It comes down to reality, it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide

Blog – Semester Reflections

As anyone who has been reading my blog could probably guess, it’s a little hard right now for me to pull back from my season with the (eagles), but I’ll try.

My semester has nosedived as of late. I’ve lost energy motivation and creativity. My mom suspects that I’m depressed, but I can’t believe that. I am not a very good teacher. My management is terrible, my lesson planning unoriginal, boring, and not especially helpful for my students. It certainly isn’t research based, or anything else that it should be,

I hate the block schedule. With a passion. Ben told me that in two years as a teacher, he never did any group work. While in a lot of ways I wouldn’t want to run my classroom as Ben says he ran his, but I would have liked to go away with groupwork, at least for the first year. 98 minutes means that I have to do that crap, everyday. I have to do something, because it’s impossible to lecture, do guided practice, and then some individual work for ninety-eight minutes, straight. It’s impossible to do anything for 98 minutes. I’m starting to think it’s impossible to remain sane for 98 minutes.

I was three times the teacher I am now before I started coaching. That said, though, I was probably having less total impact on students then. I would love to just coach and work at Dollar General or something. Or coach and tutor – that would be perfect. Not that I am a very good coach either; I’ve been lucky enough to inherit a group of boys who have been ready to explode on the scene for a year or two, but have just lacked a little direction and intensity, which I have tried to give them. They are amazing, and they make me believe that things can be ok.

But back to being a teacher. My kids hate me, and hate my class, even my good kids, because I don’t keep the bad kids under control. They wouldn’t even be bad, if I had some clearer expectations for them. Well, some of them would be bad. But most of the kids that consistently give me trouble are FINE in other people’s classes. FINE. They only act up in my class because I let them get away with it. The worst part is, even worse than the fact that they drive me crazy, is that they irritate the kids who actually want to learn, who, I think, might actually make up half of my students. One student even drew a cartoon of me throwing a desk at and cursing out the disruptive girls my first block. “Anybody else wanna F- wit da real MR. G? Anybody? Well shut the F – up!”

Dan says I ought to blog about our recent stop at the doublequick. We’re headed up to Oxford, it’s 11:21 PM on a Friday, and this have become somewhat of a ritual with us, a pilgrimage, We’ve left later, but of all the Oxford weekends, I think we’ve only once arrived in the hotel before midnight, We always stop at the same doublequick, somehow, and stock up on Rockstars. Dan likes the purple fruity one, while I prefer the mango one in the orange can. I had never experienced the wonder of such beverages until these Friday night drives made them indispensable, along with the snickers, hostess cupcakes, and other delectables that contribute to Mississippi being the fattest state in the union.
There really has been a magic to these rides. How could there not be, when we spend our time alternating between states of half-conciousness and chemically induced super-consciousness. After an extraordinarily exhausting week of teaching – isn’t every week of teaching extraordinarily exhausting - the last thing I tend to need is this drive, but it is somehow refreshing in it’s insanity. By the time we drive through the kudzu-covered holly springs state forest, bizarrely nowhere near holly springs, I’m usually starting to see things on the side of the road that aren’t there. The night that we got caught in the thunderstorm was a night to remember as well – driving 45 mph and still barely able to see ten feet in front of me. Or the trip up with Ward, when we somehow missed a turn and found ourselves altogether too close to Memphis.

I’ve got to decide whether to go to class tomorrow or to skip and go be a coach. I’ve almost certainly decided to skip class. I’ve decided the difference between an A and a B is pretty minimal – I’m already out of the running for the award for teachercorps GPA, or will be after tomorrow’s lack of presentation in my methods class, so WTF, right? Besides that, tonight’s loss was really hard to stomach, and I’d hate to abandon my kids after that. They are knocking on the door, so close to achieving something. Achieving something means winning, or even drawing a single game. They’ve lost every game for the past 3 years. Every single game. We’ve no taken the lead in two matches, and lost both 3-2. I must be doing something wrong as a coach, because we can’t seem to hold a lead. We get too excited by the prospect of winning – I am as guilty of this as every one of my players. I love the kids so much, and I really need to lead them to a victory – just one.

But I was supposed to be writing a semester review? A semester evaluation? What was it called? A semester reflection. Goodbye yellow brick road? No. This is harder than I ever thought, and I need some help. I am not doing a good job. I need some inspiration. My kids are ready to revolt, and in a lot of ways, I don’t blame them – I’d probably be ready to revolt too, if I were my own student. At the same time, though, I don’t know that I could try any harder, if that is some kind of consolation. All we need is just a little patience. I need to start off the next semester as a hard-ass, especially in my algebra II class, which will be a brand new group of kids. Hard ass. If I say it enough, maybe I’ll believe it. Firm expectations. A good plan. Better procedures. Better lesson planning. Everything needs to be better, but I don’t think things could get much worse, so that’s something. The only thing that shouldn’t change is the soccer team. And even that could use a little boost in the victories column.

