DadCentric

Special Guest Dad Ben Cohen-Leadholm Takes Us Ice Fishing

Our friend and today's special guest blogger Ben Cohen-Leadholm is one of those guys that sorta pisses you off because he's thought of a gazillion awesome things to do with kids that you haven't. Ben is the author of the family activities blog Kids Are Awesome But So Am I, helping parents reclaim their mojo through kids’ activities that don’t suck. He is the co-author of Have No Career Fear: A College Grad’s Guide to Snagging a Job, Trekking the Career Path, and Reaching Job Nirvana. Find him on Twitter (@parentingmojo), Facebook (www.facebook.com/kidsactivity), and Email (blswes@gmail.com). Here, Ben has a great idea for a fun activity that'll get you outside on a cold February day: ice fishing.

Ice fishing could probably benefit from some re-branding. Because ice fishing is one of the best (and sadly misunderstood) winter activities around, especially for kids.

Think about the simple yet compelling ice fishing equation: enjoying the outdoors, appreciating nature and wildlife, hanging with family and friends, imbibing some “warming” drinks, and snagging fresh delicious fish you’ll get to eat that night. Plus, there are all the stories you’ll be telling your friends over beers (or whole milk) from the day’s adventures. So push any ice fishing stereotypes out of your mind that you might see on a show like Ice Men on the VERSUS network – those caricatures are both entertaining and ridiculous. For example, you’re not going to get frostbite, you’re not going to fall into a fishing hole, and you will not be defending your catch from bears. Promise. 

Rugby Tough

So we're clear: rugby is the toughest of team sports. At the adult level, it's ninety minutes of mostly nonstop running punctuated by pushing, shoving, tackling and getting tackled, all without pads. An adult American football player runs about 200 yards per game; an adult rugby player runs about five miles per game. You play defense, so you will tackle; you also play offense, so you will be tackled.

So we're clear: rugby for 8 year olds is a slightly different beast. It's two 15 minute halves, two-hand touch, and the coaches are on the field, directing the kids, telling them to stay in a line, don't pass the ball forward, and don't stop running. It's the game stripped down to the very basics: passing, catching, running, forming a straight line across the field when defending, staggering diagonally when on the attack. The rough stuff comes later. Still, when you get fourteen kids on a field chasing after one ball, there's gonna be some collisions. Most of the time they're accidental.

My boys had played two back-to-back games that morning, and they were feeling it. It was opening day, and while we'd been practicing for a few weeks, the intensity and pace of actual game play had worn them down. They'd had an hour to rest before their third and final game. Two of them - Lucas and another kid whose dad coached the club's U10 side - were second-year veterans. The rest were new to the game. They were loving it, but they were tired. And they had one game to go, against a team from Orange County that had twice our numbers - plenty of fresh legs to sub in. I had two substitutes. It was going to be a slog. But that's rugby.

"Take a knee, boys", I told them before kickoff. "You guys have played hard today. I'm really, really proud of all of you." Not a lie - we won our first game, lost our second, but the kids played as a team, listened to me and my assistant coach, and had a blast. They were slightly glassy-eyed, but grinning in anticipation. "Let's go out, focus on what we've learned, play our best, and good things will happen. Circle up." We stood, put our hands in, yelled our team name - "THUNDER!!!" - and took the field.

And then things went south.

Charges

It was a perfect afternoon for rugby; the park sits right across the street from the beach, we'd be running the kids, and the cold ocean breeze would help keep them going. For many of them, this would be their first experience with the game. I'm in charge of the U8 side - boys aged 8 and under, too young for tackle (not that they don't want to try laying out their teammates, but rugby tackling is an art form that requires conceptualization, discipline and maturity; running into each other like spinning tops is Pop Warner stuff, and I didn't want any black eyes or concussions on our first evening). The boys were excited to learn. I walked the newcomers through the basics: how we pass, how we kick, how we run behind the ball and how we are a team, everyone functions as one, no one gets left behind.

One kid asked me if he was going to be "stuck playing defense". I recognized the phrase - I'd used it myself when I was eight, and my soccer coach decided that his kid would be a striker, and I'd be a fullback. Ultimately, I came to love playing D, and would continue my reverse advance into the net. I was a pretty good goalie, and I enjoyed knocking opposing players down almost as much as I loved making a save. But I never forgot what put me in the backfield. "Yep", I told the kid. "And you'll play offense. You'll score tries. You'll kick. You'll tackle. Everybody does everything in our sport." "Awesome!", he said. I grinned. "It really is".

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Waterhole

You probably see bicyclists every morning on your way to wherever it is that you people go in your own time. Perhaps you considered how scary it must be to share (or hog) the road with cars, trucks and idiots.

Evan van der Spuy would take some jackass on their cellphone any day. He was riding in a mountain bike race in South Africa (for Team Jeep South Africa) and he met the business end of a red hartebeest at full speed, which apparently sucks.

