Thoughts On Little League; Coaching.

All youth sports are about one thing and one thing only. The after game snack. Most kids sports consist of most of the kids standing around with no clue what to do, a few kids listening and trying, a couple kids learning and excelling and the one kid who is way to good to be on the team. But all of them are focused of course on one important detail, the after game snack.

When I was a youth the coaches brought just drinks or at least I thought they did. Today and maybe even back then, the parents take turns bringing the snacks and drinks. My son, who is now six has played 2 years of soccer, 1 year of flag football and now one season of baseball. The trend now is that one parent brings a snack and one brings a drink. The coach hands out a schedule at the start of the season and each parent takes a turn. While the kids never really talk about it much during the game, as soon as its over, the kids become a collective, a hive, zeroed in on the cooler. They buzz around like a swarm of bees, salivating; transfixed as if they are hoping to receive an edible solid gold ball of chocolate filled ice cream covered in candy swirls and marshmallow fluff that will cause money, toys and rainbows to appear when they bite into it. Of course its usually just Capri Sun and Doritos.

I took my first swing at coaching this year, opting to volunteer to be an assistant coach for Wesley's T-ball team. Other than knowing that all the kids cared about was that snack, I really did not know what to expect. While youth sports teams typically comprise of the aforementioned types of kids, youth coaches usually fall in to one of a few stereotypes. There is the first time coach who means well, but usually has no idea what he is doing and looks terrified at the start of each game. Kids, like bees, can smell fear. Then there is the second or third year coach, usually a bit cocky, but often well prepared. They either do not say they have coached before so that you may think they are a first year coach who just happens to have his shit together or they take pride in making sure you know they have done this before, usually in an ambiguous manner in terms of years so that even if it is their second year, they may want you to believe it is their 26th. Finally we have the grizzled veteran coach. They are loud and effective. Particularly effective at ignoring the bulk of the kids who spend most of the time not paying attention or throwing rocks at each other. They are laser focused on procedure and protocol. They know when the warm ups end and when they umpires should arrive. They are nice and accepting of the newer coaches giving the first year coaches, who by this time are knee deep in crying, complaining kids who have to go pee, a knowing nod filled with both pity and empathy. Wesley's head coach was mostly the first type with a bit of the rest thrown in. He was organized and well meaning and did a great job with the kids.

As an assistant, I fell into all the categories. I certainly did not know what the hell I was doing,

I definitely meant well, I was very loud and sometimes I think I was even effective. Sometimes.

Coaching is tough. Any type of leading or management can be hard. But, when you are coaching young kids it is a combination of parenting, teaching, managing, leading, herding, refereeing, cheerleading, disciplining, and patience. Lots and lots of patience. Remembering that all the kids care about is the snack at the end, the actual practice and playing of the game is a secondary event. Since there is no Pokeman or Spongebob or Star Wars to keep them focused, it comes down to keeping them engaged and moving at all times. Today for example the kids were on the bench touching each other, hitting, calling names, ect. Typical 6th year olds. My answer? RUN. We had the kids run the bases. They couldn't catch each other so they couldn't touch each other. It kept them focused and good for about 3 minutes. Since practice had just started we couldn't already give them the snack...

The most important thing about kids sports for parents is that the kids have fun. The most important thing for the coaches is that the kids do not get hurt. The most important thing for the kids is the snack. Somewhere in there there has to be some teaching of the actual game at hand. It's a tough balance. The kids mostly do not pay attention which makes the probability of them getting hurt increase. The coach wastes a lot of the time yelling at the kids trying to get them to pay attention so they don't get hurt. This means not a lot of teaching is happening and not a lot of fun is being had. But they ALWAYS get their snack. Which means they had fun. So, as long as no kid is knocked out cold on the off chance one of them actually gets a hit or throws a ball in someone's general direction, everyone is happy.

So as Wesley's first season of baseball concludes along with it goes my first year of coaching. It was an interesting year. The kids were a good group. Sure there was some pushing, touching, and a lot of "stop touching mes", but overall they were pretty good. I asked Wesley if he learned anything at all this year and he said "I learned to keep one of my elbows up when batting." I'll take that. On playing baseball again he said "I'll think about it."

I think I'd say the same thing about coaching.

Pics of Wesley at the bat.

The King of Pop is Dead

CNN, the Associated Press, and ,well every news site and person with a Twitter account is reporting on the death of the King of Pop. Michael Jackson is dead at age 50.

To most young music lovers, Jackson is some weird looking pedophile whose about as relevant as a Pet Rock. But to those who were coming of musical age in the 80's, Jackson is an icon. Certainly his personal antics in the last 10-15 years have tainted that image somewhat, but today is a day to remember the talent. And what an enormous talent he was.

Starting with his brother in the Jackson 5, Michael demonstrated tremendous talent with his vocals and his dancing. While he and his brother earned fame with their Motown releases, it was not until Jackson emerged as a solo artist that he became a superstar. A phenomenon.

His first solo albums, released as part of the Jackson 5 franchise were hits, successes in their own right, but The Michael Era really began with Off The Wall in 1979. While the album had remnants of the disco era hanging on some of the more dance oriented numbers, it also had some tender moments and some true legendary pop gems like Rock With You and Dont Stop Till You Get Enough.

Jackson fulfilled the promise of Off The Wall and and of pure pop perfection with hlp form Quincy Jones in 1982 with Thriller. The biggest selling album of all time. And with good reason. The album opened with Wanna Be Startin Somethin. This tune was a bridge to the sound of 79s Off The Wall and also in many ways the close of the 70's R&B era. From that song out Thriller moves between rock, pop, ballad and R&B seamlessly and effortlessly. From the boppy disco-like start with ...Startin Something to the team up with legendary rock god Eddie Van Halen for Beat It, to the unclassifiable genius of horror pop that was the title track Thriller is an unescapable, infectious, musical piece of art. Jackson's now mature tenor was at his peak and the songs had a timeless sound even then. Even today the genre defying record remains capable of sounding modern and awesome. The timing of this record with the arrival of MTV caused a hysteria and phenomenon of pop music that I doubt will ever be matched by any artist.

Follow up albums Bad and Dangerous and HIStory may have never matched the perfection and hype of Thriller, but those records are mega hits in their own right churning out a steady supply of fantastic tunes.

In addition to being a musical powerhouse, Jackson donated untold millions upon millions of dollars to various charitable causes, often donating entire takes from tours.

Jackson may have been weird, he may have even been a pedophile. If the latter is true its terrible and I feel for the victims. Tonight though I'll just listen to the music and enjoy the massive talent that was The King of Pop...

Time To Freshen Things Up Around Here

After  our recent trip to Walt Disney World, it has been a busy time with the kids in swim lessons and Wesley in baseball and Rebecca and I working.   I have been spending a lot of time on my flickr page, a small amount of time on my newly secured "unique" facebook page, and way too much time on twitter but the blog and my main site have been neglected despite promises to write more.  To try and encourage more blogging I went ahead and sort of merged the main page at richrichmond.com with the blog so that my blog entries show up on my main page as an RSS feed.  You can still click on the blog entries right on my main page and they will seamlessly open in blogger for commenting.  So poke around and let me know what you think of the new set up!