MY Summer has Come to an End...

It's the final countdown...my summer, my sabbatical, my time off work is about to end. This is my final week off before I return to the task of shaping minds and working with tomorrow's hopefuls! I am actually excited to be returning to my other passion in life!

I teach. I am a faculty member, an instructor, a professor, if you will. I've been with the university for 20 and a half years, most of it doing administrative-level work, but the first three were spent completely in the classroom, and that is where I have once again found my true passion. I primarily teach the "legal eagles"...paralegal students/law school hopefuls, but I also teach business students and graduate students some law classes and risk management classes.  As I get ready to begin my third year back teaching, I was thinking about some of the things that my students have taught me--and the important lessons I've learned from them.

1. Never take yourself too seriously--almost no one else does, and it adds too much stress when you do!
2. Be prepared--always be prepared, as best you can, for whatever life tosses your way.
3. If you are not prepared, have a good backup plan or a good one-liner.
4. Don't be afraid to laugh at yourself.
5. Always be the best you can be--never allow yourself to settle for second best.
6. Don't be late--ever!
7. When things get tough, just ask yourself "will this matter in six hours? will this matter tomorrrow? will this matter next year?" Help put stressful moments in perspective.
8. Only you can determine how you will respond to a situation. Respond, don't react.
9. Good lip gloss does make a difference.
10. Umbrellas are important in downtown Chicago.

Thank you to all my students who have helped me learn these valuable lessons over the past two years! And since I truly believe I learn something new each day, I am looking forward to all the new and exciting things I have yet to learn from everyone this coming year!

To all my fellow Hockeymoms...

If any of us find ourselves considering AAA hockey, there are definitely things that should be considered. Someone sent me this email--I do not know the original hockeymom who wrote it--and I found it not only funny but also filled with some good points to consider. We can't always take someone's word on something...a coach played hockey where? for how long? coached for how long? These things are easily verifiable and if we are spending the kind of money we do on hockey, especially AAA, we want to be sure we know what our player is getting for our money...beyond a love for the game and a good experience.
Enjoy!


Email from a Hockey Mom in St. Louis

What to do?

There are many things to weed through when choosing a team. Leagues are quickly made up, and they charge so much, what can they really do? Lots of promises of taking a player all the way up the ladder. These coaches are calling and raving about a player’s resume like they are the next Gretzky, all because the want the money!

We get excited, at first thinking…this is it, and finally someone see the potential in our little hockey players!

The researching begins, looking at the area that our players are going to be playing at. Making sure he is going to be living in a safe area. Start googling the coaching staff to see if they have had multiple DUI’s or felony convictions. Double check what the web site says, just to make sure about anything and then it starts to unravel quickly, what a tangled web these coaches weave!

One team has a coach calling and talking up a storm, this guy sounds like a used car salesman as he is telling us how wealthy the owner of the team is and how first class the organization is ran. Look at the site and discovering that the owner’s name is XYZ and he is the owner of a landscape company. Ok, landscaping companies are profitable and when they have grown they can profit in the millions…then keep reading “and some of the players even work for the owner of the team in their spare time to earn extra money” Ahh Ha! No wonder he makes so much money, he’s a sweat-shopper!

I recently talked with a coach in Philadelphia who claims that getting your kid to the NHL is not a problem. He can do that easily. I know a good deal of guys who play in the NHL and none of them tell you it was easy to get there, too bad they didn’t know this guy because it would of made life a whole lot easier for them.

The coach tells me he played in the NHL system for five years…simple enough, I run his name but there is no hockey profile for him! How can that be? How can they have skipped over his name after he played five long years in the NHL? How can google have nothing on him? I double check the spelling of his name and do everything all over again… I search and search to only discover why his name is missing. It was so simple, and all along while I was searching, it just didn’t dawn on me why he was missing in the NHL database, the simplest answer and yet it just slipped past me? How stupid of me!….ITS BECAUSE HE NEVER PLAYED IN THE NHL!

