Teachable Moments in Sports

As a father, when I watch sports with my sons, I seem to have an instinctual desire to turn certain key moments into valuable lessons.  I know that they will watch the action jumping out at them in high definition, lifelike color and if I don’t pair their observations with my own thoughts on certain key matters, they could end up admiring and glamorizing the wrong aspects of the game.  My feelings on trying to control and spin to my own liking any sensory input they receive is akin to China’s Internet policies.  Hey, my house, my rules and sports these days seem to be chock full of teachable moments.

My sons and I have had long talks about steroids.  Not only have I taken the whole “Say no to drugs” stance, but the intolerance I have for cheating has been made clear.  A line has been drawn regarding cheating in sports and my sons realize that performance enhancing drugs lie miles on the opposite side of it.  Once, when asking me who my favorite play as a child, Mark McGwire, was, I responded, “Who?  That guy?  That is a coward, boys.  A coward who is dead to me.”  It confused and possibly distressed them, but I felt a lot better.

Last year, when Jim Harbaugh and Jim Schwartz had their little encounter after a game, I made it clear to my sons that a certain coach was being a sore loser.  We watched video, complete with John Madden like pausing and rewinding in order to get my point across.  Last week, the Buccaneers and Giants final play controversy turned into a lecture about the difference between giving up and accepting a loss gracefully.  Of course there are also countless other small events throughout any game that provide teachable moments.  I find myself pointing to a play and telling my sons things like, “You have to keep playing until the whistle blows,” or, “You shouldn’t celebrate too soon,” and, most importantly, “See, that’s why you must always wear your cup.”

Wordless Wednesday: Summer Was Fun While it Lasted.

The Winds of Change Whisper Through the Pines and I Think it Would Be Rude to Ignore Them

I was torn today. Every now and then, one realizes that certain truths one may hold very dear don't exactly get along perfectly. They are the Felix Unger and Oscar Madison of your brain and while you roll your eyes and chuckle at the hilarity of their differences there's still always that uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach that one day one of them is going to be caught trying to stuff the dead corpse of the other down the incinerator chute. As I navigated the tree lined passages of the Northwoods, my iPhone alerted me to the incoming text message and instantly and instinctively I pulled it from my pocket to check it. This is something I never would have done five years ago. Of course, I couldn't have done it five years ago because the network reception wasn't nearly what it is today, so I suppose I ought not to get so high and mighty over the sanctity of nature with myself. Still, it bothered me slightly. When you escape into nature, you expect there to be an enveloping dome of technological regression that is somewhat comforting. It's not that you don't want to be able to reach the ones you love or be able to contact help in case of an emergency like a bear attack (though I hear the last thing you should do during a bear attack is get on your cell phone...it will only further enrage the bear and increase the ferocity with which it mauls you) it's just that you welcome the excuse to limit your contact with the outside world. Simultaneouly, I was ashamed to be excited. I love for my sons to be on the cutting edge of technology. I love that they show me how to do things on the iPad. I love that they have begun to show me effective video game techniques. I suppose I will enjoy it slightly less when they begin to kick my ass at said video games, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. So, when the two sides of my psyche collided, the side that loves getting away from it all and the side that feels the constant need to be plugged into it all, my head began to swim. I texted my response and immediately dragged my boys onto a canoe and started paddling. And while I ran from my choice between technological progress and good old fashioned outdoorsy fun, the answer came to me. I didn't need to make a choice at all. If the two sides of me were to coexist, who was I to resist. After all, religion and science can find common ground. Okay, that is an admittedly terrible example. But I'm sure I can make this work. I have to. Besides, what's the harm in catching a largemouth bass and immediately posting my celebratory photo on Facebook? Once I'm done using the iPad's 3G network to write this blog post, I'll shut it down and pick up an old paperback book and read unto the wee hours. Then I'll wake up in the morning and do some fishing first thing all by myself from the dock. I'd better set the alarm on my iPhone so I get up on time. (Note my inability to properly edit the format of this post...I am so roughing it)

Sometimes There is No Bad Guy, Just a Bad Game

The end has come to one of the most rewarding summer activities of my life.  My wife and I undertook the challenge of coaching both my sons as they played pee-wee baseball together this year.  Our top priority from the start was to help every kid on the team gain confidence and learn how to play the game while still having fun.  The winning, we figured, would follow.

In fact, we planned to have the winning follow a long time after the beginning of the season.  Our league placed us in the unique position of making the playoffs no matter what our record.  On top of that, all six teams would be randomly seeded, so we had just as much chance of earning a first round bye as any other team.

So the season rolled on and we piled up losses like Rush Limbaugh stockpiles oxycodone.  I reckoned that we would take winning more seriously once the playoffs arrived and that if we didn’t manage to turn things around then, at least the kids would be used to losing and take it in stride.

