Thursday, December 18, 2014

Setback? Don't know what you're talking about....

I posted last week about my two wrestling kids.  I now have to make a bit of a modification.

In my previous post I had talked about Toby getting a late start in wrestling; about how he has had to fight through bumps, bruises, inexperience, and a medical condition.  Through it all he had refused to quit --- but then the very next match after my post, things went terribly south.

Toby has a medical condition known as Vocal Cord Dysfunction.  I'm not a doctor so I'm not even going to attempt to give you an in depth explanation of the ailment but I will try to describe it in layman's terms.

Imagine your vocal cords going into spasms and slamming shut, cutting off your airway and suffocating you in the midst of intense physical activity. Scary.....

Now imagine being the parent of the athlete that is having the vocal cord spasm.......Horrifying.

Last wrestling season was gut wrenching for me.  I broke into a sweat every time Toby stepped onto the mat and almost desperately prayed for a quick match.

The spasming happened four times last year, and each time I really, REALLY wanted Toby to just give this wrestling thing up.

But a trip to the doctor and then a speech therapist had given both Toby and myself hope that perhaps this could be managed.  Toby learned how to recognize the signs for an oncoming attack and what breathing method to use to combat the problem.

We both walked into this year feeling optimistic that this vocal cord mess was under control and, two meets into the season, everything appeared to be fine.

Then....it happened again.

Toby had an outstanding first round.  He shot and got into his opponents legs, picking him up and slamming him to the mat.  His opponent really had no answers as Toby went up 6 to 1 with time running down in the first round.

The I saw it coming.  As time expired, I could see a grimace on Toby's face as he very slowly got up off the mat.  He head shot skyward and his mouth opened --- he looked like a fish out of water and my heart dropped into my stomach.

Toby started round two with his mouth open and a pained look on his face.  Despite the discomfort he still managed to get a leg and slam his opponent into the ground.  He was up 9-2 and I was praying that he could get a quick pin and get the hell out of there.

The two were tied up when suddenly Toby went crashing to the mat with his opponent on top of him.  Toby quit fighting, lay flat on his back, and got pinned.  As soon as it was over his opponent got up but Toby continued to lay there; his chest rising up and down rapidly.

I felt sick as I watched Toby struggle to get up, place his hands upon his head, and labor to get his breathing back under control.  I could see his coaches talking to him as he desperately tried not to get emotional in front of everyone in the gym.

I leaned over to Karla and whispered, "Dear, I just don't think we can let him do this anymore."

"We are going to have to discuss this when we get home." she said.

To me, watching Toby have a vocal cord spasm is traumatic.....It's like watching your kid drown, I thought.

I had always told my kids that, no matter what happens, you have to finish what you start.  Given these unforeseen circumstances I was more than ready to provide an addendum to that rule.

Afterward Toby had a headache and felt sick.  He barely spoke with either Karla or myself and, with visible disappointment, decided to scratch his final match.  I didn't tell him, but I was very glad he did.

Not that it mattered until much later, but the kid Toby was throwing around the mat ended up winning the weight class.  (Not that I really give a shit about that)

The house was quiet.  Toby, sick, disappointed, let down, came home before the meet was over.  Karla made supper, but Toby wasn't in the mood.

"I think I'll just go to bed," he said quietly.

At 8:30, Toby walked into his room and closed the door behind him.

I really wanted to talk to him; try to cheer him up.  But there are those times when you just have to let things go. I felt that this was one of those times.

I slept, well, more like tossed and turned on the couch, that night.  I would occasionally get up and crack the door open to Toby's room to check on him.  Resting --- breathing ---- ok.  I closed the door and resumed my flip flopping on the couch routine.

No parent likes to see their kid upset.  I lay awake, sick to my stomach.  What could I possibly say that was going to make this kid feel better?  He had put a lot of work into wrestling only to be hit with one disappointment after another.  The "you did the best you could" speech was not going to cut it.

And as much as it pained me to do it, I had it in my mind that if Toby didn't pull the plug on wrestling then I was going to do it for him.  There was no way I could watch another match like the one I watched the night before.

But, you want to know the great thing about this kid of mine?  By the next morning he was over it. One of the outstanding characteristics that he possesses is his ability to take lemons and turn in into lemonade. He would rise from the ashes, determined to make the best of his situation.

