My final blog
will discuss the last lacrosse game of my senior year. I played football for 3
years, not my freshman, and lacrosse for 4. Lacrosse meant just as much to me
as football even though it was a much smaller commitment. I am a lot better at
lacrosse than I am at football anyways, but still not that good. I was
extremely disappointed not to get to play this year because of my back. I enjoy
lacrosse a lot more because it is much less pressure, a lot more laid back, and
there are more games. Even though I could not play I still made every effort to
be at all of the practices and games, I missed 1 game for my wisdom teeth and a
week for DECA, other than that I was there. Today was the last game of the year
and I really hoped I could play even though I'm never supposed to play contact
sports again with my back injury. The rapid healing process gave me hope, but
the times just didn’t add up. This game was against the North Reading Hornets.
Earlier in the season in one of our very first games we played them. At that
point we were really bad and had little experience or confidence. The game was
extremely close despite the horrendous rain and cold. We were hoping to come
back and win because after the first few games we started to get some
confidence. This was not the case and we ended up getting killed. This was
really sad because we went into it with a hope of doing well. We even brought
up a 7th grader to play on Varsity, we aren't that short handed he is simply
just that good. It is insane to watch him and he is already committed to Governors Academy
Showing posts with label Brian G. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brian G. Show all posts
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Week 6 post 2
Today I had to
begin the dreaded write up of the Wikipedia article. I have about 15 pages in a
notebook filled with information that needs to be deciphered from my terrible
handwriting and condensed. At the end a lot of the information is truly just
trash and can be left out, the important things are really the start and end of
each sport, the major coaches, and championships, stuff like that. It was so
long ago that I got the interview information that it was relatively difficult
to remember what was what. The yearbook information took the longest because I
had to go through every single yearbook, it seems easy but it takes about 10
minutes per yearbook and there are ones dating back to 1957 and there are only
2 years missing. The yearbook information is truly not all that important
accept to validate serious years such as major coach beginnings and ends and
when the sport started and ended. It was a lot of work for a little reward but
was necessary. I had to then start the work. I got about 7 write-ups in when it
was nearing the end of school and it was time to tell Mr. Jewett that I would
have it to him by the end of the afternoon since it was the end of score today.
This was when I forgot that every time you walk away from a computer it goes to
sleep, well big deal but mine is so old that when you walk away and it goes to
sleep it closes all programs and deletes all unsaved work, I forgot this and
went to school. When I came back to finish up before the lacrosse game so that
I could turn it in by 5, get to the game, get home and finish the 12 page paper
I realized that it had deleted the entire 6 hour day's work. At this point I
just had to put it down go to my wisdom teeth checkup and go to the final
lacrosse game of the year. Then I came home and finished the essay and have not
a clue how long it is going to take to re write the 7 I did and finish the
other bunch that I hadn't. I will start that next after these blog entries,
late night ahead.
Week 6 day 1
Today I went and
surveyed the damage fully in that downstairs closet. My brace is finally off
for most of the time and I am assuming that means that physical activity is
moving forward, meaning that I could begin on the closet. There was stuff
everywhere, empty boxes, old sweat suits, old gear, and new gear. I first began
by clearing out all of the boxes. This took forever to break down all of them
and actually overflowed the cart that I was carrying them on. I ended up having
to put a huge weight on top just to hold it down. I brought all of the boxes
out to the recycle and got rid of those. Next were all of the sweat suits. I
bet you are thinking that there could not be that many; well you are wrong, it
seems that just about every sport has an entire squad worth of suits that still
have their tags on them and never got used. The sad part is they are all from
the 1990s and look like an old track suit and would never be worn. Then there
was the issue of trash, things like box inserts, helmet bags, and random broken
things. Next I had to throw out old broken equipment such as helmets and other
dated goods. Then I found a bunch of stuff that wasn't even opened yet but
quite usable such as mouth guards and leg pads for football and put those where
they could be used. Finally I had to actually organize it, this was temporary
though because I am waiting for plastic see through bins for the permanent
solution, but that is a matter of minutes in transferring.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
week 5 blog 3
Yesterday
I made the 1 hour drive up to Salem New Hampshire to meet with the beneficiary
of my eagle project. I had to talk to him about the final details and set a
date for the project. We had to see when our schedules worked and I am
really disappointed to say that it will not happen until June
11th and 12th which is over the summer and deep after lacrosse season.
