Texsox

Should we? What do you think?

f*** cancer. One of my coaching buddies was diagnosed with stage 2 skin cancer. He's got 14 stitches in his neck from where they cut it out. He's waiting on a biopsy of the surrounding tissue to be certain they got it all. I'm now a bucket hat guy. I'm already at a high risk from so many sun burns, working outside, sports, hiking, fishing, and leukemia. I'm not going to make it easier on cancer.

I picked them third last year and hated it. When I look at it with an unbiased eye, I'm thinking second. But I've convinced myself they will win the division this year. I'm going all in, I've even located my Sox hitch cover to proudly display before opening day. I'll wear a Sox jersey to work on opening day (cool tradition at school) and endure the taunts from Astro fans.

Exactly. What's really funny is how many people Hahn fooled last year into believing that team could win the central.

Exactly. Millennials can't get a job done without older folks around to lead them. A locker room full of twenty and thirty year old kids can't be expected to perform. They will fail. Except in every other business on the planet. Then suddenly folks in that same age range can innovate, build massive companies. But in baseball, no way. They need a manager to guide them.

I find it shocking that a bunch of twenty and thirty year old guys can't manage by themselves without some older dudes getting in their faces and leading them.

It's treading water.

We're going to make the playoffs and win the WS in three games when the NL team forfeits after realizing they have no chance. Or finish two games over .500 while getting eliminated in game 159.

He's a grinder working to do whatever the team asks if him, sacrificing himself and his reputation in the process and never complaining. He was here before Tony and after Tony. So far every manager has found a lot of at bats for him.

Couple final things. I take late work without penalty. Nowhere in the state standards am I required to teach "responsibility". I don't care if you learn something on February 8th or March 5th. I'll also accept corrections until the student is satisfied with their grade (lol happens about twice a year but helps out with parents). My grading style is what I call "zero up". When I look at a student's assignment it's a zero and I start looking for everything they did right until we top out the grade rather than starting at a 100 and deducting points. It's probably meaningless in the end but I'd rather look for things that a student does right than searching out mistakes. That creates an adversarial relationship and blocks effective partnerships in my mind. The first time I graded that way was after looking at a kid's math homework that was covered in red with -2 all over the place. I grabbed a green marker and started writing +5 and +10 all over the paper. Damn if I didn't feel better afterb working through that stack. Kids and administrators love my classes but teachers vote for teacher if the year. As a coach I'll never earn that award but I'll take the Student Council's Teacher of the Month Award (most recently January 2023) or our Counseling Departments "B" award any day. And thank y'all for asking. One of my friends keeps telling me I should write a book on my grading system. It's at the top of my list of things I'd change in education.

I was surprised when looking at the map that basically it's a lollipop loop. Not a lot of roads other than to connect the cities.

It's a hole in the ground, big deal. I give it 3 stars. ?

Many teachers I work with were excellent students. They loved school and were model citizens. I was the "smart kid who could get straight A's if he just applied himself". I applied myself to four varsity letters, four trips to the state chess finals, editor of the school newspaper, and various other clubs. Plus a sparkling 2.4gpa and 32 composite in the ACT. I rarely completed any homework but could earn As on most tests and quizzes. I also disrupted classes with ad libs. Anecdotally I believe I learned as much or more than my classmates with better grades. My 3.8 college gpa and ACT would be artifacts I'd present as evidence lol. In sales you can do everything right and not get the order. Changing someone's behavior (the buyer) isn't easy and it's almost always out of your control. But I was responsible for a budget and needed to hit it. So about those former model students who became teachers that I mentioned earlier. They get frustrated by kids who aren't like them. The chatty ones, the too busy to do homework ones. The kids who don't have a sense of "responsibility"*. Me? These are my people. I was a sweathog**. So what I bring to the classroom is a desire to help the students that were like me in high school plus loving challenging the students that were like me in college. It seems to be a winning combination. * I sat listening to a colleague complain about the total lack of responsibility one student was showing in her class. This was a Frank Thomas playing tee ball moment. What she didn't know until I told her was the kid at 17 has been working a job for almost a year to pay for his apartment which his 13 year old brother just moved into with him. Her little math worksheet probably wasn't the best way to judge responsibility. I found out about his situation by asking "why are you so tired?" Instead of "wake up! Or I'm sending you to the office" seems easy to me. **1970s TV sitcom reference kids.

