A New Season

Landon had his first week of JV 2-a-days this week.  They had pictures and a short scrimmage.  He got to run play both ways, offense and defense!  He also has jersey # 23 - so he's definitely not a lineman anymore!

Here's a link to Highlander News article

Running Offense Drills

End of practice

Meet the Mustangs 2010

This video is of the freshman boys coming out of the tunnel. 

It is a bit blurry, but it's great to see  Landon's first tunnel run as a Mustang!

Here's Landon - clearly not paying attention to mom in the stands trying to snap his picture! 

Now he's got his head down - still in an unphotographable position.

Finally we can see his face!

He's #75.

Are You Ready for Some Football?

Thursday - August 19, 2010 vs. Fredericksburg
Landon's first "real" scrimmage (against an opponent) as a high school freshman!

Landon is #45.

'Tis the Season

Football Season, that is.









Landon started 2-a-days this week and had a squad scrimmage on Friday.












 

He played offense and defense, and we heard the coaches yelling at the other players to get more aggressive because "Spruiell is in on every play!"





His first "real" scrimmage is Saturday, August 14th at Hays.

Seniors vs. Senior Citizens

Well, Moses had a staff that parted the sea. We've had staph in the field house. And now the staff went to a whole new place....The high school faculty faced off in the grand championship flag football game against the senior boys last night. That meant Jesse got to play against Randy. It was hilarious to say the least. Randy was talking smack and doing somersaults in front of Jesse to aggravate him.

It should have been called the Metal Bowl because of the silver hair and the various "iron men" and "men of steel"on the field (the iron and steel were in all the pins in knees, plates in necks, etc. on the old guys, mostly Jesse).


I told them they should have adopted new names like Ty Lenol, Jerry Tall, Ben Gay. I also offered to cheer De-Fense De-Fense for the seniors and De-Pends De-Pends for the faculty. It was not well-received. Anyway, when their principal came out to hang out on the sidelines I heard Jesse ask him why he wasn't playing - I shot out that they were going to need SOMEONE still able to move a finger to dial subs for all of them tomorrow! Also not well-received.


Here's the best part - the faculty WON 21-20!

Landon - Football Banquet

Landon's Football Banquet at Pizza Hut

Jrs vs Srs

I've been catching up on housework and emails today. Things at school seem to be easing up. Powder Puff football game tonight -- helped Jesse set up the tunnel for the sr. girls to run through. Corky ran the chains on the jr's side, and Justin was the coach for the sr. girls. Also worked in the concession stand for all 4 qtrs of a playoff game for a 1A team at our stadium last night -- I was totally exhausted last night!!!!!

7-on-7 Football

The boys played 7-on-7 football in Lampasas.
Here are a couple of links to the Highlander News Stories that were done for the season:

Gridiron Relief for MF Hopeful
Mustangs Storm the Field in 7-on-7 Games

Expensive, Busy Summer

I've been dealing with Corky and his track stuff - almost made it to the Junior Olympics! but we were in San Antonio 5 times in a 3-week period for meets and qualifiers - and helping with the 7 on 7 football team. Here's the thing about 7 on 7 - I'm helping coach (believe it or not) because when the head coach resigned at the HS, the guy who was his old buddy that was coaching 7 on 7 just quit coaching the 7 on 7 kids. They were meeting only every so often, the guy had not called anyone back about tournaments or games, and we were stuck with no one to play and only a few kids practicing every other day. Jesse and I called the LAST tournament available in the state and tried to get into a canceled spot but the people NEVER CALLED US BACK! Then this week we thought we were going to play the Drip, but we NEVER GOT CALLED BACK! Here's a word to all you MEN who are coaching 7 on 7 - GET SOME TELEPHONE MANNERS! RETURN YOUR PHONE CALLS! Anyway, hopefully we will be playing somewhere next week. The boys are chomping at the bit. We have Tshirts ready to be printed, play sheets, and wristbands with the plays on them for a no-huddle offense. Well, we went down to my dad's for the 4th of July - I told him that I was pseudo-coaching the 7 on 7 football and he started offering all kinds of ideas for plays and offenses.

Went to Jesse's parents last weekend and left Landon down there.Jesse's brother is living there now, and since it has been so long since he's seen him, we went.

My cat is laying here exhausted from his night out - I swear I'm going to put one of those mini-cams on him to see where he goes and what he does all night -- he comes in SO TIRED every day, if he comes home at all! There are some stretches that we go 2 or 3 days without seeing him. Bad little boy. But he has that purr/meow thing that he does that sounds like the Magwai song off of Gremlins and I have to put up with him.