What happened in our first playoff game made me feel like a genius.

How Sweet It Is

It has been a long baseball season.  Practices and games galore have left little free time for my usual pastimes of writing blog posts, drinking beer and playing video games.  To add to the frustration of the commitment I made at the beginning of the season to coach my sons’ team, the time and effort put in has not always yielded results.  During sixteen games this season, we won only two.

As a pee-wee coach, my responsibility has been to place the progression of my young players above all else, including winning.  I explained this to all of my players early on and have repeated it over and over.  While they watched as their peers on other teams celebrated wins, my players consoled themselves with the reassurance that they were learning.  While kids said openly, “You guys stink, we creamed you last time,” my players muttered to themselves, “These games don’t count.”  While one team pitched the same three kids all season long, every kid on our team who wanted to pitch got an opportunity.  While that same team held their kids at static positions, our players were rotating in and out of the infield and getting valuable experience, even at the risk of their own personal safety and the potential of taking a line drive to the noggin while they scribbled their own name into the infield dirt.

A Happy Day Indeed

The past two months have seen fewer posts here at Transformer Generation Dad.  My work schedule has been hectic and add to that the fact that I have taken on the intense responsibility of coaching my sons' pee-wee baseball team and you get one blogger with a serious lack of free time.


Then came Fathers Day.  A day when dads around the world open boxes to find Star Wars ties, get served their favorite meals, watch (or play for the lucky ones) golf and lie in their hammocks.  It's an all around day for dads to do what they want.


During the pre-game warm-ups, if you will, I anticipated that I might squeeze in a little writing time some time after accepting the hand drawn cards and scarfing down my breakfast in bed and some time before having to go to work that night (let's hear it, "Awwwww, poor me").  I had even tried to conjure up a few different themes to discuss.  The day was all set to be lazily spent on my bed with equal parts television remote, laptop and video game controller at my fingertips.  Yes, I am easy to please.


But it didn't take long for those plans to change.  Soon enough, my sons insisted on sitting on the bed beside me as we took in G4's marathon showing of the Top 100 Video Games of All Time.  That, in turn, led me to stare at their little faces and bear witness yet again to their reverence for all that is gaming.  It is times like these when my worries over raising them properly are dispelled.  I realize that I have instilled in my boys a true and undying passion for all that which is awesome.  They are developing into tiny versions of me personality-wise and for at least a day I allowed that to not terrify me.


I felt inspired to connect with my sons even more.  After all, this devotion to their craft didn't come from spending time writing while they wasted the hours by themselves in front of the television in the basement, controllers in hand.  No, I have been right alongside them with a controller in my own hand for many of those hours.  It is I who have provided the guiding light through the most challenging of levels.  Haven't you noticed the giant orange banner at the top of this page?


And so, witty commentary and weekly features be damned, the majority of the rest of the day (after finding out which game was, predictably, number one) we played video games together.  To be specific, we played number 67.


Here's to all the dads out there, including my own.  I hope that each and every one of you spent the day soaking in all that is the joy of parenthood.

Kids These Days

When I pick up my sons from school, I often find myself overwhelmed by the swarming crowds of children pouring from the institution like locusts descending upon a field of grain.  Walking along the sidewalk, I feel as if we have become engulfed in a river of adolescent fervor and I fear being swept away by the current of preteen hormone fueled mass.  At that point, I grip my sons’ hands tightly for dear life, which probably makes them uncomfortable because they are at the cusp of the age when such things will begin to embarrass them, especially while surrounded by an ocean of their friends.

But this is a natural reaction to crowds for me.  I avoid them whenever possible, but there’s only so much you can do when your seven and nine year olds need a ride home, so I tolerate it the best I can.

Over several years, I find that the aspect of this afterschool madness which has come to bother me the most is not the crowd itself.  I am somewhat capable of staying in touch with my own childhood (maybe you’ve noticed) and can understand the excitement of being released from your day long holding cell while surrounded by a like-minded mob.  What grates on me is the complete disregard of any grown-ups in the crowd.

I have watched kids shove one another with adults in the midst of the crowd.  Sometimes the shoving victim runs into one of the parents, including me.  Kids will spit, swear and fight all without the slightest concern that a nearby adult will grab them by the ear and shout, “Knock it off!”

Perhaps this is an indication that I am getting older.  This may be a back-in-my-day moment, but I don’t think it is.  More likely, I feel it is disgust at the sloppiness of the current generation’s misbehavior.

Don't Bully Tebow, Even Though I Know You Totally Want To

I am not a Tim Tebow fan.  I have absolutely no personal interest in him.  That’s not to say I hate him, but I can see how people are annoyed by him.

