Recently in Sports Category

It means Daddy won’t be running the half-marathon that he was planning on running this upcoming weekend.

Am I unlucky, or just a klutz, or something else? Who knows, but I’m seeing much too much of the doctor’s office these past 2 months. My latest escapade was stepping in a large hole at work — hidden in a grassy strip going between parking lots. I went down hard, and it took a while to gather myself to stand up. I don’t think anyone saw me, as I didn’t see anyone else around me the whole time.

But anyway, it was slowly improving through the weekend, and walking straight-ahead wasn’t an issue. But an increase in soreness and tenderness on Sunday sent me to the doctor yesterday, and the x-ray says I have a slight avulsion fracture at the end of the tibia. Slight, as in only a couple millimeter fragment of bone broke away. No surgery or immobilization necessary — just treat it like a sprain (like I already was doing). It won’t reattach or need to reattach. But the tenderness and swelling still continues some today, so between the inconsistent training and now this injury, I’m going to have to call off the race.

Maybe next year. (I did run the inaugural race last year.)

And yes, I really am bummed about not being able to do it. But to run another day (and play basketball this winter), I need to let the ankle heal. 13.1 miles would not give the ankle the “break” it needs. rim shot

Tonight was a not-so-normal night, in that Will (and I) went to the pool. But there was a reason — he was invited to a birthday party in a nearby neighborhood. We got lucky with the weather — it rained on the group a couple of times, but there was never a peal of thunder. (The forecast had 60% probability of thunderstorms.) That meant Will could stay for over 2 hours of pool time with his friends. And yes, with me. I did get in.

The one cool thing this pool had was a diving board. And Will saw a few of his friends jumping off it into the deep part. Oh, he so wanted to jump there, but he understood that he didn’t have the skills to do it. I only started to teach him how to tread water last Sunday.

Well, he overcame his fears and now has opened new possibilities for himself (whether he realizes it or not). I made him understand that he needed to start jumping on his own (instead of me catching him) in the 5 foot area before he’d be close to ready for jumping in the deep end. That didn’t happen for a while, and the first couple times, he tried jumping further out (toward me), meaning he was nearly belly-flopping in. Ouch.

But eventually, we worked through it (I moved closer to the edge and closer to the 4 foot area, where he can stand, catching him but allowing him to go under water), and soon he was jumping in, getting back above the water, and swimming a couple of lane distance to me. Hooray!

Later on, after I had gotten out, he got really adventurous. He swam half the length of the pool, chasing a couple of friends, through the deeper area (where he couldn’t put his feet down). Nothing like that added incentive to keep yourself going. He also went over to the 5 foot area and started jumping in, then turning around and stroking back to the edge.

He saved the best for last, as we were getting ready to leave. He jumped in at one corner (before the rope to the diving area) and surfaced. And then, instead of coming to the closer wall, which he had been doing previously, he started swimming to the other side, even stopping briefly to tread water while I asked him if he really wanted to swim all the way across the opening to the diving area to the other wall. (Distance-wise, this is similar to the sizing at my parents’ pool.) And he did it.

So now, he has no excuse. He’s shown me he can pretty much handle all aspects of at least our neighborhood pool (which is much smaller than this one, with a truly deep area). Endurance on swimming is still a little issue, but going half of a 25-yard pool shows he can do it when he puts his mind to it. And when he visits Nana and Grampa in August, he can show them all of his new swimming skills and abilities.

The only regret is that there are no pictures of him doing any of this. I was in the pool too much to take pictures/video, and just forgot the last few times he was doing anything.

Anyway — congrats, Will! That’s some awesome swimming you did today.

We present — footbowl…

Kellie broke out the plastic bowling set this morning for Sean and Daniel. And they were excited about it. And proceeded to show us that we haven’t been doing it right all these years.

I don’t think we’ll take them to a real set of lanes any time soon, as kicking those balls would probably hurt just a tiny bit.

Swimming at the pool.

Or something like that. (Wiggles are sticking in my brain.)

Last Sunday, we took the boys to the pool for a bit of swimming. We remembered to take the camera with us, so we got some shots of the boys jumping in the deep end (of course, Daddy is catching, as it’s too deep for Mommy) and Will swimming back to the edge.

A couple of interesting side notes on this. For 2 or 3 pool visits before this past Sunday, Sean would not get in the pool beyond the first step in the shallow end. He just didn’t want to get wet, for whatever reason. And now, suddenly, he’s jumping in like a pro. You can see a little hesitation at times, but he has too much fun jumping in and kicking around.

Daniel, on the other hand, loves to jump in. He even was doing it earlier in the afternoon. So it was strange to get him on camera doing essentially a belly flop. And shortly after that shot, he was jumping in normally. But I guess it adds a bit of humor to the jumping. All 3 boys took turns nicely jumping in.

I don’t know why things got a bit blurrier on the second shot, but it isn’t permanently on the camera. Oh well.

My parents came down to visit this past weekend, so everyone got to have some fun (even though it was scorchingly hot). We got out for visits to the pool on both Saturday and Sunday, and having extra hands available made having 3 kids in the pool much easier.

Saturday was actually a bit cooler when we went to the pool at midday, and having a cloudy sky made the water feel just a bit cooler. (I think I described it at brisk when I jumped in.) Needless to say, we were the only ones there willing to get in the pool. Sunday was bright and sunny, and more people trickled in and out while we were there midday.