Go to church on three

After practice on Monday, my captain, D.S., led the team in a prayer after three mumbled repetitions of "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" by the whole team. I can't recall the words he used, but he gave thanks for all of us being out there, asked that we stay safe and avoid injuries, and closed with "let us pray, lord, that we come away with a victory tomorrow." A commnal "amen" followed. Then, he said, jokingly, that the reason we haven't won yet is because no one but he and big B.W. ever lead the prayer. Duke volunteered to give the game prayer the next day, and we closed with a cheer. Team on three. No, Go to church on three.

The next night, Duke, true to his word, gave the prayer. It was good, a little more elequent than the usual prayer, but I could tell he was nervous. Afterwards, the boys chided him "you wrote that one down" but they all appreciated his effort.

I'm not a religious guy, in any way, and before the season started, I was nervous about how I might react to prayer on the field. But since the guys haven't asked me to lead one yet, I have had no problem with it whatsoever. In fact, I have begun to enjoy the prayers. They bring out a humble side of my players that I love to see.

The rest of their pregame rituals are a riot as well. Their stretchs, for example.
Captains: "Thousand"
Team: "One!"
Captains: "Thousand"
Team: "Two!"
....
Captains "Thousand!"
Team: "Nine!"
Captains "Big thow" (Beat thou) I really have no idea what they say here.
Team: "Ten!"

Then, there are the jumping jacks.
Captains (Running around the inside of the circle): Give me twoooo!!!!
Team: Twoooooo!
Captains:Give me twoooo!!!!
Team: Twoooooo!
Captains: Sets!!
Team: Sets!!!
Captains: Sets!!
Team: Sets!!!
Captains: GeeDoublyouAichEss. Everybody ready!
Team: Ready!
Captains: Position. Exercise.
Team: Gee. Dubleya. Aich. Gee dubleya aich hornets.
Team: Gee.
Captains: Whooo.
Team: Dublya.
Captains: Whoooo.
Team: Gee dubleya aich hornets.

Us: 0; Them: 4

Absolutely ridiculous night. I had one player just not show up, another player tell me he didn't feel like playing, and my assistant coach mysteriously dissapeared before kickoff - word is that she quit. We then went on to give up two exceedingly sloppy goals first half - a throw in that we deflected into our own net, and a corner that just sailed, untouched, into the top corner. Chasing the game in the second half, we gave up another pair of goals, but nothing to be ashamed of - especially without two of our best players.

M.W. shows up, late, just before kickoff. I tell him, after I send the team out on the pitch, to go get warmed up. "I'm already warmed up", he says, and just sits there. Fine. Ten minutes later, I tell M.W. to get up and get ready to go in.

I don't feel like playing.

What?

I don't feel like playing.

You don't feel like playing!? Ok. Give me my shirt, my shorts, my socks, and go the f- home.

"You didn't have to cuss me out" he says as he stalks off. Five minutes later, a conversation with the uncle of M.W. I explained the situation to him, very politely.

But did you curse at him? he asks.

Yes sir, I did, and I apologize for that.

I understand the situation, but you don't need to be cussing people out. If you want to cuss people out, you might as well just quit and let somebody else do this job. (I'm paraphrasing here - at the time, I was trying to coach a game and figure out why my assistant had mysteriously quit.)

I have no idea what to do about M.W. This is not the first problem I have had with him. He is often late, and he simply does not like me; that much is obvious. He's so moody - that's what drives me crazy about all these kids. He can be a fabulous player, full of energy, bombing up and down the sidelines. He is lazy though, and lacks the discipline for his defensive duties. He started the season at sweeper, and lasted all of three minutes of the first game before I had to throw D. P. on for him. I was so unimpressed that I actually lifted D.P. off the bench and told him to get M.W. the f out of there. That, I think, may have been my first mistake. Thinking back on it, although I did not lay into him at the time, I'm sure his teammates let him know the circumstances regarding his substitution.

We are losing numbers fast now. My vice-captain center-midfielder, the one who tackles hard and really gets stuck in, never showed up tonight. No call. No information from the rest of the team, just never showed up. N.B., my left back who has been coming along so fabulously, missed the first half because of a computer class he is taking. He also appears to have broken his nose at the weekend, but I played him through the second half anyway.

C.B., my keeper, took a severe beating tonight. Kicked in the face, the ribs, and the hands. I need to have a chat with the next set of officials before the game even starts, because he can't keep taking hits like this. If talking to the officials doesn't make a difference, then I need to start instructing him and the defenders around him to play a little different. As the old saying goes, if the ref won't protect him, he'll have to protect himself.

