June 9, 2012 · 8:19 AM

The Last One Consumption Psychology

One cookie left in the package on the counter. I’ve passed it thirty or forty times and it’s still there. It’s been there for several hours sitting in the wide open waiting to be eaten; the package emptied and tossed into the trash can in an act of finality. But, instead nobody touches it.

What is it about the “last” that forces us to avoid eating the last one? What forces us to sip no more than half of the minute remnants from the milk container because we know in theory that we can sip half as we approach infinity and there will always be a theoretical half remaining?

Boys are the worse. Growing up in a house of five boys, I lived this phenomenon on a daily basis. Our house was strewn with bread sacks with one piece of bread left, boxes of Stover’s candies with one piece left (99.99% of the time a piece of some crappy fruit creme chocolate with the investigational thumb poke through the bottom), a half dozen crumbs-on-the-bottom bags of chips in the cabinet and a fridge stocked with a collection of Kool-Aid, juice, milk, tea…etc. containers with microscopic amounts of liquid product staining their bottom side.

Is it the psychology of not wanting the label of being the greedy S.O.B. who ate THE LAST ONE? Do we not want the to accept the responsibility when The Mom throws a holy hell outrage about who ate the last one and didn’t write the need for a replacement on the grocery list? Do we not want to accept the responsibility as the final consumer, with the inherited duties of clean-up and disposal? Or perhaps, it it just plain laziness?

Many questions but few answers.

I just don’t know. But, I am going to sit here and keep an eye on that one cookie for awhile while I try to figure it out.

Leave a comment

Filed under Rants, Reads, Uncategorized, Writes

Tagged as , , , ,

June 3, 2012 · 5:42 PM

“But church had a different kind of math.” -Jack Gantos, Dead End In Norvelt

Sublime. The word I’ll use to describe this excerpt from the 2012 Newberry Medal winning book by Jack Gantos, DEAD END IN NORVELT.  This short excerpt explains to perfection how I feel in church and why I have always felt more comfortable sitting in the back. The excerpt assigns words to my feelings about church and finally provides the perfect answer to the oft-asked question to why I attend church. For me, church has always “had a different kind of math” and that, my friends, is the sublime.

-excerpt from DEAD END IN NORVELT by Jack Gantos, Chapter 13, page 182

“But the best part of sitting in the back was that my mind could wander aimlessly, because church was so dreamy. Real life was lived like doing a math problem: one and one always equaled two. But church had a different kind of math. You could never be sure what anything added up to, which meant that what was in your imagination while sitting in a pew was just as important as what the preacher was saying-maybe even more important. It’s like when you read a book and you know that the words are important, but the images blossoming in your imagination are even more important because its’s  your mind that allows the words to come to life.”

I have read 3 of the last 4 Newberry Medal winners, with GRAVEYARD BOOK by Neil Gaiman (2009) and  MOON OVER MANIFEST by Clare Vanderpool (2011) being the other two.  There is a reason these books win awards; they are magnificent stories masterfully executed.  These books, on first read, were so intimidating for me as a writer that my first impulse was to run up the white flag, throw in the towel, and give up even trying to write.  But as I read, re-read, then re-re-read these books their craft and skill emerged, serving as a model for what can be and for what standard of writing I should shoot for.

Note: Chapter 8 of DEAD END IN NORVELT, where Jack visits Mrs. Dubicki’s house to see if she is alive or dead, while wearing his Grim Reaper Halloween costume as a disguise, is one of the funniest things I have read, it is spit milk through your nose funny. Read this book!

2 Comments

Filed under Reads, Uncategorized, Writes

Tagged as , ,

May 21, 2012 · 8:09 PM

Anything worthwhile…

It’s that exciting time of the year.  The time of graduations and promotions. The time of one year ending and  a new one beginning. It is a time of optimism and promise. Graduates are ready to take the world head on, while those advancing up a grade, plan for greatness in their “one year older” year. You can even be an old fart like me and find hope for the future in the energy of the time. It doesn’t matter which of the above categories you belong in, it is a time to dream.

