Debate Dad in a Small World

When my oldest child played hockey, I wasn't a very good hockey dad.  I expected more effort out of him than I should have from a 5-6 year-old kid. When he switched to basketball, it was more of the same, only a bit worse, because I knew he could hear me from the stands, so I yelled more.

I was embarrassing to myself.

Tonight was a different experience.  My second-oldest child, my sophomore daughter, is in a debate tournament this weekend.  I love a good debate. I even love finding out I'm wrong, or being convinced so.  

But I'm not so sure about competitive debates, because unlike real life debates, the win-or-lose mentality seems to harm the experience. But I can't say I know that for sure, as this was my first in high school competition to witness.

I was a good debate parent tonight, but it's not that I didn't want to chime in.  It was because I was one of only two adults at this particular event. The other was the judge.  So, yeah, I was going to be on my best behavior.

A high school debate features two partners from one school (a first speaker, and a second), against two from another. (Although sometimes one student will go against two; this is called going "Maverick" as I learned tonight.) It actually went fairly close to how I expected, with few surprises. 

One of those surprises, however, was quite a surprise, and had nothing to do with the debate itself: it was my daughter's opponent. Why?  Glad you asked. 

Some 21 years ago, I had my heart ripped out of my chest by the woman whom I was certain fate had decided was the right one for me.  We spoke only once after that, a few months later, when I had barely built up the nerve just to call and say "hi" and see if I could get some closure for myself.  

I didn't.  The breakup was hard to get over, and even though I started dating again soon thereafter, and even married my first wife within two years of it, for the longest time, and I mean years, the one thing that still bugged me was just not getting that closure. I didn't even know for sure that lack of closure was the problem, what closure actually was, and how I would know it if I got it anyway. But not having it bugged me for a long time.

Eventually, yeah, time closes things for you. Out of curiosity, and thanks to the Internet and social networks, I learned two things about her over the years: her married name, and the city in which she lives. Nothing creepy ("sure it isn't," you're thinking), and in fact, I would hope that all is well for her.

So back to my daughter's opponent (and you can probably see this coming). My daughter and her partner had the "pro" position on the topic. She was in the first-speaker position, but the other school was to go first.

The other school's first speaker introduced his name.  It rang a bell. Then it took me another three seconds or so to realize that it was the same last name as "her," and his school is where "she" lives, and....HOLY COW does he resemble "her"!!

So yeah, I just saw my daughter go head-to-head in a debate against the son of someone I once thought I had a certain future with. At first it was a bit surreal, but then it became quite normal and rather nice to see this young man in action.  I was quite happy for her, knowing that as a parent, she must be as happy with him as I with my daughter.

I'll find out tomorrow who won, and I can't say that I really care. I found it interesting that this debate was just a touch nastier than the debates she and I used to get into.  That is to say, it really wasn't nasty at all.

Spot-of-the-foul Stinks

If I ever stop watching major team sports completely, or nearly completely, it will be because of the lack of integrity in the results of each game.  I think I've covered this point more than once.

My comment today is not in the integrity of the specific result of the game that inspired this post (Vikings vs. Bears today).  The Bears were the better team, to be sure.

But there was one play that, if the Vikings were to have had a chance, and I do mean if, the officials needed to get correct.  They blew it, but still, that's not the point...really.

What upsets me is that this type of play could, and probably has on many occasions, been the decider in a game.  OK, I'll quit beating around the bush.  It's defensive pass interference, and the ridiculous spot-of-the-foul punishment it leads to.

There are so many things wrong with that type of penalty, but what irks me most is that the interference so often doesn't even occur. So where is the logic in rewarding a team first-and-goal at the one after a 50-yard pass where both defender and receiver are mixing it up, and the officials decide to call a penalty on the defender? Today, it was only 25 yards, but the receiver appeared to be just as guilty, if not moreso, of the illegal contact. 

So what's my suggestion? Well, I'm not particularly fond of the college rule of 15 yards "no matter what." But I think it's a false dichotomy to suggest that one has to pick one or the other.  

How about both? Perhaps, like an NBA "flagrant foul," the NFL could make a rule where if it was blatant, then fine, spot-of-the-foul to the offense, but no less than 15 yards, or the one yard-line if the line of scrimmage was the 16 or closer. But where they are jostling together for the ball, and the defender is perhaps too aggressive? Then no more than 15 yards, and spot at the one if and only if the line of scrimmage was at the 16 or closer. Automatic first down in either case.

