Quote of the Day

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal.

My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

Louis Pasteur

How Do They Do It?

How do the folks on the U.I.L. Legislative Council keep from laughing at some of the presentations?

Here are a few proposals that were denied/rejected/tabled:

No coach can coach his son on a varsity team.

Is it okay for a mom to coach her daughter?

Coaches not be allowed to run alongside their athletes during cross country meets.

I guess that means swimming in open lanes during races would be out for swim coaches, too.

Allow players to take a drink during a thirty-second time out in basketball.

Does that mean they can’t now? That's pretty idiotic!

Acrylic or artificial nails shall not be allowed in girls basketball.

Next, they'll want to limit hair weaves!

Regulate the length of basketball pants.

I hope we're not going back to short shorts!

Create a rule to dictate hair length.

Do they mean shorter for guys, longer for girls, or both?

Allow fifth year seniors to play football.

Let's lower the bar to reward failure!

Freshmen and sophomores should not be allowed to play on a varsity team until he or she reaches their junior year.

That would have meant last year's guys' team of ten would have been trimmed to a much more manageable four, while the gals' squad of eight would have been a team of two. At least there wouldn't be any relay controversies.

All youth participating in athletics be given equal playing time in all sports.

I couldn't agree more. It's just not fair that an eight-minute 500 freestyler has all the fun while a twenty-one second 50 freestyler barely gets any "playing" time!

I'll bet you hoped I'd include something funny about U.I.L. sponsoring water polo, didn't you?

Sorry, but I'm not going there...

Quote of the Day

I don't make jokes. I just watch the

government and report the facts.

Will Rogers

Quote of the Day

I owe my success to having listened respectfully
to the very best advice, and then going away
and doing the exact opposite.

G. K. Chesterton

Quote of the Day

Never interrupt your enemy

when he is making a mistake.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Advice

This list appears in the most recent edition of Texas Coach magazine. It's from former Corpus Christi ISD athletic director Richard Avila. It's aimed at first-time football coaches, but most items could apply to any new coach.

Advice for a First-Time Head Coach

1. Thank those who helped you get where you are today...parents, teachers, coaches, mentors, etc. Thank the Board, administration, principal, A.D., upon being awarded the position.
2. Be loyal to your district, board, superintendent, principal, school, coaches, athletes, etc.
3. Be careful what you say to the media, be short and to the point - be positive always.
4. Evaluate existing staff, allow them a chance to prove themselves. If they fit, keep them; if not, help them get another position.
5. Pick or hire two top assistants. If defensive-minded, get a strong offensive-minded coach and vice versa.
6. Share and write down your philosophy/goals with your staff and your team.
7. Loyalty is your number one priority when surrounding yourself with good assistants at all levels.
8. Support all sports by your presence and your actions: salary, budget, travel, equipment, assistants, etc.
9. Treat all coaches like you would have wanted to be treated when you were coming up the ranks.
10. Never run up the score on anyone and don't let other sports in your school do it either.
11. Never ask coaches to work on Sundays unless you have to, but don't ask them to miss church.
12. Never neglect your spouse and family - find time for them always.
13. Study the rules, know them inside out. If you break a rule, turn yourself in...tell the truth. Admit it...learn from it...Take your lumps...Don't do it again!
14. If an assistant breaks a rule, turn them in and administer a reprimand with approval of principal.
15. Re-visit Code of Conduct by committee: male & female coaches, student-athlete, assistant principal and you.
16. Make all meetings. Be professionally dressed, be on time, better yet - be early.
17. Always have a shirt and tie handy when asked to go "downtown".
18. Work with local officials' associations. Be courteous, respectful, accept their rulings, etc.
19. Keep in mind always that you are a role model. You never know who is watching.
20. Document...document...document

Quote of the Day

You can only be young once, but

you can always be immature.

Dave Barry

Quote of the Day

Good habits are as easy to form as bad ones.

Tim McCarver

Quote of the Day

Preach not to others what they should eat,
but eat as becomes you, and be silent.

Epictetus

Quote of the Day

The problem with people who have no vices is

that generally you can be pretty sure they're

going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

Elizabeth Taylor

Quote of the Day

You can't build a reputation on what you're going to do.

Henry Ford

Quote of the Day

It is dangerous to be right

when the government is wrong.

Voltaire

Quote of the Day

I have always found that mercy

bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day

Good parents give their children roots and wings.

