Week one.

Well week one is over. It was great. The rust is pretty much off. You'd think after 22 years it'd take a while but nope. The girls I'm working with are solid. They all did well in our first scrimmage meet (practice meet) with two achieving personal bests. It says more about the previous coaching than me but i helped a little. Anyway it bought me a little cred as i try to make my mark.

I don't have any experienced boys and so it will be a tough year for the boys in high jump. The best I'll be able to do with them is teach them how. But until they develop more they won't get high enough to contribute points wise. Boys are different than girls in the high jump. Girls are mostly developed by 9th grade and so you can get them up there a little better when they're younger. The problem with them is that the year to year improvement is less and so they get frustrated as juniors and seniors. boys just aren't strong enough for their body weights or coordinated to compete with older boys. The difference between the two is huge. So it's tougher to get boy high jumpers because they suck when they're young and so don't get the positive reinforcement to stick with it. Usually boy high jumpers appear as juniors out of the blue. I know how to keep kids around and so hopefully can bring the young uns along and provide for the future.

I think the coaches are pretty happy with me. I'm taking over the high jump duties from one coach and I think he's got his eye on me but luckily he's the head girls coach and while he might see some things he wants to address it'll be hard for him to be anything but happy when we dominate. at least that's my plan.

For me the problem that I think I'll have is that I've become a little prickly and not as agreeable as i was when I was younger. I'm fine with the kids but need to be a little more deferential to the head coaches. Over the last 20 years I've kinda got to the point where i had little tolerance for the disrespect management had for the working stiffs, and the general stupidity of those in charge. there's always been a reverse correlation between management advancement and management ability. It's made me prickly towards authority figures. I'll need to do better with that and try to remember who's show it is. They are good coaches and deserve my respect, but old habits are tough to break.

so all's well and going as planned.