Spring football has started for my little league team. I do not agree with the spring football program. I think the kids should have this opportunity do normal spring sports like baseball and track. Spring football in this area is new and not a lot of organizations are participating. Just a thought for today. My teams are successful, and we have won all our games so far. We will use some of the techniques that I have learned in this class. Our coaches are going to attend training seminars that may be offered by the league, and I am going with them for the first time this year. We are also gong to start having the parents rate the coaches and give suggestions on how we as an organization can improve.

While watching the Lakers play Oklahoma City on Sunday, I witnessed an aggressive move by Metta World Peace (Ron Attest). World Peace had just made an incredible dunk. James Harden came over to him and as Harden touched World Peace, he pulled his elbow back and hit Harden on the back of his head. An incredible shot. Harden ended up with a concussion. While watching this, I was thinking that World Peace needed a Sports Psychologist to channel all that aggression. This is not his first time in trouble for aggression. The more I watched this, I thought about my report on steroids use in athletes and some of the side effects of using steroids. I could be wrong, but that type of aggression is just what happens to people who use steroids. It is incredible to me that these athletes, making very large incomes, and doing what the love to do, possibly risk their livelihood by possibly doing drugs, or just making stupid decisions.

A friend of mine daughter won an award at school for determination. He said, "you can teach your kids a lot of things, but you can not reach determination". I saw the greatest example of this on a sport show on Saturday on ABC. The show was about an eight year old boy who had to have is leg amputated at the age of one because of cancer. His mother said that the day after the surgery, her child stood up in his crib on his one good leg and threw his pacifier at her head. She said at that point, she knew her child would be okay. At the age of 3, this child started playing soccer. He refused to play in the challenge league for handicap kids. He excelled in soccer and was the highest scorer. When he started playing baseball it was the same thing. Eric Bender taught himself to kneel on one knee and became the catcher. He would hit the ball and hop to first base, then he could get his crutches back. In addition to soccer and baseball, he plays quarterback on a flag football team. Amazing and inspiring to watch. How great is it to see that kind of determination in a young kid, when some of us complain about having to stay to 10:15 pm in this class. Watching this has inspired me to show more determination in finishing my college degree. I will no longer complain about anything that it takes to accomplish something that is personal and beneficial to me. I am better for having watched a show about an 8 year old athlete.

I went to cheerleader competition this weekend in Myrtle Beach, SC. I was able to identify several of the techniques that we have learned in this class. My niece is 12 years old and participates in competition cheerleading. She has a love of the sport, and a mental toughness that I found special for someone her age. She participated on two teams based on her skill level. The event was two days. After the first day of competition, both her teams were in fourth place. She is very dramatic, and normally this would have been upsetting to her. She always expects to win first place. On the second day, she said to me, it is okay, we know that we did not do our best, and it is on us as a team to correct our mistakes and we will. I recognized this as an optimistic explanatory style. She displayed some of the techniques I recognize as using self talk. She said to me when she first hits the stage, she looked for us and she saw me with the camera. After identifying where we were, she said she zones out, and is able to talk herself through the routine. She is truly an amazing and positive young lady.