Back On The Coaching Trail

 Amazingly, I have not used this space to talk about my return to coaching cross-country and/or track after a three year layoff. 

After 15 years of working with high school boys and girls with cross-country and track at four different high schools (Bishop Ireton, J.E.B. Stuart, Denbigh, Grafton), my work schedule forced me to hang it up after the spring season of 2009. Entering a doctoral program at William and Mary just a month later seemed to cement the idea that this chapter of my life was completed.

Never say never.

With the completion of my doctoral classes and free afternoons, all of a sudden, the option to coach was there again, although I didn't think seriously about it.  I have been covering high school games for the Daily Press, which has been a whole lot of fun. Plus, my intention of late has been to find full-time employment with a university or school system in a position more in line with my new skills. With this cause, I spend a few minutes every day scanning the employment sections of local institutions.

But, a cross-country position popped up at Menchville HS here in Newport News, and I went ahead and applied. A week later, practice started. 

It has been fun, and it was great to see both our boys and girls enjoy undefeated dual meet seasons. However, it was disappointing that we fell short of district titles, although we were hindered by a few severe injuries, and the fact that some runners made it to the starting line was amazing enough. But our senior Dreux Gray did win the  boys race, knocking 36 seconds off his PR to finish the 5,000 meter race in 16:14. Tomorrow we go to regionals and he has a great chance of making it to the state meet as one of the top 15 (seeded #9 right now). A couple of our girls are long shots to make the team, but again, never say never.

Future also looks bright for our girls. Very young team which could have won our district at full strength. We know what to do differently for next year.

Ironically, my old team from Bishop Ireton ran their State Catholic meet at the same site as our district meet, at Newport News Park, and took runner-up for both boys and girls. At their next meet, the WCAC championships, the boys were 3rd and girls 4th. Here's a blurb I wrote for the State Catholic meet:

The Peninsula Catholic girls placed third, while the boys took fourth in Wednesday’s Virginia Catholic League championships, held on the 5,000 meter course at Newport News Park.

In the girls race, Martine Hunnicutt finished in second place with a time of 20:02, while Philip Harpen (second – 16:47) and Kevin Riley (third – 16:55) were the highest scoring Knights.

Paul VI swept both events, as the boys won with 49 points while the Panther girls scored 43 to outdistance Bishop Ireton, which placed runner-up in both races.

Matt O’Neil of Pope John Paul the Great (Dumfries) was the overall boys winner in 16:44. Bishop Sullivan’s Hannah Frazier paced the girls with a winning time of 19:36.

Virginia Catholic League Championships

(held at Newport News Park, 5,000 meters)

Boys – 1. O’Neil (PJP) 16;44, 2. Harpen (PC) 16:47, 3. Riley (PC) 16:55, 4. Stepka (PVI) 17:00, 5. Kocis (PVI) 17:25, 6. T. Jackson (S) 17:33, 7. Shaw (S) 17:33, 8. Roach (BI) 17:40, 9. LoGrande (BI) 17:42, 10. Leist (PJP) 17:45

Team scores – 1. Paul VI (PVI) 49, 2. Bishop Ireton (BI) 63, 3. Pope John Paul the Great (PJP) 65, 4. Peninsula Catholic (PC) 72.

Girls – 1. Frazier (BS) 19:36, 2. Hunnicutt (PC) 20:02, 3. Lohrer (BI) 20:10, 4. Necochea (BI) 20:17, 5. Rosini (PVI) 20:45, 6. Turcol (PVI) 20:47, 7. Aungst (PC) 20:53, 8. Bucaro (PVI) 20:55, 9. McKenna (PC) 20:58, 10. Lucas (S) 21:06

Team Scores – 1. Paul VI (PVI) 43, 2. Bishop Ireton (BI) 52, 3. Peninsula Catholic (PC) 59, 4. Bishop Sullivan (BS) 93, 5. Seton (S) 151, 6. Pope John Paul the Great (PJP) 157.

Today's Term is -- "Fact Checker"

I woke up this morning and turned on the laptop to start my morning routine. Generally, the first thing I like to do is check e-mail, see the news of the world from overnight and get a heads-up on the weather forecast for the day.