Officially in Texas teachers are in complete control of their grade book and no one can override them. But, admin controls what classes you teach and when. Here's the math that I see and what I tell my students. If you don't turn in one assignment you have a 0. If you make 100s on the next three assignments, you are still failing. Three missing assignments and nine 100s is failing. Turn something in, no matter how craptastic, and you'll have a much better chance to pass. For most of my career I've taught seniors. They have passed English since kindergarten and passed two comprehensive state wide exams. Who am I to stand between them and their diploma and say you haven't passed my standards? So I usually have 99% passing rates. I'll also pull up a chair and sit next to them until they finish the assignments. A key difference is I accept and embrace that it's my job to get kids to pass. It's likely from a first career in sales.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/24/sport/chad-johnson-nfl-cincinnati-bengals-spt-intl/index.html Lived at the stadium for two years. Saved 80% of his salary.

It's a broad mix. Start with any one who believes anything school appropriate is lame/stupid etc. Toss in the loners and hard core shy kids who get good grades. Since they aren't trouble they get ignored while teachers battle the 5% who are in trouble. I few times a year I try and look around the room and talk to them. Kids who require the bus to get home and don't have friends who will give them a ride. A scattering of language challenges. I really wish I spoke Pashto. We have a growing group of refugees from Afghanistan and many are illiterate so my Google translate strategy doesn't work. Generally speaking many that we are settling here were involved helping the US in the war. Seems like the least I can do to repay their bravery is try to help their children. Side note, prime example of our district philosophy of teaching the whole child and offering opportunities, two of our high schools have cricket clubs and I'm hearing the level of play is good. It's mostly our refugees but little by little they are drawing in other kids. I'd love to see that keep expanding. The cricket pitch is behind one of the city owned golf practice facilities we use. Whenever I go over to watch someone will offer me a bat but I haven't taken them up on it yet.

Here's something I really like about my school. Our principal pushes to get every kid connected though a club, organization, sport, etc. She wants every student to have a teacher that they see for something they choose to do and hopefully share a passion for. Sports is easy. Then when a student is struggling in class, either academic or behavior, the classroom teacher has someone that hopefully knows the kid and can help the issue. Just Wednesday I had a student that was missing 90% of the assignments. I checked his schedule, emailed his coach, and four missing assignments were completed during his lunch hour. ROTC, band, etc same thing. I share an athlete with basketball. His teacher reached out about a behavior issue and he had conversations with three coaches by the end of the day. Problem solved. It's the kids that we can't find ways to connect with that keep me awake.

It's probably a combination of all of that and things that aren't apparent yet. We hear a lot of "respect". They disrespected me so we had to fight.

@The Beast That seems to be everywhere. We've had much worse behavior in our school since COVID. Eighteen months of quarantine and away from in person coats l classes seems to have long term implications beyond gaps in learning. (For comparison we're a mostly two parent, college educated, upper middle class school.) We've had more like expelled this year than in the past ten years combined. I'm at an out of town tournament with seven players ranging in age from a nearly 18 year old to barely 14. We're staying three days so we've kind of settled in. This seems as normal as it's always been. But once we get back to large groups things just are different.

You might want to contact Bryant's doctor.

Leury will be around for a couple more years. "Grifol: "I've seen Leury play for a while. Leury's a talented player"

But it may be rough to repeat that without a hall of fame manager to guide him.

And I responded to your jest as if you actually meant it. Sorry.

So do I. Ironically we may be back to 1980s era pay per view models. JR was way ahead of the curve.