The guy also told me that he got a player into the NHL system. I check out the player is he talking about and I see he warmed the bench for five games with an ECHL team. I would hardly say that is a person in the NHL system, I mean seriously, the stick boy warms the bench too! I come to find out that when the coach says “in the system” by his definition Jr. B is “in the NHL system”. I mean they are affiliated with a team, that is affiliated with this other team that is affiliated with a team above them, that is that farm team for an NHL team, so I guess with that reasoning if you are playing midgets you are in the NHL system too. Are we playing Six Degrees of Separation here? I mean if we are, while I am it, I just wanted to let you know that I am related to the Queen of England and I own the Brooklyn Bridge!

Speaking of the Brooklyn Bridge; when you hear the team fees are $6800, housing is another $3600, the contract also obligates you to pay for the show case, but doesn’t tell you how much it is, and that you will have to pay for play offs too, but also neglects to tell you how much those are. Then the coach says “we lost twenty four thousand dollars last year” So are they just going to scratch that on last year’s books? NO! Guess who is going to make up for it? You guessed it! Good answer! Ding! Ding! Ding! You are!

Then the coach says “Everything is included, the road trips and lodging, food on the road trips….” If it’s not in the contract, it’s not included! He can promise you the world but, let me just tell you something else that is really important that you should always remember no matter what; If it’s not in the contract, its not included! To further confirm what I am saying, the coach goes on to tell me “Well the guys just pitch in $5 each day and that covers their Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner” well now lets do the math here; $5 divided by 3 meals is about $1.67 per meal. Now when is the last time your hungry hockey player spent a dollar sixty-six for a meal? Oh yeah I can recall when, it’s when the Beetles were touring, Jane Fonda entertained troops in an anti war movement and McDonalds had cheese burgers for twenty five cents!

And speaking of the contract…. an essential element in any contract, for any contract to be valid, is that both parties fully agree and both parties must get something. This is a concept that the coach has not grasped into his greedy little fingers. In the contract it says “pay the Club a non-refundable Fee of $6,800.00 for the right to participate as a Player”, but then he also says “the execution of this contract nor the payment of the Fee automatically entitles the Player to receive playing time during games.” If he never plays, is he a player? So the coach is saying that he can take your money and never play you and if you sign this contract you are agreeing to this. FYI, this particular contract as it stands can easily be challenged and you don’t have to pay him.

Now let’s do the “out of pocket” math here, there’s roughly 26 away games at around $130 in meals, of course lets don’t forget the $6800 and then housing for another $3600, who knows what play offs and showcases cost after they skip the real story, but you are signing a contract to pay for them no matter what they want to charge you, but so far that a grand total of $10,530.00 for a team with 54 games, 4 goalies on the roster, and only 3 other teams in the league to play! To top it off you are not even entitled to be seen wearing a baseball cap until March of 2010 or you are kicked off the team!

OH NO! Is that the coach on the front page of the web site? And what the hell does he have on his head? it a bird? Is it a plane? It’s awful! It’s disgusting! It’s a heinous crime! Oh my God! It’s a baseball cap!!!! http://www.phillythunder.com/

Email from Ree in St Louis

Coach's Letter to Parents

As we get ready for our fall season sports to kick into high gear, I found this posting below quite interesting. While it relates to baseball, it could easily be reworded for football, hockey, basketball or soccer. As a full-time working mom with a husband who works full-time and also coaches, it always amazes me how many parents do not take the time to help out. I completely understand that many either don't have the time because of work commitments or the fact that they are spread among several fields/courts/arenas with several children. There are also those parents who simply don't feel they have the requisite knowledge to assist. These are understandable and supported. It's the other comments that are included below that hit home--those parents that don't lift a finger, but are eager to open their mouth to complain, whether loudly at a game or in the privacy of their car or home to their child. Any coach worth his or her salt would welcome a conversation with a parent, to discuss concerns and answer questions. Unfortunately, this is rarely how these situations are handled. For this reason, the letter below seems particularly pertinent this time of year.

Letter to Little League Parents

Jim L posted this on a blog written by residents of East Greenbush, New York.

Dear Parent,

I am your child’s coach this year, so I wanted to provide some important information. Let me just say that on the occasions that your child is not in the game, it is not due to his/her .038 batting average or inability to pick up a non-moving ball, but rather various hidden agendas and mental shortcomings on my part. Surely your future Division 1 scholarship athlete will succeed once a coach more qualified than me takes the reins.