My first site of choice is always www.yahoo.com, and today’s headline made me realize how much times have changed. It read:

“Fact Check: the Final Presidential Debate”

Are either of these candidates telling the truth? Not
 as often as we should expect, says many fact checkers

It’s not breaking news that the third and final, presidential debate was held last night. Surely, about 60 million people watched it, if the ratings of the previous pair of debates held up.  During the recent presidential cycles, certain terms have entered the lexicon of our English language. A couple of decades ago, we learned that a spin doctor was more than one of the guys from the quirky 90’s group that liked to sing about Superman. Later, the exit poll became a popular term. For this election, our new term is fact checker.

Actually, I like the idea that the proverbial “Big Brother” is now overseeing the debates and reporting back to the public of the blow-by-blow recap of the truthfulness of each candidate’s statements. It is a much needed public service and is long overdue.

My problem is – how did we come to this?

Our public figures are beginning to develop under a cloud of gray. Do singers lip sync? Is the home run hitter taking steroids? Are those breasts real or fake? Are the reality shows staged? What is Kim Kardashian’s talent?

Amazingly, part of a celebrity’s persona is now built on the mystery behind the person. This is more astounding in the age of You Tube and Twitter where we can reach out and “touch” our heroes. Politicians have now grown to fall into the category of “mystery person.”

In other words, they lie. Profusely. We know they lie, they know they lie, their handlers know they lie, the moderator knows they lie, but now, it’s OK, and acceptable.

Regardless of one’s political persuasion, I hope that more people are seeing what I am – which is – our current presidential candidates, Gov. Romney and President Obama, lie an awful lot. And we accept this. Perhaps we were numbed by the President Clinton “Monicagate” scandal, when after all was said and done, many people nodded and said, “Well, he lied to protect his family.” In other words, again, it’s OK.

It’s also shameful.

My wish is that many American citizens will take action. Please write to your Congressional officials, and demand that they tell the truth. If you meet the official in a public forum and get the opportunity to ask him/her a question, have a follow-up question ready which will make that person prove their first answer. If we continue to lower our expectations for public officials, the outcome will never change. It’s like the old saying ...”I feel like a mushroom. Everybody keeps me in the dark and feeds me (manure).”

Get out of the dark.

It’s days like this that I miss Ross Perot’s campaign of 1992.

The Best Game in Town

Reprinted from various editions of Daily Press Town Square sections in Hampton, Newport News, Gloucester and York/Poquoson. This was the Newport News version published on October 4, 2012.

Founded in 1960, the Peninsula Youth Football Cheerleading Organization (PYFCO) has dedicated itself to teaching boys and girls from the Peninsula, Gloucester and even West Point and Middlesex, the disciplines of football and cheerleading while providing a high quality environment where a great deal of the learning happens outside of the gridiron lines.

According to its mission statement, the objective of PYFCO, known as the Peninsula Youth Football Association (PYFA) until last year, is “to instill in the youth of the Association members the desire to engage in an activity that will teach them physical and mental skills through the enjoyment of the game of football and its related activity of cheerleading.”

The league is headed by a seven-member board, which consists of a president, Criszon “Heavy” Courtney, three commissioners, a treasurer, secretary and sergeant-at-arms. The board oversees the 14 teams within the league, and each association, which has its own leadership structure, headed by a president, fields football and cheerleading squads in as many as four age group categories – the Mites (ages 6-7), Mighty Mites (8-9), Midgets (10-11) and Juniors (12-14).

PYFCO is a large operation. For example, the Golden Saints of Newport News are represented by more than 150 individuals – over 90 players, 32 cheerleaders, 19 volunteer coaches (16 for football, three cheerleading), and another volunteer staff of 13 which handle everything from equipment, parent volunteers, photographs and the team website. The Saints’ annual budget exceeds $20,000, and the team was recently granted their own home field with lights at Lee Hall Elementary school. Overall, over 1,700 athletes and nearly 800 cheerleaders participate in what the promoters like to call the “Best Game in Town.” It is the culmination of a dream started by Vernon Taylor and George Teagle, Jr., long time youth league supporters and the driving forces behind the success of the original PYFA. Both men have passed away in the past several years - Taylor in 2007 and Teagle in 2008.  

