Wednesday Musings

My normal week isn’t going to be normal so I thought I would do a short musings article at the expense of everything else as we wait for the SCAC Tournament. Once the season completes in the West Region I’ll do my best to put this season to bed properly.

Speaking of the SCAC Tournament here is their championship link. It did turn out that Centenary was the one school not to qualify but it was due to a tiebreaker with Dallas so things were close. I guess they can blame St. Thomas because in a normal year they wouldn’t qualify as they are reclassifying. With no NCAA Tournament, they were eligible this year. Matches will be on Friday and Saturday at the higher seed’s location.

Schreiner (7 seed) tweeted out that this was their first SCAC Tournament action for 8-years. I just think those kind of things are really cool. Now just leave it on the court when you play Trinity.

If either Trinity or Southwestern lose in the first round, this would mark the first time in forever (?) that they wouldn’t play during a season.

Props to TLU for a mad dash at the end to get the #5 seed after being out of the picture the week prior.

Back to the top where I was going to wait until after the season and I just realized that this tournament is going to stretch 3-weeks.

Looking at the national leaders for a second and the best hope for a West Region representative for one of the categories I track is either Triple-Doubles or Blocks per Set. Annika Canaba (Sul Ross State) still leads Triple-Doubles with 6 but Lauren Crabtree (Southwestern) has 5 (although she is incorrectly listed with 4). In Blocks per Set we have Ashtyn Butler (George Fox) listed second behind a player that has only played once. Well, she’s probably played more but the database is struggling this year. Now, I just spent 15 minutes before I realized that the NCAA is calculating blocks as Block Assists + Block Solos and not dividing Assists by 2. Maybe that’s always been the way? I guess they see blocks as different than points (which does divide assists).

Okay, that’s just stupid. The Block Assist should be divided. How can we give out more blocks individually then the team performed? As I get older I just realize how many things I could do better than anyone else. Thankfully, as I get older I also realize that it’s better to keep that thought to myself.

I had a coach (and his daughter) send me a picture of themselves in front of the Thinker statue in Philadelphia where they were visiting. So cool to be thought of out of the blue.

Have I gone an entire season without making fun of the New England Region?

Johns Hopkins won the last DIII National Championship on the night my daughter got married. She’s on her fifth husband and has 6 kids now. Not really, but she doesn’t read my stuff. She’s still on her first husband. The grandchild thing needs to start happening, however.

Hey! The NCAA DI Volleyball Tournament is going on. Wisconsin is your #1 seed. Oddly, the only book I’ve read in the hospital was “Dream Like a Champion” by Nebraska Head Coach John Cook. Am I allowed not to like it? I mean, it was kind of cool for parts and he’s had a lot of great experiences but tone it down. Just too much thinking for one person to be doing. I think the real problem is that friends and family are all sending me books about overcoming and dreaming for the future and blah blah blah. (If you sent me a book, I don’t mean you. Yours was great!) Anyway, John Cook was also the coach at Wisconsin before taking the Nebraska job so it made me think of all of this.

Growing up I was lucky enough to get tickets to the Dodgers on occasion. It was from a company my mom worked for and she was last on the priority list. If they were available when she walked out the door we could get them. That meant getting my friend’s dad to drive at the last minute and anxiously wait on the tickets to arrive only to immediately leave for the game (just meant Dodger Dogs at the game). He was a second father to me and was my best man at my wedding. We would often hang back after games until we knew the players were heading for the cars and get autographs. One time I had my two friends run ahead of us with baseballs and pens and then turn around and yell, “Mr. Perry! Gaylord Perry! Can I have your autograph!” Perry was the oldest (or at least looked like the oldest) player in baseball. The father got swarmed as he had to beg off. Other times we would park far away from the stadium (often because we were racing to get to the game on time) and just play catch under the parking lights. I don’t remember too many games although I saw a number of them, but I remember those moments. It’s always the people you are with that matter. Everything else is secondary. Take that John Cook! And that was free! And shorter! And I didn’t fall off a mountain! But seriously, all my love to Coach Cook. Incredible life so far.

So sporadic next three weeks I’m thinking. I need to get back to the 2021 Recruits Page. I’ve had a number of them sent in and I thank you! It just hasn’t made my priority list just yet.