Roots to know where home is, wings to fly away

and exercise what's been taught them.

Jonas Salk

Quote of the Day

I love argument, I love debate. I don't expect anyone

just to sit there and agree with me, that's not their job.

Margaret Thatcher

Quote of the Day

People ask the difference between
a leader and a boss.  The leader
leads, and the boss drives.

 

 

Theodore Roosevelt

Quote of the Day

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my

life the way I did if I was going to worry

about what people were going to say.

Ingrid Bergman

Quote of the Day

The only reason to have money is to tell

any SOB in the world to go to hell.

Humphrey Bogart

Quote of the Day

I just want Texas to be number one in

something other than executions,

toll roads and property taxes.

Kinky Friedman

Quote of the Day

The outcome of the war is in our hands;

the outcome of words is in the council.

Homer

Quote of the Day

Some people are born on third base and

go through life thinking they hit a triple.

Barry Switzer

Quote of the Day

If I came in to recruit your son, I would tell you,

your wife, and your son, that I will be the most

demanding coach your son can play for.

Bobby Knight

Quote of the Day

Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond

my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the

exciting world outside of my own home.

Esther Williams

Quote of the Day

It's lonely and cold on the top... lonely and cold.

Judy Garland

Quote of the Day

Education makes a straight ditch

of a free meandering brook.

Henry David Thoreau

Flounder

Bobby w/flounder (and Al)

Quote of the Day

To rage and mock is gentlemanly,

to grumble and whine is not.

Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Quote of the Day

You do have to be fairly selfish when you

have a gift. You cannot afford to let

too many outside things get in the way.

Sarah Brightman

Bull Shark (4 a.m.)

Today's meet was called off, so the boys got a workout in by hauling in this fighter.

Quote of the Day

I have learned over the years that when one's mind

is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what

must be done does away with fear.

Rosa Parks

Quote of the Day

You can get much farther with a kind word

and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.

Al Capone

Quote of the Day

I was taught that the way of progress

was neither swift nor easy.

Marie Curie

Still More Excuses

Had a 9th grade football miss yesterday because he had to shoot his horse. A new one for me and the rest of the staff.

Ya'll ain't gonna believe this. Not a kid, but a varsity coach. He took a personal day from school today. Not for golf. Not for a vacation. But to go to a yoga class with his wife.....are you freakin kiddin me?

We got a new one yesterday. His mom's boyfriend's mom was sick in another town and they had to go check on her.

Coach so and so won't be a practice because he is in jail. Happened during two a days.

Had one miss yesterday because he got hit in the back with an instrument this weekend at Area Band competition.... He is out for a week.

Had a note handed to me during homecoming week...Due to extremity of little Johnny's school spirit, please excuse him from athletics today.

Quote of the Day

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts -

for support rather than for illumination.

Andrew Lang

More Excuses

Those football guys on The Old Coach have added some more excuses for missing practice to the list. Here are a few:

Had a kid last year give me a note from his parent that said "Please excuse so and so from football practice today. He is allergic to grass and cannot get in the grass. The Dr. said he can get on grass next week."

Had a freshman kid ride the bus home instead of going to practice a few years back. He said he was hungry...

It was a little chilly out the other morning and we had a kid that hid in the lockeroom. His excuse..."Coach, I don't like the cold"

The chickens my mom and dad take to the cockfights in Louisiana got out and I had to round them up before they'd bring me to school.

Had an 8th grader yesterday miss practice because of butt spasms. Yes I said BUTT spasms. I couldn't stop laughing. Same kid broke his nose a couple of weeks ago trying to jump over a pop up dummy!!!!

Band practice

It was cold outside and the temp was around 32. I was out with the 7th graders and when we came in there were a few crying. One of the them couldn't button his pants b/c his hands were too cold. This was before school....7th grade came back 2nd period. I look around and the kid is not there...he comes out on the practice field about 10 mins before the bell rings with a note from the nurse! He went to the nurse bc his hands were so cold!! Couldn't believe it!

Had a Freshman kid miss FB practice one day because he had to go with his gramma to get pinstripes on her car. Also had a high school girl try to get out of a track meet because it was her little sister's birthday.

Had a kid tell me last week he wouldn't be at practice bc he had to get a haircut. He also asked to to relay that message to the head coach.....

Had a JV kid miss practice last week because he went with his mom to get her fiance out of prison........I was speechless.....

