You are here: Home / Archives for Happy Sports

Start Your Tractors Boys

March 7, 2010 by Leave a Comment

“Start Your Tractors.”

The chant from the Guerin fans near the end of a high school sectional championship game.

Is this an insult to Tipton County?

Agriculture is an integral part of Tipton County life. Our county ranks first in the state of Indiana as having the highest percentage of prime farmland acreage, and therefore, agriculture represents the largest single land use in the county. It is on this land that not only the highest yields per acre in Indiana are produced, but also some of the top yields in the nation. We have consistently ranked among the leading counties for our impressive return in the production of corn, soybeans and wheat in Indiana. Source: Tipton County Ag Business

Today, much of Tipton County is still rural farmland. We are proud of farmers in Tipton County. They are hard workers with values. This is your insult? Really?

Tipton County is still mostly farmland . At one time, Hamilton County, was mostly farmland, right? Now it is filled with housing division after housing division, strip malls, and traffic. We love our farmland in Tipton.

My retort would have been: “Start your daddy’s Mercedes.” But I wouldn’t because that has nothing to do with the actual game being played. Maybe, an “airball” or a “you got swatted” or even an “overrated.” But why insult the tractors?

I’m not sure there was even a player from a farming family on the team. All the boys I can think of are “city boys.”

Onto the actual game.

Guerin is a good team, don’t get me wrong. They played hard and tough. They had impressive three point shooters. Really, I was impressed. Not surprised because we watched them come back from at least a ten point deficit against Madison Grant.  I knew they would bring the three point ball on Saturday.

We started the game out hot and then somewhere during the first half went cold. Everytime we started to get fired back up again, we would be brought back down by a shrug your shoulders foul.

You do have to question it. The foul situation that is. Tipton was called for almost twice as many fouls as Guerin. (Tipton 25, Guerin 14) Let me tell ya it was a physically game. It just wasn’t as one sided as those stats are portraying. I’m browsing the stats for the other games in our area and the foul situation for almost every other sectional championship game is very even. It seemed these one particular referring squad we had the entire sectional game really had it out for us.

In these types of situations, it can mess with your psyche. If one team is allowed to play a more physical game and the other is not, it can affect the outcome of the game. I’m not making excuses, I’m sure we could have played a better game but you have to take this into account.

It was an exciting, entertaining season. Indiana high school basketball is inexpensive entertainment and excitement.

Tipton loses only two seniors, including a Ohio University bound Ethan Jacobs. We will come back strong with a great line up of seniors.

Oh, and Greg Dickey, Sofia still thinks you are the “awesomest”!

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , , ,

The State of Youth Sports

September 29, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Times have changed in some ways since I’ve played Youth Sports and some things have stayed the same.

Parents still think their child is the best player ever and think they should be the team superstar. The coaches kid gets tons of playing time whether it is deserving or not.

A disturbing trend I’ve noticed recently is the lack of interest from the kids playing. Apathetic.

Void of feeling; not susceptible of deep emotion; passionless; indifferent.

Some just don’t seem to want to even be there. Better yet, they say they hate the sport they are playing. They don’t want to even try. Yeah, I remember practices being boring when I was growing up too but aren’t the games at least suppose to be fun?

So what is their motivation for playing? Are they doing it just to have an activity, peer pressure, parental pressure, or some unknown force? Maybe they just haven’t found their thing yet or are afraid to admit what activity they really want to do.

If they are playing because their parents are forcing them to, I wish the parents would consider the teammates and coaches when they do this. Teammates get frustrated with an apathetic attitude and coaches don’t know how to handle kids who don’t care.

Then you have the segment of coaches that want to win at any cost. Isn’t the goal at a young age to develop your players and teach fundamental skills so they can succeed later. Right now they are young but eventually they will be in middle school and high school together playing on the same team, fighting for the same cause.

It seems the kids are beating down the kids on opposing teams. Trashing talking them because of being on opposite teams. When in reality, they are going to be teammates with each other in just a short few years.

From my years growing up, the common denominator with successful teams is a TEAM attitude. No, you don’t have to like everyone on your team but you need to respect your teammates and get along for the common good.

The win at any cost attitude really irks me. Of course, I want to win. Do I want to win at the expense of the children on the other team who are part of my community? I want to win because we are that good and the opposition is that good. I don’t want to win because of the mistakes another team makes.

I want to win playing our best, playing the best.

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , ,

It is gone, gone, out of here…

June 3, 2009 by Leave a Comment

IMG_0217
Peyty Pie, as I call him, hit his first over the fence home run at last night’s Pee Wee game.

It came at a critical time when we were only up by 2 runs in a close game against a hard hitting team.

We had two runners on base with 2 outs. First pitch, he swung and it was so out of there!

After that beautiful hit, everyone could breathe a sigh of relief in this close game. We want to keep our undefeated season ya know. Cuz, Pee Wee is LIFE.

We couldn’t find his real home run ball so we think it may have fell into the creek but he was given a new ball which one of the coaches scuffed up a bit to make it look like the home run ball.

Now the home run race is on between two of the 8 year olds on our team.

After the game, we celebrated with dinner at the Dairy Queen with no coupons. Our life is consisting of lots of dinners out right now with our hectic schedule!

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , , ,

Baseball Nightmares.

May 28, 2009 by Leave a Comment

So will my 8 year old son have nightmares after this past weekend’s baseball game?

He says no.

But when you look up at the game and your child is being chased by the ENTIRE opposing team, you wonder what your child is going to dream about.

