Texsox

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:47 PM) Don't have enough money for coaches or for teams to actually give people who want to participate an option of actually doing so? Cutting events back to save money on travel time? That's just sad. They would have been cut. There is no official league for a D team in our district. Our AQ hustled up games for these kids. Trying to twist this into a negative makes me laugh.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:41 PM) The city and state's taxpayers should be embarrassed by what you just wrote. Why?

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:26 PM) That's different. If there are numbers and the school budget allows it then absolutely that is a great idea. Fact is however, that extra teams frequently can not fit into budgets or generate enough interest from kids and coaches. If kids want instruction you can create after school activities to provide it. Frankly, kids who have little to no experience in a sport should not be expected to be able to compete with kids who have worked hard to make themselves already good and/or are just gifted at it. What you did sounds like a perfect solution. Budgets are a concern. The uniforms were shared and we couldn't always get appropriate games for them. Our athletic coordinator "took one for the team (coaches)" and coached them himself, saving the school a coaches stipend. They only had one referee working their games. To save on travel time, they also played a shorter game. We do budget for football A and B teams and boys basketball A, B, and C teams. Girls volleyball also has a C team, but IIRC basketball stopped at a B team. Track is a zoo.

I am assuming that most people here believe sports have a value and make a positive impact on people, especially on young people. There are so many great lessons that are learned when you participate in a sport. Why then would anyone advocate for limiting that experience? We should be in the business of promoting sports and working towards having more kids participate, not less. There isn't nearly as many lessons to learn in being cut as there are in being made part of a team and participating. The value of sports on a person's development should not be limited to being cut from a team when you are nine or ten years old.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:34 PM) You are into the ages where real competition should be happening. OK. Do you really believe there is value in the competition for kids who are nine and ten years old?

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:38 PM) You should see cuts if necessary, not for the sake of it. If a kid isn't good enough, I agree with the first, question the latter . . . Good enough to receive instruction? Good enough to learn sportsmanship, hard work, and teamwork? Last year our turnout for 7th grade basketball was so high we put together a "D" team. Those kids had a blast. I was lucky enough to help out with a couple of their practices. For some of the kids, it was their very first time playing basketball. It was great to see how much they improved by the end of the season. We had close to 60 boys playing basketball last year.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:29 PM) That is 4th/5th grade, and I am happy with it at that level. It is also the time you should start seeing some cuts. Why should you start seeing some cuts?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:23 PM) By middle school, you absolutely should have winners and loser. Of course, but at what age should you be telling a kid you are not good enough to play this sport and go home? Our philosophy is middle school is their first chance to play on a "real" team. They come in raw and we have to develop their talents. We use middle school as a training ground for our high school programs. We feed them lots and lots of kids, well versed on the systems we play, how to be a good team mate, how to be a champion 168 hours a week. Yes, we have middle school winners and losers, but we do not make it our primary focus. It is better for me to send 20 soccer players with basic skills with knowledge of our system who won five games than 15 who won 12. Somewhere in those five players that would have been cut could be a late bloomer who makes significant contributions.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 03:10 PM) It is sexist to believe females should not be allowed to play alongside males in sports? Yes. Define: Sexist: discriminatory on the basis of sex (usually said of men's attitude toward women). A better question might be, is it always wrong to not allow men and women to play alongside each other? There we may have a much different discussion. We could split the sports into contact and non contact sports. We could look at sports with mechanical equipment like NASCAR. We could look at ones with fine motor skills like pool versus gross motor skills like shot put.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 02:57 PM) If I'm never going to get a chance to play I might as well be a waterboy in that case..... I'm assuming your talking about highschool in which case I'd rather play on the JV team than sit on varsity and if you aren't good enough to play on JV you probably need to take up a different sport/hobby. All levels. Our teams do not start until 7th grade. And many do choose to quit rather than continue to attend practices. But you would be surprised how many keep playing only in practice. We dress out about 80 for a football game, play maybe 50 or 60, but there are more on the roster. The point is, we believe the coaching we provide should be available to any eligible student. That there are positive and important life lessons that can be learned in practice. The ugly side here is coaches do not like "sharing" players and there is a lot of pressure to be a one sport athlete and prepare year round for that sport. Especially if your sport is football.

