Today Would Have Been My Father's 83rd Birthday!

June 6 is an important day in our history because 48 years ago today Robert Kennedy was taken from us all too soon. I often wonder what the world and our lives would be like had the 1960s been different on so many occasions.

The 1960s brought tremendous amount of change for me as a young boy moving from five different communities and learning to adapt to five very different environments. It was also a decade in which my relationship with my dad changed dramatically as I grew up under his tutelage.

I have written about his birthday on several occasions and other times I wrote how he affected me as my mentor, coach and friend. I was my father's shadow in many ways and as I grew older I came to realize just what a wonderful relationship we had.

There was an alternate side of my father I did not know much about until much later. I choose to focus on the positive side of our relationship. That is why I miss him tremendously since he has been gone almost ten years already. I have several pictures of him at various stages of his life on my Screensaver and see him for seven-second intervals every so often.

Attached is my first photograph of him playing with me and teaching me how to blow bubbles in 1957 when I was only two:

Click on the image to make it larger:

Recently, I wrote a blog post that has become one of my most read ever about him coaching me in the summer of 1968 in Sibley, Iowa. After that summer, he accepted the track and cross country coaching job as well as a counselor position at Worthington State Junior College (WSJC) where he stayed for eight years until my family moved again where he took a similar job at Rochester Community College (RCC). He retired after seventeen years in Rochester. 

Several years ago, I was in Worthington in mid-September for the annual King Turkey Days celebration. I took some time and went to visit and give a brief speech for my long time friend Joel Krekelberg who was teaching a class entitled "Prevention and Care of Athletic Injuries." Krek as he is appropriately known in Worthington was teaching his students how to wrap ankles. Every time I get an opportunity to watch him deftly wrap an ankle is a treat because he is so good at!

After his class, I wanted to go over to the athletic building and see if any of my dad's track and cross country teams pictures were still there. We went over there and there were only a few photographs left. The athletic director was there and asked me if I wanted those photos because since track and cross country were eliminated from their sports options, eventually they would be thrown away when the football team pictures crowded them out. I gladly took them and want to share a couple with you now of my father's very successful track and cross country program in the eight years he ran the program that he took over when Bruce Traphagen turned over the program to Dad in the fall of 1968.

I am attaching a couple photographs and their yearly haul of trophies:

As always, click on the images to make them larger:

Some of you may recognize yourself or someone you know. One of the members of the track team, Jerry Schnyders, back row, second from right, I have known since we lived in Edgerton and played baseball together in the mid-1960s!

Roger Schipper who is on the far right in the second row lived with my family for a while when he first moved to Rochester to become the trainer at the Community College. Later, when he was finishing his student teaching, he stayed with Dave Bisbee and me in my first apartment in Minneapolis.

This is fun for me to look at old pictures of not only my dad but also friendships that have lasted many years. I wrote a lot about that in my book.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Black Lives Matter!

Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you about one black man who has had a tremendous influence on my life. Shortly after I moved to this apartment in mid August 2012 I was coming down the sidewalk after running a few errands to get little things we could not find in our packing.

Ahead of me was a thin, small black man who was using his phone. He did not hear me when I asked him if I could get by. I kind of snuck up on him and scared him. I apologized for scaring him and went on my way. I went around the building and came in the front door as Robert was coming in the backdoor. We did not know each other lived in the building. We laughed and introduced ourselves. That was the first time I met Robert Foster and we became fast friends at that moment.

Robert lived in the building with his brother, Rodney and was his primary Personal Care Attendant (PCA) and shortly came to work for me as well.

He had an infectious smile and loud, booming voice. From behind my apartment walls, I could hear if Robert was in the lobby.

He became part of my extended family and we did a number of things together including making a trip to the annual Smith pheasant hunt in South Dakota. Here is a photograph taken in 2013 during that trip:

 As always, click on the image to make it larger:

We were in the barn on the farm my uncle is renovating and Robert was teasing me about something trying to get me to smile and I was not going to give him the satisfaction!

He read my book, enjoyed it and we had many discussions which came from points he found interesting. He told me he learned a lot from me and that meant a great deal. I try to mentor and teach just about everyone I come in contact with. We had a great connection and love of all things sports especially basketball. We meshed from the very beginning and the race difference went away from the very beginning.

He loved to play basketball and often shared stories of when he played at North High School in Minneapolis. We would often watch football and basketball games together and SportsCenter was always on when he would get me up in the morning.

Robert loved life and despite overcoming many tragedies with losing his daughter because a kidney transplant did not take, a mother suffering from Alzheimer's disease, his brother being paralyzed and struggling, a brother with AIDS, just to name a few of the tragedies he is overcome in these little more than three years I knew him. He had a strong faith and inner drive we all can aspire to have!

He also liked his Nikes! He had around two hundred pair many of which have never been taken out of the box! He even had a storage shed full of his shoes and a few other assorted items.

A couple years ago, he was struggling with a car and needed $1200 to get a used car to get him through the winter. I put my old financial planning hat on to try and see if we could straighten out his financial situation. The first thing he did was open a checking account at the bank just up the street. Then, he got a credit card which he used sparingly just to establish his credit.

Shortly after that, he went up the road a ways to an Acura dealer and bought a very nice car for around $6,000. He loved that car and it was always in immaculate condition. They gave him a good deal and treated them very well all because he was in the system now and not living from paycheck to paycheck. He was also building up a small investment.

