1st Day of Practice Interviews, Practice Footage

[InGoodCo]

I do miss Lightning1 a little because it was so much fun to call him on his shit. The only reason he rubbed me the wrong way is he basically acted like he invented the game of BB and he was so often wrong. If you're gonna swing a big stick and run around shitting on everyone's post then just be right about a thing or 2, that's all I ask. He batted like sub .200 with hot takes.

 

[Fryowa]

I do miss Lightning1 a little because it was so much fun to call him on his shit. The only reason he rubbed me the wrong way is he basically acted like he invented the game of BB and he was so often wrong. If you're gonna swing a big stick and run around shitting on everyone's post then just be right about a thing or 2, that's all I ask. He batted like sub .200 with hot takes.

Didn't he leave after he made some posts about the Barnstormers in regards to the Greg Stephens thing? I think I remember Rob told him to knock it off and he got mad.

 

[InGoodCo]

Didn't he leave after he made some posts about the Barnstormers in regards to the Greg Stephens thing? I think I remember Rob told him to knock it off and he got mad.

Yeah, that was about his end, and while we fought he did have my respect. He payed me for the whole 0% chance he gave Iowa to make the NCAA 2 seasons ago and by doing so, he revealed who he was to me. As in, it came from his real name, I found him with a simple google search and man, I was not impressed. Somebody that talked the amount of trash he did I never thought I would be that underwhelmed and I'll leave it at that.

 

[Northside Hawk]

Didn't he leave after he made some posts about the Barnstormers in regards to the Greg Stephens thing? I think I remember Rob told him to knock it off and he got mad.

It was a situation where an AAU coach left a kid at a convenience store because the coach didn't want to drive twenty miles out of his way to take him home and Ligntning, who had driven a long way from his own tournament, had to do more driving and take the kid home. Lightning was threatening to reveal more dirt about the coach and Rob warned him that he was on thin ice.

His last post may have been a PM to me asking me to delete a post that I made on the matter.

For the record, as I have posted before, my kid tried out for a Stephens coached Barnstormer team. Only time my son has ever been cut from a team. Connor liked my kid, had a kind word to say to me as he and Jack were walking out the door just ahead of me. Only encounter I ever had with Connor Mac. My son's current high school teammate did play for Stephens and I can only imagine what was discovered on his "hidden cameras". Thank God that Kyle (not his real name) did not play in that tournament in Chicago where a lot of bad stuff went down in the hotel.

 

[Fryowa]

It was a situation where an AAU coach left a kid at a convenience store because the coach didn't want to drive twenty miles out of his way to take him home and Ligntning, who had driven a long way from his own tournament, had to do more driving and take the kid home.

This is why I rail against non-school amateur sports.

 

[Northside Hawk]

This is why I rail against non-school amateur sports. It's nothing but drama which is totally parent/coach-driven, and it brings out the absolute worst in folks. I could go on for days about stuff I've seen while coaching and officiating travel ball.

I know not everyone is going to agree with me, but I'll never believe for a second that the majority of parents do it for their kids no matter how much anyone tries to prove the point. AAU, USSSA, Legion, Perfect Game, all of them are 90% washed up parents who never realized their perceived ability, throwing hundreds of thousands of dollars at what they say are their own kids' dreams...when in reality they're trying to buy their insecurities away by forcing their kids into being miniature Todd Marinoviches. Kids like this one who got dumped at a gas station, and the ones who get molested by slugs like Stephens are left holding the bag.

How many of the kids who got raped by Stephens were victims of not only him, but also their own parents who put their pride in front of their children's interests?

My kid plays for a "B" level AAU team in Wisconsin. They play about a dozen tournaments in the spring/summer, traveling no further than the Twin Cities. They practice a couple times a week from late March until the season ends sometime in July. Our coach has somewhat of a lassiez faire attitude toward practice attendance if it conflicts with another sport.

Well my kid led the team in scoring in seventh grade and the elite coach set his evil sights on him. His team plays over half the year, travels considerably further than Minneapolis, makes no mistake about mandatory practice attendance, and many of his players no longer even play basketball for their high school teams, let alone play other sports.

He explained to my kid what the expectations were and then my wife and I discussed it with our son. He said there was no way he was leaving behind classmates that he's played with since second grade, let alone quitting other sports.

End of conversation. I mean, he's 5'11 and basically plays power forward. Forget college level, he wouldn't play for a Dubuque high school unless it was strictly as a guard, no matter how high he can jump or how quick he is. He's going to get more looks in track and field, if they have a damn season next spring, and he wasn't giving up football either.

Good for him, he's not going to be a meat market AAU casualty. And the misses and I support him 100%.

For the record, our football got moved to spring. A six game season starting in late March. High school basketball is on, with limited attendance and perhaps 80% of a normal season. Hell, they've been playing weekend tournaments for a month and a half. Banging HS basketball isn't going to stop kids from playing. The money is just going to go to other places, like JustAGame in the Dells or Beyond The Baseline in Davenport or the BettPlex in Betterdorf, when it could be going to local high schools and their booster clubs.

 

[Fryowa]

My kid plays for a "B" level AAU team in Wisconsin. They play about a dozen tournaments in the spring/summer, traveling no further than the Twin Cities. They practice a couple times a week from late March until the season ends sometime in July. Our coach has somewhat of a lassiez faire attitude toward practice attendance if it conflicts with another sport.