QUOTE (GoodAsGould @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 11:19 AM) I don't think kids should be cut from sports teams, at least not until jr high but I hate the idea of completely disregarding winning/losing. I was a kid not too long ago and I wanted to win and hated losing and the sport would be very dull if those werent important factors. I was only in the town public leagues but end of year we still had a playoffs and whatnot once we got probably in 4th or 5th grade. In my school district we have a no cut policy. No one is ever cut from any of our squads. BTW our varsity football team just won our district for the 4th or 5th year in a row. Notice you aren't guaranteed to play, or even wear a uniform on game day, but you are never cut.

My first reaction is every sports program up to high school schould be about skill development, sportsmanship, and learning how to be a team mate. Keep score if you like, but winning and losing should not be the goal until high school. Fortunately my school district shares this philosophy.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Jan 30, 2012 -> 10:36 PM) I concur. Only PK & Mark, anything more than that and you are just getting ridiculous. Frank Thomas says Yo! We forget he was on that team.

QUOTE (mumbles3k @ Jan 31, 2012 -> 04:58 AM) Sure, but my point is that the 1972 season wasn't really anything special. What is it that they're celebrating? Not being in Florida?

His Serbian friends hate him for cheering for the Sox I'll never cheer for a country without nukes. I don't want to get attached in case we have to save them from an evil dictator.

Ukrainian women know how to protest. The Occupy movement could learn a lesson or two about getting world wide attention.

QUOTE (Marty34 @ Jan 30, 2012 -> 05:00 PM) Seems every year since '05 the Sox have guys planning retirements or looking to move on. Guillen, Buehrle, Williams, Konerko. There's something not right about that. It seems to me it means we've managed to keep a core group for more than a couple years.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 30, 2012 -> 03:37 PM) The only issue is whether we give M-56 his statue before he retires. We retired Baines uniform while he was an active player with another team.

PK statue worthy? That seems like an easy one. I'd also like to see MB and possibly AJ.

QUOTE (Harry Chappas @ Jan 30, 2012 -> 01:26 PM) Except the State of Illinois took that back. I almost forgot about state income taxes. We don't do that in Texas.

Personally, it seems like such a minor issue and the punishment doesn't seem like it fits the offense. I'm glad it would be a Republican appointing a Republican, I've never like political party switches during these times.

I would like to see AJ retire with the Sox, but I doubt it will happen. The team will need him in the back up role and someone will need him full time. He exceeded my expectations in achievement and time with the club.

I was surprised how quickly I received statements. The last I was waiting for was the 1098-E for my son.

Tis the season, and the earliest I have ever filed.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Jan 27, 2012 -> 01:24 PM) So if they shot and killed her, should we replace her, or would that be a 'win' for the terrorists? Perhaps it is time to have some kind of stand-in for when someone can't do the job due to an illness or injury. A person absent form congress for an extended period of time is simply NOT doing the job they were elected to do, which is represent. Not saying it is their fault, but still if you can't do the job, why should the voters get shorted because you can't vote? I wish I had not used the word "win". How about this, I am defining a win as the terrorists getting what they want. So yes, if she was killed, they would get what they wanted and I would call that a win for them. Not that we are terrorists, but didn't we consider it a win when Bin Laden was killed? When Hussein was removed from office and hanged, wasn't that a win? The choice is between two bad situations. I just hate giving criminals what they want. I balance that higher than the district being without representation while the person recovers or their term expires. You value the representation higher than giving criminals what they want. I don't disagree that you have a very valid point. Again, this isn't right versus wrong to me, it is bad versus bad. No good came out of this, and never could, no matter what decision she made. It isn't a 100-0 kind of balance, more of a 55-45 balance to me. I am sympathetic to the notion that the district deserves representation, which is why I believe she did the correct thing in resigning. But again, I would respect her decision to hold onto office while she recovers or her term expires and take solace in the fact the criminal/nutjob/terrorist did not get what he wanted. In my mind the only way this guy doesn't get what he wanted (wins) is if she stays in office *and* recovers from her injuries to the point she can effectively represent her district.