I am very proud to say he learned how to use the system to his advantage from me.

The other great thing he had going for him was the love of his life, Lisa. They were always together and shared many experiences that helped him get through all of the tragedy he was dealing with. They were soul mates and found each other and had a great time together.

He was like a member of our family and even called my mother, Moms! They also got along great together. We teased each other we were brothers from different mothers. We also referred to ourselves as ebony and ivory, chocolate and vanilla, salt-and-pepper. You get the idea about the young man growing up in the inner-city and connecting with another man who grew up living in small towns across the Midwest. We came from very different backgrounds; however, that did not matter. We overcame those differences from the very beginning.

I am not positive about Robert's exact cause of death, I just know he went very quickly these last few months and had something to do with renal and liver failure. I have a hard time believing he is gone. It will hit me at his service on December seventh.

I know I need to go through the grieving process and it will take some time as I am still in denial. I wish you well in your next world, Robert. Peace be with you and we must take solace in the fact your pain is gone. I will miss you my friend.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Another Gopher Basketball Season Is Underway!

Once again I am excited about the upcoming Gopher basketball season, as I have been going to watch since my first one in 1973 when I saw my first game with a good friend, Mike Johnson. After a brief stint of going to games in Berkeley when the conference was the Pac-8, I returned to Minneapolis and have had season tickets for almost forty years including season tickets when I was a student and tickets were six dollars!

The Barn will not be rocking tomorrow afternoon and not all the seats will be filled, but I still enjoy being in that old place and watching my favorite college basketball team! I have great seats sitting at almost midcourt in the front row right behind the broadcasters. Oftentimes people can see me while they interview the broadcasters at halftime.

Here is a great picture of the scoreboard several years ago my sister took from her seat about twenty rows up. Notice the balance scoring. You do not see that every day. In fact, I have never seen it again:

 As always, click on the image to make it larger:

The Barn was rocking that night as the Gophers were playing Michigan State. I do not know what year it was, but I do know it was during the Monson years.

Williams Arena has undergone a few changes since then. The most noticeable change is the lowering of the floor several inches. Other than that, I believe Williams is the second or third oldest college basketball arenas in the country! 

If you have ever been in The Barn during a close game or a major run by the home team you can attest to the excitement, energy and noise in that place. I love those nights in The Barn! It is those nights that get me through these frigid Minnesota winters!

During the 1996-'97 season which was officially wiped out because of all the NCAA rules violations of then coach Clem Haskins The Barn was especially loud as the Gophers had their finest season in history. They went to the Final 4 that year and lost the first game to Tubby Smith's Kentucky team which won the National Championship two days later.

Longtime Gopher fans will remember Coach Smith and his own downfall when he came and coached the Gophers.

Richard Pitino is entering his third year at the helm of the Gophers amidst his own allegations when he was an assistant for his father at Louisville. We will follow his situation and see what happens.

I wrote earlier how I had taken a break while I attended school at the University of California, Berkeley. When I arrived on campus in late 1973, I started researching the campus to find out where I could go to watch the Golden Bears basketball team play the likes of UCLA, USC and Stanford.

When I got to Harmon Gym, I was shocked it had thirteen steps into the front door. This was Berkeley, how could that be?

I went up to the Physically Disabled Student Program (PDSP) and asked my good friend, Ed Roberts why Harmon was not accessible? He told me it was on their list of trying to get all the old buildings on campus made accessible to students with disabilities. Ed told me if I wanted to get a ramp in the building with automatic door openers I should go to the Dean's office and ask how we can get it done. That was the beginning of my student activism on campus!

To make a long story short, that summer the University began construction of this ramp into the building. This picture is my father and me checking out the construction when my mom and dad made a road trip with me to get back for the upcoming school year. My uncle, Terry was stationed in McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento and he rode with us for the trip until we dropped him off at the base.

I like the look on my dad's face as he carefully inspected the work going on:

 

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

The ramp was finished by basketball season and I was able to see some of my classmates play ball for the Golden Bears that year.

Basketball has always and always will be my favorite sport. I am not only a fan, but a coach and student of the game. I often do coaching from my seat and amaze people who come to the game with me not knowing much about the intricacies of a trapping midcourt defense or beating a 2-3 zone defense.

After playing and watching basketball pretty much my entire life I find myself teaching my friends things I learned from my dad and Flip Saunders in my time at Golden Valley Lutheran College.

Here is a photograph of Flip and me at one of our games. It is still hard to believe he is gone!

Click on the image to make it larger:

I also used some of those techniques when I coached my nephew for three years playing Park and Rec ball in St. Paul when he was just learning the game. One of my players told me he really appreciated the game much more because of everything I taught him about playing and watching basketball.

Back to Williams Arena and the upcoming season. Last year was a disappointing year after winning the NIT in Pitino's first year. After going 17-15 last year, I am looking forward to the new recruits and watching the development of last year's players.

Go Gophers!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Happy Father's Day

This post marks a special post for me besides wishing all fathers a wonderful day with family and friends on Sunday, June 15, 2014. Before I address my main goal in this post, let me first explain the other reason this is a special post.

