We Don't Really Fit In

We=Christians.

I had the extreme pleasure to go to the IBCA (Indiana Basketball Coaches Association) coaches' clinic this past weekend. It was a blast, I learned a lot, saw I lot I think could be good to use, and am ready to start our next basketball season. Plus, I got to see Coach Crean (!!!) on Saturday when he came to make an appearance. Plus, other coaches made talks--Felicia Leggette-Jack from IU (women), Brad Stevens from Butler, Sean Miller from Xavier, and the coach from IWU. However, the most interesting talk, and most relevant to the current post, was the talk by current St. Louis coach Rick Majerus.

Now, to completely set this up, I should mention that the Friday evening sessions, of which this talk was one, also involved a college team so the coaches could use actual people to do stuff. The college they chose this year? Taylor University. How cool was that?

Anyway, during his talk, Rick Majerus starting picking on a guy on the TU team for a lazy pass. I think he was just trying to rile him up, but the guy wouldn't really react, although he did look annoyed at being teased in front of 400 basketball coaches. To get him worked up, though, Majerus start teasing him more and more. And more. And then the jokes got sexual (....just fake it....ask your girlfriend what that's like...). At one point later on he said he wanted to take the entire team out for a beer. For those who don't know, when you're at Taylor, you sign the LTC saying you won't have pre-marital sex or drink (among other things you abstain from in order to focus on community).

Now, most of the crowd laughed, but especially with my allegiance to Taylor and therefore the guys on the court, I felt uncomfortable for them. It just made more real to me that, even in an environment where I'm doing something I really do love doing, Christians are not "normal." We stand out. Things that are cool or normal for the rest of the world aren't in God's plan for us, and that will make us...well, different.

Full Contact Golf

I've never seen two golf teams really dislike each other, but our golf team and the team we played tonight don't like each other, at least not any more. It's not like the match was close--we won by 19. But, in general, the school is Sullivan's big rival, and there was an...incident.

On the fourth hole, one of my golfers putted out while holding the flag (it was a six-inch tap-in). The problem is, that's against the rules. Now, it's a casual dual match which shouldn't be close, so they weren't going to enforce the rule, just let us know about it. At least, that's what they told us. So, no harm, we learn from it and move on. Well, as the guys are going over their scorecards, the opponent decides to enforce the two-stroke penalty. So, that annoys my golfer, because we were told they weren't going to make a big deal about it--they just wanted to make sure we know.

So, tempers are rising a little. Well, as we're waiting for later golfers to arrive, my "offending" golfer goes in to talk to the club pro. He gets intrigued...and does some investigating. Now, apparently, according to the United States Golf Association, my golfer's actions are actually not a penalty. His score is already turned in, so he has to accept higher score, but he feels like he just got screwed--forced to add two strokes to his score that he shouldn't have and was told he didn't need to add.

Unfortunately, he also feels the need to make sure the other team knows what he'd found out, so proceeds to tell them. This, of course, leads to a war of words because they've been told (so they say, who's to know?) by numerous club pros that this was a penalty. Now, it's possible this is a specific rule set by the IHSAA, but that seems unlikely to me, and I don't remember it being mentioned if it was.

A couple of my guys wanted (at least, claimed to) to bust a few heads and then it would be over. I wasn't able to get them to shut up about it, but at least I kept them from fighting.

All over a 20 point match...

A New Experience

So, I've lived through my first earthquake.

I awoke at 5:41 (according to the clock by my bed) with the walls and my bed shaking. A weird experience, let me tell you. I wondered if it was a tornado (no storms in the area) or an earthquake (but come on, this is Indiana). So, I decided on one of two options:

First, God was trying to rapture me, but my house was fighting with Him.

Second, my students wanted me to get twenty minutes less sleep than normal, so they snuck into my house and released some oompa loompas, who proceeded to crawl under my bed and shake it at the aforementioned time.

As cool as those options would be (actually, the rapture one would be pretty *not* cool), it turns out it was an actual earthquake (5.4 on the Richter scale), centered a little southwest of me in Illinois. Huh...

Odds and ends

Random thoughts almost worth making into a normal post...

Since apparently it's a cool thing to do (says the bum, and all math majors are inherently cool), how about a nice mileage shot?



Previously I mentioned how high the water was...it's higher. Note the lack of dock.



Got to mow for the first time this season this past weekend (got that? or rather, this?). Annoying, because it starts a never-ending process....but even more annoying because I could see my breath as I was doing it. What's up with that?

Rain rain go away...

Holding golf practice is very difficult when our home course is completely water-logged. How water-logged, you ask (you did ask, right?)? Hmm....is double question marks appropriate there? Anyway, I digress. Or regress. Or both. I need sleep... Anyway, the best picture to show how much rain we've gotten is to show a picture from my house in Terre Haute. For those of you who have been here, you will appreciate the normal water level relative to the dock on the pond in my backyard.





Note: Earlier this winter there was probably a good three foot drop between the dock and the water level.

Hurts me in the heart-bone

I played at open gym last night with some of the basketball guys who aren't in spring sports (note: I'm getting too old to do stuff like this). At one point, while holding the ball at the top of the key, some of the defense got confused and two guys were guarding one guy, leaving one of my JV players from last year wide open on the baseline cutting to the basket. He was so wide open, I got nervous, rushed the pass, and threw it just past him and out-of-bounds....to which I uttered a profanity-laced "Dang It!" That's literally what I said.

Apparently, that's not the "expletive" of choice in today's generation. They were making fun of me for the next two or three possessions. It hurts my feelings... :)