A Serene Sunday

Sunday, June 7, 2020

We were overjoyed to have little Mary join us for an ice skating exhibition at our private ice rink, . . .

. . . a.k.a., our living room

Here she is about to attempt her first Triple Salchow jump.

It was perfection! 

Later she served us some of her

delicious tea to celebrate the moment

News from the net . . .

And GROWING . . .

I'm glad they cleared that up!

 The Bear also had a Four Year Plan

Year One: Have a winning record

Year Two: Win the conference championship

Year Three: Win the national championship

Year Four: Go on probation

 True

 Truer

Truest

A Day of Remembrance

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Seventy-six years ago today, the Allies stormed the French beaches in Normandy signaling the beginning of the final phase of WWII in Europe.

 I have had three opportunities

to visit Normandy over the past decade

Each trip has been overwhelmingly emotional.

Omaha Beach

The American Cemetery

on the bluff above Omaha Beach

Utah Beach

If you are at all a history buff then a trip to the D-Day beaches is a must!

The Anti-Police Brutality/Black Lives Matter demonstrations continued today all across the USA as they need to.

I got a present in the mail today . . .

An OFFICIAL Varese Skorpions

Face Mask

A big GRAZIE to Skorpions man-of-all-trades Pietro Caprioli for sending me my new anti-Covid-19 device.

In news from the net . . .

Couldn't agree more!

I loved watching AFL games

on TV growing up

My Hero!

Svelte New York Jets Offensive Tackle Sherman Plunkett was my favorite player back in those days of youthful bliss. 

Indeed, but Black Lives Matter

much more today

A Calm Day Without Any Zoom Meetings

Friday, June 5, 2020

After three straight days of American football Zoom meetings, today was just a relaxing day at home for the most part with no Zoom meetings on the agenda.

Still, I did make a new contact in the world of EuroBall when I opened up my e-mail and found a message from my newest coaching friend.

It was none other than . . .

. . . Csanád Magyar

a Player, a Coach and the Secretary

of the Budapest Cowbells in Hungary

He was asking for some long distance help with his project and, as usual, I was more than willing to help him.

I just LOVE EuroBall and all of its connections!

Enzo sent me a photo of a lush

Skorpion Field today

If our campaign had not been cancelled, we would have been playing our regular season finale tomorrow on this very field against the powerful Reggio Emilia Hogs.

News from the net . . .

Saturday is the 76th Anniversary

of the D-Day Invasion and we are

still having to fight this battle

 Bananas, they're called BANANAS

A HIGH crime in today's America

 Completely understandable

 Cute isn't it

True

When I first started coaching in 1970 at Thousand Oaks H.S. in California, our Head Coach was a wonderful gentleman by the name of Joe Howell.

Joe once told us that every year that you coach, you anger four or five people in the community and that after a few years, that's a lot of pissed off people in town.

After 45 years of high school coaching, I continue to be reminded of his sage wisdom on a somewhat regular basis.

Just getting it off my chest, sorry.

Nick Holt Is INTENSE!

Thursday, June 4, 2020

The protests continued in America again today but apparently the looting has greatly diminished.

At 11:00 a.m. today our Coaches Exchanging group, originally organized at the start of April to combat the Covid-19 down time, held our 25th Zoom meeting to discuss a wide variety of American football topics.

Our INTENSE speaker today was

34 year NCAA DI veteran Coach Nick Holt

Coach Holt has been the Head Coach at Idaho and a Defensive Assistant Coach at UNLV, Louisville, Idaho, USC, Washington, Western Kentucky and Purdue.

The photo poster above is in reference to his talk for the Europe Warriors program this coming Saturday on "Developing NFL Linebackers." He spoke to our group about two weeks ago on this same topic.

Today he exhausted all of us with his non-stop energy and passion for the game as he spoke about "Developing Defensive Linemen."

He was scheduled to speak for 90 minutes but gave us two and a half hours of incredible information, drills and minute details about defensive line play.

He was AMAZING!

If they have not signed a contract already, Red Bull should definitely sign him to an endorsement deal.

He had excellent game footage to

back up the drills that he showed us

One of his excellent

Get Off and Strike Drills

Playing the trap drill with a

Wrong Arm Technique in a

non-contact situation

Great Hoop Drills for

improving Pass Rush techniques

The rest of the day was quiet which was good as Coach Holt wore me out in a truly good way.

His energy is endless . . .

Another Day, Another Zoom Meeting

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

America continued to deal today with protests due to the George Floyd murder at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis and the looting of some of our cities.

