Life is Good

It is the tendency of most columnists to reflect on the past as the year comes to a close.  I want to do that but in a little different way. 

I want to look at 10 years backward and then 10 years down the road.  It was an article in Smithsonian the magazine that prompted this approach.  In it, the author looked at the age at which you become the person that you are finally going to be.

I guess part of it is that I've never really wanted to stop growing and changing (and improving) so I eagerly await the person I am to become.  It's not that I don't want to get old, it's just that I like the process.  I guess that's why I went back at 55 to get still another college degree, a doctorate in physical therapy.

Anyway, 10 years ago I was 50.  I was CEO of Appalachian Therapy Center and enjoyed going to work. 

Maryville High School's football team had just lost in the semi-finals to Morristown West in a messy, wet game that had been postponed to a Saturday night.  I remember this huge defensive end at Mo West that seemed destined for greatness and a Rebels team that simply ran out of time.

My son was not yet married to my favorite daughter-in-law and had just finished his football at Clemson University with a career ending injury while playing in a game at Florida State.  It was a great ride. 

Our daughter was (is) married to a wonderful young man but those grandbabies had not yet started coming around.  Let me say that being the parent of adult children was (is) absolutely wonderful. 

In 2003, I had been married for 26 years to the same wonderful lady.  I was riding my road bike a lot and had made the decision to ride year-round.   I still had a mountain bike and some great excursions with some buddies on that bike were coming in the next few years. 

Life was good.

10 years from now, I'll be 70.  

My partners and I sold Appalachian Therapy Center to Blount Memorial Hospital and the merged clinics became Total Rehab.   Then they give me the job doing what I had been doing for years:  running several outpatient clinics, seeing patients, covering high school sports, and writing this column.  I always said I would retire when it quit being fun.  It still is so there's a chance  I'll probably still be doing it all then.

MHS will have appeared in its 20th straight state championship game and they will name the 6A championship trophy after George Quarles, since he will have coached in every single 6A state championship game ever played.

We will have had our 7th grandchild and I think that might be it.  The oldest will be a senior in high school.  I'm predicting that volleyball will be her sport, just like her mom.  I will have enjoyed watching every game the grandchildren play and will never have yelled at a coach or referee.

I will be painting more but still giving them away.  I'll still be known around town as the guy that writes the column in the newspaper. 

I'll still be on the road bike but my mountain bike days will be limited to gentle days on velvety smooth singletrack.   Oh, and there might have been a brief hiatus in my biking while I got that bum right knee replaced.

I will have been married 46 years to that same wonderful lady.

And life will still be good.

Good Sportsmanship Starts at Home

I think that coaches around here do a really great job with making sure that their players "behave" themselves.  Oh sure, I see on-the-field incidents that make you cringe and question the athlete's character, but we just seem to blessed with very little of that in our own kids.

We know we're blessed around here.  I know it when I watch Shawn Prevo score a touchdown and immediately look for a referee to hand the football to.  I know it when Jaquez Tyson scores still another touchdown and acts as though he's been there before (he has...lots).

I do remember one incident this year that happened less than ten feet from me when a player from the opposing team jumped into a pile of players, leading with his fist.  His intent was clearly to hurt someone.  The game, for all practical purposes, was over and since it was a playoff game, the season for this young man was also about to be over.

To their credit, the officials saw it, flagged it, and had a chat with the young man who seemed neither contrite nor apologetic (remember, I was but a few feet away). 

I can only speculate as to what kind of background this young man came from. Building character starts early and never stops.   I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I don't see many really "bad" kids but I do see too many "bad" parents.

Parents, look at yourself in the mirror.   What is there about yourself that you want your kids to copy?  What traits would you prefer they avoid?  I've said here before that raising kids is a lot like God shaping clouds.  Done gently and with purpose.

Here lately, it seems like a lot of the incidents involve fans. To use a sometimes forgotten term, it's plain and simple poor sportsmanship.   I've never liked boo-ing (I don't even like cheering when a player on the other team makes a mistake) but maybe that's just me.  I do know that behavior at times goes beyond poor taste.

I can remember a couple of years ago at a not-to-be-mentioned Knoxville school when the student body for that school showed up early and camped out in the bleachers immediately behind the visitor's (my team's) bench.  Those students proceeded to scream incessantly, making it at least unpleasant.   The coach finally started holding timeout discussions in the middle of the court in order to be heard.

Taunting other players--calling them by name and picking on some identifying characteristic--I don't much care for that either.  I believe every red-headed basketball player at one time or another has been called "Opie."

Heaven forbid that you ever have to be the one throwing the ball in during a basketball game while standing in front of the other team's student section. 

Most of the time, I can forgive stuff like this if it is teenagers but when adults do it, it is just unacceptable.  

Like I said, this all takes it beyond school spirit into a whole new arena of poor sportsmanship.

Twas a cold and blustery night

It was easily the worst conditions I've ever seen a game Driving rain.    Temps hovering just above freezing.  Strong winds. 

I'm talking about the Alcoa football championship game.  Man, it was cold.  Twice, we had lightning delays.

Let me back up a minute.  I had the privilege of assisting my colleague and Alcoa High Head Athletic Trainer Peggy Bratt during that memorable game.  She returned the favor when she joined me on the sidelines of Maryville High's game the next day.

While not nearly so wet, it was just as cold.   Still, nothing met the miserable conditions found on Friday evening when Alcoa took the field. 

At times on Friday, our primary concern was hypothermia.  Really.  The players on the field did OK, since they were generating some body heat while playing.   The biggest problem they had was their hands.  It seems like nothing we could do would keep their hands warm.

The players on the sidelines, soaked to the bone by halftime, could only stand there and suffer.  I stood with Alcoa Athletic Director Josh Stephens and one of us muttered "this is miserable" every few minutes.   And it was.

Yet, as the game wound down and the rain came harder, the joy of a state championship seemed to overcome all the discomfort.   I don't recall being as miserable when the game was finally out of reach.  Such is the joy of victory.

So when I went back with my own team the next day, the somewhat colder but immeasurably drier conditions didn't seem so bad.   My only concession to a wind chill factor of about 22 was ear covering in the second half.  Layers are everything in cold weather.

And when the "mercy rule" went into effect, I don't remember being cold at all.  The culmination of almost 20 weeks of practice had paid off for these young men and their coaches.

I am often asked what the secret is to the success of these Twin Cities Titans (yeah, that's my answer to the search for a moniker).  Everybody has an opinion--mine is a little tilted by perspective.

Let me offer what I think both teams have.  Heart.  Great coaches.  Discipline.  Commitment. Execution.  Good athletes.  Tradition.  Expectations.  Work ethic.  A swagger, if you will.

When either Maryville or Alcoa take the field, opponents don't exactly tremble but they do have doubts.  And when Jaquez Tyson runs for 8 yards every time he touches the ball and there is nothing you can do about it or when John Garrett tosses a touchdown or runs for 20 yards just when you think you've got him...well it breaks your spirit if not your heart. 

Sure, the coaches approach the games a bit differently.  Alcoa will play with more emotion while Maryville will bring a surgical cunning to the game.  Both result in an intensity that nothing if not intimidating.

In his pre-game chapel before Maryville headed to Tennessee Tech's football stadium, Bubba Hooker said that the key to this team was faith, hope, and love.  

Faith in your teammates and coaches.  Hope that leads to ambition.  Love for each other that transcends sport but results in stellar performances.

Yeah, it's all that too.

Concussions and Sports

Probably the hottest topic in sports medicine today is concussions.   It's been featured on television shows from 60 Minutes to NFL Today.  I've half expected to hear about a feature on Ellen and The View (or maybe it has already--I would never know either way).

It's partly because of several high profile cases, mostly retired NFL players.   Junior Seau's suicide was widely attributed to concussions he suffered while playing football.  Jim McMahon, who led the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl, is a sad sight, suffering from early-onset dementia that he blames on multiple concussions.

He and others are suing the NFL for what they claim was negligence by ignoring evidence of the long term effects.  But it wasn't until research performed at Boston University demonstrated that even minor blows to the head could produce symptoms of concussion that we began to understand the seriousness of those injuries.

Football seems to be the focus but no sport is immune from concussions.   Hockey is notorious for producing concussions.  Heading the soccer ball can produce concussion-like symptoms.  Any sport where there is a chance for a collision or a chance for a fall (which is just about everything), can produce a concussion.

What we didn't know even 10 years ago is that we should never take these injuries lightly.  And we don't.

High school athletes and those from Maryville College are monitored closely by athletic trainers and attended by team physicians. We are ever diligent in making sure that every one of those athletes is protected.

For example, during a football game, we will watch for collisions that might produce a concussion.   Instead of waiting for that player to come to us and complain of a headache or dizziness or other symptoms, we will seek them out to make sure they are OK.  Goodness knows we can't wait on them to come to us.  Some will.  Most won't. 

I find myself telling athletes all the time that they simply must be honest with me, that this is not something to ignore.

With little variation, when an athlete has a blow to the head, regardless of the origin, we consider it a concussion until proven differently.   If they have any symptoms at all (symptoms can include headache, dizziness, blurred vision, memory loss, and disorientation), then they are pulled from competition and evaluated more thoroughly.

If they lose consciousness, the game is over and they are getting an ambulance ride.

Once a diagnosis of concussion is established, they must have a medical evaluation before they can return to their sport.  That's not just good medical care, since earlier this year, it's state law.

Here in Blount County, we go several steps further.  After they have been given medical clearance, they must take and pass a test called an ImPACT Study.  The ImPACT Study evaluates their cognitive function, looking at variety of things like short term memory and the ability to process mental tasks.  For most of our athletes, they have taken the same test well before the season started so that we have a baseline of information to compare their performance to.

Then they are screened for things like balance and response to activity.   Then and only then are they considered for return to their sport. 

I'm thankful for...

Through the years in this space(28 and counting, by the way), I've written Thanksgiving columns on several occasions. Still, it seems a while since the last one.

So, being Thanksgiving week--it seems like it should get a full week, or at least my wife needs a week (or more) to prepare, execute, then recover--I'm going to share some things I'm thankful for.

I'm thankful for being able to practice football on Thanksgiving Day.   It's become almost a tradition at Maryville High School, although I don't think anybody takes it for granted.  14 straight years of Thanksgiving Day practice.

For the kids, it is always a new team, with new seniors and new starters, so it remains new and fresh to them.  For the coaches, it just simply doesn't get old because it is why they do what they do.   Or at least a big part of it.

Let me tell you why it is such a wonderful day to practice football.   It means we're still playing, with the semi-final game the next day.  It means that we are one game away from the state championship game.  It means that we get to sit together as staff and players and share breakfast and memories and maybe remind each other what we're truly thankful for.

You see, after spending 18+ weeks (over 4 months) together, you develop a bond...a brotherhood, if you will.  For the staff, it's another year of a friendship that transcends football. 

And, much to my wife's dismay, it means that I miss out on a lot of Thanksgiving honey-do's.   I get up early, head in to football practice, and return home just in time to join the festivities already in progress.

Yep, pretty good day in my book.

I'm thankful for all those grandbabies around these days.  My oh my, it is wonderful.  When the 2 year-old runs screaming "Daddy Joe" when I show up at her house, well it doesn't get any better than that.

It sounds hokey or at least a cliché, but I'm thankful for being able to live in Blount County, a place that just can't be beat.  Part of that is the geography but mostly it's the people.   This is a truly great community of folks that make it so.

I'm thankful for good health and hope that I never take it for granted.  I sometimes think that I can do anything because of all the time I spend on the bike but I thankfully have a good doctor to take care of me and keep me straight (although he might not always take his own medicine).

I'm thankful for the good restaurants we have around here.  Everything from Dancing Bear(after they build it back better than ever) and Foothills Milling to Full Service BBQ and the Bread of Heaven truck.  Goodness knows I like to eat (it's part of the reason I exercise 7 days a week).

I'm thankful for Benton's bacon, Cruz Farm milk, grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, Whitt's baked wings, and Haagen-Dazs Sea Salt Caramel gelato (Oh. My. Goodness....You've got to try that one).  

I'm thankful for green grass, fall leaves, the Smoky Mountains, and amber waves of grain.  I'm thankful for smooth roads, trustful friends, rolling hills, a tolerant spouse, and a good bike shop.

I'm thankful for a good education, parents that did it right, and children who still let me be a big part of their lives.