My apologies for the quality of this post. Too many things going through my mind. Too many things left to do tonight. Way too many things to do tomorrow.

Us: 2; Them: 3

Big Delta 2, Little Catholic 3

At Friday's practice after our morale-boosting 6-1 loss to Big Catholic the day before, I noticed my players looked a bit too happy. I told them, if you're proud of yesterday's game, go home now. We lost 6-1, and that is nothing to be proud of. Yes, we made some big improvements, and yes, we scored a goal, but if you all are happy losing 6-1, go home. We need to move on.

I thought it might have been a little harsh, but they responded well during practice. It was report card day, which meant more running than usual for a practice sandwiched between two games, but it was good for them. Saturday's game showed me even better how well they had responded.

We arrived late for the game, courtesy of a bus that was governed at 55 mph, and barely had time to get a stretch in betfore kickoff. I stuck with essentially the same lineup that started the Big Catholic game, but I put F. on as my centerback. We conceded a goal from a corner, a neat little nearpost header, but we were taking the game to them in midfield, and equalized almost straight away. D.J. used his cornerback speed to get in behind the defense and take the ball past the onrushing keeper, whom he then leapt over to slot the ball into an empty net.

At that point, I knew we really had a chance to take something out of the game, but I knew we'd have to score again. Seeing out the next 60 minutes without conceding was never very likely for us, so I encouraged us to be more attack-minded after the interval. M.W. scored a neat goal as a marauding right midfielder, and his control and drive made our attacks down that flank a sporadic threat, but often left us open to counter attacks in the back. We still had 30 minutes to play when we took the lead, and I knew we couldn't defend in our own half that long, but we also don't quite have the technical skill to play a controlled, passing game, so I urged my players to keep the tempo up, to keep playing our game, and to stay tough. At this point, though, we were running out of energy, and they equalized about 15 minutes from time. I don't even remember how they scored, but at that point, my only thought was to try to preserve the draw. We switched to a 4-5-1, with even my lone striker doing more defending than anything else, and we held them off bravely. D.S., my sweeper, headed off the line after my keeper made a rare blunder on an afternoon when he drew the praise of even the opposing coaches and referees. We were forced to hack another ball off the line a few minutes later, before my keeper went down under a heavy challange with less than two minutes remaining, and the referees signalled to me that we had blood on the field. As I trotted out there with the med kit, I shouted instructions to F. to warm up.
C. B. had, as I had so often worried about, taken a solid shot to the face and not only did his glasses cut into his nose but he had managed to bust open his lip and was spitting blood. The officials told me that he could continue, but he had to get a new pair of gloves, since he had bled all over these. Now, these were brand new gloves that we had just given C.B. that morning, and I was sure that in his mind, he was attributing at least some part of his inspired play to those gloves. His other gloves, it turns out, were on the bus, and as I was about to tell him to just play with his bare hands, my assisstant arrived with an ingenious solution.
"Gimme that peroxide out of the med kit" she said and then proceeded to douse the gloves, draining the entire bottle on them while vigorously rubbing them with cotton balls. "Here" she said, handing them to me "Dry these on your pants." And to the officials, smiling "That oughta work just fine now." They agreed, and we commenced to play out those final two minutes. The clock on the scoreboard had run out, and just as I was sure we had made it through, we failed to clear and they struck a shot from just inside the 18 that flew past everyone and into the roof of the net. Before most of my players could even begin to react, the final whistle blew, and we collapsed.
My strongest players were in tears. After losing every game for three years, we had come so close to at least salvaging a draw. It was all I could do to keep my own eyes dry, watching their immense effort slip away without reward. I had no speech for after this game. I told my D.S., my sweeper and captain, as he boarded the bus, that we have a long season. We stayed in this game until the very end, and we'll stay in this season until the very end. He barely responded, and I decided to wait with any kind of peptalk until after the visit to McDonald's. The mood as we entered the golden arches was still glum. As I went from player to player, checking for any injuries I might have missed, I asked little B.W. (there are two B.W.'s of very different sizes) if anything was hurting. "Just my heart Coach" he responed. But by the time we left, D.S.'s womanizing antics and seven dollars worth of heart attack food had significantly improved the team's collective mood. Back on the bus, D.S. gave the speech that I was still struggling to find the words for, and for that, I'm very thankful.

In the school parking lot, as we were all dispersing, he came up to me and said "I know we lost, coach, but even though we lost, it feels like we won. I know, this game shows, that we can compete with anyone now."

My next step is a still a little unclear. We have big, division games coming up this week, against schools that are better than any we have yet played. But I am starting to get the impression that we can, in fact, compete with anyone. I'm not sure how to interpret this game for the team, but I feel like I can't call it a success, because that would imply we aren't good enough to win games. At the same time, though, this may be the closest we come all season to a victory, and if it is, we should celebrate it. However, I simply can't allow myself to believe that, and I can't allow my players to believe that. We will win a game this year. Hopefully, that will start on Tuesday, 7 PM, at home, in our first division game.

