All Sport Academy - How Good Do You Want To Be Today?

As I’ve written a few times, my youngest son, Derek, is a pretty good high jumper. Fortunately for me, I’ve been able to help him along his path for the last couple of years and like any father I like to help him with the things that you can only know if you’ve done something yourself. I’ve tried to teach him when to warm up, when to stretch, what height to come in the competition at, how to keep warm between jumps, etc., etc., etc. It’s been fun for us, but I know he rolls his eyes at me a lot (don’t all teenagers?).

When I jumped in both high school and college I was that lone guy wandering around the infield talking to myself (everyone knows high jumpers are flaky…), listening to music with full sweats and a stocking hat on, even if it was 90 degrees out. I had my routine before I jumped, I had my superstitions, I had my music… Bottom line was that I was weird, there’s no denying it. But, in my defense, it worked for me. So, here I am trying to get my son to follow along with some of the things I believe are good, warming up, staying focused, keeping loose, etc. Today, pretty much all my thoughts on what should work for him got thrown out the window and I learned something pretty important, to let the kid be himself and enjoy the ride.

Once again they started the high jump competition as the 4×400 relay was just finishing. If you’ve been to any high school track meet you know that this means that the meet is basically over. Because of this, the entire team was in the infield, standing next to the high jump pit (it was the only thing going on). I was in a semi-panic as his friends were standing right next to him talking to him as he was standing ready to jump. I keep mumbling that someone needed to get them away, let him focus, stop talking to him… As he cleared height after height I could see the interaction between the group get more animated and he seemed more and more relaxed with each jump (I on the other hand got more and more tense). When he cleared 6′, which was a new personal record, he calmly jumped out the of the pit, jogged back to his friends to a mob of high-fives, chest bumps and screams (there were a few girls there too). To see the look on his face and the way his teammates carried on you’d have thought he just won the state meet, but his jumping parter, Sean Lease, cleared 6′2″ to win the competition. Yeah, that 6′ mark is a big one for a high jumper, but as far as I’m concerned it wasn’t the most important thing that came out of that meet. Derek took the next step in his career as a jumper and it was really fun to see his teammates make a big deal out of it for him. Derek’s coach (yeah, that would be me) took an even bigger step as a coach today by learning that we need to let our athletes be themselves and not carbon copies of what we think works. Every athlete is different, every athlete has to find their own style and way of doing things and when it all comes together, big things happen. I’m just glad I was there to see it…

A million years ago my wife and I went to high school together (of course, we weren’t married then, but we did date…). We were both three-sport athletes, one of which was track and field. We both continued our love of the track after high school as I high jumped in college and she was head girls track coach at a high school in Michigan and then later was the head boys and girls track coach at a high school in Wisconsin. In other words, we’ve spent a day or two on a track between us.

In high school one of the big meets we used to compete in was the Prairie du Chien Invitational. We loved going there because there were a lot of schools and they gave medals for placing. Of course, to this day she rolls her eyes when I talk about it because the medals the boys got were, as we like to say, the size of a garbage can lid and the medals the girls got were the size of a silver dollar. Anyway, the point is, the Prairie Invite was always a highlight of our track season and we small-town farm kids loved our garbage-can lid medals!

When I went off to college I found myself in a similar situation I had in high school, my school wasn’t fortunate enough to have a track. As a high jumper, I found myself working out on the basketball court in high school and when I got to Columbia we had an old gym that we could work out in, but most of the time we hopped into vans and went to Randall Island to jump at Downing Stadium.

Skip to the beginning of track season in 2006. My youngest son decides he wants to go out for track instead of baseball and both my wife and I are thrilled, we are going back to the track! Derek has been very successful in his brief career, but he’s in high school now and the slate’s wiped clean…