But remember, nothing comes easy and nothing is given.  Dream it, plan it, then go out and do the work to make it happen. No matter where you are now, you can be better.

Anything worthwhile is worth working for.

Hard work is the magic.

It is the only way.

Leave a comment

Filed under Rants, Training, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

April 26, 2012 · 6:09 PM

Pocket Poetry Day

On one hand, it’s NFL DRAFT DAY!!!!!!! (Jumping up and performing cartwheels. Go Chiefs!)  But on the other hand, today is also Poem In Your Pocket Day.  I didn’t carry a poem in my pocket today; I let the world of poets down. To try to make up for my poetic indiscretion, I am re-blogging a post dedicated to my relationship to poetry.

I don’t think I need to show any love for the NFL or the Kansas City Chiefs since I wear that heart on my sleeve almost 24/7, so here is the post with some editorial updates in ( ):

The final chat presentation at last week’s Catholic Writers Conference Online was Catholic Poetry with David Craig.  Since it was the final chat, I listened in.  During the discussion, I had a poetry flashback.  Back in sophomore honors English, my teacher, Mrs. Goheen, gave us the assignment of memorizing and reciting a poem in front of the class.  I was/am not a huge fan of poetry (Note: It’s getting better) to begin with, so this was an assignment akin to flossing and brushing the dog’s teeth.  When I see poetry in books, the words get fuzzy and begin to dance around into a deadly vortex (Note: It’s getting better).  As the same time, I admit there are several poems and poets I really like (Note: Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky, Frost) .  Well, anyway, completely true to form, I forget all about the memorization assignment until late evening the night before we are to be thrown to the wolves.  I search frantically through our home bookshelf listening to the “I told you so’s” from dear Mother and the laughing of the brothers.  All in the know go to bed that night thinking old MH is toast in the morning in English class.

I sit in class the next morning, waiting to be called to the gallows.  When my name is called, I feel the class and Mrs. Goheen in anticipation of great failure as I walk to the front of the class.  For those who don’t know me, I am a lineman, plain and simple.  I was probably the last over the cut line to get into honors English. I was a seat filler, a butt in the seat (Note: Always the dumbest in the smart group and being a decent to good athlete did not help me one bit with the “honors” class teachers).  So, there I stand in front of the class, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.  I crack my knuckles and clear my throat for a little slapstick comic relief, take my best Shakespearian stance and begin.

The Duck

Behold the duck.
It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines or sups,
It bottoms ups.

The Duck by Odgen Nash

I can’t remember what grade I received on the project.  The audience seemed entertained and Mrs. Goheen seemed satisfied with the selection (Note: She still saw me as a dumb jock at this point, and I didn’t really do anything to convince her otherwise until my late year cutting-edge, incisive biography book report on Bob Dylan).  I am sure it was probably a B+.   Mrs. Goheen asked why I picked that particular poem.  I told her it was my favorite poem, but in all reality, it fit when written on the top of my tennis shoe, just in case I got stage fright.  But, The Duck became my favorite poem and still the only one I have burned to memory.  Thank you Ogden Nash.

Happy Poem In Your Pocket Day to one and all!

Leave a comment

Filed under Reads, Uncategorized, Writes

Tagged as , , , ,

April 14, 2012 · 7:19 AM

Resiliency

Resiliency is  vital in tough situations. Resiliency with a little humor and smart-assedness is my favorite. I particularly like these photos from Fayetteville last week after the firing of the University of Arkansas head football coach Bobby Petrino for “misleading and manipulative behavior”. (For details of this story of the downfall of one of the absolute worst  character coaches in the profession, see here.)

