 4 games, that means Davidson has to play two more games. Fortunately for us, Davidson was chosen as the host site, so Florida Atlantic (and Mike Jarvis!!!!!) James Madison, and Loyola of Maryland are coming here on Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving to play.

Two more opportunities to watch them play - in case you're interested.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Thursday Night Football

This week my Steelers are playing the Bengals on the NFL Network on Thursday Night. When the schedule makers first released the 2008 slate of games, I noticed that November 20th was NOT Thanksgiving. "What a second," I thought to myself, "why are there Thursday Night games before Thanksgiving?"

Being a Steeler fan is more than being any other fan. We'd watch our team on Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Fat Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Halloween, Veterans' Day, Columbus Day, Labor Day, Arbor Day, any day. I will watch and study and cheer through the game just like every loyal Steeler fan. But I'm particularly puzzled why the National Football League continues to extend it's product to a time/day that it's loyal viewers are not accustomed to.


First, the Thursday Night game two weeks ago featuring the Browns and Broncos was not exactly the marquee match-up you should be drawing to open your network's season. Where's the appeal in that - come watch two mediocre AFC teams relive their glory days of the late '80s and have the Browns snatch defeat from the jaws of victory just like they did 20 years earlier.

Last week, the Jets and Patriots game was a classic game and a coming out party for Matt Cassel. I, unfortunately, had fallen asleep before his exceptional touchdown throw to Moss as well as the Favre-lead overtime. This leads to my second point - if you're going to mess with tradition, mess with it so people don't have to adjust too much. Move the game up 30 minutes or before 8PM so most of the country can enjoy the game when there's actually a decent game to watch.

Furthermore, the NFL was the only major sport that USED to be able to boast having all of their games available to anyone with a television. ESPN took Monday Night Football and we can live with that because, frankly, ESPN is basically on most football-watching fans' televisions. The NFL Network, as wonderful as it is, still eludes the majority of fans. How is it a good idea to force people to either leave the comforts of home or pony-up more money to find a cable provider or local bar to find the game? Not only is that bad business, it's dumb business.

Finally, since it's mid-November, I can't help but be reminiscent of my favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. There's nothing like it. And there's nothing like it because of the three Fs: family, food, and football (usually in that order, but it all depends on a) how much trouble I'm in and b) if we get to play outside in the streets for sunrise to sunset. But since I can remember, we looked forward to watching the Lions play at 12:30PM and the Cowboys play at 4PM. That's the only Thursday we were treated to football. And that's what it was - a treat. I know that the game has grown, but it should not have grown too much to keep tradition. If we distribute treats routinely, we are no longer treated to them, we expect them.

This change is not a huge enough problem that the NFL will be seen in a darker image, at least for right now. But there are certain traditions and standards that should be maintained, and this is a small one that I would like to see preserved. We don't need to change the number of teams in the playoffs. We don't need to expand. We don't need to have a 4-point field goal or a three-point conversion or a Saturday Super Bowl. We certainly don't need any more Thursday Night football.

Unless you want to put the Browns on every Thursday Night - that would probably be fine with everyone.

A New Hobby

One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is getting to instruct spin classes. I never thought I would be writing this two months ago, but it's become a big responsibility and something I'm hoping to not only get good at, but expand.

The other assistant swimming coach, Jess, and I rotate weeks that we lead spinning as part of our dryland routine. This week (Nov. 17-22) is my sixth week leading the cycling circus. Usually we'll have to lead anywhere from 3-6 spinning sessions per week, which can wear you down by Friday.

As you probably know, I'm not a very "in-tune" with today's latest music. It would be very difficult to ride a bike as fast as you can to the sound of a baseball game on the radio or soft hits from the 80s. Nevertheless, I've gotten some help from members of the team and my arsenal of tunes has expanded quite a bit in these first three months.

Creating the mixes is tricky. You have to align the spinning activity with the songs and, depending on what you want to accomplish, can be very difficult for someone as Type A as me. Should I put a fast song here or later - should we climb a tough hill on this song or just wait for the refrain - will anyone really stay awake for this song?

One thing is for certain - I'm very glad I've been given this responsibility. Just last Tuesday, one of the people in charge of physical education at Davidson asked if I would teach a couple of spinning classes in the spring. Sounds good to me! I'm hoping to keep my library updated but that means I'll need everyone's help with collecting new songs - if you have a good, uptempo beat, send it my way. And if you'd like to try my instruction on for size, come to North Carolina for a free sample.