Toby walked out of his room and told Karla and I that he was going to talk to his coach.

"I'm not confident that I can wrestle in a meet," he said, "But I can still practice.  In practice I can walk away if things start to get bad.  I can't do that in a match. So if it's okay, I'll practice and just be a manager at the meets."

Fine by me.

(I have to say, Toby's coach has been nothing short of outstanding throughout this entire mess.  He immediately told Toby that he understood the situation, that Toby was more than welcome to keep practicing and attend the meets as a manager......And should he ever decide to get back on the horse....I'm very impressed with his coach.....He is a class act.)


I asked Toby if the breathing routine the speech therapist taught him didn't work.

"It does," he said, "The problem is that it's hard to go through a breathing routine when you either have a hand over your mouth or an arm around your throat."

Ah.

(He has never had to use his breathing routine while playing baseball or football.  That should give you a fairly good idea about just how physically intense wrestling is.)

Right before his last meet Toby had laid out a practice schedule for Tera.  Tera has wrestling practice two days out of the week; Toby set up practice for three more days.  And it would be just a couple of days after his last meet,  with his most previous unfortunate incident still fresh in his mind, that he would take the cushion off of the futon, throw it on the floor, and ask Tera if she wanted to practice.

Little sister, who has also taken a liking to wrestling, jumped on the opportunity.

"Let's work top today," said Toby, "Remember half and power half?"

"Uh....."

"That's okay...Let's get to work."

Toby would tell me later that he even though he didn't feel that he could actually wrestle he still loved the sport and wanted to stay involved.

Plus, even though he didn't say so, I think he is still holding out a little hope that he can get back on the mat.  The doctor did tell him that, in time, he should outgrow his vocal cord dysfunction.

It's hard to say whether or not Toby will actually try to get back into a match and, I won't lie, it won't bother me in the least if he doesn't.

He actually admitted to me that it would be very hard to step onto the mat without having thoughts of another bad vocal cord spasm lingering in the back of his mind.

"But, it's alright," he said, "I can still use wrestling practice to stay in shape and get stronger and quicker.  I can learn and work with Tera.  Plus, now that I don't have to worry about my weight, I can try to pack on a few pounds for baseball and football season."

Atta kid.....

I can't tell you how proud I am of Toby.  I think most kids would have just walked away from a sport that they felt they couldn't participate in.  Toby instead decided that if he couldn't play then he could at least do the next best thing --- coach.

And it's a lot of fun to watch Toby work with Tera ---- especially since I have no clue what I'm doing.

In the end, I feel like I can say that I STILL have two wrestling kids.

Life is good.  There may be setbacks --- but life is still good.










Monday, December 15, 2014

D1 Major Playoffs....


Ok folks.....Since I'm annoyed at the lack of a REAL playoff system in college football I have decided to try to create my own.  (Not seriously, it only took me about an hour to slap this together) I have tried to align conferences as geographically correct as possible.  I know it's not perfect.......but it was fun to create!!!

Check it out and feel free to critique.....

Division 1 Major – East Region
ACC – Atlantic ACC – Coastal
Big 10 East Big 10 West
SEC East SEC West
Florida St. Maryland
Ohio State Wisconsin
Georgia Alabama
Clemson Virginia
Michigan Minnesota
Florida Ole Miss.
N. Carolina V. Tech
Michigan St. Illinois
South Carolina Mississippi St.
NC State W. Virginia
Penn St. Purdue
Kentucky Auburn
Miami Rutgers
Indiana Northwestern
Tennessee LSU


















Division 1 Major – West Region
Big 12 East Big 12 West
Pac 12 North Pac 12 South
New East New West
Iowa Nebraska
Oregon Arizona
Arkansas Texas
Iowa St. Kansas
Oregon St. Arizona St.
Texas A&M Texas Tech
Notre Dame Kansas St.
Washington UCLA
Baylor TCU
Missouri Colorado
Washington St. USC
Oklahoma Utah
Cincinnati Boise St.
Stanford California
Oklahoma St. BYU



























Conference Champion
1 Non Conference Game






9 Conference Games



Conference Runner Up
Championship Game






All not reaching get a bowl game guaranteeing an 11 game season



Bowl games are conference vs. conference





Conference Champion and Runner Up go to playoffs



















Playoffs







3 Conference Champions – 2 Byes  (Per Region)





Byes will be given to top two by fewest points allowed






















East Regional
West Regional

Alabama




Oregon











Alabama


TCU

Wisconsin






Missouri

Wisconsin




TCU
Va. Tech






TCU












Alabama
TCU


Ohio St.






