Football Epilogue

These guys at 8th grade These guys as seniors and district champs! Last night my son stepped on and off the high school football field for the last time as an athlete. He and his group of 26 fellow seniors had an epic ride that started in their elementary and middle school days. In hindsight the journey feels unbelievably fast, too fast. I feel truly lucky, grateful, blessed to have been able to walk this part of the journey with my son, maybe reliving some of what it felt like from my high school playing experience. I am experiencing a lot of feelings right now: joy and amazement at my son and his fellow seniors and their up-and-coming teammates accomplished this year, but also tremendous sadness and a sense of loss as this is the first day of "moving on" from this epic journey.  Yeah, there are tears. There are so many memories and so many awesome people who came into my life as a part of this: my coaching brothers and the super supportive, and super fun, parent group of fr...

Unfortunately, our football season came to a halt last night. I'm going over what could have potentially been done different, but ultimately it is what it is. On a positive note I did see some of our team play at what us football guys like to call "the next level". The next level is like a switch flipping in how someone plays the game. Movement becomes more instinctive. There's a speed difference and there's an increase in the tenacity. Interestingly, I feel like it comes out of adversity and frustration. The first times a player hits that next level may be out of being pissed off on missing a tackle or a block or even being yelled at by a coach, but then an amazing "ah-ha" moment occurs. The player, either consciously or subconsciously realizes that they are faster than they've been, that they are tougher than they've been and all of a sudden you see a change in how they play the game. From my personal experience I've realized my next le...

Here's a little panorama of the kids from our team lined up in a semicircle at tonight's practice. They're getting ready to honor one of our coaches as he re-enlists for another term in the United States Navy. It was a great thing to witness and set the tone for a crisp practice on a crisp day. We followed up the ceremony and the subsequent practice with a team picnic. I have to say I don't think there are many teams at this level that have the cohesiveness, focus and selflessness combined with the overall sense that our ultimate goal is to have fun playing a sport as best and as hard as we can. Tomorrow is our first playoff game. We ended the season with six wins and two losses, earning us a #3 seed. I am once again looking forward to being on the sidelines helping the kids play hard and smart football, especially on the "O" and "D" lines. Come what may, we look forward to the opportunity to play and have fun!

The days are getting noticeably shorter and the temperatures are starting to cool. That said, my daughter's soccer season is winding down. So let me ask:

It's NHL playoff time here in MN. Here's my view for the MN Wild v. Dallas Stars game from last night. The Wild, down 0-2 in the series, rallied to win 5-3. It was a very fast and physical game where the Wild had to come back from an early 0-2 deficit.