Well my kid led the team in scoring in seventh grade and the elite coach set his evil sights on him. His team plays over half the year, travels considerably further than Minneapolis, makes no mistake about mandatory practice attendance, and many of his players no longer even play basketball for their high school teams, let alone play other sports.

He explained to my kid what the expectations were and then my wife and I discussed it with our son. He said there was no way he was leaving behind classmates that he's played with since second grade, let alone quitting other sports.

End of conversation. I mean, he's 5'11 and basically plays power forward. Forget college level, he wouldn't play for a Dubuque high school unless it was strictly as a guard, no matter how high he can jump or how quick he is. He's going to get more looks in track and field, if they have a damn season next spring, and he wasn't giving up football either.

Good for him, he's not going to be a meat market AAU casualty. And the misses and I support him 100%.

For the record, our football got moved to spring. A six game season starting in late March. High school basketball is on, with limited attendance and perhaps 80% of a normal season. Hell, they've been playing weekend tournaments for a month and a half. Banging HS basketball isn't going to stop kids from playing. The money is just going to go to other places, like JustAGame in the Dells or Beyond The Baseline in Davenport or the BettPlex in Betterdorf, when it could be going to local high schools and their booster clubs.

A+ parenting by you and your wife. Honestly.

I wish a lot of the kids I’ve come across in USSSA had parents like you. That AAU puppy mill is a tragedy, man.

 

[Fryowa]

For the record, our football got moved to spring. A six game season starting in late March. High school basketball is on, with limited attendance and perhaps 80% of a normal season. Hell, they've been playing weekend tournaments for a month and a half. Banging HS basketball isn't going to stop kids from playing. The money is just going to go to other places, like JustAGame in the Dells or Beyond The Baseline in Davenport or the BettPlex in Betterdorf, when it could be going to local high schools and their booster clubs.

I just this week got the ok from our district’s AD to use the gym again for baseball. We got shut down early March and had no season. Iowa dropped the ball for 7th graders which is my son’s grade.

They allowed rec in our state (K-6th in NW Iowa), and high school ball. Which left middle schoolers out to dry. 8th graders got to play up in freshman ball, and the 7th graders got hosed.

I could have taken kids to tourneys, but due to rec ball in our town, I had no fields with open time slots to practice on. The closest one who would allow it was 45 mins away one way, and then at that point I’m becoming one of those “at all costs” parents that I hate.

So we’re super pumped to get back in the cage in our MS gym (we have a kickass suspended batting cage that drops down with 4 plates) and the 7 kids I have who practice hard are chomping at the bit. I have to say that I am too.

We keep things totally pressure-free, we have fun, and to be honest I think that’s why I can get that many kids for baseball in a small town our size.

 

[Northside Hawk]

The Wisconsin WIAA left fall sports decisions up to the schools. In our conference it was split down the middle. Four schools voted to play football in the fall, four schools (including ours) voted to try in the spring.

Its been, of course, a cluster-F. Three of the four schools who opted to play got visits from the Covid Nazis. They lost games as a result and have forfeited the chance to play in the spring. When they did play it was against larger schools, which increases the chance of getting beat up physically.

As for the rest of us who voted to play in the spring, we will try to squeeze in a six game season starting March 26 or whatever that Friday is. Grass fields will be in the worst possible condition in April (quagmires from the annual snowmelt) and the road trips will be longer to piece together even a six game schedule, as schools find dancing partners who passed on playing in the fall. Furthermore, athletes playing baseball will be allowed to bail on football after four games because they got no season last spring.

Its all adds up to one big Chinese fire drill. But so has much of 2020.

 

[Northside Hawk]

A+ parenting by you and your wife. Honestly.

I wish a lot of the kids I’ve come across in USSSA had parents like you. That AAU puppy mill is a tragedy, man.

Our whole tenth grade classes filled with parents who get along and socialize with each other away from sports as well.

But I've heard many of your horror stories. And seen a good deal of my own. I know a parent who made his kid hit in the cage when his team was up to bat instead of letting him hang out with his friends/teammates in the dugout.

That accomplishes nothing, except showing the whole ballpark what an asshole daddy pops is.

 

[Fryowa]

Our whole tenth grade classes filled with parents who get along and socialize with each other away from sports.

But I've heard many of your horror stories. And seen a good deal of them myself. I know a parent who made his kid hit in the cage mid inning, instead of letting him hang out with his friends/teammates in the dugout while their team was at bat.

That accomplishes nothing, except showing the whole ballpark what an asshole daddy pops is.

Speaking of dads, when our kids were starting rec way back in the day I had a dad help me coach, which at that age consists of just learning which hand the glove goes on and how to hold a bat...

He was a screamer, but he only screamed at his own kid. And he did it incessantly. Any time his boy started screwing around, or let a grounder go between his legs, basically what kids do at that age, he was up his ass right away. My own kid was actually way worse about paying attention and I asked him one time, “Why don’t you yell at my kid too instead of just your own? He’s way worse and maybe your kid wouldn’t feel so bad.”

I eventually told him thanks but no thanks and unsurprisingly his son doesn’t play any sports now. Probably longing for the day he turns 18 so he can move the hell out of his parents house.