Last weekend everything sort of hit me, where we’ve been, were we are and where we’re going. When the schedule came out I looked at it and saw a familar place, Randall Island. Downing Stadium isn’t there anymore, it’s been replaced by Icahn Stadium (”Fast Times, Fast Pace, This IS the Place”, say that 400 times and you’ll know what we went through on Saturday…). We jumped in the car and drove up the Turnpike, over the George Washington Bridge, by Yankee Stadium (both Yankee Stadiums), over the Triborough Bridge and onto Randall Island. As we pulled up I remember going there like it was yesterday and it brought back a lot of really great memories, but as we pulled up I also remember thinking, “We’re Not in Prairie du Chien Anymore Toto…” You see, for us to get to Prairie from Fennimore (yeah, we lived in the sticks, I admit it), you basically drive 30 miles through farm land. On the way you go through two or three towns with no more than 200 people in them and I think Prairie has about 4,000. There are no baseball stadiums, there are no toll booths, there are no skyscrapers in the background. There are cows, there are corn fields and there is the smell of farmland USA (yes, we love Wisconsin…). As we sat 50 rows up in the stadium and looked down at the nine-lane, all-weather track, I couldn’t help but realize how much better our son has it than we did. We didn’t have a track, he’s got one of the nicest in the area at South Brunswick. We didn’t get to wear spikes at meets for the most part because most of the tracks in the early 80s in our area were asphalt, he gets to wear spikes in practice and every meet they go to (and he’s wearing my prize possession, my spikes, with signatures of four Olympic high jumpers on them). We went to Prairie du Chien, he’s jumping on Randall Island were Jessie Owens won the 1936 Olympic Trials in front of President Roosevelt and Pele played his first soccer game in the United States in 1975. I only got to practice in our high school gym and only during track season, he works out at ASA or at a track practically year-round. My dad and high school coach (Coach Vince Lease, best coach I ever had!) used to stand in the exact same area at each meet because of some superstition they had (but didn’t tell me about until I graduated), his dad just video tapes and tries to coach him after every jump, before every jump, when to loosen up, when to start, etc., etc., etc… Come to think of it, I win that one, my dad was way cooler than his dad will ever be…

To say that I’m jealous would be and understatement! To say that we are looking forward to the next four years would be a gross understatement…

Last weekend I saw two last second shots during basketball games, which I find to be one of the most exciting things in all of sports. Here they are:

1). The situation was, with a few seconds on the clock, his team down by one point and two free throws, this kid sinks the second of the two to tie the game. With nearly no time left the other team throws the ball in (deep), a player grabs the ball, pivots and throws up a shot that falls in to win.

2). Another tie game, around 15 seconds left, player takes the in bounds pass and dribbles up the court, holds the ball for the last shot, he drives to the corner and launches a shot just before the buzzer. As the shot goes up, you see the official running towards half court blowing his whistle. He said the kid was fouled and gets two free throws, with no time on the clock. They clear the floor and put this kid on the line for his two free throws. He calmly sinks the first one, the near capacity crowd goes crazy and his teammates mob him on the floor.

Both were equally exciting, both were equally important to the players and fans, but as similar as they sound, they couldn’t have been farther apart in about a million ways… The first game was the ending of the University of Minnesota vs. Indiana game in the Big Ten tournament last weekend. I was watching TV and my wife called me in to see the ending, since I’m from Minnesota she knew I’d like to see it. Obviously it was a big college game in front of a television audience and a few thousand fans and the win sent Minnesota to the semi-final game of the tournament. The second game was the championship game of the St. Barts Rec basketball league in East Brunswick. The league is ages 3rd grade thru 8th grade, the player involved I believe is in 4th grade. It was nothing less than amazing to see this kid check the clock, dribble around, then head to the corner for his last-second shot. Anyone that’s ever played any level of basketball knows that we all do the 5-4-3-2-1 shoot drill with our friends a million times over our “careers” and I could see him doing it in his head. What was really amazing about it though was seeing him step up to the line, block out the crowd (I’d say there were 100+ people in the gym, all screaming) and calmly sink that first free throw. It was sports in it’s purest form…

After that game came the championship game we came to see, the girls 3rd - 8th grade championship. I love going to this particular gym, it’s small, but cozy and it’s named after my wife. OK, no, it’s not named after my wife, but the gym and my wife have the same name and I like that. Anyway, the girls warm up and they call both teams to the center of the floor, they all take a knee and the say a prayer (it’s a Catholic school, it’s what they do!), then they start the game. What I love about this league is they play six minute quarters and regardless of what’s happening on the floor they switch players after three minutes. I’ve watched two games there now and in both games there were fast breaks that were stopped because of the three-minute horn. The game was close, as all good championship games should be, but in the end our buddy Katie’s team came out on top. It was a wonderful afternoon away from the gym and there was some really great basketball from a bunch of young kids played. The winners of the tournament got a really cool sweatshirt that they’ll be able to wear proudly to school or anywhere else. If I’m not mistaken, both teams climbed into cars and went out for pizza together. You can’t beat that deal…

One of the great things about working in a place like All Sport Academy is working with kids. I was talking to a bunch of the guys that came in today from North Brunswick for their rec evaluations and I commented to someone how much fun it is working with young kids. He says to me, “You have to love kids to work in a place like this…” I spent the better part of the morning wandering around chatting with the guys (they were between 7 and 12 years old) about their positions, how exciting it was that baseball is here, what their favorite teams are, who their favorite players are, etc.