This post marks the three hundredth post I have written on this blog! My first post was August 1, 2007. It was entitled "When Bridges Fall" and you can imagine what the topic was for that post. If you would like to read it, click here. If that does not get you there, click on this link: http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2007/08/when-bridges-fall.html I would be curious to see if you think my posts have changed since then.

Now, let me address the intent of this post. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you read my last post about my father and what would have been his eighty-first birthday. I told you in that post there was plenty more I wanted to write about my dad but it already rambled on long enough. As you know, some of my posts get rather lengthy as I am using voice recognition software Dragon Dictate; and once I get started speaking, I have a hard time stopping!

Like I stated in last week's post, my dad played for a living. As a coach for many different sports and several ages he was always playing right along side his athletes. I did not use the term student/athletes because some of his programs were summer programs and we were not students when we played summer baseball.

I showed you a picture in last week's post of him teaching me how to bat left-handed. He was always mentoring, coaching, teaching and playing with me. I had a very special relationship with him in that sense.

In the summer of 1968, he accepted the vacant guidance counselor and track and cross country coach job at Worthington State Junior College. He left the guidance counselor and baseball coach position he had been in Sibley, Iowa for only two years.

Worthington was the eighth town I had lived in before I was fourteen years old, and we had lived in sixteen different locations. Dad continued to get better jobs all along the way and we never stayed anywhere more than three years.

I write in my book "I Still Believe In Tomorrow" I really believe the reason I have been able to adjust to all of the changes I have had to adjust to since my accident was because I was being groomed to deal with change growing up as a child and moving all the time. I was adjusting to different houses, friends, schools and very different environments going from an Indian reservation to a small town comprised of a very conservative, very Dutch community in southwestern Minnesota.

This picture was taken when dad took the job at Worthington when he was only thirty-five years old:

Click on the image to make it larger:

He was not very old, but he finished his career in the community college ranks in Worthington for eight years; then seventeen years at Rochester Community College in Rochester, Minnesota as a physical education and health teacher; as well as their track and cross country coach.

Besides being my dad, he was also my best friend. I was with him constantly and he taught me all kinds of things. I want to show you this picture of how he was teaching me at a very young age how to read a scorebook after one of his high school basketball games before I was even four.

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

First and foremost, he was a teacher, then a coach and lastly my friend. I remember going to his biology classroom when we lived in McLaughlin, South Dakota and a student had brought in a bald eagle in a cage. I remember walking around the cage and having that eagle follow me around the room almost the entire way with his flexible neck.

What a treat for a young child to be able to go to Dad's workplace, see an eagle, a live rattlesnake and other animals in formaldehyde, learn big words from his Anatomy, Muscular, Skeletal and other charts that would carry me through my life and stick with me today. His biology classroom in both McLaughlin and Edgerton, Minnesota were treasure troves of knowledge for my young mind. Gastrocnemius, sternocleidomastoid, pectoralis major, gluteus maximus, medius and minimus and brachioradialis, remain some of my favorite words today!

Once again, I could go on and on; but let me end this post by wishing all of you fathers and grandfathers a wonderful day with your family either in person or in thought, if not those free weekend cell phone minutes, Skype or FaceTime a wonderful day on Father's Day!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Good Grammar Part Two

Last year in my March third and my September thirtieth posts I wrote about how I believe good grammar is going the way of the dinosaur. I mentioned several examples of how people who should know better are using poor grammar. I still believe that is wrong. I strongly believe we are dumbing down not only our youth in schools, but the adult population as well. In my September 30, 2013 post, I stated, "Those are just two suggestions. I have many more. I will save those for another post." 

Well, this is that post. You may reach those sites by clicking on these URLs:

http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-happened-to-good-grammar.html

http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-we-dumbing-down-our-young-people.html


A few days ago, I posted this graphic on my Facebook page in the form of a test, and asked people if they had passed it. I received several comments agreeing with me and giving me examples. I would like to share both the graphic and some of the comments made in response to it:

My comments started out with one from Laurie in Maine with this, "… I see them all spelled wrong every single day but I have learned to let it go! I realized it was making me crazy to see it … now it just doesn't. All I have to care about is if I spell it right!  Makes for much less stress inside me!

Amy from Worthington wrote, "I also notice it a lot. My Mom was a stickler for good grammar, and now, so am I. I still cringe when I hear it spoken!"

Then I stated, "I have learned to pick my battles." What I meant by that was there are certain times I will correct someone because they have told me they want to change and they appreciate my teaching them. Other times, I just consider the source and have given up on trying to change someone's bad speech patterns. I figure they will learn in due time; and it may sink in sooner or later.

Another situation will happen when I do not know the individual and figure I am not going to change his or her behavior by correcting her or his grammar. Like I said, "I have learned to pick my battles."

Amy then followed with, "I never say anything to the offender, but I mentally thank my Mom."

Jeanne commented, "An advantage of working at school, I passed easily! However, I agree with you about picking your battles!"

Angela from Ireland, then stated, "Thank you Mike! Please send this to everyone everywhere; these are all errors that make me unreasonably upset on a daily basis. Becoming pedantic in my old age."

Eric, is now teaching in Egypt for two years along with his wife, Donna, wrote this, "Don't you guys get it ... Mike will NEVER stop picking this battle. And he shouldn't! …" He followed that with,  "Us old farts have to keep the language alive if we possibly can."

Eric also said, "Teaching in the Minneapolis public schools for 30 years has caused me to take a hit being able to speak proper English … but keep on fighting the good fight my friend!"