Hopefully I can still get all of the people that I need to make this happen. I
also need to make a flyer of the clinic which will have to be done soon. He
also mentioned that I need to make an outline of the clinic to be submitted to
him. I also need to nag the coaches of my team to write a one paragraph
biography of their lacrosse experience. I must send that as well as find the
proof of CORI for our coaches which will be easy enough to do. We
then needed to make the outline of the things that we will be doing for the
clinic. We had to design drills and choose which ones we wanted to do as well
as which areas to focus on. I must now make my own permanent outline that will
be the final plan for the camp over the two days and will cover two hours per
clinic over a two day period. The players that we are helping are young and new
to the sport of lacrosse.
week 5 post 2
Today I spent the day working on my
Eagle Scout project. I had the approval Tuesday night and spent much of the day
preparing for it. I had to finish the long proposal page that was missing a few
of the details and missing addresses and details for the information page on
the front cover. I also had to design a cover for the book of my project. I am
required to keep a binder of all of my resources which includes the 28 page
outline of my project. I had to make the binder before I could go to my
approval. At the approval meeting in Manchester I had to present my project and
answer questions. The project easily got approved and now I have to go to the
state approval which is on Tuesday of next week. This approval will be much
harder but will be the last approval that I have to go through before I can
start the project. The committee asks a bunch of unnecessary questions
such as if I am going to bring sun screen and bug spray for an event that
involves heavy padding and not much exposed skin to burn. They also scrutinize every
little piece of the project for no good reason because they almost always
approve it in the end. I must also fill out a tour plan which is a new feature
this year and I need that because I am traveling outside of Manchester to
complete my project.
week 5 blog 1
Today
I went to the JV and Varsity Lacrosse games. The JV game was first at 5 and I
went and stood on the sidelines for that in case anyone needed help with
anything and to help with some coaching if needed. The team that we were
playing was North Andover and they are a much larger school than us which made
the teams very unfair. The JV team here consists of mostly middle school
students with a few freshman thrown in. They were playing a large school group
of kids which would likely be mostly older kids. The Varsity game afterwards
was much the same. We were predicted to get absolutely destroyed by the clearly
superior by default team. At first we kept up decently well and stayed only a
couple goals behind for most of the game. Later into the game the scare started
to build up and we ended with 11-3. That was much better than expected because
we lost to Masco by about 20 goals and Masco lost to North Andover by 20 goals.
This was a huge accomplishment to stay in the game all the way until the end of
the third quarter. We proved everyone wrong just by keeping up. During
the away games I have to do the score book for the team which takes away from
actually watching the game. During home games we have someone that does the
books for me and I get to actually stand with the team and watch the game.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
week 4 blog 3
Today I went to the lacrosse game as I always do even though I cannot play. I usually do the books at the away games because I am currently the only injured player and have an understanding of lacrosse so I can do the books correctly. We have a lot of off and on play. We can either score endless goals in a game or we do not score any goals at all. Today was one of those games where we could score. We were playing Triton and it was a neck and neck game the entire time. We would get the lead by a goal and then they would quickly tie it up right after then there would be a lull and we would then score again, but they would always be right behind. With 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter we were tied and Triton scored 3 goals in a matter of minutes and that would be the end. There was no coming back in that short of time and we just simply could not score after that huge loss. We were so down on ourselves that we could not prevent any of those three goals and could not retaliate with a few of our own. We would go on to lose the game by those three goals with a score of 11-14. This was one of our highest scoring games of the year and that is not a small feat for us to score that many goals in one game.
week 4 post 2
Today I decided to take a break from the yearbooks and started to work on organizing the athletic closet. I started by simply consolidating boxes. This took most of the day just to consolidate old boxes and throw out the trash laying around as well as recycling the boxes. There were stacks of empty boxes that went all the way to the ceiling. I broke down all of these boxes and brought them out back to the dumpster. I also took many of the old uniforms and warm up suits and brought them out to the donations boxes out in the parking lot. There were large amounts of completely outdated warm up suits that still had the tags on them but were just too old to be of any use. I found a box of about 5 feet long and about 3 feet wide that was filled to the top with neatly folded stacks of swimming sweat suits that looked about 20 years old. They all still had their tags on them and were clearly not ever used but were just simply too out dated. It seemed like a complete waste to donate them but they were just sitting there wasting away anyways because nobody would ever wear them and the swim team now has newer suits. I also found a box of mouth guards that the trainer Jill was not aware of and brought them to her which was good because she said that there were absolutely none left in the building to give to players.
