SPORTS TALK: “SO WHAT? NOW WHAT”

“So what,” is sports talk when things take a turn for the worse.

And keep getting worse.

Then comes the, “Now what,” part.

Do you ride it on down, or . . . ?

As kids we learned that quitters never win, and winners never quit.

That came from some coach along the way, one who gave their kid playing time when they hadn’t earned it and everyone wanted to quit.

How long can you sit on the bench while the kid you dominate in practice plays more than you?

I spoke to a coach about this, asking him to explain to my kid how to get more playing time on his basketball team.

And, like someone caught in their own mess, he started explaining it to me.

“Coach, I’m good with my playing time. Give my kid a sports talk to give him hope.”

The dad wasn’t much of a coach, but he did step up, so he had that going for him.

He did what dads do when they don’t know how to coach: He played his kid and his kid’s friends.

Since there’s only one ball per game, it worked out well. For them.

The other kids were excited to play, but too often the clock ran out and the game ended.

So the coach talked to my kid, and the kid did what the coach asked.

He got more playing time, showed some feel for the game of basketball, and went out for wrestling in high school.

But he never forgot how it felt to play on a good team led by a poor coach.

The Life Lessons Of ‘So What’

Playing time is challenge for every coach, and it gets nasty.

A local high school coach for varsity girls’ basketball was run out of town on an accusation by one of his players.

He was accused of inappropriate behavior and it made the front page of the newspaper when newspapers were big.

The consequences were losing his coaching job, his teaching job, and respect in the community.

After the investigation the girl admitted she made up the story because the coach wouldn’t play her as much as her thought she deserved.

She delivered a ‘so what’ and he got the ‘now what.’

The same paper that put him on the front page buried his exoneration in small print inside.

What’s the lesson learned? Bad sports talk sells more papers?

Everyone moved on with their lives, some with extra baggage, unwanted baggage.

Sports Talk Gone Wrong

One summer the high school’s head football coach was accused of abusive language and put on probation.

A player didn’t get the correct sports talk when he was younger and decided he deserved more playing time because his parents had sent him to expensive sports camps.

The coach explained how the system works, the kid told his parents, and that summer things fell apart.

After the coach took a couple of players to a fund raiser for one of his coaching brethren, he was accused and convicted of trying to cheat and hold more practices than allowed.

Since he was already on probation, he lost his coaching and teaching jobs. This was a championship coach who recruited players from youth teams.

At least he let them know they were on his ‘watch list’ before they got to high school.

He got back on his feet, found a new coaching and teaching job, and won more championships.

His old team floundered with an unqualified coach who had no idea what to do with the athletes he inherited.

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He couldn’t run the old offense with all the bells and whistles, all the motion and check-downs. So he went simple with a throwback Wing T, an offense for teams that weren’t loaded for a playoff run.

He got away with it because a new Athletic Director didn’t understand football, or how to be an Athletic Director.

The AD showed up drunk at a road game, laid down some lame shit talk, and got pulled over for a DUI.

During the arrest the police also found weed in the car. This was before weed stores had popped up like Starbucks on every corner.

The AD was replaced by a man who knew the job well enough to be honored by his peers. Except he forgot to check on player eligibility.

After the season the football team had to forfeit every game an inedible player played in.

Besides playing in every football game, he was also a varsity basketball player. Both teams had to forfeit games.

There is no sports talk for such an amateur hour production.

The ‘So What, Now What’ Blogger Life

I wrote this to my new guest blogger to bring him up to speed:

My writing career touches many areas, from museum cataloging, published research pieces, newspaper columns, magazine articles.

My biggest payday was writing for an investment money guy. 

I quit when I noticed his research on investments came before the news of them. Insider info? So I bailed.

I started blogging with the best intentions, starting here:  https://deegeesbb.wordpress.com.

Then I stepped up, bought a domain webspace for a self-hosted site, boomerpdx.

What I haven’t done is run ads, do affiliate marketing, or click monetizing. 

I don’t have sponsors, or supporters. It’s just me. My kid calls it a Vanity blog with vanity metrics.

Smart kid.

I make the decisions on format, design, and content. In other words, I work for an idiot. I don’t even pay myself. So what?

What I’ve got is webspace for your work that will produce a link you can use to push your work.

For all of the writing I’ve done, for as long as I’ve been going, pushing for readers can be all-consuming. 

Sports Talk For Guest Blogging

I use Yoast SEO for search engine recognition. It comes with a bunch of checkpoints to include for best results.

What keeps me going is doing the writing and not looking back; to make my mark and show my place in the world.

What I enjoy is hearing younger people bitch; what I don’t enjoy is older people who never had kids bitch about younger people.

It’s complicated. 

When you’re ready, I’ll be reading. 

PS: my wife and kids don’t allow me to post their pictures or write about them at all. They’re even pissed that I did the DNA testing.

I tell them they are the only thing separating me from other old guys yelling at clouds.

Last thing: I just read Where The Crawdads Sing. It had a lyrical feel to it about living close to nature in a marsh. 

After that I’ve been disappointed with what I’ve come across about growing up in North Bend and Lakeside. 

Where are the lyrical pages on the beauty of growing up close to nature on the Oregon coast?

You’ve got the bones of a good story on aptitude, education, and application.

That’s my sports talk, my pep talk, for a guest blogger whose debut is coming soon to a blog near you.