Had one go to the track meet only to leave early and miss his event. I asked him why he needed to leave. He said his mom had gotten a promotion and they were going out to eat to celebrate. Mom said he had to leave.

Had a jv kid miss two Mondays in a row because he had to mow his grass. Said he couldn't play on Thursday if the grass wasn't cut. He is no longer with us.

Had a kid come up to the office not too long ago and said his mom wouldn't let him play anymore because he stopped wearing his cup....

Had a kid once tell me he had to miss because his aunt's cat was having kittens.

Had to watch the dog

Had missed the previous two workouts and his mother came up to us after school saying that he hadn't been coming to practice because his helmet made him Claustrophobic

I have to take my dog to obedience class

When I was playing, one of my teammates missed a weeks worth of practice because he wiped his butt with poison oak.

Had a couple of kids on the varsity miss twice last week...when they came back we asked them where they had been for two days - we had seen them at school...their reply, "coach, we don't want to practice anymore we just want to go straight to offseason." to which I replied, "So, you want to quit football with 3 weeks left in the season, after you have worked so hard all year until now?" Which they answered with, "No, coach, we don't want to quit football we just don't want to practice anymore - we just want to do offseason all the time."

Haircut, mama said I need to babysit, had to go to eat with family, tired of getting beat up

Had 1 say that he was crossing an electric fence and touched it and it blew his left testicle off.............sounded bad so I had the reciever coach check it out......he was lying!

Had a kid miss practice because his dad stabbed him, on purpose. Had kids also miss because of haircuts, sick girlfriend... the list goes on forever.

We had a kid studying his band music during the the game on a friday night

Quote of the Day

He that is good for making excuses

is seldom good for anything else.

Benjamin Franklin

Black Drum & Redfish

Quote of the Day

Whenever the people are well-informed,

they can be trusted with their own government.

Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

Man is a goal seeking animal. His life only has

meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

Aristotle

These may be the last of the season:

Quote of the Day

At this point I've got a bit of a track record.

So people realize that when 'Weird Al' wants

to go parody, it's not meant to make them look

bad...it's meant to be a tribute.

Al Yankovic

Quote of the Day

If one morning I walked on top of the water

across the Potomac River, the headline

that afternoon would read:

"President Can't Swim."

Lyndon B. Johnson

Thinking Ahead

Nine or ten years ago, I cut down a dead tree out back. Leon must have been about eight and Bobby about six.

I'd buzzed it up and split it into smaller pieces and they were "helping" me haul it out front.

After about a half-hour of grunting and sweating, I overheard this conversation:

Leon: Bobby, are you goin' to college?
Bobby: I don't know.
Leon: If you don't go to college, you gotta stay here and work for dad.
Bobby: I'm goin' to college.

Quote of the Day

We can't solve problems by using the same

kind of thinking we used when we created them.

Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

I am more afraid of an army of a hundred

sheep led by a lion than an army of a

hundred lions led by a sheep.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

Quote of the Day

It's better to explore life and make

mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes

are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Sophia Loren

From this week's Chronicle of Higher Education

In a Liquid State

I have photographed a women's swimming group on Staten Island since 1984. They meet on Wednesday nights and swim in a dimly lit, extremely humid YMCA pool. The oldest members have been swimming together for more than 40 years, and every fall new acolytes arrive, some as young as 6 years old.

Photographing these swimmers has enabled me to be in a relaxed setting in which female bodies move in and out of water, each carrying her own lightness or weight of years. This is a society of girls and women who have created a gliding, floating world for themselves, apart from societal constraints.

Being a part of this landscape has been a gift. I have been a witness to a world of extraordinary beauty that few people notice. Photographing women in bathing suits is a loaded issue in our culture. Young women are rarely photographed on their own terms, and aging women are largely unseen. Sometimes I think that maybe we aren't looking at life well enough.

When I first began this project, I may have been as interested in the quirky, cultural aspects of the swimming group as in each swimmer's physical form. But as we all became more comfortable with each other and with the camera, I began to make portraits of individual swimmers. The water itself became a subject, as the girls and women moved from solid to liquid states.

The photographs and text are by Christine Osinski, a professor of art at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. The photographs are from the exhibition "Pool Studies," at the Westover School's Schumacher Gallery, in Middlebury, Conn., through December 1.

Quote of the Day

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.

Moliere

Quote of the Day

Let us put our minds together and see what

kind of future we can build for our children.

Sitting Bull