You may not consider a college football coach scandal is a “tough” situation, but for some of us who are, or were, in the eat, sleep and live your favorite teams category, it is a tough situation. At a proud, tradition-rich football school like the University of Arkansas, there is A LOT of eating, sleeping and living Razorback football.  I do like the humor, the smart assedness, and the resiliency shown by these men. I laughed for an extended period when I first saw them. True, it is a sad, embarrassing situation for all involved, but here are a couple guys who have taken the first step to normalcy in their turned-over-on-its-head college sports fandom experience. I would bet these guys are ready to move onto the next coach, the next season; to put on their Hog hats on a fall Saturday afternoon and head to the stadium. That’s resiliency.

1 Comment

Filed under Rants, Uncategorized, Writes

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 28, 2012 · 8:26 PM

Tribute to a Writer

Walt Staples was a a great writer. I never met him in person, but by the magic of the internet, I came to know him through the Catholic Writer’s Guild. Walt died suddenly a couple weeks while waiting at a bus stop. He would probably comment something to the effect that he unintentionally caught the right bus home.

Walt was a great writer. He was a master at what he did. He was funny, kind, humble, and was always willing to help out novice hacks like myself.  Karina Fabian knew Walt much better than I did and she offered a great tribute post to Walt at the Catholic Writer’s Guild blog.

Walt told me one time in a chat to check out a short story he published at Digital Dragon Magazine called, A Feather’s Fall in Vacuum. It was the only time he even remotely “pushed” a work of his and it was only a mild suggestion. I felt like Charlie Bucket opening that Wonka Bar with the final golden ticket inside. I went from wondering where in the heck Walt was going with this story to laughing my butt off for about three hours after finishing it. Beautiful story.

The only proper tribute I could ever give to Walt Staples is to share the link to that story and another  from Digital Dragon with as many people as I can. These two stories are my favorite works of Walt’s, and in my humble opinion, are masterpieces of short fiction.

A Feather’s Fall in Vacuum

Going Postal… But Slowly

We will miss his talent, we will miss his quirky sense of humor, but mostly we will miss the Walt at the Catholic Writer’s Guild. Please pray for his people and friends. Read the stories and check out more of his stories from the links on his blog, Variable Credence.  Laugh, learn and giggle out loud as you read them, Walt would appreciate that.


Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 15, 2012 · 7:42 PM

THE YOUNGER DAYS Book Release Giveaway

I wrote a book. Seriously, I did. It is a book for the upper middle grade (10-14 year old) boy crowd, but I think anyone can enjoy it. I know it may be a bit surprising to some of you, but it’s true. A bit of a shock similar to the time I gave a pre-game speech using Luke 11:23 as the theme, only to have just one player respond with, “Coach, you read the Bible?”

Yes, it is true. I read the Bible AND I write. I had an idea, I scribbled it down, it rattled around in my head for several  years then I wrote all 25,500 words down in just the right order. A series of rejections, followed by a series of fortunate events, finally landed a contract with MuseItUp Publishing, who released it as an ebook on March 9, 2012.

Now that the ebook is out, I have to also become a salesman. It is the way of modern publishing; part writer, part editor, part marketer, part sales. I am not a salesman. Sure, I want as many people to read the book as humanly possible, but I am not a salesman. Never have been. I hated going house to house hawking fund-raisers as a kid.  As a 13-year old, I refused to sell candy bars for the school’s summer baseball program. Wouldn’t do it. My coach that year was also in charge of the fundraising for the baseball program. He told me I HAD to sell candy bars or sit the bench. I refused. I sat the bench. I was a pretty good player, but I wouldn’t budge on my position. I sat the bench. I am not a good salesman.

I stunk at trying to sell our summer conditioning program to the kids. I couldn’t bring myself to Tony Little-ize a sales pitch to the kids. Fortunately Coach Lane stepped in and was able to convince kids to come, he sold it much better than I ever could have.  My part became to sell the results through action and work.  Show up, work hard and you will notice a difference in your body in two weeks.  Once they gave the program a chance, they liked the results and came back day after day.

