Varsity Kansas - The Blog

by joanna

Yep, football starts Monday. It’s so weird, though, that few teams are doing the early morning two-a-days. Doesn’t that seem wrong? But with school having started most everywhere already, it’s understandable. I know a lot of City League schools are trying to do two-a-days after school. Ugh. Not a great situation. I believe one of you posted over the weekend that it might be a good idea to start practice a week earlier now because so many schools start so early. It’s not a bad idea.

Our photographer took football pictures on Saturday for a group of players to will run in our football previews — We’ll be running them starting Sunday, Aug. 24, and we’ll have about two each day up until Thursday, Sept. 4.

The pictures went well, though. I love these times because the kids are laid back, the coaches are laid back, Jonathan and I were laid back (by the way, I think I surprised my co-worker with the fact I can throw a pretty tight spiral. Yep. I have three older brothers and I learned how to throw a football at a pretty young age.)

Anyway, there was one player who couldn’t find a white T-Shirt to wear under his uniform, and the one he found was from somewhere else. I about died. I teased him, but did promise I wouldn’t release his identity on the blog. I’m sticking to it.

Joseph Randle was there, and he made it pretty clear that he wants to be called … Joseph. I saw so many write or talk about him as Joe, that I tried to sound cool. I wasn’t. North coach Tom Beason brought his three boys and those guys are already little athletes. Campus coach Tom O’Connor’s little one was throwing nice passes, too. Coaches kids are a special breed.

OK, onto the Olympics. How about Michael Phelps’ last two races? My God, those were amazing. You know we’ll be talking about that for the rest of our lives. I mean, when it came out that he out-touched Cavic, we were high-fiving each other. I know my kids thought we were crazy.

Then the men’s 100 meters last night. Unfortunately I already knew the results. I was so irked when we were told Tyson Gay didn’t advance out of the semis and that Usain Bolt won. But the race was phenomenal. Bolt started celebrating with about 20 meters left! That’s ridiculous — and I’m not mad at him. Can you belive Ato Bolden said that Asafa Powell didn’t have any fight? Very true, but harsh words from a guy who knows. But Powell has seemed to have problems in the big races.

Dara Torres’ two races were pretty amazing, too. Can you believe that she was looking out for a competitor who was running behind because of a rip in her swim suit? What a good person.

I’m watching a beach volleyball match right now — USA women are playing. I don’t even care that it’s not live. It’s just exciting to watch.

OK, as for the other stuff. I’ll be out at a practice tomorrow afternoon for a first day of practice story. Maybe I’ll see a couple of you there.

My son goes to his second day of kindergarten tomorrow — can you believe we had to buy treats that first day? Cursed with an early-alphabet last name. But I’m hooking up all the other mothers out there — I’m setting the bar low. There will be no hand-decorated, homemade cupcakes. Nope, I’m bringing a giganto box of Goldfish. Now, please, to the other moms and dads, keep the bar low. Don’t stress me out by bringing in homemade ice cream. I can’t live up to that!

I’ve always laughed at what treats people bring to postgame celebrations (at what age does that end?). I mean, why bring cupcakes after they’ve just used up all that energy? Isn’t the point that they’ve worn themselves out and now they’ll be chill at home? That’s my point, anyway.

All right, that’s all I’ve got. What’s on your mind this Sunday? What do topic do I need to hit on thi week?

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 17th, 2008 at 3:59 p.m. and is filed under Football, The Blog, Volleyball, swimming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.