So, I’ve had a few conversations today about kids and what’s important to them, how they think, what they like and then I read this article:

Connecticut Boy Applies for WVU Football Job

You have to read the article to appreciate what this kid did. It’s really amazing and I hope I can keep track of him to see where he ends up coaching. That’s a young man with a future…

Hats off to the Mike Garrison, President at West Virginia University, for responding to him. It was a simple gesture, but that one simple gesture made a kid that was already a fan, a fan for life. Nice work Mr. Garrison, for a University President to take those couple of minutes to respond to Joshua was a really amazing thing.

Don’t you just love stories like this? Sure beats steroids, robberies, forged birth certificates, parents fighting officials and coaches and teams spying on other teams doesn’t it?

I remember the first day of baseball practice after we moved to New Jersey like it was yesterday (it was 13 years ago). My oldest son Matt was put on a team coached by three guys that were firm, but fair, very knowledgeable and all-in-all, good guys. After the first practice I told them all that I was happy they were his coaches as I appreciated the fact that even though they were young, they should be taught that being disrespectful isn’t tolerated and discipline is important on a team. Over the years he’s played on a wide variety of teams with a huge range of coaching styles and knowledge and has had a pretty solid “career”. As he grew older we knew the day would come that he’d finish High School and we’d be dealing with college and hopefully college that included baseball, but we knew he’d be off on his own and we probably wouldn’t be there.

We enjoyed the journey, enjoyed watching games, enjoyed the travel, enjoyed the friends we made and enjoyed the joy throwing a baseball brought our son. There were plenty of bumps in the road on that journey, but those are distant memories and we have moved forward and are excited about the prospects of Matthew playing for Rutgers-Newark. He has a new love for the game, he’s excited about the season (he got his number back finally) and he has great respect for his new coaches. For us, we are happy to see him smiling and happy about playing baseball again.

Today marked a new chapter in Matt’s baseball career as he boarded a plane and headed to San Antonio, Texas for a three-game series with Trinity University. It’s killing us to not be there, especially since we found out he’s scheduled as a reliever in Sunday’s game. Fortunately, Trinity will be broadcasting the game over the Internet so we’ll get to see it… (hey dad, that big monitor is certainly going to come in handy now! <g>).

Anyway, parents, enjoy the games you can and cherish every one of them because soon they are going to be done playing or are flying off to areas that you can’t get to and you’re going to be sitting by your phone waiting for the call to tell you how they did. I know Sunday is going to be tough on us and I know Matt’s going to do what he always does, look for us sitting someplace. We’ll be watching, but he won’t see us. It was only a matter of time and it’s hitting me pretty hard today…

Just about anyone that’s been in our gym knows that I have a small group of young high jumpers that I work with. There are three freshmen and a sophomore, all very talented, all with huge potential as jumpers. As I’ve written before, my son, one of those jumpers, has already had a lot of success and is the “experienced” one of the group with his two years of school and AAU/USATF experience. The rest have no more than two years experience and are working hard to improve their jumping skills with me and their leaping ability with our strength coach, J.R. Papernik. I like to tell them that I’ll get them to the bar, JR will get them over the bar…

Anyway, this weekend we had another one of our jumpers move up the ranks as Brooke Sassman (South Brunswick freshman) finished tied for second place in the Central Group IV Sectional in Toms River. Brooke has worked with us now for almost a year and I can’t even begin to express the transformation this young woman has had as a jumper in that short period of time. By finishing second in the Sectional meet she qualified for the Group IV State meet this weekend, again in Toms River, and I think she’s got a great shot at finishing in the top six there which would send her to the Meet of Champions.

As I told Brooke yesterday, the months of hard work will all be worthwhile when she steps on the track on Saturday to compete. So was seeing her name on the Jumbotron at the Bennett Center!

Speaking of the Bennett Center, if you have any interest in track, you have to see this place. Toms River Regional Schools built a bubbled track complex between and Elementary School and a Middle School that is just unbelievable. I’m trying to comprehend how and why they built it since it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to use it for winter workouts for baseball, softball, etc., but I could be wrong (I’m not guessing they are going to let baseballs fly around in there with that Jumbotron positioned where it is…). It had to have cost a small fortune to build it and to keep the bubble up and heat the place can’t be cheap. It’s amazing and I’m glad they have it, I just hope it’s successful.