Though these two activities are associated, I would like to believe that they are basically being done by two distinct groups of people. The first seeking social justice and the second seeking illegal financial gain.

These are difficult times to say the least.

Yet another Zoom meeting

In the morning, our Coaches Exchanging group held its 24th Zoom meeting since we started them on April 1st in an effort to improve our knowledge of the game during the Coronavirus Lockdown.

Today Coach Rich Worsell of Akron University addressed us for a second time. His topic today was Analytics and Their Use in Practice Organization.

It was an interesting talk as usual.

From the net . . . 

Yes

I have been around athletics nearly all my life and have stood quietly, at attention for thousands of National Anthems. Most of the people around me do the same for the 90 seconds or so that it takes to sing it.

And then there are the others.

I've seen people standing for the Anthem but still talking on their cellphones or with someone near them at the time. I have noted people eating food and/or drinking beer during the 90 seconds. I find all of these actions disrespectful.

By chance in 2016, I attended the Los Angeles Rams home game vs. the San Francisco 49ers with Colin Kaepernick as the Niners starting QB. This was the season that Kaepernick was taking a knee and doing nothing else to draw attention to himself as a protest to questionable policing in minority communities. This use of symbolic speech as a form of peaceful protest is guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Our seats that day at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were behind the San Francisco bench. During the anthem, while Kaepernick took a knee as expected, people around me started shouting profanities at the top of their lungs aimed at Kaepernick's kneeling.

Who were the people disrespecting the flag on that day?

What if we'd addressed what he was protesting about four years ago instead of listening to the anti-flag, anti-military yarn that the far right used to combat Kaepernick?

Those of us who coach need to

remember this in all of our endeavors

A GREAT Moment in the Social Justice Dialogue

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Today marked the 23rd Zoom meeting speech to our group of coaches in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland since we started doing them back on April 1st.

I was especially happy today as our guest speaker was none other than . . .

. . . one of our

University of Washington Coaches

Keith Bhonapha is the Huskies

Running Backs Coach

 His talk on "Running Back Development"

was an extremely good one

At the end of his talk, during the Q&A period, Coach Chris Calaycay of the Vienna Vikings asked a good question for our current troubled times in race relations in the USA.

Chris simply asked Coach Bhonapha how he is dealing with the situation with his players.

 Coach Bhonapha's five minute

answer was AMAZING!

Coach Bhonapha was insightful by approaching his answer as a husband, father, football coach and, chiefly, as a concerned human being.

His heartfelt answers were on point and I thought how wonderful it would be if someone, like say, the President of the United States were to say the things he said to us to help heal a nation and set us on a better course.

It one old Dawg a bit prouder to be a UW alumnus (Class of 1969).

A check of the net today . . .

I know that I shouldn't say this

but I do like Hawaiian Pizzas

And then there is our current President

Meanwhile, back on the

Coronavirus Front

A Walk With Laurie and the USA Turmoil Continues

Monday, June 1, 2020

It was a beautiful day for a walk with my bride, so Laurie and I made a tour of the neighborhood in the morning.

California poppies growing wild

on Calle Higuera

Mike and Jacob came over to our

home for a Hopscotch Tournament

Later, at B & B Hardware, we

eyed a possible new birdbath

for the backyard

What do you think?

George, Mike and Jacob

I absolutely MUST start walking more EVERY day!

In today's news from the net . . . 

After seeing this poster, I am now

a die hard Maine Black Bears fan

So damn TRUE!

 You mean it wasn't about disrespecting

the flag and the military?

And then there's this guy . . .

I wonder what Dan Rather thinks of Mr. Trump's latest attempts at being a leader during these tough times?

Oh, good call Dan

 I can see this happening

a bit more than a week ago

That's right, whatever happened

to those pesky bugs?

Agreed

With all that is going on in the USA, make mine a DOUBLE!

And the Country Continues to Burn . . .

Sunday, May 31, 2020

It is disappointing to realize that after all of the great efforts by so many tremendous people in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, not much has really changed.

Our current administration and its leader have clearly done much to get us to where we are today with an outrageous murder of a suspect in custody and clearly not resisting, lawful peaceful protests and unlawful burning and looting.

What is the answer?

I do not pretend to know.

My only answer was to make

breakfast for my bride to enjoy

A big root of our problems

in the USA today

 I can understand this sentiment

Sometimes I just wish . . .

. . . that I was back in Italy

enjoying a gelato