Baylor

Georgia




Baylor
Georgia


TCU


Arizona


Florida St.
National
Baylor





Champions




Florida St.




Kansas St.




































Thursday, December 11, 2014

My wrestling kids...

Starting off on a side note I have to say that I am very proud to announce that I have survived another business trip week with just myself and the kids.  The house is (relatively) clean and the kids have successfully made it to all their after school activities.

And I only forgot to do ONE MAJOR thing!!!!!  But I digress.....I'll save that for a future post.

Once again, I am in absolute awe and have the utmost respect for single parents.  I have no clue how they do it all and manage to stay sane.  (And I'm only working part time....I can't imagine juggling two active kids with a full time job.)


When baseball and fall softball ended I was thinking that I was going to get to gear down and really enjoy having an off season.  Toby would play football, followed by wrestling, and Tera would have Girls On The Run; none of which I coach.  All I would have to do is pick them up after practice (which are all less then a mile from my house) and go to the games/races.  I could just feel myself unwinding.

The we added pitching lessons (out of town) on top of Toby's wrestling.  Not a big deal; it's just one night a week.

But then Tera did something that I did not expect.......She, too, went out for wrestling.

Big brother had talked her into trying out a wrestling camp and Tera bit into it hook, line and sinker ---  which caught me a little off guard.  In retrospect, Tera has never been a girlie girl so I shouldn't have been surprised.  But more on that later.

So.....NO.......I do not really have an off season and the family sports expenses got a little more expensive than Karla and I had budgeted for.

But, life is like that.  Since when has anything in life ever gone according to plan?  All you can do is make plans, watch life blow those plans up, and then troubleshoot......and do it all with a smile on your face.  Well, at least Karla does it with a smile on her face.  I prefer to drop a few F bombs and rant.

Karla: "Did that make you feel better?"

Me: "HELL YES IT DID....AAARRGGHH!!!!"

Anyway.......Moving on.


TOBY....

Toby didn't get into wrestling until he hit the seventh grade and to say that he is behind is a little bit of an understatement.

That's not me being mean.  That's just how it is.  There are a lot of things that he is learning even now as a freshman that comes second nature to kids who have been wrestling since the second grade.  And while Toby has managed to notch a few wins on his belt his lack of experience has placed him squarely on the wrong side of some quick and rough beatings.

He's had his shoulder wrenched (but not dislocated....I saw that happen to a kid.....Yikes...I squirmed a little....), he's come up with a swollen knee and he's had to fight through vocal cord spasms, or, vocal cord dysfunction if you prefer the technical term.

Wrestling is the most physically demanding sport Toby has ever participated in.  Football, you say?  NO.....Not even close.

In eighth grade Toby started losing matches because he was unable to breathe.  At first we thought that maybe it was asthma but that didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.  He's never had asthma growing up so why would he have it now?

Regardless of what the problem may have been, it was tough to watch.  At the start of every match I would break out into a sweat just knowing that if Toby couldn't finish the match early that he was going to end up on the mat flopping like a fish out of water.  I was more than ready to pull him out of wrestling altogether.

But Toby wouldn't have it and he wouldn't have forgiven me had I made him quit. He would have used my own words against me, quickly reminding me that I had always told him that he has to finish what he starts.

Ok, kid.....Wrestle on.....

So after the third wrestling meet that found him light headed, gasping, and puffing on an inhaler, I took him to the doctor.  As soon as I told the doctor that Toby only had this problem when he wrestled he smiled and said, "I bet he's having vocal cord spasms.  I'm going to refer you to a specialist."

A trip to the specialist resulted in breathing lessons.  The specialist told Toby that it is a natural reaction to hold your breath when you shoot or, in football, brace for impact as you make a tackle.

"No matter what happens," she told him, "Do not hold your breath.  That can cause your vocal cords to slam shut and cut off your air."

Scary, scary stuff.  But now Toby knows what to minimize the likelihood of having a vocal cord spasm.  But if he does have a spasm he's been trained how to combat the problem.  It doesn't sound like much fun too me.