**It's getting tiresome not using real names in this blog. I slipped up last week and mentioned a few, but I was able to go back and change them. Not being able to use the name of my school, or even our mascot, makes game descriptions especially difficult. From now on, my school will be known as Big Delta High School, and our fictional mascot will be the eagles.

I've never lost like that before

I have realized that teaching brings out the manic depressive in all of us. Especially in me. Yesterday treated me to an especially imbalanced emotional experience. After I had heard the news that K- dropped out, I admit I basically ghosted through the rest of the day. I didn't put nearly the energy I should have into my classes, and since I didn't have any lesson plans, it wasn't pretty, to say the least. School, in a nutshell, was terrible. I was ready to go home and sleep, but I could not, because we were scheduled to host the Catholic school from across town at 7.

I was hoping the game would get rained out and that was a distinct possibility. The thunderhead that I had watched building up since four finally broke on us right before the girls' game. Everyone scattered, but as I was trying to navigate the parking lot in the rain, trying to find the refs, I realized I really wanted to play this game. The weather, in my opinion, could not have been better, because there is nothing more fun than mucking around a soccer pitch against your biggest rivals. Besides, they are quite a bit more skilled than us, and a little rain makes skill take a back seat to motivation, which we have in abundance.

By the time we kicked off, the storm had mostly rained itself out. We lost our first three games by a combined score of 22-0, so I knew that something had to give. I pulled my most skilled player back from central mid to sweeper, sent my old sweeper up from, and put a pair of hustling players on the wings to harry and harrass the opponents and and generally make a nuisance of themselves. It worked to a T. My wingers scrapped like their lives depended on it, my sweeper was composed and assured, and my strikers, well, they still never looked like conjuring up much of anything, but they were more than willing to run. And C -, my goalkeeper, who gave up last game after he shipped 7 of the 9 we conceded, was fantastic. I guess our trip to Frosty's after that debacle for floats and burgers was a success, because he bounced back impressively.

It could have all gone wrong as early as the third minute, when I found myself out on the field, shouting as much as my hoarseness allowed. C- had come out to make a save and, once he had the ball, been caught by an opposing forward in the jaw. The ball got knocked loose in the process, and rolled into the back of the net. When my keeper didn't get up, I was on the field, and was amazed to hear the referree tell me that the goal stood. Luckily for both of us, his linesman had run out to the pitch to indicate the foul, and we were spared the kind of early blow that we have suffered in every game to date.

In fact, we went twelve full minutes from the kickoff without conceding, which is certainly a record for us this year. Not only did we not concede, but we managed to make passes and runs and get into dangerous positions in the front third. We still didn't look like much of a threat to put the ball in the back of the net, but we were steamrolling them in midfield.

Inevitably, we gave up a goal of the absolute lowest quality. On a goal kick, my keeper sent the ball straight to an opponent, who took two touches and then drilled it back past him. Less then ten minutes later they scored a carbon copy of that goal, and sandwitched between them, they scored a header off a corner kick. Three - nil. They would score two more goals before the half was out, one decent, and one keeper error, but we had a strong spell of pressure before the whistle, and hustled into the locker room feeling pretty good about ourselves.

I actually gave a good halftime talk. No stopping, no searching for words. No "Ok?... Ok?..." The other team was scared of us, and we knew it. We smelt blood, and we were ready to go for it.

Back out of the field, the rain had picked up again. We looked determined and full of energy, and we were defending bravely and getting upfield whenever we could. Then, from the right flank, they sent in a cross. My keeper punched clear (actually, it was more of a slap - something to work on), and then leaped up to stop the next shot, making a brilliant double save, before the ball popped up and my center back contrived to catch it with both hands. He was, of course, horrified, as we all were, but at five-nothing, it wasn't going to change the game, until the PK went off the crossbar. That gave us a lot of confidence, and we kept pushing forward. We created one or two chances. Their keeper touched the ball for something other than a goal-kick. They did manage to slip another one by us somehow, but it didn't deflate us, and we kept on pushing. Five minutes from time, there was a scuffle on the left of their 18, and I saw a lofted shot heading towards the goal -somehow it crossed the line, and there was instant chaos. I heard five guesses as to the goalscorer, until it came out that K- H- had somehow gotten a boot on it. K- H-, who I had reprimanded the day before for still kicking with his toe. K- H-, who I had forgotten was on the field and almost surely would have pulled had I remembered. Sometimes, things just work out.

After our 9-0 drubbing on Tuesday, C-had said to me "You don't like losing, do you Co' "

"No," I replied. "I don't. I never have lost like this before."

But I don't mind loosing like we lost last night. I've never lost like that before.