SoCal...

...this time next week! Family time, over-the-line tourney, trip back to the scene of the college shenanigans, reunions with friends...it needs to be Thursday NOW!

Fantasy Football Update - Week Whatever

I've been bad about updating this, but Probation Nation is 4-2 and awaiting the outcome of Monday Night Football to see if it will be able to escape with a win against a struggling team. If history is any indication, PN will be 4-3 with all three losses coming to the bottom third of the EPR standings.

Ray Rice, my first rounder, has been an absolute abortion this season. He's too good and has too many tools not to break out of it eventually...right? He's been the third best back on my team. Unacceptable. I was projected to get about a 104 points out of my team this week. I didn't even break 70. If not for Knowshon Moreno's garbage touchdowns in a route at the hands of the Raiders (yes...the RAIDERS), my team wouldn't even have broken 50.

I think the most frustrating thing about FF is that I'm used to coaching. You can tweak and make adjustments along the way. Here, you set your lineup and hope for the best. It's complete and utter powerlessness. But I guess you do have control over some things...like drafting Ray Rice.

USC Football

is so fucking horseshit I can't stand it.

Loving the game, working hard, getting better - the right way

The three basic tenets of the Navigators fall baseball program are:

• Love the game
• Work hard
• Get better

Loving the game is self-explanatory. If you don't love it, you don't want anything to do with it. It is a game that will kick your ass and render your love unrequited at times, but in the end, it's your love that keeps drawing you in. When you love the game and are around others who do as well, that's when your team and your program become special. Then (and ONLY then) do guys put their egos on the shelf and work hard to improve as a unit. Speaking of working hard...

Working hard is necessary--also because of the "failure" driven nature of this game. As in life, it's easy to show up at the yard and crank it up when things are going well. But when the most successful players in this game are unsuccessful seven out of 10 times, "going well" is an extremely relative phrase. No one is successful all the time. Anyone who thinks he is, is lying to himself, to his team and to the game that we love. The best among us simply have a plan and work toward executing it. Nothing goes smoothly all the time, but when you are continuously working toward that overarching common goal and going about your business the right way (more on that in a second), you never really fail. Only when you put yourself ahead of the team and that common goal are you a failure (and an epic one at that).

Getting better at this game is difficult. The only thing more difficult is being able to help others get better at it. All of us who coach played at some level and, for whatever reason, had to stop playing. We all have our own little pet causes, sets of neuroses and internal demons that were developed over the course of our respective careers. The biggest challenge we face is not to project all of those onto all of our players or let them impact the common goal.

In the case of the Navigators, our common goal is to get better before the spring season. Since baseball is a mental game, that means we need to teach our players to think through certain situations. In order to do that, we need to let them think. Otherwise, they are mindless drones who have no ability to find their way through the situations in which they find themselves during the games.

I realize that I may be a tad unorthodox on this particular point, but I invite my players to question everything (within reason). I demand that it's done correctly--my equivalent to the Navigators' three tenets was "In baseball, as in life, there are two ways to do things: the right way and the wrong way. We will do things the right way."--but I want them to think through everything they do. Their actions need to have a purpose, and the onus falls on me, the coach, to teach them that purpose. The only way to do that is to empower them to think on their own.

While I wasn't directly responsible for any of these fellas getting D1 scholarships, I was on a staff that has produced more than a dozen of them since I started coaching there, so I figure I've learned to do something right.

Matt Scioscia ('07) - Notre Dame

Carlos Lopez ('08) - Cal State Fullerton

Jeremy Rodriguez ('08) - Cal State Bakersfield

Sean Gilmartin ('08) - Florida State

Tyler Johnson ('08) - SUNY Stony Brook

Tony Goebel ('08) - SUNY Stony Brook

Ryan Hawthorne ('08) - Loyola Marymount

Sean McIntyre ('09) - Loyola Marymount

Zack Wiley ('09) - LeMoyne

Dylan Jones ('09) - Oregon

Austin Walker ('10) - UC Irvine

Kevin Williams ('10) - UCLA

Michael Hubbard ('10) - SUNY Stony Brook

Josh Mason ('10) - SUNY Stony Brook

Ryon Healy ('10) - Oregon

ADDENDUM:

There are a couple more guys who made D1 rosters:

John Kearns ('10) - Holy Cross

Ryan Brockett ('10) - St. Mary's

Yeah...I have coached at the high school level, and I've had some success doing it. I guess I know what I'm talking about.

It's a privilege to be able to be involved in this game--not a right. Ask the guys at Cal what it means to them. (That's another topic that pisses me off that I'll rant on another day.)

The Navs can achieve our goal of making the Pilots good, but some addition by subtraction is necessary first.

EPR Fantasy Football - Week 2

So I forgot to post a recap of week one, but Probation Nation took an L (despite a 103+ point output). Bummer.

However, this week, things are looking a little better. Forgot to post my lineup when I set it, but here it is.

QB

Brady

WR

Johnson

Fitzgerald

Driver

Naanee

RB

Rice

McCoy

TE

Shiancoe

K

Vinatieri

D

Pittsburgh

Things I've learned since last week:

- Projections are BS

- The Raiders defense sucks and had NO ANSWER for Chris Johnson

- Life sucks when you are the only dude in the office, and you lose week one of FF

- Life will be infinitely better tomorrow unless Frank Gore goes all Arian Foster on the Saints defense (which I don't see happening) on Monday Night Football.