The rider and the antelope both walked away from the collision because they were wearing helmets. Bike smart, kids!

If he prints up some "I ♥ Hartebeests" shirts he'll make a million. Him being the rider, not the actual animal. Of course it loves hartebeests.

The Boy Of October

In July, young Cooper Stone was attending a Texas Rangers game with his father, Shannon; outfielder Josh Hamilton tossed the pair a ball, and when Shannon attempted to catch it, he lost his balance, fell from the stands, and died.

There isn't a word for such a thing. Josh Hamilton grieved along with the family, and promised to meet with Cooper when they both felt the time was right.

October is a special time for baseball fans; the playoffs begin, and the competitions that ensue reaffirm our collective belief that, despite all of its fault, baseball can truly be a balm for the soul. Today was the first game of the 2011 American League Division series for the Rangers. Catching the ceremonial first pitch: Josh Hamilton. On the mound: Cooper Stone. There isn't a word for such a thing.

Stifler's List; Or, How Lacrosse Became My Latest Obsession

"Soft hands", I told my son. "Remember what the guy in the video said? Soft hands." 

I know how that sounds. But this is lacrosse we're talking about, a sport that manages to be both extremely silly and extremely badass at the same time. I've never played lacrosse, have only watched it a handful of times, and yet there I was, coaching Lucas on the proper way to catch a lacrosse ball with a lacrosse...hang on while I Google the proper name for it, ah, yes..."stick". The thing is like a butterfly net with a shrunken head, and when you catch the ball and run with it you have to twist the stick in your hands to keep the ball from falling out. This is called "cradling balls". (If you want to learn how to properly cradle balls, watch this. Yes, it's safe for work. Also, heh heh heh, cradling balls. Like I said, it's kind of a silly sport.)

Father-son obsessions, the Beast With Two Heads. This one was born about a year ago. We were driving back from something; our route took us past a local high school. "Dad! Look at that! What is that game? It looks awesome." I slowed down. A lacrosse practice, kids running to and fro, whipping balls into the net, smacking each other with those sticks (yes, I know how that sounds). Fast-paced and brutal - that's how my son likes his team sports. He gets that from his old man. The wheels started turning. Assuming that youth lacrosse doesn't interfere with youth rugby..."That's lacrosse. It's kind of like hockey meets basketball meets tennis. Looks pretty fun, no?" "And you can hit people with those stick-things?" "I think so, yes." "Cool! I want to play. Can I play?" "I think it's for older kids. But yes, when you're older, you can play." Thus the seed was planted; shortly after that, I bought a Mini-Lacrosse set (smaller, plastic sticks and a spongy ball, for the undersized player). 

Sports Is Weird: Hockey Edition

Let me just get something out of the way, right off the bat (to use one of the millions of sports metaphors that are so ubiquitous we don't even recognize them as metaphors): I'm not much of a sports fan.  Actually, not a sports fan at all.  There are exactly zero professional teams that I give a rat's ass about, and three college athletic programs that I feel some sort of kinship with, since I (or my parents on my behalf) paid tuition at those schools, and that gives me a tiny, mostly imaginary stake in their fortunes.

There are a bunch of reasons for my lack of interest, most of which have to do with my never having felt a great connection to a city or geographic region growing up, and even more so with my skepticism that a professional team really represents me as a resident of wherever I live.  It's really difficult for me to maintain interest in a sports contest in which I don't care who wins and who loses. 

There are a lot of sports I like to participate in though; and I do enjoy displays of athleticism and on-field drama as they are depicted in highlight reels and movies about sports.

But that's not even what I want to talk about.  It's just some background so you might understand that my bemusement with the world of sports comes from a willful ignorance of it.

Everything I Know About The Parent Face I Learned From Coach Taylor

Remember how your folks warned you that if you kept making that face, it would freeze that way? That shit is for reals, folks. I'm here to testify. Now, all of us have different faces we use to maintain some semblance of order; kids respond to non-verbal communication, and every parent knows that a good Stern Face or a good Angry Face can have a profound effect on unruly kids. I have a 3 year old girl and a 7 year old boy and these days, I have but one Parent Face. It's a near-constant expression I wear that says to the world "did that just happen? Of course it did. And while I am not happy about it, I accept - with no small amount of resignation and yes, annoyance - that I am the only sane person left on the planet". Fans of the TV series Friday Night Lights know this expression well. It's the Coach Taylor Face.

The furrowed brow, the slumped shoulders, the mouth about to say something, held back by the brain. ("Dude", says the brain to the mouth, "you know that anything you say will either make it worse, or - best case scenario! - get you a slack-jawed stare in response. You know our Your Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Face? I'm making that one, and adding a touch of Yes, This Is Happening and Nothing I Can Do About It But Make A Face.") Jesus, I'm making The Coach Taylor Face right now, just thinking about how often I make The Coach Taylor Face. (Note to self: ask wife to take pictures of me as I sleep, because I'm pretty sure I dream in The Coach Taylor Face.) Today alone:

Me: "Did you clean your room?"

