November | 2019 | THE COACH HAYS

Monthly Archives: November 2019

November 9, 2019 · 12:01 PM

Thai-beñero Sauce 2019

A bubba has to eat—and eat well to fuel their body and allow them to perform. Really this goes for any athlete. Good, well-balanced food, water, and at least eight hours of sleep a night is vital to a teenage athlete’s performance and their health. This is one of the reasons why I learned long ago to cook. Today, I’d like to share a kitchen experiment I made recently to add a little flavor and pop to my food, thai-beñero hot sauce.

Last May when I shopped at our local hardware store for the traditional jalepeño peppers plants for my garden, Thai and habeñero peppers were all they had left in their temporary greenhouse. I was a bit disappointed but jumped at the chance to jump into an experimental garden addition for 2019. The weather was weird for gardening and not the best for tomatoes and peppers. Wet, cool, wet, and then even more wet but we survived and even thrived with an abundance of cucumbers that were absolutely delicious. The hot peppers, however, were slow and few and far between. I did harvest enough green peppers, tomatoes, and Thai peppers to make a batch of homemade salsa. The extra kick from the Thai peppers tasted fantastic and made for some excellent salsa that was eaten before it needed to be canned.

The slow production of the hot peppers disappeared in mid-August as the weather turned hot and dry. By the end of September, the plants were loaded down with both Thai and habeñeros. I had a plan to pickle some and maybe put a few in the freezer for winter stews. Then as October rolled around, the weather went Kansas-haywire and we had a forecast of a whole weekend of sub-freezing overnight temperatures. After work that Thursday, I went out as the thermometer plummeted and picked all the hot peppers on the plants. I felt pretty good about myself saving those perfectly fine and perfectly flame-throwing vegetables. After a week of sitting in a bowl on the counter, though, Mrs. Hays began to send friendly death glares in my direction about the dangerous bowl sitting out in the open. I ignored her as usual. The next week, the peppers began to wrinkle so I decided I had better do something about them.

A flash of brilliance descended upon my mind. A vision from heaven. Inspiration at it’s highest and most powerful. I thought about one of my grandfather’s favorite condiments, Tabasco sauce. I thought, you know they have to make that from a recipe and if they can make such a delicious sauce, why can’t I? I searched the food websites and found a recipe for Homemade Cayenne Pepper Sauce at the Chili Pepper Madness site.

It was pretty easy. It tastes great. It smelled even better simmering on the stove. It’s a winner and well worth purchasing a Thai and a habeñero plant again next year solely for hot pepper sauce purpose.

Rush out in a biting north wind and pick peppers before covering them with a tarp.
Let them sit on the counter until the other people in your house can’t stand it anymore or else they begin to wilt.
Wearing protective nitrile gloves, rough chop the peppers, seeds and all, and place into a pot.
Add the garlic, a half cup of white vinegar, and two teaspoons of salt.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes.
Remove from the stove and allow it to cool for 30 minutes or so.
Pour all the contents of the pot into a blender and blend on high until liquified. Add water slowly until you achieve the consistency you prefer.
Strain through a colander into a glass bowl.
Transfer to a canning jar or glass container. Label properly because this stuff can be dangerous if not handled properly.
Keep refrigerated and use as is, or boil process for long-term storage.
Place the solids filtered out in the colander on a piece of aluminum foil and dehydrate overnight. Use these dried solids as a seasoning in your favorite stews, soups, or meat rubs.

That’s it! The result was a sauce with a bite but with an exceptional flavor. I’m happy with it and have already enjoyed it on eggs, pasta dishes, and soups. Plus, I look forward to adding the dried seasoning to a dry rub the next time I smoke a pork loin or shoulder for a little extra kick.

Wow! Take one more look at those beautiful hot peppers.

Bon appetite, Bubbas! As you hit the offseason for football and look toward your other sports, remember to keep eating a balanced diet. Your energy and your health affect your performance. Never forget this simple fact. Eat well, drink water, and get 8-10 hours a sleep a night. Learn to appreciate the food you need to grow and develop as an athlete. Your body will thank you.

Fun? What do you mean, fun?

There’s been a coaching riddle that has perplexed me since 2002. The concept of “fun” in sports. It started way back when a very talented group of players were underachieving and had fallen into poor practice habits. After a players-only meeting to figure out their ideas to achieve more from practice in order to perform better in games, one of the three things listed was they weren’t having “fun” at practice. More recently, I’ve heard many a player who chose not to go out for a particular sport they’ve participated in previously, give their reasoning as “it’s not fun.”

Over the years, I’ve gone from utter disbelief (What do you want, a cake and a friggin’ party?”) to old man-get-off-my-lawn (It’s this stupid video game generation?”) to finally over the last few years wanting to study and figure out what “fun” actually means to a youth athlete.

What struck me earlier this year was in order to put my thumb on the problem of fun, I needed to quit looking at the issue from the perspective of a middle-aged, white guy and try to turn back the mental clock to think like a teenage boy. It was scary at times and it was not always family-friendly content, but what I discovered was very telling. I discovered from my experiences as a teenage athlete to my experiences as a sports coach to my ability to empathize with today’s young athletes, a definition of what they mean when they say, “it’s not fun.”

Fun means satisfying.

Fun doesn’t mean clowning around all the time or having no desire to compete like I used to think. Fun means they desire a satisfying participation experience that makes it worth the time they invest when there are a thousand other things they could be doing instead. Fun means a satisfying environment where they feel safe, valued, and among leaders who, first and foremost, want to make them better humans through athletics.

Sure, nobody likes getting their ass handed to them in a sporting event but I don’t think winning and losing is anything but a small fraction of this new definition of fun. Then again, the environment of competing—the environment of doing things the right way and getting better every day—often depends on having that satisfying environment directed toward daily physical, mental, and emotional improvement.

As we end the fall sports season and transition to the winter sports with an eye toward spring and beyond, coaches (and parents) take a moment to honestly evaluate your program, your young student-athletes, and, in particular, get a gauge on how fun/satisfying their experience is or has been. Throw your ego aside and make the necessary changes. Study other programs.

Develop a fun/satisfying program. Develop an environment to which young athletes choose to be there rather than doing any of those thousands of other things they could be doing. Develop an environment that respects their decision not to participate but, time and place accordingly, welcome them back into the fold without ramification if they’ve found out they made the wrong initial decision.

A coaching warning, though. Providing this type of environment takes work and effort every single day. It takes connecting with the athletes on more than just a sports performance level. It requires an energy level above and beyond the call of duty. You check your adult problems and adult ego/arrogance at the door when you walk into the locker room. You make a difference one kid, one day, one drill, one game, one play, and one season at a time through consistency and direction. Competing satisfies an inherent human trait. Tap into it with everything you do as a coach.

Provide a satisfying experience and young athletes will follow you to the ends of the earth. And it will be fun.

Finally, as so eloquently stated in Field of Dreams,

“If you build it, they will come.”