Take a guy who is not the prototypical NFL quarterback, who is actually not a particularly good quarterback,  and surround him with a media circus despite the fact that he is a back up (likely the most talked about second string QB in the league’s history) and you are bound to get sports fans upset.  They want to hear about the good players, not have personal interest stories rule Sports Center every night.

Perhaps even more polarizing is Tebow’s religion.  Let me be clear, God does not give a crap which team wins…ever.  Whatever all-powerful deity you believe in stays out of such matters.  They probably already know what the outcome will be and, if they really cared that much, would keep you from getting your hopes up.  If you think your god cares about sports, then you must either believe that Cubs fans are being punished for their evil ways (the North side of Chicago existing as a virtual Sodom and/or Gomorrah) or they are the chosen people and the past 100-plus years have been their own version of wandering through the desert in search of the land of milk and honey.  Maybe they’ll get there next year.

Hungry for Entertainment?

The Hunger Games is out in theaters today and there is a great deal of chatter about it to say the least.  Fans of the books have been excited for weeks, counting down the days to its release.  Hollywood insiders are speculating this series will be far more popular than the Twilight movies and possibly on par with the Harry Potter films (go ahead and note my juxtaposition of the terms "movie" and "film" in that last sentence because it was intentional).


The Hunger Games books have action, suspense, drama, humor, violence and romance.  This is one of the reasons why they appeal to youth and adults.  What's not to like?


But this has also led to a number of people suggesting that the trend of adults fawning over young adult fiction indicates we, as a society, are becoming dumber.  What's next, wonders this critic, a dramatic film trilogy based on the Hardy Boys?  Perhaps adults will start buying chunky board books with soft, touchable bunny tails on the pages that they can stroke between their thumb and forefinger.  Maybe the next big movie-based-on-a-book that adults will be anticipating will be James Cameron's big budget production of The Velveteen Rabbit (spoiler alert: I hear the stuffed rabbit makes the kid really regret tossing him aside).

My Boys of Summer

Leaves are budding on the trees.  The voices of children can be heard frolicking outside.  Tiny black ants are being massacred by the dozens around the perimeter of my home as they make their futile attempts at invasion.


What does this all mean?  Spring is in the air, which, in turn, means baseball season is upon us.  You may be the type of person who enjoys watching spoiled millionaires spit and grab their crotches in public, and I will not deny you that guilty pleasure.  However, it is not MLB Spring Training of which I speak, but something infinitely more important: Little League!

Own It, Son

I try to avoid typecasting my sons over little things they do.  It is sometimes easy to over-magnify something you notice and try to predict their personality based upon it.

When I notice I’m doing this, I remind myself that my mother was convinced I had a future as an architect due to my Lego building skills.  In high school she then believed I would become a writer.  Alas, I am now neither.  Not professionally, anyway.  I do write here regularly to mixed reviews and there is an intricately detailed blueprint for a really awesome tree house out in my garage that I would start on if only I had the time...and a boom crane.

I Watched Phantom Menace Again...Willingly

So my family and I just returned home from seeing The Phantom Menace in 3D at the theater.  I wasn’t sure how I would feel about seeing the film that robbed me of my innocence on the big screen again.  The results were mixed.

Twelve Years Later...

Time heals all wounds, they say.

Of course, if the wound cuts deep enough, severs a femoral artery and proves fatal, time can’t do much about it.  Nor can it heal a severe bludgeoning that melds skull fragment with brain matter and results in a closed casket for its victim.

These are the macabre thoughts that run through my mind this week as the release of The Phantom Menace in 3D approaches.  I find myself wondering how catastrophic the damage done to the image of the beloved Star Wars franchise by the terrible first prequel really was.  Has twelve years been enough for Star Wars purists to accept Episode I into the ranks of watchable films or has the corpse of their fandom been left to decompose in a roadside ditch so many years ago, hastily covered by some lawn clippings just to buy them some time to make it into the next state?

What Have I Wrought?

From the time they were old enough to play with Lego bricks without my having to check their stool for days after to make sure swallowed pieces were passed, my sons have received sets in celebration pretty much every holiday, birthday and special event.  They get so many, in fact, that they often cannot build them fast enough.  This time of year in particular, a few sets remain stacked in their boxes, waiting to be built.

When their Lego fascination was in its early stages, it was an absolute necessity that I build on their behalf.  Of course, I didn't mine this.  In fact, I looked as forward to their receiving Lego sets as they did because I knew the onus of construction would fall to my capable fingers.  The first time I awoke on a weekend to find that they had completed a small set on their own while I slept in, I was heartbroken.

Moving On

On Tuesday night, my wife and I celebrated her birthday by visiting our old college campus, where we met.  We took in a Bogart film at the campus theater where we had gone on our first official date and had a few drinks after at the laid back basement bar we used to patronize located in the same building (best campus building ever).