Ok, I'm outta here - just got a call from one of the tech people at school about webpage stuff.
Duty calls...

Poe and Football

Jesse was a little behind on his research paper about Poe, but he went to class and the prof is going to let him turn it in late. He has like a B average in there -

Other stuff: 7on7 is still "on hold" The guy said that the first team didn't drop out but he has another team that might go to the JV division and let us have their spot.

I have a TON of stuff to do to get ready if we are going. Otherwise I have to get on the phone and try to arrange some scrimmages. But I'm hoping hoping hoping for the boys' sakes...

Manual Labor

Waiting on 7on7 guy to call us back. In the meantime, I returned from our 4th of July break from visiting family with some new energy. This morning (at least) I have so much I want to accomplish. AND I have the energy to do it!
Fought with Justin much of the weekend. He is getting Senioritis - and too big for his britches. Going to make a list of stuff I want to get done around the house - including the little nitpicky jobs needed to accomplish it all. My kids are fixing to do some stuff for ME for a change. I lost my entire month of June to track, GT camp, football workouts, and meetings. Time to get my house in order. I want my pool back up, and I want the yard cleaned. Yep! Gonna be some manual labor happenin'!

Rebuilding Plan

After the meeting deal last night we all got to talking and decided that my dad would be the best person for the position of head coach at our HS. The program has to be rebuilt after 4-5 years of destruction by the former admin/super that we had. I called him last night and told him that his grandsons NEEDED him. This TOWN needs him. (It needs an enema!) He and one other person that I can think of would be ideal - they both would have to come out of retirement and prove that they are teaching in a teaching field where there is a shortage. I may go to central office today and snoop out some more info and drop it in his lap this weekend. I told him last night to bring interview clothes and a tie and at least come over here and see what was up. I know he misses coaching-- he said my alma mater had called him and asked him to come coach for them --- so the idea of coming out of retirement isn't a complete shock. I spent the rest of the day sewing. Still have a couple of things left to sew and I have to clean house before we leave AND make a grocery list, buy groceries, pick up Justin's TIHA trophy and clean/pack the trailer. BEFORE 4pm!!!!!!!!!!Ok--I'm off.

Football Rant

We are a 4A school in Texas - you would think that football was king, right? This town is SO messed up. For years (when we first moved down here 15 years ago), this town had a championship-winning football team and everyone was pretty happy except the non-football crowd who claimed that football got all the funds, preferential treatment, the football players were druggies (more on that later), etc. The usual.
Enter a new super about 7 years ago - she told the head football coach that he was no longer the athletic director. I heard that she said she didn't want anyone in the district to have more power than she, but that is a small-town rumor, however her actions later turned out to make everyone believe it! Anyway, the coach left. We then had a series of 1 or 2 year stints of coaches with little say-so and the football program began a decline. To address the issue of drug use by athletes, band members, drama club actors, our district implemented mandatory drug testing (much needed - the admin had been burying their heads in the sand about this for years!) Well, of course, we lost half the football team. This confirmed what everyone had been saying about drug use, but this was FOUR YEARS AGO! I had a person comment to me the other day that the football team was full of drug addicts! I asked her how she thought that was possible when the team was practically cut in half by the drug testing. She said, oh well, it used to be that way. We ended up with the 6th longest losing streak in the state last year - our stands were half empty...the visitors side had more people on it than us for all the games except homecoming. I had people in town tell me that they wished they could see my kids play, but they drove to the town 10 miles away to watch THEIR team play on Friday nights so that they could see a team win. People even wore THAT school's colors around town instead of ours.
We had a staff of 12 coaches (most also coached other sports and taught content - area classes - they were strictly ASSISTANT coaches) 6 left or retired at the end of this year. Last week our new superintendent/school board reinstated the head football coach as athletic director. The girls basketball coach HAD been the athletic director (mostly in name only - remember our past super had "issues"). The kids started talking about how the head coach was getting phone calls and threats from a few of the girls' parents.
Monday night our head football coach had a heart attack. He resigned last night. The 35 boys on varsity (we had NO JV -not enough kids) started calling each other and have called a meeting at the field house tonight. I am so upset for these kids who went out every day for practice, stayed away from drugs, played their hearts out every Friday night against teams that outmanned them in size and number (3 of these teams moved up to 5A this year)...
We have 5 football coaches left - and NO head coach.
My sons feel hurt and deserted by the town, and now by the coaches.

Rant over.