week 4 post 1
Today I spent more time getting into the yearbooks. I got up until year 1980 today and have noticed that the sports are starting to get more numerous. The record taking has not gotten any better any many years have just a picture without the coaches in it and no roster list of everyone in the picture. I have started to get used to the regular coaches that appear most often in the yearbooks and can recognize them if they are pictured without a caption. Many of the coaches at that time seem to look very similar though and I often have to reference older yearbooks to figure out who is who. All of the coaches seem to be dressed in dark suits at all times and to be wearing thick large glasses. This makes it difficult to differentiate based on the clothing or classes or anything like that. They also do not have a good shot of every coach and the quality isn't excellent, which makes things even harder. I also have noticed that it seems like in the first year of every sport there is no coach and then in the second year there is one. I think that this may be similar to how sports today start off as a club not a sport. This would make sense but I would still expect them to have a coach but it is fairly consistent in every sport that the first year there is no coach pictured but in the second year there is, JV programs often do not have a coach either unless they are a major sport.
week 3 blog 3
Today I spent more time going through the yearbooks. I noticed that there is a trend in that many coaches start and end and switch sports multiple times in their career. I hear about many of the very important coaches from Mr. Nalley and also in field namings so I have an idea of who is important from the past. Each of these coaches make an appearance as a coach in one sport and I think about how they became famous for another sport and one random year they completely leave the other sport and go to a new one. They might even change again or pickup another sport before I get to their famed sport. I also hear about these famous coaches and notice that they only coach for a few short years before leaving, only to find them coming back in a seemingly random fashion to coach in a long stint and am forced to wonder why they left for up to five years at a time. I also get thrown off when I see that the coach has left for a year and think that they are finally gone but then they return the next year with either the same sport or a completely different sport again. Just about every coach seemed to do that across their career and it was not limited to the big name coaches. It seems that there is a very strong core of coaches at that time in the school’s history and the teams were very successful.
week 3 blog 2
Today I began working on going through the yearbooks in the library and was able to find all but 2 yearbooks from back until 1956. I will go through all of the yearbooks and write down when each sport started and who the coaches were for that sport and when each coach started and ended. It is often hard to find all of the coaches and their exact years because many of the years do not include a picture of the coach or a roster of the year therefore I can only guess based on a picture if it happens to be included or look on years surrounding that one to make an educated guess. It is also difficult to follow the years sometimes because of when the pictures were taken based on when the yearbook is printed. The spring sports have pictures from the year before and the fall sports either list the year of the yearbook or the year that it took place which often changes from year to year depending on who designs the athletics portion and makes things very confusing for me. There are also times when entire sports are not mentioned and it is hard to tell if the sport simply missed the picture that year or was discontinued for a year or two because often the sport has returned by the next issue. It is also hard to tell why a sport starts or ends because all I have to work with is a picture in a yearbook.
week 3 post 1
Today I started working on the proposal for the lacrosse clinic. It is an 8 page long form that has to be completed extremely thoroughly before I can go to the committee for approval and they will harass me for any small detail that is missing or not correctly explained. I next had to hunt down all of the necessary signatures for the proposal before I could get the project approved. Finding all of this information was a job in itself. I had to drive all the way up to Salem New Hampshire to get the approvals from the project beneficiary. I must then go through the approval process with my advisor. That will be the hardest part. After that I will have to go through an approval process with the committee which will be the easiest. Then I will have to get it approved by the council where I will have to speak for everything and give a full presentation. If everything is alright I will get it approved and will get to go begin the process. That is when I must complete a 28 page long project plan and then carry out the project itself all in a matter of a month before my 18th birthday. I will also need to write three seven page long essays about the project and about myself. I will hopefully get the extension that I applied for that will apply to just the finishing portions of the project because of my back not allowing me to complete the project right away.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Week 1 Blog 3
Once almost all of the interviews were done it was time to get started on the yearbooks. I looked on the shelf in the library and noticed that many of the yearbooks were missing and that it was not looking good for the possibility of finding them all. When I asked the librarian they sent me to the back room to find more books and after looking everywhere I found all of the yearbooks dating back to 1956 except 1996, 2001, and 2003. This was extremely surprising and with not many of the older ones missing it was looking good for me to get all of the information that I need about sports in that year. I learned that Manchester High School used to be called Story High School which was something that I did not know. I also learned that at first the only two sports offered were Football and Boys Basketball. Girls Basketball was only offered as an intramural and would not become a full sport for a few years to come. It was interesting to find that there are yearbooks that go all the way back to before the old high school and all the way back to when it was still called Story High School. There were even pictures of the old high school in the yearbooks that showed what everything used to look like. It seemed to resemble a house more than a school. It was also obvious that the old school was state of the art for the time and much, much larger than the other school which seems insane to think about now.