There were a couple more, longer quotes from Eric and other teachers; and I started talking about other grammar mistakes that bothered me until I got a quote from Di in New Zealand who stated she passed my little grammar test with flying colors!

My last post was this, "Another grammatical faux pas that really bothers me is when people split their infinitives! I get especially annoyed when professionals on the TV news or sports broadcasts say something like, "They play that way, still." That is just wrong! One would think professional journalists never took English Composition 101."

The thing I found remarkable about my Facebook post was how I had received Comments from three different continents and Likes from approximately fifteen states. I love the fact the Internet can teach all over the world! I have Facebook friends from five continents and I do not know how many countries are represented by people that read this blog either on Blogger, Google+ or other means of Internet transmission. I do know my website has been visited by people from well over one hundred countries!

I also do not know how many people have bought my book that live outside of the United States. I believe that is kind of cool, and incredible to think someone halfway around the world is reading this post right now!

I look forward to your comments and any grammar related issues that cause you pain to hear!

Later,

Mike

My Uncle Ed

My Uncle Ed was laid to rest yesterday beside his loving wife, Mabel. Although, everyone called her Tabby. For as long as I can remember, most everyone called him Ralph or Ralphie. Ed was the sixth child of my maternal grandparents Joe and Erma Smith. Ed was born in 1945 and after graduating from White High School in tiny White, South Dakota he enlisted in the Army.
 
Four years later, he found himself in Vietnam where he had volunteered to be a door gunner. He flew eight missions in the most dangerous position one could have in combat. For those of you that do not know what a door gunner is, they were the guys on the doors of the helicopters firing machine guns into the jungle as the choppers came in to rescue the wounded and other soldiers after an encounter with the Viet Cong. Only 8% of door gunners came home!

We have all heard the phrase, “I’ve got your back.” Being a door gunner is the epitome of having your brothers in arms backs! Door gunners saved many lives and had an incredibly high mortality rate because the VC were aiming at them! The enemy knew if they could take out the door gunners, they had a much better chance of survival because no one would be firing back at them.

Ed never talked about his experience in Vietnam, but talking to my other uncles, reading about the war, and talking to other people, I have learned more than I ever care to about war. You may have heard the famous General William Sherman’s statement to the Mayor and Councilmen of Atlanta before he burned the city to the ground, “War is hell!” If you have experienced battle, you know all too well what that statement means. If you have not experienced combat, ask someone who has and see what they tell you — if they are willing to talk about it. It will make you think twice about wanting to serve in a battle zone.

In May 1967, my grandma died very unexpectedly. Ed’s two older brothers who were active military at the time and had some high ranking connections, got Ed out of the Army on a hardship discharge to go home and help grandpa run the farm. There were still four younger siblings living at home and grandpa needed help. Fortunately, Bill and Bob were able to use their connections and get Ed out of his military obligation.

After several years of being out of the Army, Ed reenlisted and served sixteen more years to retire from the Army with twenty years of service. Between my mom’s seven brothers, they have a combined eighty-two years of military service in all four branches of our Armed Forces. I have always contended you cannot find many families that have made that much of a commitment to serve our country from one generation of young men in one family.

To a man, whenever I bring that up, none of my uncles think it is such a big deal and other families have done more. That may be true; but I believe eighty-two years from one family is pretty impressive!

Sometime in 1969, Ed was struggling with what today would be called survivor’s guilt and probably PTSD. He was in Marshall, Minnesota and called mom to tell her he was thinking about taking his own life because he felt he could have done more and he should not have left his buddies back in Vietnam.

Mom asked him if he had enough money to get a bus to Worthington. He said he did and he came to live with us for a year. That school year we had thirteen people living in our house! Besides my mom and dad, my four siblings, (Chad had not been born yet), two uncles, four renters in our apartment in the front half of our basement, and me we had a Baker’s dozen under one roof.

One of our renters was also a Vietnam vet who had combat experience with a K-9 unit in Vietnam. He would share some of his stories and kept us mesmerized for hours listening to his experiences with his dog in a combat zone. The four renters we had were all college student/athletes and my mother fed all of us that year. She charged them one dollar for lunch and a dollar and a half for dinner. We went through one hundred pounds of potatoes every two weeks, gallons and gallons of milk and more food than you can imagine. It was like living on Walton’s Mountain!

We had to eat in shifts because thirteen people would not fit around our dining room table. You just hoped if you got the second shift, there was still enough food left to fill your stomach.

Ed did several different jobs that year starting at Campbell’s Soup Company where he worked a number of jobs I do not want to describe. He did not have enough money to buy a car, so he rode my brother’s bicycle to work that fall. 

By winter, he was working in the Worthington Co-op gas station pumping gas, checking the oil and doing all the things full service gas station attendants did back in the day. He also worked in the shop doing car repair work. It was during that time he bought an old Studebaker for $50.00. I will never forget that Brown Studebaker with the bright red rims coming to pick me up from basketball practice to give me a ride home after he got off the shift from the co-op.

One day, Ed did 180° turn on the street in front of the playground while Chuck Peterson and I watched from inside the school door as we waited for our rides. When Ed drove up on the curb a little bit, rolled the window down, and yelled, “Come on Fat Cat, the hawk’s a bitin’!” 