The teams play a 10-game schedule with the top four teams qualifying for the playoffs. Winners of the semifinal games square off in the league’s Super Bowl, which is a four-game, all day consummation of the season’s events. Each division plays its championship while a carnival like atmosphere surrounds the field, much like the festivities which take place at its NFL namesake. By the end of the day four league champions are crowned.

Last year’s Super Bowl was held at the “Pit” on the campus of Bruton High and saw two teams from Grafton-Tabb, the Yorktown Patriot midgets and Tri-City Hurricane junior team win championship trophies.

The 14 organizations representing the PYFCO are:

Back River Panthers (Poquoson)

Gloucester Knights

Golden Saints (Newport News)

Grafton-Tabb Tigers

Hampton Tornadoes

James City Jaguars

Middlesex Colts

Poquoson Bulls

Tidewater T-Wolves (Hampton)

Tri-Citi Hurricanes (Newport News)

Tri-Rivers Titans (West Point)

Williamsburg Hornets

York-Seaford Bulldogs

Yorktown Patriots

Last year’s PYFCO Super Bowl Results (held at Bruton H.S. on November 19, 2011)

Mites (6-7) – Grafton-Tabb Tigers 20, Hampton Tornadoes 19

Mighty Mites (8-9) – Grafton-Tabb Tigers 32, Williamsburg Gold Hornets 7

Midgets (10-11) – Yorktown Patriots 12, Poquoson Bulls 6

Juniors (12-14) – Tri-City Hurricanes 20, Poquoson Bulls 0

More information about the league can be found at the website for the Peninsula Youth Football Cheerleading Organization, which is located at www.pyfco.org. Games are played for all four divisions every Saturday with the Mites game first, at 9:30 AM, followed by the Mighty Mites (11:00), Midgets (12:30) and Juniors (2:00)

Not Just Another Fish Story

Reprinted from various Daily Press Town Square sections (Hampton, Newport News, York-Poquoson, Gloucester) from September 20, 2012

Like many of us, it takes a lot to get Dawn Martin up at four AM. As she says, “it’s not something I do often or willingly.”

But after getting married ten years ago, her husband Anthony decided to introduce his new wife to some of the activities he enjoyed while growing up next to the Chesapeake Bay in Seaford. One of his favorite pastimes was fishing. While Dawn had fished before, it wasn’t part of her regular regimen as a youngster in Richmond. Since he wanted to own a boat and live on the water, the couple buried stakes and settled in Poquoson.

As years passed, the Team Martin fishing entourage grew to include their two children. For Dawn, their shared experiences with a rod and reel were classified as family outings which involved traveling short distances to places where spot and croaker were easy to snag.

Recently, Anthony took his hobby to the next level and asked Dawn to join a real fishing team – the one that he entered into the Chesapeake Bay Cobia tournament, held at White House Cove Marina in Poquoson on August 11. While the event required a 4 AM wake up call, Martin, who ended up winning the women’s division for catching the largest cobia, was quite excited.

The story behind her catching the winning prize was more than your typical fish story.

There are two ways to catch a cobia. The first is chumming, when the fisherman drops a combination of ground up fish and fish oil into the water in the hope that it will melt into a chum slick and entice the cobia to bite on the slick or one of the live eels left dangling. The drawback is that it can also attract sharks. Four hours into the competition, the team, which included friends Shane Zasmowich and Trent Casey, had caught two sharks, but no cobia.

On to plan B.

Sight casting has become a more popular method for making the big catch. According to Martin, this can be evidenced by the growing number of boats sporting towers to view for fish. This takes the guesswork out of the process, and when a potential catch is sighted, bait is thrown on a line in front of the fish, with the hope that it will be taken. Martin added that “cobia often hang out near buoys so many boats will circle buoys and throw out live eels or spot hoping a cobia is lurking about.  Otherwise cobia hunters will kind of cruise around looking for the fish swimming around.  In some cases there will be a fin sticking out of the water but not all the time.  Polarized glasses help.”

Martin and her crewmates chose their coordinates, settling their boat in an unnamed spot (as she states, a fisherman never reveals his secrets). However, because of the cloudy conditions that day, they could not see the cobia until they were close to the boat and too close for casting. They did catch one cobia, but it was 35.5 inches long, just a 1/2 shy of the minimum to keep.

