Color me blue

Dick Vitale.
Dickie V.
Joe Buck.
Brent Musberger.


Hate them. Worse, I loathe them, all that they stand for, and everything they ever wanted to stand for.

For those that don't know all of the above have something in common. They are sports color commentators. Now for the most part I don't listen to what they say; but when forced to, or I forget to think about the game analytically a rage builds up inside me.

While in Bloomington this past weekend I was watching the MSU UI basketball game on ESPN. Normally this would be fine, Dickie V can only comment one game a night, chances were on my side that I would miss that game. I was very wrong. Granted we were flipping channels for the most part, but the 3-4 minute segments that we would watch the game I would go crazy.

First MSU wasn't playing well. Second. Dickie V.

I can understand when former players or coaches become commentators. I get it. They want to still be part of the game and get paid gobs of money to do it. Now with that logic Dickie V should be tolerable as a commentator. Former coach and all that. But there's a reason he's a former coach. He wasn't very good. Coaches can do a lot with talent and good teams, but if the coach doesn't have either of those...all you can do is what you're paid for. COACH. Teach the kids how to play.


Anyway. The best thing I can say about these guys is that there is a mute button and that I am not them.


Lighter side: The girls did a great job in Bloomington this past weekend. Well...not really. We came out of the gate at a full stop. 8am is too early for them, but this is club ball and 8am means 7:30. I did not feel sorry for them. Bailey and I went out and had a few at the bar catching up watching the Hawks game. What started as one beer turned into the end of the game turned into "let's listen to the band for a few songs" turned into me walking to his apartment because he wasn't gonna drive. Even though I stayed out later than intended I held true to what I said upon arrival, "One beer. I gotta work in the morning." I was a good boy.

Saturday we lost our first match. Lost the second match. Lost the third match. Lost the last match in three sets instead of two. Needless to say Coach was not happy. Coach dropped the friend routine right quick and put on the "shut up, I don't care" hat. I was livid. Granted, we were a player short so the entire weekend we only had six instead of the seven we were planning on. So one girl was playing out of position for three of six rotations, but we've run drills like this, it wasn't an entirely new situation.

Best part was I had to deal with an aggravated parent (father). He was the spokesperson for the parents to question what happened, and what I was going to do to correct the flaws to win in bracket play. I swallowed my pride and did what I was taught to do with reporters, "Well from what I saw out there we did a lot of things right in a lot of tough situations. I'm going to have to change some things so that the girls can excel without question tomorrow, some things I tried to do strategy wise didn't pan out. That's my fault. Poor reading of the opponents defensive styles." He liked that and walked off with his head held high.

In reality, my analysis and play calling was spot on, we need to work on execution now.

Sunday started at 8am again. We game out of the gate at full stop again. After I burned both of my timeouts at scores 0-8 and 2-12 I sat down. I watched. I shut up. Two reasons for it though. The first was I wanted to see how the girls reacted to no feedback from the bench in a situation where they knew exactly what they had to do - talk, move, and pass really easy serves-. The second was because I was furious. We lost that set 11-25. Not bad, we had a string of service runs and they were waking up from anger. The second set I didn't do a thing. I didn't even call a timeout. Same reasoning.

After that set I told the girls to go to our campsite -where all our bags were and that stuff- drink some water, and tell their parents to stay away. I took a lap outside to cool down a bit. When I got in to the campsite that father from before had pulled one of the girls -his daughter- aside and was telling her where to play on defense. I marched right up to them and said, "Maddie grab some water, pee, whatever, then head over to the others let them know I'll be there in a few minutes". Once she left I turned to Dad and said, "Unless you know what type of defense we run by name don't tell her what to do or where to go on the court. That's my job." His reply was, "Well then maybe you should do your job." Mine was, "That's where I'm going. You've read the rules cause you've signed that you've read the rules. Never question the coach on game day." Then I turned and got my Diet Dew and walked over to camp.

Much stern talking, prodding, questioning, and explaining later we played again. I also might have told Maddie that if her old man ever came up to her on game day again telling her where to be or go on the court to say, "Coach said not to listen to you cause you're full of crap". This time we came out the gate full bore. They were talking, moving, not sending easy free balls over the net, everything that I wanted them to do. In short, we kicked ass. 25-4, 25-6. I was so happy!

The next match was for Fifth place. We came out strong. The second set we faltered a bit, but learned that when coach calls a timeout and gives us strategy tips to listen. The other team wasn't covering deep on third hit, and the setter routinely never played defense. So, I said deep corners, or straight down the lines or at the setter. We battled back to extra points but lost. Third set to decide if we would be staying to ref or hitting the road back home. We ran into some old problems of not moving. I called a quick TO to get them settled and I only said six words, "Good pass, Good set, Draw blood". The girls laughed and actually did those three things. One of the middles just hit the bladder out of the ball through the block into the blockers face. Mt. Vesuvius from the nose. Awesome. We lost the race to 8, switched sides with serve receive. We couldn't get a pass to save our lives. 7-12. Burned the last TO to ice the serve and calm the girls down again. Missed serve. Serve run from a fairly weak server to take the lead 13-12. Great pass, dump set. 14-14. Service ace 15-14. Then something that was amazing happened. The server looked at me to see where to serve it, I said, "In." Which is something we've struggled with. She put a little rainbow gumdrop serve right onto the tape, rolled over to the other side. The receivers made a great dive and roll to pass it up, then free balled the pass over to us. We had great cover but it didn't matter. Our middle had gone up for the free set and slammed it into the court inside the 10 foot line.

A 10 foot shot is something I haven't seen since I played. I was screaming and yelling, the ref looked at me weird, the girls looked at me weird, the parents looked at me weird until the girls saw the ref signaling us to the end line for end of the game hand shakes. Then they went nuts too. I had to be the grown up and calm down then tell them to get to the end line and and shake hands.

So...we took fifth place at the tournament. Out of 20 teams, and only five of the teams were 15 year olds. We only played two 15 teams the entire tournament. Everyone else was 16. I told them that when we were packing up camp, and the girls started cussing me out. Literally.

But they accepted my logic on it, we played really tough teams that are older than us. That brings our level of play up. Plus we spanked a 16's team on their home court. If we can play that great against "tougher" teams than us, imagine how well we should be playing against girls that are worse than us, and are our same age.

Good weekend all in all.

Then Dickie V. happened.

Oh, here's a question for ya. Why is it so tough to get 15 year old girls to talk on the court, but not off the court, or in a huddle?

Buck