The amazing thing about being back amongst the student population of a school we had both left over a decade ago was that so much of it looked the same.  Sure, there have been renovations.  For instance, the undergraduate dorm where we met, a blocky concrete structure, has been leveled and in its place erected a sprawling monstrosity of steel and glass that appears to rise from the depths of its underground parking garage like Cthulhu to devour all the would be graduate business students unfortunate enough to venture near it.  There were also these new illuminated bulletin boards that eerily resemble Imperial Probe Droids scattered about the quad.

In (Re)Search of...

Through my seventeen years of school, I completed a lot of research papers.  Over the course of writing those papers, I crammed a lot of information into my brain, most of which is now inaccessible because it is buried beneath more recently accumulated knowledge like how to change a diaper, fix a drain pipe and reassemble damaged Lego sets.  Trying to have an enlightened, intellectual conversation would require preparation on my part akin to digging the Christmas decorations that you swear you didn't throw away but which you haven't seen for several years (the ones from your old apartment) out from the crawl space.


While I can now appreciate the knowledge and skill in presenting a point of view that these projects helped me develop at the time they were assigned each and every one of them seemed nothing more than a torture device used by my teachers to crush my youthful spirit.  They asked me how Kant's philosophy both built upon and differed from the theories of Leibniz and Newton but the question I heard was, "How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?"

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the...Night

Somewhere along the line, I'm guessing around the same time period when my hangover recovery time lengthened, my taste for oatmeal developed and my ability to fall asleep in the middle of a crowded movie theater while watching an action film complete with explosions developed, I became a morning person.  I realized this today as my sons stumbled around the house, bleary-eyed and bed-headed, and whined about having to go to school.



For a few moments, I had no sympathy.  "They slept for at least ten hours," my adult mind rationalized.  "I would kill for that much sleep."


I threatened to put them in bed at sundown for the remainder of the winter if they didn't get moving.  Video games were this close to being taken away for the week and I was stomping around the house, untying knots in shoelaces and sternly announcing with clenched teeth, "You can take it off when you get to school, but you are putting that sweater on before you leave this house or so help me, God..."  This must have been a real treat for my wife, whom I so graciously allowed to (try to) get some extra sleep.

The First Sign I'm Ready for Teenagers

Picture me driving my nine-year-old to school this morning.  If you have never seen me in person, feel free to imagine me appearing as cool as you want, preferably as Han Solo (provided it is in Hoth gear because it was cold out this morning).  It was he and I alone in the car for a few minutes on the short drive.


My seven-year-old remained home sick.  It is moments like these, when I am afforded the opportunity to spend alone time with one of my sons while the other is indisposed that I feel I get to know each of them better.  Without a similarly aged partner in crime, the conversations about farts, explosions and proposals for new Angry Birds is put on hold.

H(ulk)oping for the Best Out of My Resolution

Setting resolutions just because the numbers on a calendar (or the entire calendar) change was never my cup of tea.  That's not to say I am against the commitment to self-improvement.  In fact, I can see lots of ways that the people around me can improve themselves.  But who am I to judge...publicly?  I'll keep these thoughts to myself.


In all seriousness, I always looked to make changes in my life when change seemed necessary.  Sometimes the need arises in the middle of the summer.  I don't then continue to act inappropriately until the following January first.  I make the change.

Meet the New Year. Same as the Old Year...Kinda

I wish that today's fatigue were the result of some compelling and controversial story whose details I would reminisce over for years to come, laughing out loud to myself in public anytime I thought of them and keeping them secret from my sons until they were in their thirties.  Alas, it is merely because I had to work last night combined with the sobering reality that I am getting older.


While that left me little time to conjure up the first batch of weekly features for 2012, it did not keep me from wanting to express a heartfelt Happy New Year to all the Transformer Generation Dad faithful out there.  So, Happy New Year, readers!  I hope you had a good 2011 but that you will have a better 2012.


This coming year should be one of great excitement on this blog.  I have a few interesting projects in the works and hope to expand out readership and interactivity (Is that a word? It is now) over the coming months.


The first major event will be the Second Annual TGD Geek Tournament, which will take place during the month of March to coincide with the NCAA's March Madness.  The format will be radically different from last year, but I maintain that this is not due to the backlash from angry commenters regarding some of the stranger and more random/lopsided match-ups.  Rather, the ensuing anger was half the fun of the whole thing for me, but I came up with a new idea for this year's tournament all on my own which I deem shall be more satisfying and create a possibly even larger population of angry geeks, nerds and dorks to shout at me.


Of course, Transformer Generation Dad hopes to still offer you the content, reviews and third person stories you have all come to love over the last two years, but will some new excitement peppered in ever so lovingly.


So, with a great deal of vague promises thrown out there, I welcome 2012 and say, "Bring it."