Opening Day!

SCENE: Athletic Department Staff Room, pre-season meeting

ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: Ho! Aye!  We are ready for another year.  This is good, but…what is best in life?

Newbie Punk Coach: Hitting lines, diving drills, towels in hand working on wrist snap…

ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: WRONG!  Jim Stone!  What is best in life?

Jim Stone: To crush your opponents, see them slouching to the locker room and hear the lamentations of their fandom!

ATHLETIC DIRECTOR: That is good!  That is good!

Of course, Jim Stone doesn’t talk with an Austrian accent nor wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia, but that’s a story for a different day.

August 1!!  If you’re following the rules, that’s Opening Day, babyyyyy, for NJCAA programs.  Is there a better non-holiday day during the entire year than your first day in the gym?

The floor is fresh off being waxed and varnished, it’s time to break out new practice balls, issue gear to players and hear the squeak of brand-new shoes on a brand-new floor.

It’s the time when everyone is undefeated, when hope springs eternal.  Everyone is healthy, everyone’s excited–it’s like Christmas’ Eve only it isn’t over in just one night.  You get to enjoy it right up until your first contest (which is an awesome day as well).

Every year, it’s a beautiful day, the best life has to offer.  And yet–sometimes it can be even better…the years where things click between coach and players, players all together, and you live the word ‘team’ in a way that definitions and descriptions can’t define, but everyone who was part of that Opening Day, the season that comes from it, can look back and say, “Yeah, that was a season!” and know that it is something only you as a coach and your 10-15 players will ever share, a feeling impossible to duplicate.  That starts here!

God, how I love Opening Day!  

• To the first group I worked with at Illinois in 1990, thank you.

• To the Ohio State staff and players, 1992-94…amazing!

• To Mike Deterding and Craig Jones, thank you for letting me start coaching club in central Illinois.

• To the first group I coached at St. Anthony, it’s always interesting to deal with a first-time head coach

• To the 2000, 2001 teams there, you were screwed by a horrible official in 2000, handled it with class and dignity (and I will always be proud of you for that), then turned around, worked hard, and got better in 2001–and then have become great adults.  …so proud of you! (That 2000 match is 1 of 2 I’ve ever been part of in 1,000+ matches where the official willfully/intentionally decided the outcome)

• To the Allen administration, especially John Masterson, thanks for the opportunity…what an interesting first year that was, starting 24 hours before the first competition!!  –and thanks to Todd who volunteered to be the assistant and remains an assistant there still (in addition to being an outstanding chemistry instructor)

• To my alums at LLCC who have built the program, done the heavy lifting, then gone on to greater things in ‘real life’.  I’ve looked forward to every Opening Day and dread the eventual day where I can’t do this any more.

• To the 2018 (now 2019) team, it’s showtime.  In the illustrious words of the American philosopher, Marshall Bruce Mathers III, “Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity to seize everything you wanted in one moment–would you capture it or just let it slip?”  It’s time to find out.

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It’s about baseball, but if this doesn’t get you excited for Opening Day–NJCAA, NAIA, NCAA, you’re just…you have no soul.