Morning turned into afternoon and the bleakness of the sky was overshadowed by the doom and gloom of the crew as their allotted time neared its 5 PM deadline.

With time winding down, the foursome decided to throw a “Hail Mary” cast, moving to a site where the Martins had caught a large cobia on a previous trip.

At 4:15, the anglers cast their line and eel and immediately hooked up with a cobia. Says Martin, “(it) was just that quick. We went from having not had any luck for 12 hours to hooking a fish in minutes. Suffice it to say, it was quite a mood changer!”

After a five minute battle to get the 45 inch, 23.5 pound fish (average size, according to Martin) into the boat, the crew high-tailed it to shore with 35 minutes remaining, making it to the marina in three minutes, leaving ample time to weigh the catch.

For her efforts, Martin won a $100 prize, and of course, her fish.

  

Still Kicking After All These Years

Kyoshi Bateman (R) with his group of winners from the recent
Commonwealth games, held annually in Roanoke, VA

For Jeff Bateman, the sport of karate has become more than a healthy outlet to get rid of excessive aggression or a defense mechanism used to scare away intruders. For the lifelong Hampton, VA resident and owner of the Isshinkan Academy of Martial Arts which bears his name, karate has provided an opportunity for the 54-year old to excel at the highest levels of his craft.

Since beginning his training in 1980, Bateman has earned numerous titles, while rising to the ranks of 7^th Degree black belt (Nanadan) in Okinawan Shorin-Ryu karate and 4^th Degree black belt (Yondan) in Zen Okinawan Kobudo. Much of his training has been conducted under the guidance and tutelage of Master Tadashi Yamashita, with whom he has been affiliated since 1988.

One of the highlights for Bateman’s students occurs during the third week of every July when his young group of martial artists loads up in carpools and heads to Roanoke for the annual Subway Commonwealth Games. The Games (commonwealthgames.org), which just concluded their 23^rd competition has grown by leaps and bounds since its humble beginning from a $175,000 grant, provided by Virginia Amateur Sports Inc. Says Bateman, “The games have grown. Now we call it the Mini-Olympics because it covers everything from A to W – Archery to Wrestling.” Bateman notes that the Games started in 1990 with “about 33 sports,” but have since grown to over 60 individual and team events. The economic impact is especially beneficial for the region; the Games contribute an estimated $4 million to the Roanoke Valley.

One highlight of the games, just like with the regular Olympics is the opening ceremony. At the Commonwealth Games, over 10,000 athletes, coaches and spectators pack the Roanoke Civic Center to take in the pomp and pageantry which mark the beginning of the multi-sport festival.

But the Games are about more than the glitz and glamour. Each medal winner from 2011 and 2012 has also earned the opportunity to compete in the State Games of America, which will be held next year in Hershey and Harrisburg, PA.

Since the Games are open to athletes of all ages and skill levels, Bateman gets to compete with his students. At this year’s karate competition, both teacher and students won medals. Kyoshi Bateman earned a gold medal in weapons kata as well as a bronze in the open hand kata.

Several students joined their teacher on the medal stand. Twelve-year old Austin Abrams won three bronze medals – in open hand kata, weapons kata and kumite (fighting).

Ten-year old Jarod Riggle placed third to earn a bronze, also in the kumite competition. Overall, eight of Bateman’s students, several from Suffolk where his school originated, earned medals to advance to the State Games.

While winning medals is a positive by-product of their training, Bateman is quick to point out that the core of his philosophy starts off the mat.

“Academics come first. Grades are the most important thing. The parents want the discipline and structure of karate for their kids and they ask for it. Every week, our students are required to bring in their report card.” For a student to maintain a place inside the dojo, his or her grades must be acceptable.

The balance of academics and athletics works well for the students of the Isshinkan Academy, and after “30 or so” years as one of the premier karate instructors in America, Bateman shows no signs of slowing down.

The Hampton dojo for Jeff Bateman’s School of Karate is located at 1343-B North King St. (down the street from the Langley AFB King St. gate.) The phone number is 757-722-BELT (2358), while the website can be found at www.jbkarate.com.