So, here’s the sales pitch. Try the book, give it a chance and you (or young people you know) may like the results. And priced at $3.50, it is actually cheaper than one of those World’s Finest chocolate bars or boxes of pastel-colored, candy-coated almonds.

You can find the ebook at these places:

MuseItUp Publishing Bookstore

Amazon Bookstore

And here’s a giveaway of an ebook copy of THE YOUNGER DAYS. Leave a comment here or at my author page, to respond to the question below. A winner from the respondents will be randomly selected on April Fool’s Day, 2012.

Question: What was the worst, most hated, most despised thing you ever had to sell as a kid?

1 Comment

Filed under Reads, Writes

Tagged as , , , ,

February 29, 2012 · 8:29 PM

Me vs. The O.S.B: The Grammar Grade

Fifth Grade at the CTK Catholic School meant one thing, The Eleventh Commandment. You know it, “Thou shalt not abuse the basic rules of grammar”. By God’s Grace or hours upon hours upon hours of work , you would know the basics of a sentence, you would know nouns and verbs and adjectives and adverbs and prepositional phrases and blah, blah, blah blah blah blah.

And fifth grade at the CTK meant English with Sister Verene. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Sr. Verene. She was awesome. She was (and I know this is nearly impossible to believe) a nice human being who liked kids, but she was also perhaps the most insect-like human being I have known. She was a small, nervous creature. She had a skinny, pointed face. Her small hands were always in motion, grasshopper-like in concerted movements with her metallic voice.  Of course, this could maybe be the faded memory of a boy of the 1970’s, who maybe watched too many Saturday morning sci-fi monster movie marathons, but I digress. Sr. Verene plain, straight out LOVED grammar. It was her vocation. Most of the other nuns probably prayed rosaries and such, but I am pretty sure Sr. Verene broke down grammatical errors in the Roman Missal and diagrammed the Bible as her contemplation.

I know this is a major surprise to my wife (a.k.a The Grammar Police), my editors at MuseItUp Publishing, my former players and fellow coaches, but at one time (5th grade) this backward, redneck speaking (yeah, that’s speakin’) bubba boy  was a minor grammar god. I was mesmerized by the science of it all and drawn into the world of grammar by Sr. Verene. We diagrammed sentences like madmen. I would even volunteer to go to the board to diagram sentences. The best time was when Sr. Verene set up elimination-style speed diagramming tournaments. She was too cool.

Do people still diagram sentences in school? I don’t think they do it anymore. Too bad, it helped me. I should pull out the old grammar books and brush up on my sentence diagramming. It has to be like riding a bike, you never quite forget how to do it. Maybe it will make a comeback and become an Olympic sport someday, who knows?

3 Comments

Filed under Reads, Writes

Tagged as , , , ,

February 15, 2012 · 9:17 PM

The Wingbuster Story Finale: Shut ‘Em Down Boys!

The planning is done, the presentation is done, the preparation is about as far as we can take it and now we’ve run out of time. It’s time to take it to the field.

I could never sleep much the week before playing the double wing offense. Around Thursday night and all day Friday, it was tough to even eat. I’d worry about everything. Did our kids know their jobs? Were they physically, mentally and emotionally ready for how tough this game is going to be? Then the litany of “What if’s”. What if they come out in some funky new offense? What if they spread it out? What if they break tendencies? What if, what if, what if…

But the biggest one, what if the Wingbuster doesn’t work first time and our kids lose confidence? That’s is the question that bugged me the most. If it didn’t work, I would have totally let the boys down. And letting the boys down was always the fear which drove me to go the extra mile as a coach.

So it’s game time. I honestly cannot tell you one detail of any of the days we played Rock Creek. Too nervous, too many different brainwaves fighting in my head. My head is about ready to explode, then Rock Creek lines up for their first offensive play.

Here is a clip on the Toss play from my final presentation of the Wingbuster. It will give you and idea of how dangerous the play can be, followed by how the Wingbuster performs. The bad defensive examples are Rock Creek (Black) vs. Royal Valley (White). The good defensive examples are Rock Creek (Gray) vs. The Tiger Wingbuster (Black).