The spot-of-the foul reward assumes that without the foul, the receiver would almost certainly have made the play, and thus gets rewarded the yardage, and that's just ludicrous. They stop just short of giving them the TD if it occurs in the end zone, thankfully, but that's not enough.

I get that a lot of penalties perhaps over-reward the victimized team, and to some degree, as a deterrent, they should. But in plays like this in the Vikings/Bears game, when it was still a game, giving the Bears the ball on the one yard line ranks with shootouts deciding World Cup soccer championships in stupidity.

And the more major team sports leagues allow the integrity of their games suffer like this, the less I really care about the results, and thus, the less I'll be spending on their product.

Turning the Corner With Less Turn of the Wrist

After my worst two-week stretch of bowling in perhaps over a decade, I rolled a not-so-awful 625 this week.  What I'm encouraged about is that I stuck with my changes, and fought through 1 1/2 awful games, finishing strongly after a ball change and not missing the pocket for 16 frames.

Starting off with a 185, then having three opens in the first four frames of game two, almost put me in the same mood as the past two weeks.  I've matured a bit over the years, having once been a real hothead on the lanes, but those demons have come frightening close to reappearing recently.

But with my second ball change, I found the pocket, and didn't leave.  Game two went from 45 after four frames, to a 203, throwing strikes in all but two frames from there on (and one of those two was the 12th).

Then in game three, it was all nines or better on all pocket hits.  That makes 13 strikes in my final 19 shots, with the six non-strikes all being corner pins, which I converted (another very nice sign). A 237 final made me feel like perhaps I'm starting to turn the corner.

In my senior year in high school, I made changes to my game that initially caused me to bowl a little worse.  That's the norm for major changes, and while my recent changes aren't that radical, they do go against 30 years of habit. I'll try to post, with graphics, what the key changes look like.  But for now, I'll put them simply:

1) A more modern-looking release (pointer finger pointing down at release, and minimal wrist turn or flip)
2) Ball just rolling off the finger tips (so I'm not "squeezing")
3) Slightly higher backswing
4) A little more foot speed

And in case you recall my previous posts about form changes, I abandoned my "Del Ballard" approach last year.  It was causing me to have very little backswing, and when I tried to add some backswing, I was all over the place.

I'm determined to make these current changes stick, in part because my old friend and bowling pro wanted to see my hand behind the ball more, and not so much around the side.  These changes, particularly #s 1 & 2, help to accomplish that.

Those Darn Liberal Facts

After all of the election predictions I read, and after the election dust has settled, I have lost a ton of respect for several right-wingers, from pundits to people I know personally, who just knew Obama would lose.  Moreso for the ones I know personally, because, 1) The pundit's job is, in part, to incite, and 2) There wasn't as much respect to lose with the pundits in the first place.

Here's the reason: There was so much data for political followers to, well, follow. It all pointed to Obama. Even after the first debate. Even up to Sandy. The Electoral College still pointed to Obama.

Now, I'm not talking about an opinion, simple prediction, hunch, or anything qualified with, "I don't know for sure, but I think..." What I'm talking about are the cocksure, no-doubt-about-it proclamations that Romney was for sure going to win.  Even in a "landslide" as one Facebook friend put it. I simply can no longer respect anything he has to say of opinion in political discussion.

Because the data didn't support it, and yet he made his assertion without any qualifier.  Sure, some doubted the validity of the polls.  So qualify your claim by predicating it with that for your reasoning.  But even so, ALL polls being wrong on the Electoral College?  REALLY?

I was following Nate Silver's work at http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/. As a stats geek, I found it fantastic reading every day. Yet these right-wing critics called him liberal and biased. Fine, but then explain what in his writing is showing bias in his picking Obama day after day. (Crickets.)

They couldn't, because there was nothing.  The guy simply had too much of a reputation at stake to risk it on bias.  Unlike, say, a Dick Morris who seems to make a career out of being wrong.  Dead wrong.

So Silver ends up nailing it, spot on:  332 electoral votes for Obama, just like his most likely scenario showed on his final post before the polls opened.  Fantastic.

Perhaps Steven Colbert was right when he said, "Reality has a liberal bias."