Son: "Yep!"

Me: (going into son's room, finding a three-inch deep layer of Legos and Star Wars figures and Goldfish crackers and dirty underwear covering the entire floor, walking back out to living room where son sits) "Lemme ask you again: did you clean your room?"

Son: (thinks about it for a second) "Um...yep!"

Me: 

Daughter: "Daddy, can I drink the potty water?"

Me:

Dog: (eats own feces, trots into living room, breathes heavily in my face)

Me:

I suspect that I'll be wearing The Coach Taylor Face for the next, oh, 15 years or so, what with junior high and high school on the distant horizon. Sadly, I won't have Coach Taylor as my vicarious dad-brother-in-arms, as this is the last season of Friday Night Lights. Deep breath. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose. 

Telling the Men From the Boys of Summer

"In Game 2, Colby Lewis is scheduled to start after missing his last regular turn in the rotation because -- I'm not making this up -- his wife, Jenny, was giving birth in California. To the couple's second child… If it was a first child, maybe. But a second child causing a player to miss a game? Ludicrous."
 
                                               -Richie Whitt of the Dallas Observer

It is rare, to the point of utter amazement, in these volatile times to find someone that reaches a level of asshole capable of separating them so clearly from the pack. Richie Whitt is on top of his game.

Whitt is slamming the decision of Texas Rangers pitcher Colby Lewis to utilize a new rule in MLB which allows players to take 24 to 72 hours of paternity leave, in order to be present during the birth of his daughter.

The birth of his daughter.

And to make sure that we understood exactly what Whitt meant when he chastised a man for choosing family OVER A GAME he followed his original quote with this gem:

"I don't care if Lewis is a good dad. If I wanted to root for a team of great role models, I'd renew my season tickets to watch the deacons at my Sunday church. I want -- always have, always will -- the Rangers to win.

"If the Rangers lose the AL West by one game -- and if it can be reasonably concluded that Lewis missing that start contributed to them missing the playoffs -- I'll be pissed."

All of which makes me think that Richie Whitt must be a very special kind of fucking idiot.

We all say stupid things. Hell, some of us make a living out of it. However, it's only a matter of time before one is held accountable for said stupidity, and Whitt may want to start painting pictures with the humble brush while he is still on this side of a paycheck.

Granted, I'm not one to suggest a person should be punished for speaking their mind (or what passes for it), but to put the weight of a franchise, of a city, on the shoulders of father and his baby girl? That's so incredibly ignorant that it borders on awesome. No, I'm not calling for his job, or even a boycott of whatever dribble it is that he gets paid to publish, but I would like everyone to point at him and laugh. Loudly.

Kids, don't feed the buffoon.

We live at a crossroads in America, where stereotypes, gender roles and all kinds of thought fueled with hate are being shattered and remolded for the better. Colby Lewis did what any decent man should do, make every possible attempt to be present for his family when they need him. It's a no-brainer.

Therein lies the rub about crossroads, for every right decision or Ralph Macchio guitar solo there is a devil or two hanging around waiting to knock you for it. It's time to pay the devil his due.

I'm speaking metaphorically here.

Someday Colby Lewis is going to be an ex-baseball player, and he may regret certain errors or pitches, or be proud of this stat or that game. However, the best decision he will ever make in a Rangers uniform is already behind him. It won't show up in the box score, and it won't earn him any awards, but it is a far better mark of a man than any earned run average could ever hope to be.

Something tells me that Richie Whitt has no idea what I'm talking about.


Source: Bakersfield Californian

A Buzzerbeater From Downtown: Farewell to Free Darko

I don't really like to talk about blogging on this here site; we're dads and we talking about life through the Dad Filter, and most dads don't blog, and non-bloggers don't particularly care about the goings-on in the blogosphere. But I'd be remiss if I didn't have a few words for one of my all-time favorite blogs, Free Darko.

Today is the site's last day. Way back when DadCentric first launched, there weren't a whole lot of group dad blogs out there - in fact, I'm pretty sure there weren't any. (Historians, feel free to correct me.) I saw what the guys at Free Darko were doing - creating smart, funny, insightful, offbeat and above all unique content about basketball in general and the NBA in particular. Saying the site was a basketball blog is like saying Moby-Dick is a book about a pissed-off whale. Truth be told, I wanted DadCentric to be the Free Darko of the dad-blog-o-sphere. Free Darko showed me the importance of Voice, and has been one of the very few sites that's influenced and inspired me. The site will be sorely missed. Do yourself a favor, even you hate sports: go there and explore the archives. The bench is deep.