Playing Sports

 

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It's Baseball Season and Cheeseburger is Back!

Cheeseburger courtesy of author

We've survived our first week of baseball season.  There's been tears, frustration, excitement and about every other emotion in between.  We've braved 40 mph winds, rain and winter-like temps.  And I've become a Martha Stewart in the laundry room, perfecting the art of removing grass stains from white pants.  All have been memories in the making!  Read more >

Men's Indoor Volleyball Needs Your Love

Men's Volleyball by desmorider via Flickr

Men’s Indoor Volleyball.  Why isn’t it more popular?  It could be the rules.  There are a lot of them and people who don’t know the sport always have a tough time learning it.  But, broken down to its basics, it has the same structure as any other sport: two opponents, one ball, the team that reaches the winning score first (by at least two points), wins.  It could it be the scoring.  It used to have Side Out scoring, which meant that games could last forever before either team reached 15 points.  But, no  Read more >

The NHL Is Losing Its Brains

NHL game via Flickr

Because they’re all getting smashed in to a pulp against the boards.I’m telling you, [NHL exec] Brendan Shanahan has got to feel cursed. Here he is, with the highest TV ratings of a playoff round in years. The US audience is actually tuned in for a change. And yet at the same time, every single night his iPhone lights up with 10,724 voice mails, texts and twitter messages about yet ANOTHER player getting floored by yet ANOTHER dirty head shot.Hope he has a flat rate for texting, is all I can say.  Read more >

Dance Moms, Soccer Moms, Basketball Moms - Same Diff

Dance Moms

(Editor's Note: As a sports parent, or stage mom, is it possible to assess your child's abilities objectively? What happens when there is validation that your kid is not the "best" at something. Jo Francis, who writes a blog about her son's quest for a Division 1 basketball scholarship, takes a look at reality competition shows and finds that some are a bit too real. ~js)    Read more

Life Lessons on Opening Day - Play Ball, Girls!

Play Ball, Girls

Every opening day, I remember this one big lesson from life.One day in 3rd grade, we got word that the next day the boys would be able to bring in their transistor radios.  What?!  Boys?  Could bring in their radios?!    Read more >

70.3 Training: Getting My Booty In Gear

Athletes in training by maccalive via Flickr cc license

There's something about trying to do too much that creates nothing but chaos and leads to getting absolutely nothing done.For months I said: I’m going to train…tomorrow.I’ve been tired since the Poconos – both mentally and physically.But it wasn’t until Thursday when I mentioned a new race to my most favorite triathlete that I realized: I need an assistant to just track race calendars.  Read more >

The Secret to Happy Skiing

chairlift via Flickr

Nothing is more important that being cool when you’re 15 years old.  So even though I did not know how to ski, I wasn’t going to be stuck in beginning classes with the little kids. Oh, no, not me! I had taken a lesson or two years ago, but they were boring silly games and very few trips up the slopes.  I’d had enough of whiny kids and their childish instructors.  Time for a serious, grown up effort.  Read more >

The "Safe Haven" of Sports

Coach and athlete by Eric Langley via Flickr

Locally, there is a story about a girls' basketball coach who was fired for verbally abusing his players. Demoralizing them, insulting them, and demeaning them. Nationally there is the Penn State saga. While this abuse was physical/sexual, the result is identical because the abused student/athletes are psychologically wounded.  Read more >

Mom, If You Ever Have To Make Me Practice, I'm Done Playing

Pro soccer player Tiffany Weimer

“…it’s a choice you make.”This is the end of a conversation I had with a young soccer player recently. She told me she wanted to play professional soccer when she was older. And I told her what it takes.Well, I told her one thing that I thought it took. And one decision I made without knowing I made it.  And I guess it was something soccer taught me without knowing it for a long time… but now I see what I have learned.  Read more >

Crazy Eyeris - Why I Plan To Be a Roller Derby Roller

Suffer Jets via Flickr

That's my Derby alter-ego. If I make the team.I'm trying out next [this] year. Going to train and soak in as much Derby as I can in the meantime. I am beyond excited. Scared. Overwhelmed.  Read more >