I can’t tell the emotion felt when we made the Wingbuster work like this. I don’t have the video from the first time we played them in 2004, but the first play was just like the second good defense clip above. Here we were, coming off an 0-9 season, playing this powerhouse of a team, pressure is cranked to MAX and we just knock the living $h!t out of them on the first play. I seriously could have cried right there on the sidelines.

Thanks to all the coaches who I begged, borrowed and copied from to design the Wingbuster. Thanks to my fellow Tiger coaches for holding the line and teaching the skills and duties at such a high level. Finally, a bubba-sized THANK YOU to all the Tiger Wingbuster players, from the superstars, to the role players, to the substitutes and especially to the Black Dog scout team players. Without your belief in the system and without your dedication to learning and performing the system we would have failed. Your tremendous level of individual and team pride would not accept defeat, no matter how difficult the challenge.

The Wingbuster: Every man do their job on every play.

Tiger Football.

EVERY MAN, EVERY PLAY

Leave a comment

Filed under Reads, Training, Uncategorized, Writes

Tagged as , , , , ,

February 8, 2012 · 8:53 PM

The Wingbuster Story: Part 3

So, the research is done and the planning is done, now it’s time to go to work. It is time to try and convince 60 young men that if they pay attention, if they listen, if they work their tails off and if they stick together as one, they can beat this challenge.

But, they are teenage boys.  So, I know we have to sell this thing to the kids to get them to buy in hook, line and sinker. For this I turn to the expertise of Coach Paul Lane. Up to this point in my football coaching career, I went from an idiot with a football strength and conditioning book to a football coach who, under the tutelage of Coach Lane, could now walk and chew gum at the same time. One thing I learned from him on getting the boys to buy in to something is to come up with a cool name. I thought and thought of names. The Mustang? No, not the right ring to it. Dam the Double Wing? Nope, too hokey.  Bust-A-Wing? No, too 80’s break dance. Wing Stopper? Not bad, but Wing Stopper needed go talk to the 80’s break dance name. Bust-A-Wing Stopper? Hey, that’s closer. Wing…wing…wing…WINGBUSTER! Houston, we had a name! And a good name it was, too. The kids bought into it, the coaches bought into it. Now time to go to work.

Prep Week

Monday – Show team a video mash up of the double wing running over us in the past. Let the kids see the formation and see the basic offensive plays run at their very best. I wanted the video to scare them; use it to get their attention. I gave a short powerpoint on the WingBuster to introduced everyone’s alignment and assignment, then I talked animatedly about how we were going to shut this offense down. After the presentation, we went out for practice where the focus was on defending the Toss, the basic play in the double wing offense.

Tuesday – The focus was on teaching and getting repetitions on the proper physical techniques at each position. D-Line driving through blocker’s thigh pad to make a pile of humanity, D-Ends attacking a spot 1.5 yards behind offensive tackle, inside linebackers reading wing motion and being a wrecking ball to fill hole, the outside linebackers reading their wing and sifting and the deep corners reading their TE window then reacting to pass or run. The main plays we worked on Tuesday were the counter plays off the Toss, the Reverse and the Spin.

Wednesday – More repetitions on technique. Talk about oddball motions, flat motion for Buck Sweep; quick, long motion for fullback runs and play action passes.  More full speed team reps against scout team offense than technique reps.

Thursday – Review all plays in scout script. Hold back on contact, but try to keep full speed reaction repetitions against scout offense. Talk and ask questions and yell and scream and threaten to get everyone  focused on our EVERY MAN DOING THEIR JOB EVERY PLAY philosophy.

Check back for Part 4 finale, the Friday under the lights experience and my absolute coach-love for those underclassmen scout team offensive players, the true heroes of the success of the Wingbuster defense.

Leave a comment

Filed under Rants, Reads, Training, Writes

Tagged as , , , ,