Chuck looked at me and wanted to know who that was. I said, “Oh, that’s just my uncle Ralph!” 

For those of you that do not know what the euphemism, “the hawk is biting,” is all about, it refers to the wind is blowing and it is cold!

Ed’s younger brother, Terry, also lived with us that year and the next while he went to the junior college in Worthington. It was during those two years Terry became more like a big brother to me than my uncle. Before that, Terry, Dee and Tim who are the youngest three siblings in mom’s family were more like cousins then aunt and uncles. They still are.

After a year living with us, Ed enrolled in the vocational school in Pipestone, Minnesota and studied carpentry. I am not sure exactly which year he decided to go back into the Army, but at some point, he reenlisted and served his duration to retire after twenty years of service.

It was in the Army he met and married Tabby. They have one daughter, Amanda, who is married and lives in Mifflintown with her husband, Guy Bowman.

I know this is turning into a long post, but I want to share one more story about my relationship with Ed.

In 1995 I started a youth oriented business in White I called Prairie Woods. The whole idea of Prairie Woods was to recycle old or waste wood and make unique products out of the material. We also got a job taking down roughly three hundred ash trees and sold them as firewood. I hired Ed to come back from Mifflintown and help me run the business in the lumberyard in White. I was going to turn an empty lumberyard into a source for local farmers to buy used wood from barns we had torn down, products we were building like feed bunks and storage sheds. I wanted to give the young people experience and responsibility in product design, manufacturing, marketing and various aspects of running a business.


Here is a picture of part of my crew sitting in some of the Adirondack chairs we had made from a kit I got from a friend who was doing a youth project here in Minneapolis.

Click on the image to enlarge:

How is that for a motley looking crew? There is not a lot of diversity in White, South Dakota. These boys and the rest of my crew knew how to work. I would like to think I helped them in some way to develop into productive and responsible young men and women.

Prairie Woods failed due to a number of reasons. Ed went back to Mifflintown to be with his wife and daughter. Even though that business venture failed, I had a lot of fun teaching those young people new skills and being around a project that was the right thing to do. Plus, I love the smell of wood!

I could go on and on telling you stories about my uncle Ed, but I think you get my point. I will miss him and appreciate the fact I got to talk to him about two weeks ago for a while one Sunday afternoon. Little did I know that would be the last time I got to talk to him?

Life is like that. We never know when it will be our time.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Young People And Change

Most Fridays I try to spend an hour on a conference call with the group called "The Good Men Project." It runs from 12 noon till 1 PM Eastern time. Today we had an interesting discussion on change and changing cultural norms towards how society views men and what men are doing to try and change some preconceived notions.

Whenever I get a chance to listen in, and the topic is appropriate, I have to make some comments based on my experiences. We were discussing the way men procede down their own road to discovery and how our experiences affect our journeys.

I believe everyone has a journey they travel which affects their perception and their outlook on not only their situations but the people they deal with. One man talked about his struggle with chemical abuse. He is now more than ten years chemically free and doing very well, thank you.

My comments regarding each one of our own life path or journey was one of reflection on my own "recovery" if you will of my spinal cord injury. Now more than forty-two years later, I still find myself dealing with issues that go way back on an ongoing basis.

The interesting thing that came out of the conversation was how our journeys began at a fairly young age. Several people mentioned times when they needed mentors and may not have had one when they began their particular behavior that led them down a self-induced destructive path.

I believe as we all travel our journeys we need mentors and teachers to guide us in a positive direction. Some of us are fortunate to have positive role models to teach us starting at an early age. Others are not so lucky. They may not have grown up in a functional two-parent family, or a dysfunctional two-parent family. They may not have grown up with a functional adult role model at all.

In our ever-changing world when young people do not grow up with positive role models, they often learn behaviors from peers who may not have their best interest in mind. Another example is when the adult role models boys and girls grow up around our dysfunctional themselves and teach negative behaviors to impressionable young minds.

The discussion will often take off in many directions as it did today. The good thing about that is those discussions often lead to more interesting topics than what was on the original agenda. I like that flexibility when learning takes place you were not expecting.

The discussions are always interesting and open to anyone interested in becoming involved. If you have any interest I encourage you to go to their website by clicking on the address in the first paragraph, and checking out The Good Men Project!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Seventy-two Years Ago Today

Seventy-two years ago today, America was waking up to the news of the worst attack on American soil in the history of our nation. Pearl Harbor had been bombed by Japanese pilots in a raid that murdered thousands of Americans stationed on that tiny island of Oahu in the South Pacific Ocean.

The mission was simple: destroy the American fleet in the South Pacific and gain military dominance to control that entire section of the world.

Shortly thereafter, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on the Japanese and brought us into World War II.

It had only been a little more than twenty-three years since the Great War had ended on November 11, 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles that ended the "War to end all wars." After what is now known as World War I ended and the United States became the greatest isolationist country in the world, we were thrust back into war that would take us to Asia, Europe and North Africa.

We fought against three dictators and allied ourselves with one. In very short time, the American fighting forces have become the largest and best-equipped military in the history of the world.

Notice in my description I used extreme terms like worst, greatest, largest and best. I did that for a reason. Granted, today marks the anniversary of what President Roosevelt called, "A day that will live in infamy."

It was only sixty years later when we had a new greatest attack on our country when more Americans were killed on September 11, 2001.

