August 26, 2011
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The Daily News
1 Whew.
2 I have finger cramps from yesterday's DN.
3 I made the mistake of going out to lunch and reading my iPhone stuff.
4 First off, that's rude to a waiter or waitress. I never realized.
5 But I found myself a bit bored.
6 If I'm dining alone, I usually have the Metro, or maybe a book to occupy the time while I enjoy my break. But yesterday it was just me and my phone, so I decided to check emails, Facebook, and all the rest.
7 I also like occasionally to check the DN for spelling and idiocy.
8 Yesterday's DN looked longer than the Bible.
9 That's one of the curses of insomnia.
10 I just got on some diatribe or other and it never stopped.
11 So I would like publicly to apologize for going a bit too deep on yesterday's DN.
12 It was a bit of a historical piece about school websites, but really took off, and got a bit out of control.
13 So I'll try to keep today's DN "Friday Lite".
14 Exhausting.
15 Moving on, Part the First: You know you're in trouble when you begin anything with an apology.
16 But seriously. I'm pretty sure it's the Giants doing this to me.
17 They should play their idiotic games at like three in the morning instead of wasting people's time.
18 I have worked myself almost to a frazzle the last couple of weeks because I want to be on my game every single day that I go in to teach. I put in tons of extra hours, and think through all my lessons, and STILL have rocky moments in the classroom.
19 But I could still deliver timely hits and do what I was hired to do. Yesterday I got APPLAUSE for dishing out around nine CDE standards within fifteen minutes.
20 I got applause from my students for doing what I was supposed to do.
21 But at a bit of a cost. When I get home and away from work, I find myself absolutely exhausted and in dire need of sleep.
22 The recent heat wave hasn't done much to slow that process down. It is absolutely draining.
23 And the Giants' games begin at 7 p.m. when they're home, so it's a nice thing to come home to. Or at least it WAS.
24 As a former "coach", it is pretty frustrating to watch a team perform hideously below their talents. It is quite clear that they have accepted the fact that they can "fight and scratch" late in games. They have become what everybody else has defined them.
25 That worked when they actually could "fight and scratch". But someone in that organization needs to change that mindset. They look like a bunch of kids who keep doing the same stupid things over and over, and nobody has shifted their hats from left to right.
26 I'm not upset with the players; I'm upset with the coaching. If the coaching keeps enabling the behavior, the team is going to falter. Period. And as a guy who has coached young people, I'm watching to see a coach step up and take command of his talent, and of his team.
27 I'm a Bochy fan, for the most part. His patience last year was heroic. I think his amazing ability to put a team out there every day despite all their injuries and stuff is nothing short of genius.
28 But in the process, I also see a WHOLE bunch of "enabling". Easy to do as a coach. You want to keep the confidence up, but you also allow mediocre efforts because of that very thing. You become afraid to lay into someone for not getting the job done.
29 And that's why your team loses at home to a team that is forty games under.500.
30 Anybody who has been in one of my plays knows that I would put up with a lot of mediocre efforts...until crunch time. THEN, if I saw certain people lagging while others were working their asses off, you might have seen a different me.
31 I'm not proud of the occasional book that would fly into a wall, or a moment of psychotic explosions, but I just couldn't tolerate the fact that my tech crew would work twelve hours on a Saturday only to come in Monday to a cast member who didn't know his lines, or who would duck out on rehearsals.
32 Somehow I was able to instill a bit of fear when I saw people lagging and not thinking like champions.
33 And as an "educator", I do realize that such tactics are extreme, and that we do need to stay calm and collected when dealing with younger people. There's enough psychosis out there in their own lives, and they need adults in their lives who can remain calm and cool through all of it.
34 But every now and again young people need guidance, and sometimes that guidance is in the form of guided discipline. Any coach knows this, and a good coach stays fair and understanding UNTIL he or she sees some kids working their butts off while others slack off and let everyone else do all the work.
35 Where is this headed?
36 The Giants are just any team. Name the team. You will find genuine hard workers, and you will find slackers. You will be in disbelief that there are people on your team who will allow others to do all the work, while they "prima donna". Happens in every sport. Happens in every group. And a good coach knows right when to lower the boom.
37 For many coaches, it comes a bit late. They don't want to ruffle feathers, or interrupt team morale.
38 But at some point, the "team" needs someone to ream them for not contributing. And the coach can't yell at the entire team. The coach needs to get into the slacker's faces and either piss them off, or kick them off the team.
39 Or simply scare everyone into a better performance.
40 And as I said, it's a delicate line. Scare tactics should be few and far between. But when I look at the Giants, for example, I see a team that needs someone to go in their and instill a new mentality. The love fest from last year is over. They need their butts kicked right now, and I keep watching as the coaches and owners continue to enable their feeble, idiotic play.
41 There's a reason that Brian Wilson laid out that water cooler. Don't think he wasn't letting a few people know that he was pissed off. If the team is HITTING he doesn't blow that save.
42 And as I said, this isn't really about the Giants. It's about good coaching, for any team. It's about good parenting in many ways. It's about good teaching.
43 The Giants are just out there, looking like a bunch of freckle-faced cub scouts instead of like World Champions. And the behavior continues because they are being enabled.
44 Sorry, but I get frazzled by laziness and mediocrity. It's just that I see so much potential, and watch as the very gifted rest on their laurels. Or worse, let the less gifted do all the fighting.
45 With that, I'm going to cut this one short. Point made.
46 Long week.
47 Have a great weekend. Go man go.
48 Peace.
~H~
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