And it's not at if he needed any other challenges with wrestling.

But I have to give him credit; at this point he refuses to quit ------- even if he did leave a ton of blood on the mat at his last meet.

Toby has always had problems with nose bleeds; so much so that he has had his nose cauterized not once but twice.  Yet, if he get's popped in the nose just right......We have a gusher.

I was sick the day of the incident so I'm going off of what I've been told. Apparently Toby wrestled a kid who kept reaching across Toby's face to grab his arm.  As this kid reached across he would pop Toby in the face.....Over and over and over again.

Finally the kid got in the shot that finally got Toby's nose to bleed ---- and he bled everywhere.  Down the side of his face and onto his shoulder and uniform ---- all over the mat.

Throughout all this the ref never called time.  Mama was NOT happy.

"That kid was a dirty wrestler," Karla ranted, "He just kept hitting Toby in the face over and over again."

After the match was over I guess it took some time to get all of the blood off of the mat.  I asked Karla why she didn't get a picture ----- that was not a good question to ask......Oops....

So when I got Toby away from mad Mama I asked him, "So was what that kid doing illegal?"

"Technically, no," he said, "As long as you have an open hand you're ok,"

"What did your coach say?" I asked.

"He says I'm too nice."

You know what?  I can believe that.

But I bet he'll be a little meaner by the time wrestling season is over.

 I'm not being critical at all -- far from it..... He's taking his lumps and, with dogged determination, he just keeps on trying -- for that I am very proud of him.



TERA.....MUSCLE AND NAIL POLISH......

I don't know why I was surprised when Tera went out for wrestling.  I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of my little princess rough housing on the mat and, I won't lie, it makes me a little nervous.

Tera practices with the team twice a week; but she practices at least two, maybe three days, with Toby and myself.  I want her to be as ready to wrestle as we can possibly get her.

Toby and I both preach to her that wrestling is not a "nice" sport.  Aches, pains, bumps, and bruises are just part of the gig.  The sooner she accepts that the better off she will be.

But after asking Tera what she likes about wrestling, I started to wonder why I'm worried.

Me: "So what do you like about wrestling?"

Tera: "I GET TO TACKLE PEOPLE!!!!"

Oh....

Yeah, I shouldn't have been surprised.  This is the same girl that wanted to go out for football, but a conflict with fall softball wouldn't allow for it.  Hell, she may be pretty good at it.

I had never actually watched a wrestling practice before Tera joined up.  But, because I'm worried I've been going to her practices and taking notes; trying to learn all that I can in order to help Tera improve at a quicker pace.

It only took one practice to understand why coaches in other sports love wrestlers.

From a conditioning standpoint, I don't think I've seen anything as physically demanding as wrestling practice.  Even if you end up sucking as a wrestler, you'll still walk away at the end of the year in the best shape of your life.

Running leads into stretches.  Stretches into line drills, into planks, into crab walks, into bear crawls. After warm up the coach may talk for a few minutes about what they are going to work on --- that's the longest he talks the entire practice.  From there, whether they are working on sit outs, or takedowns, or tie ups, it's repetition, repetition, repetition.  All the while, the coach is walking in between wrestlers an checking on their technique.  If he does stop them to explain something he never talks for more than a minute before the kids are right back at it.

As I look at the notes on my phone, it boggles the mind how much they have learned in so little time.

One solid hour of almost non stop movement.  And what's really cool about it is the coach is so good at keeping them busy that they don't even think about a bathroom or water break.  Before you know it practice is over and I sit there, head spinning and thinking, "Shit, and they haven't even scratched the surface yet."

As a wrestler not only are you in great shape but you become quicker and stronger. You learn about leverage and that not everything you do involves brute strength.

And.......You either learn to be tough or, I'm guessing, you don't last.

Yeah, I'm nervous.  I guess I'll just have to wait and see how Tera handles the first time she gets popped. (Actually, she has taken a shot to the mouth already ---- it didn't appear to phase her.)

Deep down, however, I just know she's going to be fine.  She may not win very much.....but she'll be fine.

It's Dad that's going to have a hard time adjusting.......

MUSCLE AND NAIL POLISH........YOU GOTTA PROBLEM WITH THAT?

No Ma'am.....