Governor Kelly of KS sends my son a letter congratulating him on his national shooting team win! Future Air Force Academy Falcon!
It was great! First time making it over the fire. Wife found that pan sometime in June. Had been waiting ever since to break it in.
My son's hard work all summer in preparation for his first football season has paid off. He is back up QB on the sixth grade team and starting inside linebacker on defense. They have their first scrimmage Saturday morning. Coach's son is the starting QB, but we knew that was going to happen going into the school year. Back up QB was the best my son could hope for this year. As long he plays as good as he looks in practice, I think that will change, maybe as early as next year. Starting in 7th grade the school's coaching staff coaches the teams until high school graduation. The 6th grade team is coached by parent volunteers. The coach and his son are both built like lineman, in the long run the coach's son will end up playing line, or maybe, a monster running back on offense. I told my son to just be patient, learn the game and have fun. As long as he enjoys it enough this year to keep playing in the future, and continues to have the offseason work ethic that he showed this summer, I think my son has a legitimate shot to be the future QB in 4-5 years. It is going to be really hard to ignore the talent level of an 11-year-old kid that can hit receivers in stride on 35 yard post, fade, and corner routes. More importantly, he has the situational awareness and intelligence to run an offense. The skills and knowledge that I taught him over the summer, he is more than capable of running a more complicated offense than what the team is running. He just needs to prove that he can keep his composure under pressure and make good decisions.
My second son started tackle in 5th grade. He started 9th grade this year. I had no idea how big our high school football program was until this year.. We have the head coach, 5 offensive coaches and 6 defensive couches, a full time trainer and a PA on staff. First thing I found interesting is all teams, 9th, JV, and varsity practice as one less hitting drills and the varsity players must mentor the JV and 9th graders. Off the field players spend more time with their team then really their own families. For dinners, 3x times a week, each parent hosts a meal and players eat together as a team. They are grouped together by role/ position. So just the other night we fed 15-20 players dinner. It is so neat to see the older varsity players treat the younger guys like brothers. Things that really helped my son be a better football: Wrestling!!! He wrestled the last two years. It teaches a would be kid that doesn't have a aggressive bone in thier body to be straight up ferocious . Not to mention the workouts are brutal. Off season work outs, 3 times a week at the gym. Mountain bike racing. He put over a 1000 miles on his bike this summer and was on the podium every race. With all that work he was able to gain 25 lbs in a single summer. Not to mention he now has a vertical leap of 24.2" which is off the chart for his age. They have him playing corner, safety and special teams. Love it!
Good thought on the wrestling, my high school didn't have wrestling as a sport. I think my son would like that, not sure if they offer it in sixth grade though. May have to wait until he is older. He does enjoy throwing his brothers around when they wrestle at home.
We used to mock the wrestlers as swimmers when they ran in our bleachers to lose weight, they bragged about how conditioned they were. Drive in and swim 10 100's on a minute and a half. Dive in lane one swim a lap under water get out do 15 push ups dive back in do the same thing thru all 6 lanes and repeat.
Much respect for swimmers. Its definitely a entire different level of conditioning. They have cracked down on the rules for making weight for wrestling. No more suiting up in trash bags going for runs in the heat of the day to make weight, ect... 7th and 8th grade Wrestling is a co-ed sport here. My son ended up wrestling the same girl that was built like a brick **** house in a number of tournaments last year. It was funny to watch their interactions before and after a match. I asked him if he ever thought about where he put his hands while they were wrestling etc.... He just smiled and said no. I then asked him if he ever went easy on her and he said with a positive "hell no, I am not getting beat by a girl." I thought he should at least taken her on a date, maybe to dinner. lol!
My niece is a collegiate swimmer at Auburn...didn't make the cut at the Olympic trials, but pretty sure she could kick most people's butt, including you mugs...and you'd never expect it. Pretty sure her training is a full time job.
Taking the grandsons to a zoo today, I am out of isolation and the wife is back to school next week. The zoo we are going to was the one where a zoo keeper got grabbed by the head by a camel and flung around a couple weeks back so there is potential for excitement.
Best thing during the zoo visit my wife got a call, we ended our visit a little early so my wife could go look at a place for her parents. Found them a townhouse I said write the check, best crisis averted I am so grateful this evening.
Did a 5 minute stand up at the Upsala farm store this afternoon, started a fight between the Key blue and white stripe overalls vs the Lee solid denim overalls.
Camping trip this weekend to the area where I elk hunt. Oldest daughter and family just bought a new camp trailer and are meeting us there. A weekend of early morning scouting, evening crawdad trapping, sighting in backup bow, daytime creek swimming, and a whole lot of spoiling my granddaughter rotten? Yes please.
Proud Dad moment. My youngest went out and worked out with an elite St Louis travel soccer team. Dude they are phenomenal. They have been preparing for a major fall season. Was hard for her and the conditioning at the end was brutal. Like bball suicides for 10 straight mins. It put it to her knees. After practice she cried a bit saying she was embarased by her conditioning. Dude we just moved here and she hadnt done soccer for 3 months! She then told me she asked her sister to drive her to the track in the dark so she could run more. Holy hell! This kid has grit.