Week 1 blog 2
On the Second Day I had the interview set up with Mr. Nalley and went to his house to conduct the interview. I spent about an hour interviewing him about each of the sports and getting the information that I could from him. He had a surprisingly good memory of events that happened over 30 years ago. I quickly learned that he would be my biggest resource when I had questions for the rest of the project. I even called him later to reference a past event. His knowledge is a resource that I could not complete this project without. I also conducted the rest of my interviews on this day with the exception of a few that would have to wait until the next week. I also made a call down to Coach Stephan in Florida to get information about the sailing team as well as talking to the current sailing coach.
Wednesday was the day of the game against Hamilton-Wenham. It was a home game right after school and we were hoping that the game would go better than the one against Peabody. We lost two quick goals in the first few minutes of the game and that would set the mood for the game. We made it all the way back to only being down by one goal near the half. But eventually let in several more goals to make the game not very close towards the end. Hopefully we do better in the next game against North Reading.
Week 1 Day 1
On day one I started to make a list of all of the sports that our school has. From there I net to each of the sports and found out who the coaches were and started to make interviews with them to get all of the information that I could. This led deeper to past coaches and coaches that are around town to go find. I was recommended to find the old athletic director Mr. Nalley because he has a wealth of information dating back over 30 years. I made an appointment to meet with him for the second day and would ask him his memory. I also started to find out that the history dated way back and it would be hard to find.
For the second part of the day I went to lacrosse practice where it was sunny and we were preparing for a game against Hamilton-Wenham on Wednesday. During the practice I helped put together a net and also string that net so that we would have two acceptable nets for the game on Wednesday. The nets that we had were nearing the end of their life and the nets themselves were ripped and not legal to use because of how the balls would slip through the holes. We needed two more nets and we had to bring one net to the other field to make sure that there were not too many nets at one field and too few at the other field. We needed to hunt down a truck to do this because nobody on the sidelines had one that we could use.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Gibson's outline
SCORE Research Paper
1.
Eagle Project Outline
•
Basic outline of what a project is
•
What my project is about
•
What the approval process is
i.
The levels of approval
•
All of the parts(movie, camp, coaching, drills)
2.
Why is my Eagle Project important?
•
Affect on the kids
•
How it helps them in the season and life
•
Overall message of my project(safety, fun, and skills)
3.
Concussion safety
•
problems with concussions
•
long term problems
•
short term problems
•
protective equipment
i.
shortcomings
•
symptoms
•
safe techiques
•
treating
4.
Problems with the current way the sports closet is organized
•
Money wasted
•
Time wasted
•
Lost resources for the sports program because of misplaced or lack of knowledge of equipment
•
General benefits of organization
•
Problems with repurchasing items we already have and how it affects the budget
5.
Why do we need an Athletic Director?
•
What is the job description?
•
Why do we need one?
•
Why is it important to have a good one?
•
What obstacles must be overcome each day?
•
What is the process of organizing events and sports teams?
•
Importance of sports to students
i.
Enjoyment
ii.
Teamwork and other social gains
iii.
Exercise.
6.
Why is the history of athletics important?
•
Recognize the successful teams
•
Show future generations the successes of the past generations
•
Give new staff and students a history of what teams were successful
•
More team pride
•
Recognize coaches for their service
•
Put faces to famous names
Sources
Thesis
Athletics are a valuable part to the development of children. With the fun comes the need for safety equipment and proper technique to avoid injuries and concussions that can affect the athlete for the rest of their lives.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
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