It was a game that was really just a comedy of errors. Mostly due to an pimpled faced umpire. I will give it to the ump, he has given us a story we will never forget.

Long after we forget who we played, the outcome of the game, or the date, we will never forget the comedic relief in an tense game.

Here’s the scenario. Peyton, my eight year old son, was on second base. Next batter strikes out. The opposing team all starts to head to the dug out. Peyton heads back to our dug out.

The moms in the stands are trying to figure out how there is 3 outs. Who got out? We are all kind of shaking our heads and looking around. There is only two outs, right?

All of the sudden I look up and I see Peyton racing back out to second base and being chased by the entire opposing team. Really, only one kid could get him out but the whole team was chasing after him.

Lucky for Peyton, he gets his speed from his dad and made it back to second base quickly. Plus, the catcher who was running with the ball tripped. Though, I really doubt they could have outrun a kid who looked like he was running for his life.

Pretty hilarious and it is too bad youtube wasn’t there to film it. Anyone else catch that Michael Scottism?

So that wasn’t even all. There are more unforgettable moments in that game.

It is the top of the 5th inning. The opposing team has a runner on third base.  The runner attempts to steal home. Mind you, it is not a passed ball. So our catcher looking perplexed, stands there with the ball to tag the runner and gets plowed over. (Runners are suppose to slide in any situation like that so he is out regardless.)

Still there is more.

The last  involved the very last moment of the game. The scene: 2 outs. 2 strikes. Our team down by a mere 4 runs. Umpire calls a strike on our batter as the ball is leaving the pitcher’s hands and quickly exits the field. The ball was in the dirt. Hardly, a strike.

Game over. We lost. But we really improved.

{We faced the same team again the next day. We had an adult umpire, which gave me much confidence in how fair the game would be judged. We won by several runs. Amazing how decent umpiring can change the outcome of a game.}

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , ,

Time Out, I Need to Pick My Nose.

March 19, 2009 by Leave a Comment

You were probably lured into this post by the title. We will get to that shortly. It will not seem relevant to this post at first glance but you will see….

Since it was nice this weekend, the boys played some baseball. Yes, it is that season already. In fact, our older son’s travel team started practicing indoors in January. So no break in between basketball and baseball in this household.

This will be Eli’s first year to play. He has been talking about it for the past two years. Last year he even worse cleats and an old baseball shirt to almost every one of Peyton’s games.

“When am I going to be five?”

“I can’t wait until I’m five so I can play on Peyton’s baseball team!”

On Saturday, daddy mentioned to the boys in the morning he would pitch them some balls later in the afternoon. Eli was so excited he kept harassing me and asking with a scrunched up nose “When will daddy be home to pitch me some balls?” “Daddy, are you going to pitch me some balls?”

Finally, in the afternoon the boys played some ball in the yard. It was a beautiful day to play outside. I think I even cleaned out my car just to enjoy the day. Anyhoo on to the funny store.

There is always a funny story. If you know Eli, you know you never know what is going to pop out of his mouth and he has the best facial expressions ever.

In the middle of getting pitched balls, Eli had to take a time out to dig for some gold. Apparently, this went on for quite a while. When he found what he needed, it was time again to hit some balls.

I can just imagine this happening during an actual game. Actually, I’m predicting something like that will happen or worse. My prediction:He wil be up to bat during a real game, have to go potty and just whip it out right there. Who knows. Five year olds playing baseball are so entertaining and cute!

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , , , ,

We lost.

March 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment

devillogo

Sadly our high school basketball season came to a end by Ft. Wayne Luers yet again. I’m proud of our team and sad and disappointed for them. They played hard but just couldn’t pull out a win in the end.

The team gave us a fun and exciting season. Something for all us “old” people to do on Friday and Saturday nights. We look forward to an exciting season next year as well.

Here’s one of the highlights from the game when Ethan Jacobs (#44) dunks it from a pass from Greg Dickey (#20):

So how rude do you think it is for the other team to dance on your mascot in the center of the court after the game? Very rude, I think.

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , , ,

Wordless Wednesday 3/11 (Youth Basketball is over!)

March 11, 2009 by 8 Comments

This is my first Wordless Wednesday! #20 is “mine”. The others are the spectators (my other two babies!)

Huddle Time
Eli at Basketball Game
Donna & Sofia

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: ,

Tipton Won the Sectional!

March 9, 2009 by Leave a Comment

devillogoWith another hard fought game, our Tipton Blue Devils won the Sectional against Guerin High School.  Very exciting to win Sectionals 2 years in a row! Lots of credit goes to our team who has worked hard all season!

Of course, I loved what the opposing coach had to say about my cousin:

“I thought we played tentative and [the Devils] can do that to you — they play very physical and they’re very strong,” Guerin coach Pete Smith said. “[Greg] Dickey makes their defense go with his ball pressure. Bradley [Yust] doesn’t see very much ball pressure like that. That was one of the toughest nights he’s had all season, and that’s a credit to Dickey.”

We will now face Ft. Wayne Luers yet again. This year the outcome WILL be different than last year. It is bound to be a good game and possibly the “real” state championship as it is the #1 (us)  and #2 (Luers) teams in the state facing off. Last year Luers after defeating us in the Regional Championship, Luers went on to win the state.

I took a ton of videos with my flip camcorder after the game and will work on putting together a video montage.

Here’s a couple of good links:

Filed Under: All Posts, Happy Sports Tagged With: , ,
Google Analytics Alternative