The problem I have with all these hyperboles is they are overused in our everyday speech and writing. How many times have you heard someone say something like, "This is the worst cup of coffee I have ever had."?

Another one is when a reporter is describing a story and he or she will say, "This is a parent's worst nightmare." Another one is when someone is describing a problem and they say, "This is the biggest problem I have ever had to deal with."

With our ever-changing technology and people writing and saying things that can go all over the world instantly, I believe we need to take a look at just what it is we are saying. I want to attach I hand out I have often used in workshops I call "50 Words I Never Use":

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You may notice some discrepancies in my list. Please note this list is done purely with my tongue lodged in my cheek. I am positive there are many more words that could go on this list; I just thought fifty was a nice round number.

My whole point in writing this post is to get people to think about the words they use and how they use them. You may or may not agree with me; however, I believe our words are very important and we need to think about how we use them before we say or write them down. Was that really the best hamburger you ever had? Does everyone have a cell phone? Is that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? Is she really the smartest person in the room?

I promise to never post something like this again.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Alexandria's Aces

Alexandria, Minnesota has a very successful mentoring program going on in their middle school, and it all revolves around basketball. Larry Novotny is mentoring, teaching and coaching a group of young student/athletes through basketball.

Most of my friends know basketball is my favorite sport, and I have been around it my entire life in one way or another.

From the 1977-'78 season through the 1979-'80 basketball season, I was an assistant coach for the new general manager of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Flip Saunders, at his first coaching job at tiny Golden Valley Lutheran College (GVLC) in Golden Valley, Minnesota. We had the youngest coaching staff in the country with Saunders, Mike Cervony and me at only twenty-two years of age. Our third assistant, Dan Kozmoski, was only twenty-one. We had a player who had been in the military and he was twenty-three!

All four of us coaches were still in college. When Saunders played at the University of Minnesota the previous four years, he had been recruited by Bill Musselman as a point guard. Musselman had a pregame show that involved a lot of ball-handling drills, fancy passing, and synchronized activities that electrified home crowds. People would arrive hours in advance to make sure they got a good seat to see the pregame show. If you were ever in Williams Arena during the Musselman Era, I am sure you remember what a show they put on!

Bill Musselman taught a walk-on player by the name of George Schauer to do elaborate ball-handling tricks including spinning multiple basketballs at once. "Crazy George" as he is known today, is still performing his basketball wizardry all over the world.

Saunders liked that pregame show so much he brought it to his first coaching job at GVLC. That is where this post really begins. Larry Novotny wanted to be on our basketball team and Saunders gave him a chance if he could learn to do what George Schauer was doing.

Larry took the challenge and was the star of our pregame warm-up drills. I believe the most balls he had spinning at one time was seven! He would sit down and place a pencil in each shoelace whereupon he put a spinning basketball on each pencil, he had a strap on each knee that held another ball on a pencil, he devised a brace for his chin that held one more ball and lastly, he spun a ball on the fingertip on each hand. That tiny gym was a fun place to be!

Besides our pregame show, we had a pretty good team. We went three years without losing a game at home. We had two Junior College All-Americans, a 63–11 record; won our conference all three years I was there and placed second in the state tournament the first and last year I coached. Saunders stayed there for two more years before going back to the University as a graduate assistant.

That brings us to what Larry Novotny has been doing with his middle school students at halftime shows throughout the country for the last twenty-four years! There is a wonderful article about Alexandria's Aces at this link. Just click here.

Look at the joy in Larry's eyes as he is addressing this year's group of young students who are trying out for the Aces. Does it look like he is having fun? After all, basketball should be fun for anybody that plays and loves the game. When I was the age of the students, I was in the gym all the time. My dad was a high school coach and I spent many hours learning from him and the older student/athletes I so admired. These young student/athletes are also getting that wonderful feeling of enjoyment playing basketball. I think this is a wonderful program Larry Novotny is doing, and I applaud him for his dedication and commitment to these young people.

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Think of the trips and experiences these young people are getting as they travel around the country performing in front of as many as 20,000 people. They are learning teamwork, cooperation, coordination, self-esteem and who knows, maybe even a scholarship somewhere to carry on the "Crazy George" Larry Novotny ball-handling tradition!

This was how Larry got his start on our team picture for the Golden Valley Lutheran College Runnin' Royals in the fall of 1978. Larry is seated on the floor front and center right in front of head coach Flip Saunders:

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As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Forty-five Years Ago Tonight

Forty-five years ago tonight after winning and placing third in the 200-meter dash in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, John Carlos and Tommie Smith made this now famous black-glove salute during the playing of the National Anthem.

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On the left is Peter Norman from Australia. He won the silver medal. There is a great article in "The Nation" you should read by clicking here. As a side note to the 200-meter race that night, Lee Evans won the 400-meter dash the next night, he took the podium, received his gold medal and as the Star Spangled Banner started to play, he pulled out a black beret, bowed his head and protested much like Carlos and Smith did the night before.

All three athletes became pariahs because of their support for the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR). Smith and Carlos also took off their shoes and wore black stockings to represent the poverty of African-Americans in the United States. Smith and Carlos also wore OPHR pins to show support for the cause. Peter Norman also wore one of those pins to show his support.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos traded back and forth several times the world record in the 200-meter dash in the late sixties. They went on to have successful careers with John Carlos eventually earning his PhD.