There are occasions (not very often, thankfully) that I find myself wondering if the ridiculous hours I put in here at the gym are worth it. I wonder if the efforts of our instructors are appreciated, if they are beneficial, if the athletes they are training appreciate what they do for them. I wonder if those that come in to work out are getting anything out of what they do here and I wonder if having All Sport Academy open is a good thing. Usually those thoughts last about 3 seconds and I realize that it’s probably just sleep deprivation… Then, something happens to remind me just why we do what we do, in the last couple of days, I was fortunate enough to have two such events.

On Sunday I was having a discussion with a young lady about her new helmet as she waited her turn to hit. If I’m not mistaken, she’s 11 playing on a 12u team. We were discussing some of the helmets I’ve seen lately that have been airbrushed by a local artist and a few other things. She called her mom over so I could tell her about it and she jumped in the cage. As I spoke to her mom, I watched her take 15 swings or so. When she finished she came bouncing up to her mom all excited about how well the round in the cage was, speaking about a thousand words a minute, smiling from ear to ear. She finished with mom and ran over to her friends still thrilled. So I said something to her mom about it being nice to see her so excited, to which she said her too since she’s had some rough times with softball and it seems like she’s finally starting to really enjoy it and things are coming together for her from all the hard work she’s put in. It’s funny how hitting a few softballs in a cage can make a young girl that excited, but it’s fun to see a young girl get so excited from just hitting a few softballs…

Yesterday my son had a basketball game at JP Stevens. We knew the track team was there as well and I had hoped to catch one of the girls that has been working out here with us. I figured they were outside and it wasn’t going to work, but as we were leaving I noticed a few girls walking into another gym. Knowing that only a couple of events are usually held in a gym I thought I’d see if she might be in there. Turns out they were just starting the high jump and she was about to take her first jump. As the event progressed I made a prediction as to what she was going to jump based on what I was seeing in her early jumps, a prediction that would have her beating her personal best by 4 inches. As she made consecutive jumps is was clear that this was going to be one of those days you remember for a long time as jump after jump she seemed to get more comfortable. When she cleared her first jump for a personal best, she flew off the pit and was met by a few teammates with the typical teenage girl screams and hugs. When she made the next height (the height I predicted), it was a mad house. The best part was that she actually cleared the next height but brushed the bar off with her heals on the way over, which tells me that she’s going to have an amazing 2008 on the track. As her coach, I was thrilled that I was able to be there to see the pay off from the year of incredibly hard work that this young woman has put in to improve her skills and physical strength. It was even better to see how excited she was after, to get her text messages and to get the phone call from her mom how excited they all were…

That why we do it. That’s why we put in the time and effort. That’s the pay off we get.

OK, that’s pretty lame, but hey, we’ve got ‘em all here at All Sport Academy, so come on down (sorry, I’m all wound up now that I heard Joe Torre’s going to the Dodgers!).

So, what’s new at ASA this week? Well, we’ve scheduled a number of programs for softball and baseball and have recently worked out an arrangement with New Brunswick Recreation to run their Youth Wrestling program. We are very excited to be working with them on this and think that it’s a great way to kick start both our and NB’s wrestling programs.

First, softball - ASA Instructor Jodie Ricciardi, who’s a former assistant coach at Princeton University and a former All-Big Ten softball player, is heading up our softball program. Jodie has set up four programs for us for the winter: 1). A Fall Clinic, which will be four Tuesdays starting mid-November; 2). A Softball hitting league, which will be an league consisting of eight, four-player teams that will play games in the batting cages. It’ll be a great way to keep swinging the bat in the fall/winter; 3). Softball pre-season workouts, eight weeks, twice a week. One hour of softball skills and an hour of conditioning with J.R. Papernik, ASA’s strength and conditioning instructor; 4). Private instruction - Jodie has done hundreds of lessons with girls from elementary school through the college level and is nothing short of amazing with the girls. She’s also going to help us with teams, camps, tournaments and whatever else we can think of to do next year.

Baseball - Ron Sutter will be basically doing the same things that Jodie will be doing, with that addition of running his baseball school. Every year for many years Ron has run his school for players elementary school ages up to middle school and this year we are fortunately enough to have him at ASA. Ron’s been a great addition to the team here as he, like most of our instructors, comes from an education background (he’s a principal in Brick). What I love about all these teachers around here is that when they aren’t trying to get a player to hit better or pitch better, they are doing what’s really important, teaching our kids how to read, write, do Algebra, etc. They have a different personality when it comes to dealing with kids and a deeper level of patience than non-teachers. Anyway, Ron’s available for lessons and will be running camps, clinics, coaches clinics and whatever else I can talk him into (which isn’t tough, he loves this stuff!).

Wrestling - Chris Marshall and Jason McLean will be running our wrestling program. Chris was a Division I All-American and head wrestling coach at Asbury Park and Jason was a Division III All-American and is the head wrestling coach at New Brunswick High School. All I’m going to say about these guys is if you want to learn how to wrestle the right way, get in here because these guys know what they are doing. Not only are we starting the New Brunswick Recreational Wrestling program, but we have a year-round program for wrestlers of all skill levels. Marshall’s Law is our club wrestling team/program that will be kicking off soon. We have a number of guys working out with Chris and Jason now and have been competing in tournaments, but it’s going to grow into a full program once the wrestling season is over in the spring. Best thing is they have the coolest singlets on the mat…

Mixed Martial Arts - ASA is now home to our own fight team. The NJ Combat Club took up residence a month ago and has been working out three days a week. Any one interested in mixed martial arts is welcome to come in and check it out. If you’re interested in working out, speak to Tony Andreocci, the team’s manager. The guys are working out to compete in Grapplers Quest on November 10th. We are also hosting a seminar with Shawn Tompkins, ex-coach of the IFL’s LA Anacondas and currently the head trainer at Randy Coutre’s gym “Xtreme Coutre” in Las Vegas. Tompkins will be here on November 17th, the morning of the UFC matches in Newark at the Prudential Center. First 10 registrations get soap. You know you want to know why, so pay your money and get some… Yeah, that’s right, we’ve got soap and if I have anything to say about it’s gonna be our own soap…

Well, that’s way more than I had intended to write tonight, so that’s enough. I’m not discussing Torre, Mattingly, Girardi, A-Rod, Papelbon on Letterman, Marion Jones, Floyd Landis, this new team that all the Discovery riders and managers are going to or even the fact that I’m really not interested in the fact that the NBA kicked off their season. Although, I better make a note to touch on them all soon…

No, I’m not flipping over and rooting for the Red Sox in the World Series, but you’ve got to admit their bats are hot right now and it’s a lot of fun to watch. How long will it last is the big question, but I don’t see any of them cooling off anytime soon. Lots of talk about the Rockies having eight days off and it messing with their timing, but I’m not buying that. These guys are professionals, they’ve been working out, they’ve been scrimmaging, they’ve been playing this game since they were five, they just got beat up on tonight, nothing more, nothing less. Beckett was amazing and quite frankly I thought they should have pulled him at about 70 pitches when the game was already out of hand. But, that’s why I’m not coaching in the bigs, what the heck do I know. Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t want to be pitching to the Sox right now, although my blazing 70 mph fastball might be what’s needed to mess up their timing…

Nearly every time I watch a sporting event I get asked by someone in my family, “Who do you want to win?” Nearly every time, unless one of my favorite teams are playing, I give the same answer, “I don’t really care, I just want to watch a good game…” They roll their eyes at me and mutter how dumb it is that I don’t care who wins. Well, this time I had a preference, I wanted to see a Denver-Cleveland World Series. I’m thrilled about Denver’s run through the end of the regular series and the playoffs and was very happy to see Cleveland get up 3-1 on Boston, thinking that they were sending the Sox packing early. I guess someone forgot to tell Boston the plan and the Indians must have packed up all their ’stuff’ and sent it on to Denver early.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Red Sox hater, not by any stretch, but I wanted to see two underdogs fighting for the rings. I’m not a fan of the Rockies, nor a fan of the Red Sox, but I’m a baseball fan, I love watching baseball and I’m not ready for it to be over. This time of year is especially difficult for me as we wrap up high school fall ball, major league baseball ends and it gets cold, all three things I’m not fond of. This season I got to coach two teams through ASA and they are a great group of guys, but we only have a week or two left in the season. I think last year both ended on the same day, we finished our fall ball season the same day as the World Series wrapped up, so I was hit doubly hard, not a fun time. I cherish my baseball package on the satellite service, I can watch games for hours every day since there are games starting early and ending late every day and then I can watch the Yankee or Mets rebroadcast after all the West Coast games are over! Unfortunately I don’t have the package at ASA, so I didn’t get to watch as much, but there’s always MLB.com… Yes, this time of year is great for baseball junkies like me, the ultimate series, but then that void is nearly paralyzing the day after it’s over. Maybe this amazing weather we’ve been having will last another month or longer so we can keep the high school guys on the field, or should we all collectively think thoughts of moving this weather to Denver, I’m not interested in seeing Papelbon and Beckett doing the River Dance in a snow bank…