Kid, what's it worth to you?
Click images for desktop size: "Safe" Major League Baseball I've been a bit . . . unwell.
Saw the doctors today on an emergency visit. Its a good news/bad news thing.
The good news is that I don't have to take that horrible oral chemo till they sort it all out.
The bad news is that my white blood cell count is too high and red cells too low - which explains a lot about how I've been feeling.
The worst part is just the general malaise and fatigue. There's freaky pain but its just pain and nowhere near as bad as the pain of losing a friend.
I lost a friend today.
Eddie Robinson passed away. He was 88. He coached football.
He wasn't like what most people would consider a friend. I met him once when he spoke at a conference for coaches.
I was coaching in England then. Had just started. I loved the kids but there were odd things - just as an example. I was the HC but before every game I had to mark out the field, set up the end zone and all the field markers. Then after the games I had to break all down and put it all away.
Nothing wrong with doing that but it felt weird.I cornered Coach Robinson and talked about it. He told me about when he started at Grambling he had to do the same thing.
He got to the point where he looked forward to it and when Grambling Football got big enough to support a full time grounds crew he sometimes even missed it.
I remembered that. I always remember it too the first time some players showed up early just so they could help me get the field ready for game day. My team were considered socially excluded, which is fancy talk for being bums and hoodlums. It meant a lot on that day - I remember thinking that the sun cut through the early morning haze a bit quicker that day.
I never saw them that way but the rest of the UK did. The hardest part was making sure they didn't see themselves that way.
I talked to Coach Robinson a few times about it. I've talked to a lot of football coaches in my time and one thing he and I never discussed were X's and O's.
We never discussed the mechanics of playing the game on the field. He always talked about getting the players prepared to step on that field and more importantly about the time when they would step off the field forever.
Coach Robinson won a lot of football games. He's still number 1, 2 or 3 all time. (I'm not sure where Bobby Bowden or Coach Paterno fit in on the list). He sent a heck of a lot of players to the NFL. He was proud of them but I think he was prouder of the players who left the game and opened their own businesses and raised families.
The few times we talked it was always about how to use this sport of ours to get these young men ready to win in the important game out there in the world.
That's what I'll miss the most, that there is one less man on this planet who thinks that more important than dollars, more important than fame, is the importance of being proud of yourself, of loving your community, of loving your family. That more important was how much love you could give, not how much you could take.
The coaches most important job was to instill those qualities in the players who came to you and to teach them that those qualities won on and off the field.
Eddie Robinson was a great coach and a great man.
Click images for desktop size: "Satin Ends" by Blatte There's a lot more that's been going on.
My little foster puppy Noelle is on her 1 week trial for her new forever home. I hope it works out. I was surprised to discover that some people think that they are getting to try out the puppy for a week, and some think the puppy gets to try out the new parents. I think its just enough time to see if they fit and can become a family.
I have a new puppy to share the place with my puppy. She's older and a bit scared right now. She just came an hour ago.
She'll be fine.
I got a raise at work! Fifteen months after my last raise. I got 3% which would be okay if I were making 60K plus.
I get paid by the hour so the raise is less than $500 per year . . . or about less than half the going rate of inflation.
I merited this raise because I increased net profits by 18%.
What is shocking is that they'll be shocked when I quit.