One reason this photograph carries significant meaning to me is because the architect of the protest of the Olympics was Harry Edwards. Harry Edwards was my Sociology of Sport Professor at Berkley in 1974. He was an imposing figure as he lectured to us in a large hall without a microphone. He did not need one. As an undergraduate, he was a discus thrower on the San Jose State University track team. Dr. Edwards earned his PhD at Cornell. He is now a Professor Emeritus in the Sociology department at Berkeley.

Edwards told Time magazine, he "wants to serve as a role model — the promising athlete who gave up the possibility of a career in professional sports to become a scholar instead." He also stated, "We must teach our children to dream with their eyes open," he said. "The chances of your becoming a Jerry Rice or a Magic Johnson are so slim as to be negligible. Black kids must learn to distribute their energies in a way that's going to make them productive, contributing citizens in an increasingly high-technology society."

I could write a lot more about this life-defining moment, but I want to put this thing to bed and go there myself.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Fifty-nine Years Ago Today

Fifty-nine years ago today my parents were married in a small, civil ceremony in Ivanhoe, Minnesota. Here is a picture of my parents at their wedding reception in the basement of the parsonage in Aurora, South Dakota:

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Their marriage, like so many others, did not end with those three words, "happily ever after."  However, it did produce six wonderful children who I am proud to say have turned into wonderful adults.

Mom likes to jokingly say, "I didn't raise no dummies." Of course, the irony in that statement is the improper grammar, which she uses to make her point very well. 

After their wedding, Dad went on to finish his bachelor's degree from South Dakota State College in nearby Brookings in 1956. Over the years, as SDSC started offering postgraduate degree programs and became South Dakota State University, he earned two masters degrees, one in Physical and Health Education in 1961, and the other one was in Guidance and Counseling in 1967.

Of course, Dad did not earn those degrees on his own. He had help. Here is a photograph of his typist and her assistant:

I was probably more of a nuisance than an assistant; but since this is my story I am calling that large-diapered boy an assistant. I love the antique secretary behind my Mom's chair. Unfortunately, that was put in storage and never survived. We did not know what a treasure we had when we lived above the White Creamery in that tiny apartment.

We moved many times as my dad's career began to develop. When we moved to Worthington in February 1969, I was just thirteen years old. Worthington was town number eight and the house at 716 West Shore Drive was the sixteenth different location I had lived in.

Once Mom and Dad were married, they lived in a one-room utility shed on her maternal grandfather's farm for a few months. After only three or four months of being married, they moved into a house just off Main Street in Brookings and were caregivers for Fred Baker who was roughly one hundred years old. I was born when they lived with Fred.

After that school year, we moved three times. The first stop was a farm just outside of White. Then a few months about the Gambles store, a few more months above the creamery and the Odyssey was on.

That fall Dad got his first teaching and coaching job in tiny Revillo, South Dakota for two years where we lived in a small apartment behind the local café for one year. Next year saw us living in a big house until it was time to move to the next town. Are you beginning to see a theme of change and moving here?

It seems we were always moving. We went wherever my dad's job took us. Every job he got was better than the last one. Every move he made, whether it was his choice or the school board's decision to not renew his contract was an improvement over the last one. Plus, he was earning his advanced degrees, and becoming more qualified to be more of an asset to a school district.

As the years went by, our family was growing. Kathleen came along two years after me. Rick was three years later. Vicki came four years after Rick and Tammy followed four years later. Five years after Tammy, Chad arrived. He was born two years after my accident. Here is a picture of Chad and Dad on Dad's farm shortly before he died July 23, 2006:

My parents divorced in 1991. Chad had just finished high school, and Mom and Chad moved to a small house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota where Mom still lives today. 

The day Mom and I took Dad to the Mayo Clinic for the last time when the doctors told him he did not need to come back because there was nothing more they could do for him unless he wanted to have chemotherapy, we had a very special moment before Mom and I left Dad at his farm.

Dad gave me a big hug as we both were crying, he said, "We had a good run, didn't we? He was still talking about running even as he was dying.

Then it was Mom's turn for a goodbye hug. Mom said as she hugged him, "I loved you a lot longer than I liked you."

That comment puzzled my dad and he did not know quite what to say. It was a very touching moment and one I will always remember.

I have so many stories I could tell you about what happened fifty-nine years ago today; but I have gone on long enough. Thanks for reading. This was good for me!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Clyde Turner's Educational Basketball Camp

I had fun in the last thirty hours. Please indulge me and let me tell you what happened. On Thursday after my acupuncture appointment, I ran a few errands. One of them was to stop off at the OfficeMax store and get a new printer cartridge. I found my printer but could not locate the printer cartridges.

So, I wandered around the store looking for someone to help me. I got back by their copy area and waited my turn for the next available employee. She happened to be helping a large, black man who I recognized as Clyde. Remind you; Clyde is hard to miss. He is six feet nine inches tall and casts a large shadow.

Clyde played for the University of Minnesota in the early seventies with Jim Brewer, Ron Behagan, Corky Taylor and Dave Winfield, among others. That team won the 1972 BIG 10 Championship. They were fun to watch!  Bill Musselman was their coach and did a fun, choreographed pregame show to "Sweet Georgia Brown" and "Keep The Ball Rollin'" which filled Williams Arena well before game time just to watch the show.