The kids also got to spend some time playing outside and doing other things with the grandparents. Kellie and I got to go out for a few hours on our own for dinner and just time away. All in all, I think everyone had a good time. And of course, the kids didn’t want Nana and Grampa to leave. Too bad Rice couldn’t get back to the NCAA College World Series for the fourth straight year. Looking forward to next year.

I know postings have been a bit sparse this month. I apologize for that. This should have been up yesterday, but I forgot to follow up in posting it after generate this follow-up to his last swimming video. I have newer — and higher quality — video of Will’s latest swim lesson. You get to see him continue to improve. I love how, even when he doesn’t seem to be going very far very fast, he doesn’t give up and put his feet down but instead keeps going until he gets to the end.

I probably won’t take video next week, but will take some the following week, which will be his last lesson.

Even the swim instructor was amazed at what Will accomplished today. Up until now, comfort in the water, whether lying on the front or the back, has been a struggle for Will. The kicking and floating was not comfortable. Dunking the head and blowing bubbles was fine. Diving to the bottom was fine. But he just wasn’t comfortable stretched out.

We had off last week, because of Easter. When he came back this week, he was almost changed. I don’t think it was the new swim goggles (we lost his previous pair). He struggled again for about the first 10 minutes. Then the instructor took Will out halfway down the lane and just started having him go back and forth. Then he came up and had him go back and forth from the backstroke-flag stand to the wall. Sometimes, Will needed to stand, but he’d go right back into it. Will just loved it — he was finally doing something like swimming.

(Sorry about the video quality. I wasn’t prepared with even the Canon camera to take video. As I said, this was a bit out of the blue. So I had to take video with the cellphone camera.)

That last part is really cool. Now, he not only jumps in (something he generally wouldn’t do on his own until about 6 weeks ago), but comes off the bottom and starts to swim. I’m almost about to cry, I’m so proud of him.

Easter content will be coming, once I can sort through it all. (Hopefully, better than the Christmas and Thanksgiving content I still have.) However, there has been nice and not-so-nice news to pass on.

• Kellie’s mom had a birthday last week. I won’t give away how many years, but she’s plugging along and enjoying time with her grandchildren.
• Unfortunately, one of Kellie’s aunts passed away at the beginning of last week. I believe she was 88 and lived a full life. She was always kind to me and the kids, and I will remember her for that. Kellie and her mom are doing okay.

The Super Bowl certainly had an interesting finish. Not sure if it made up for the first three quarters of uneven play, though they did have their moments. But the game certainly struggled to get any sort of flow to it, whether with the replays or other timeouts.

And of course, lots of commercial breaks. If you missed some of the commercials, NBC has made all of them available online. (See the bar above.) Personally, I thought the commercials were pretty mediocre this year. I’m not sure there were too many horrible ones, but nothing really stood out to me, either. When the topic came up this morning at work, I struggled to come up with a memorable one. Maybe I’m just getting old and forgetful.

Or maybe they just weren’t memorable. See for yourself.

The kids enjoyed the Super Bowl. Will was looking forward to it all day, and he stuck around to watch much of the first half. Sean and Daniel also got into it, once it came on. They’re still very intrigued with watching football. Unfortunately, there won’t be any football on TV for a while. Unless I drag out a recording. (Thank goodness for the DVR.)

No, I’m not talking about that fraud of a human being. Rather, this is someone you should be proud to call OJ.

I don’t know the man personally, but he attended and graduated from Rice University at the same time as me. He was the star linebacker at Rice, but was deemed too small for the NFL. He played in the Canadian Football League for a few years, winning a championship with the Baltimore CFL Stallions. He then actually made it to the NFL and later won a championship with the Baltimore Ravens as a special teams leader. After his football career, he wound up working for the Ravens in their front office. About two years ago, he was diagnosed with ALS.

OJ Brigance obviously didn’t ask for this, but he has certainly caught the imagination of the supposedly “tough” football players he now mentors for the Baltimore Ravens. This past weekend, he was presented with the game ball from the Ravens win over the Tennessee Titans. He continues to work and inspire the team.

I bring this up in part because, even though I never met him, I remember following him as he tried to make it in football. I remember cheering him on in person when he played for the Baltimore Stallions, even seeing one of the games in Memorial Stadium. All of this comes to a head now with the article this week in the Washington Post that talks even more about his situation and what he’s learned. And it should make you pause, when OJ reflects on his situation like this:

“Who are you?” he [Brigance] asked. “When your physical prowess is taken away, who are you? We build our lives on things that are temporary and when these things are taken away who are you inside? That’s one of the great blessings I’ve had. I can see I’m more than an athlete.”

So give the article a read, and pause and consider your blessings for a little while. In the meantime, fight on, OJ.

That’s right, you don’t need to hold it. Just know that Rice should be the national champion in football. Check it out for yourself. The BCS nominated Oklahoma and Florida for the chance. But based on actual results this year, Rice beat Western Michigan, who beat Illinois, who beat Iowa, who beat South Carolina, who beat Mississippi, who beat Florida. And Rice beat Western Michigan, who beat Illinois, who beat Iowa, who beat South Carolina, who beat Mississippi, who beat Texas Tech, who beat Texas, who beat Oklahoma. What could be more logical than that?

Actually, by these standards, it’s Utah that should be the national champion. Nobody has a route to beating them, and I’m pretty sure every 1-A team has a route to losing to them. And really, based on the results I saw in the Sugar Bowl, who am I to argue? That was a thorough domination by the Utes.

So if they award the championship to someone other than Rice (or Utah), know that the game and process was fixed to benefit the haves (once again).