Two Halves (taken two ways)

Hi.

It's been awhile, about a month and a half, since I last wrote. Didn't have much to say I guess. A lot of blog ideas were thrown aside and Cooler wasn't much to talk about. The few times when I wanted to write, I didn't have the time.

Well, now I might have herpes.

That's a funny sentence to add there, it might have even made you laugh. But seriously, herpes. No, not the genital kind, either. I did some research and found there are actually a number of different herpes viruses. Herpes simplex-2 is the genital kind. Herpes simplex-1 is the kind that causes cold sores and skin rashes. This is what I may have on a small patch on my back. Chickenpox is also a form of the herpes virus, as is shingles, its adult counterpart. Well, adult counterpart isn't exactly accurate, as you have to have had chickenpox to later develop shingles. So, if you had chickenpox earlier in your life, which 90% of kids do, then you can develop shingles, a much more serious form of the virus later in life. What I have might also be shingles. Lab tests will determine what it is.

That makes two tournaments I came home from this year with skin infections. After MUDI, I developed a bacterial infection under my right armpit that stretched around my back. I thought it was a spider bite at first, but it spread and got larger and uglier. Now after CHCs I have a viral skin infection. What a bummer. Maybe after regionals I'll get leprosy.

Reading on a medical site, I found that symptoms of the onset of shingles include a headache (which I had this weekend), sensitivity to light (which I mildly have all the time although I hate wearing sunglasses), and cold-like symptoms (I did have a runny nose and sore throat, but those are probably attributed to allergies and yelling on the sidelines). The site said that shingles could be triggered by a number of things. One is sunburn, which I acquired this weekend. Another is stress, which I had in abundance last weekend. Which leads perfectly into the second half of the blog, CHCs.

It was a lousy tournament for me. I played poorly, felt drastically out of shape and practice, and stressed myself out far too much for the duration of the weekend.

I worry about players on the team enjoying their time with the team, I worry about players getting enough playing time, I worry about winning games, I worry about strategies to use and how to implement them even though it is usually not possible to implement policies. Players come up to me and mention possible things to try. Some are possible, like how we position on the field. Others are not possible, such as how to run a cup. We have a number of players coming from a number of programs and areas of the midwest and we haven't done a lot of practicing together, those with limited attendance, so we haven't exactly had the means to implement and practice teamwide strategies and concepts. Not that I exactly have any revolutionary ideas that will propel the team forward, but when we run a zone defense at a tournament, none of the layers of the zone know what the others are going to be doing, without having built up that experience with each other.

Let's move on. I don't know how to most effectively call players into the game. I made up some rules to call in players by, stuck by them to an extent, and then threw them out the window. Jon, Wimer, Mike, Barrett, and Dave played a large number of points. I try to make subbing players in as equal as possible, but they end up far from equal. The player with the least number of points played 19 on the weekend. The player with the most played 57. Not that equal playing time is the primary objective, that's winning, but equal distribution is the secondary objective. I know a number of players would like to play more, but I just don't know what to do.

Let's move on. We haven't won a big game all year. And the only opportunity to now do it is at regionals. Unless we lose at sectionals, we are the likely 6 seed, behind Subzero, Madcow, BAT, Madison, and Machine. The only team among those five that we beat is Madison, with that win under suspicious circumstances as they didn't have some of their best players and handlers. In some of those games we weren't too close (Machine and Madison), in others we stayed close and lost (both Subzero and Madcow), some we went down big early and came back to lose (BAT), and others we held a lead and couldn't hold (Madcow and Madison-game 2). We have yet to put together a solid 2-half effort.

Let's move on. I truly believe that our roster has the individual players match up against any team in the region. We aren't as deep top to bottom as Subzero, but I believe we are against any of the other teams. What we don't have is a team that seems to be able to beat those teams. As parts we are capable, as a whole we haven't been. I don't know how to unify the team together or to get us to play as a team. It isn't something that can be practiced or forced, it just happens. Am I wrong?

I just don't know what to do to get things to change for regionals. At the current pace, we will be done Saturday night. We plan to play on Sunday and win, so something needs to happen.

There were some bright spots. The offense showed signs of greatness and invincibility in almost every game, yet almost every game they had a 3-5 point stretch where they couldn't score and had to stay on the field. The defense showed some toughness, especially in the BAT game, erasing a 2-7 deficit to bring the game to 8-9.

Wimer's play has far exceeded expectations and preconceived notions. He's every bit the handler that he's hyped to be and made some catches and defenses over the weekend that I wasn't sure he could make. Wimer was CHC MVP.

Jon was a workhorse, playing more points than anybody, and seemingly keeping his form the tightest of anybody who played 45+ points. Threw a cog into the subbing works by playing offensive handler with Mike and Wimer so well.

Dave and Barrett aren't the fastest guys on the field, but get open frequently. Dave unfortunately was injured early in the Subzero game after a bum layout attempt by (SURPRISE!) Shane Hohenstein. Sure, people make layout attempts on discs they can't catch, but why not layout to the side of a player instead of right through the back of? You risk injuring the player in front of you, and risk injuring yourself, it just seems irresponsible on two levels. Well, this wasn't a big deal and I'm not trying to make a big deal of it, it just happened and was apparently blog-worthy.

Hmm...don't want to drag on with the individual accolades so I'll cut it short.

We have a lot of work to do and it won't be easy, but things worth achieving never are.