When I coached at Golden Valley Lutheran College, Phil Saunders had us doing that same routine at our home games in a tiny gymnasium that was packed an hour before tip-off. If you had tickets to Golden Gopher games back then, you know what I am talking about.

I am getting off task again! Meanwhile, back to OfficeMax and the copy center. When the woman came out from behind the counter to help me get my printer cartridge, she was standing about five feet from Clyde. I told her I had two things I needed help with. The first one was if she knew Clyde Turner played basketball for the Gophers back in the early seventies? I heard he could still play! Of course, I said it loud enough so he could hear me. You should have seen the look he gave me. It was precious!

He said, "I know Clyde Turner."

I acted surprised and replied,  "Clyde, you're Clyde!"

"No, I'm his twin brother."

I said, "I didn't know Clyde had a twin brother."

Clyde replied, "He doesn't, I am Clyde."

He was playing me just like I was playing with him. It was a great exchange, something I will never forget. He told me I looked familiar. Then I told him I had spoken at his camp several years ago. In reality, I spoke at its camps twice in 1994! He remembered my visits.

We started talking and I gave him my book to show him the picture of the Golden Valley Lutheran College Royals the first season I was one of their assistant coaches in 1977. He was pleased to see all four of the coaches as he knew all four of us. It was another one of those fun exchanges I have all the time.

He told me he was having a camp right now and was ending today at 4 PM with the parents coming for an award ceremony. I asked him if you would like to let me say a few words to close their ceremony. He said that would be great!

So this afternoon about 2:30, I went up to the Phillips Community Center, sat in on the last hour and a half of camp, gave a little motivational speech, talked about Clyde and all he has accomplished outside of basketball, told how valuable a mentor and coach he was, discussed the staff and their commitment to helping these young people improve their basketball skills, and ultimately their attitudes towards life. He has been running his summer camps for twenty-seven years, and has more than ten thousand young people attend those camps!

I found out he had speakers all week long from the business, education and medical fields coming in and talking to the campers about being successful in a chosen field. I really like how he incorporates the educational component into his basketball camp. They learn basketball skills, but more importantly, they learn life skills.

I even got to play with one of the coach/counselors and ended up giving him my ATTITUDE pin! It has been a fun last thirty hours! I truly believe some learning took place.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

My Dad Would Have Been 80 Today

My dad was born 80 years ago today. He died of mesothelioma on July 23, 2006. The irony of his dying of lung cancer is he spent his entire adult life both in and out of the classroom telling people how bad smoking was for them because it was going to cause lung cancer.

He was a coach, teacher, mentor and father. I remember one day when he was recruiting a student/athlete and brought him to our house. A couple of my siblings and I were sitting at the dining room table having lunch. I tried to get his attention by saying, "Dad," waiting a little bit, and saying again, "Dad," to no avail. It was as if I did not exist. That was until I said, "Coach,"  did I get his attention. I will never forget it. I called him Coach for many years after that.

I had a different kind of relationship with him then did my other siblings, Kathleen, Rick, Vicki, Tammy and Chad. I believe they were mentored more by my mom then by my dad. Yet, as he was nearing his death they all stepped up big time and helped him in many ways I could not.

I was his shadow from the time I was old enough to walk. He had a job where he played for a living and I got to be a part of that. I really had a charmed relationship with him. I had a basketball in my hands before I could walk, and by the time I was five, I was the mascot for his McLaughlin Mighty Midgets basketball team. I was a gym rat. I was following in my father's footsteps.

Many young people today learn dinosaur names to help develop their vocabulary. My dad taught biology and had all of these wonderful charts of the human body. Dad taught me muscle names like gastrocnemius, sternocleidomastoid, pectoralis major and gluteus minimus, medius and maximus, to name just a few.

He would take me with him when he went to his classroom on a Sunday afternoon to grade papers. I helped him grade papers and played in his classroom. When we lived on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in McLaughlin, one student brought in a great horned owl, and I remember walking around his cage. The owl would look at me by turning his head almost all the way around without moving his body. Another student brought in a live rattlesnake in a small aquarium. Again, his job was fun for me.

He also taught me how to keep score in basketball and baseball games. Here is a picture of him with the scorebook from the basketball game the night before when we lived in Farmer, South Dakota:

 

I was not even four years old yet. You can tell there was mentoring and teaching going on there, and I was loving every minute of it. When I was older, I kept score, was the ball boy and bat boy for my dad's baseball teams.

Here is a photograph from the Sibley Gazette newspaper when we were on our way to the District Championship baseball game. Had we won that game, we would have gone to the Iowa Junior High School State Tournament. That was a good team:

Sibley, Iowa was town number seven before I was twelve years old. Dad was always getting a better job so we moved a lot growing up.

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After two years in Sibley, he took the track and cross country coaching and guidance counselor job at Worthington State Junior College, just seventeen miles from Sibley. Worthington, Minnesota was the eighth town for me and the sixteenth different location I had lived in before I was fourteen years old.

I am convinced one of the reasons I have been able to deal with all the change I have had to deal with since breaking my neck was because I had to deal with change growing up. I believe that prepared me for handling my accident. My dad and mom were responsible for helping me in that process. My dad was my best friend before my accident and my mom is my best friend now. Both of my parents have had a tremendous influence on who I have become today.

Happy Birthday, Dad! I miss you.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike