Life at the Corral

I know this video dulls in comparison to a Swimmer's Itch production, but if you want to know what it's like to walk the halls of Lutheran North High School. Have a look.

Fifteen-Year Reunion

Wow, it was fifteen years ago that the basketball team I was coaching won the district championship in an unforgettable manner. If I do the math that would make those youngsters about 33 years old. If I continue to do the math that would make me 46. Yipes, that is old.

As an excuse to see these young faces that are now a bit older, we are planning a fifteen-year reunion on Friday, February 12. They boys' team plays Harper Woods and we will recognize the team at halftime. Information on the players and where they are today will be in the game's program.

If you played on that team contact me and let me know if you can make it. It will be great to see those once high school athletes, now young men.

Tragically Funny

I chuckled at the sad reality of a recent Mallard Fillmore comic because it was so true and it brought back memories of our childhood dog, Mick. Yes, for a brief time our dog wore "antlers" during Christmas vacation.

However, there was no chuckle when I learned of the iPhone app. that allows you to text and walk at the same time. The camera provides a view of what's in front of you so you text vital messages like,

"Just walked by Sally."

"This street looks busy."

"An out of control bulldozer is headed right for me."

'Twas the week before Christmas...vacation

After next week, I have fourteen glorious days away from school. I'm in need of a couple good reads during vacation. Any suggestions? I perused Laura Ingraham's suggestions and looked at what Larry Elder has recently read. Nothing is grabbing my attention. Classics? Non-fiction? Political? Autobiography?

Freshmen Fillies Set Record

In game two against Almont my freshmen girls' basketball team attempted to set a record by scoring a triple in three seconds. We've talked about the secret play before and we got the shot off but did not finish. This crew of Fillies is determined. In Tuesday's home game against Capac, North was able to control the tip, connect the first pass and drain the triple...all in three seconds.
So far this has been a year of firsts. We actually scored out of our special out of bounds play: Finkel. Now we've set a record that will take perfection to best.
Some may scoff and remind the readers of this blog that even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile. However, if the naysayers are right in the saying of nay, then why did the girls' varsity basketball team steal our tip off play? Hmmmmm... A great game, great teamwork, great victory. Now it's time to leave it behind and look to the most important game on our schedule: the next one at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep.

Freshmen Fillies Stomp Foley

As discussed in previous posts, this year's Freshmen Fillies will be different than years past and the same. Yes, we are shooting the triple. Different. Yes, we are rotating groups of players mimicking the Grinnell College system.

Tuesday night was our first test. We didn't break the scoring record. No, the scoring record is not how many points we score but how fast we score the first two points. For the record, the record is three seconds. How do we score so quickly? The secret play. What's the secret play? Be in North's gym at 4:30 P.M. on Thursday, December 3 and find out. You only need to be there for two seconds.

The Fillies opened the season at Bishop Foley. We'll be seeing a lot of Foley in the future since North is moving into the Catholic School League, not my idea. I don't like it, so it was important to set an intimidating tone for our soon to be conference opponents. At the end of the first quarter we were losing 13-2. Yes, we set the tone, but I don't remember "doormat" being a tone word dangling from the ceiling in my classroom.

We battled back and took our first lead with twenty seconds left in the game: 34-33. After that we showed no mercy, didn't look back, took no prisoners, put the pedal to the metal and won 34-33.

We figured out how to rebound, how to press and how to aggressively attack the basket. Can we do it again? Again, get to North's gym for home opener and witness our NEW secret play. I promise, you won't be disappointed.

Shakespeare?

Shakespeare was meant to be seen not read. My AP Lit. class proved acting is more powerful than reading by performing the dumb show in Hamlet....at least I think that's what they did. You know, now that I look at this video I'm not sure what they accomplished. At least, it's interesting viewing.

Simple as A, B, C...

Could you?

Recently I asked my expository writing students to write a twenty-six word passage that made sense. It’s not so hard; my students are smart. The challenge, however, was that each word had to follow the alphabet in alphabetical order. The passage could be more than one sentence but only twenty-six words and must follow the alphabet perfectly.

Here are some student examples:

A bee cuddles dandelions extravagantly, fighting gnats; hellishly injecting juice killing lots. Multitudes near old pines quietly reconstruct sad teachings, undividedly veering with x-gaming yellow zebras.

A bloody communist decides exploiting fascism gets him into juvenile klans learning most notably of people quitting stereotyping then using violence with Xanax yearning zombies.

Could you best these entries? I’ll give you five days to submit your entry. The winner will receive blog kudos and will be asked to share the strategies with readers of The Clem, The Blog, The Truth.