Second, I would like to thank you in advance for not meddling in any of that pesky work surrounding the ball field. Surely that “field cleanup day” nonsense is for other parents, not you. After all, you’ve done enough for the baseball community by producing gifted offspring who can round the bases in just under three minutes thanks to your superior DNA.

Thank you also for leaving the coaching to me and me alone. Choosing to play catch in the yard with your kid could have proofed costly, resulting in caught balls, good form, and quality time with your child. Your approach of attending two of the 17 practices and then yelling at your kid for not turning an unassisted triple play is probably the way to go. I am sure his/her practice attendance was inspired by your impressive attendance at concession duty.

Babe Ruth smoked at the ball park, so by all means so should you. Please continue to ignore the “No Smoking” signs and PA announcements. Those are meant for other people.

Again, thank you for teaching your son/daughter about good sportsmanship and good citizenship. Please keep up the good work by continuing to complain about everything from the umps to the weather.

I apologize in advance for not meeting your expectations as a coach, and I thank you for letting me share a dugout with your future Olympian.

[blogs.timesunion.com/eastgreenbush, 4/26/09]
Excerpt taken from Character Counts Sports, the Josephson Institute

Opening a Window~Clearing the Air

The weather in the Midwest has finally improved...you just don't expect 60 degrees at the end of August, so the 70's have been a welcomed response for the beginning of September! With improved weather comes a chance to open the windows...and ironically, opening the windows allows us to clear the air. It seems I need to clear the air about a few things.

First, I am not a powerful person. I never claimed to be, nor do I want to have power. I intentionally gave all that up when I made the choice to switch career paths and stop the insanity of the 40+ hour work week, which had the "career-focused" woman in me constantly battling with the "mom" in me. As a professor/faculty member at a university, I have more flexibility in my day to be available to my family, and yet I can continue to devote the time I need to my career--it just doesn't always need to be in the confines of the ivory tower. I no longer strive to be the "king of the world"...or "queen", for that matter. So, with that said, it amazed me that my last post regarding "friends for a season" would cause such a stir of emotions. As if I am that powerful a person...

It must be said that I've made some amazing friends through my son's travel hockey program--some began in our house-league hockey days, with some of those friends still in the house league today. These are people, men and women, who regardless of any team placement, will approach me (or I them) and there is genuine happiness in saying hello, catching up on how the family is doing, and hearing what is new in their world. We've laughed together, cried together, even faced death together. Some of the hockey families I've met I've had the pleasure of getting together with outside of the regular season. These are NOT friends for a season...these are FRIENDS. And I am thankful that my son finds their sons to be his good friends. When he wants to get together with a friend, it is a bit harder because we have to drive a town away (either them coming to us or him going to them), but these are the people he wants to spend his time with. I know their parents, I trust these boys, and he truly has fun with them. I am grateful for these friendships.

As I spent time at the rink over the past few days during try-outs for this season's teams, it was great to see so many people we haven't seen since last season ended! And then there were a few who gave me the "Newman" hello...picture a Seinfeld episode and you'll understand. Actually getting a hello was more than expected, but there you go! Friends for a season...former teammates' families. It did cause me to be cautious about who to approach. That was a sad feeling, but that's life.

On another note...the President will be addressing our school children on Tuesday, September 8th. There's been much discussion about this--and since the initial letter to the principals by the Secretary of Education stated things that were rather political propaganda, he has revised what projects the President would like these children to do after he is done speaking. The concept of asking our children, "what can you do for President Obama", rather than "what can you do for America" is a very good point that one of my friends brought up. I do not oppose the President of our country speaking to my children--I am concerned about the subject matter of his discussion and whether he will be using this platform for his own political agenda, or if he truly does want this to be about the kids' goals. Because there have been so many concerns and issues surrounding how this has come to light, I question the intent. Do I oppose the President speaking to school children? Not at all...I am a concerned parent when it comes to the subject matter of that conversation--and I believe any parent would be.

It is good to be able to open the windows every now and again to let the air flow through your home--clearing the air is good! Inevitably, bad air is still trapped in some places, but no matter how hard you try, you can't always fix it. Hopefully, time will ease tension.