THE END...

Blogs have become great sources to write about national and world events, sports, personal experiences, opinions on anything and everything, and to make a statement. There are many people who write blogs. Anyone can start a blog, as well as anyone can read a blog. People read blogs because of their different kinds of interests, which might be a reason why a person would start a blog. Blogs really affect our lives because people can say anything they want to in their blog, it is theirs, and those who read them might take offense or agree and other problems might be caused.

At this time for our country and our world, many of the national and world events have to do with war. For America, many writers blog about the Iraq war and usually have something to do with "Freeing our Soliders" or "Freedom is not Free." On the website, worldpress.com, there are a ton of blogs about world events.

One of the most popular blog, is a blog about sports. There are so many sport blogs. For example, the Big Ten has a blog for football and basketball. The Sports Blog Network has hundreds of different sport blogs. It shows the Title of the each blog, what time the last post was posted, the team that the blog is talking about, the sport that the blog is talking about, and how many times the blog has been read. Sports blogs could be written by reviewers, fans, players, and coaches. There are many coaching blogs. The coaching blogs give a preview of the different games, like what happened in the game, why the coach think they won, or lost, played to their full potential, etc. For example, the Lehigh Women's Basketball coach has a blog that she writes about their season and about the different games; what she thinks they did good, could have done, and or could have done better.

There are also many blogs that talk about personal experiences. For example blogs written by soldiers about their experiences in Iraq, and just everyday people dealing with something. That is usually what the blogs with the personal experiences are written about. A teen girl who got pregnant wrote about a blog her experience with it and all the things that go along with pregnancy, especially teen pregnancy. Another blog that really shows someone's personal experience affects me as well. My sister-in-law has a blog that talks about my brother being in Iraq. My brother is a fighter pilot. Everytime she gets a call, email, letter, pictures, etc., she posts them on her blog and our family, family friends, and her and my brothers friends get to see the pictures and see how he's doing. I would post a link, but this blog is private.

The last two concepts that most people write about while they are blogging are opinions and making a statement. There is one blog in particular that expresses both of these. This blog is called, "Things That Piss Me Off!" This is pretty self explanatory. It is about things that piss him off. But, it does express his opinion (about which types of things piss him off) and he is definitly making a statement.

Blogs can be a ton of different things: funny, serious, boring, offensive, and much more, but they do have character. Blogging is easy, but you do have to be careful what you say on the internet. That is the down side to blogging. Anyone can set up an account at http://www.blogger.com/ or http://www.blogspot.com/ and so on. But, if the blog isn't private, anyone on the internet can read the blog!

So long, Farewell Blog!
And to all you future bloggers out there!
Be Safe and Have fun blogging!

Last week I experienced the guest blogging experiment. Which means that someone sent me a post about my blog to post on mine and I wrote about someone else's. I didn't really have a difficult time with this, but some people might have. Would you be comfortable doing this? How would you feel?

I don't know how I would feel if the person that wrote on my blog and the blog I wrote about didn't know anything about the subject being talked about. For instance, the person who wrote about my blog, about basketball, plays basketball and loves it. The blog I wrote about was cheerleading. I cheered most of my life, so I had things to say about it and I love cheerleading. So, I got kind of lucky and didn't have to step out of my comfort zone and neither did the person that wrote about my blog.

Like I said the blog I wrote about was a blog all about cheerleading. Also like I said, I have cheered for most of my life. I started in second grade actually cheering for a football team and then I stopped after my freshman year of high school because I chose to play basketball all year round. In my blog I talked about how I loved cheerleading and sometimes regret giving it up. I also talked about whether I believe cheerleading is a sport. Yes, I believe anything that you are competeing in, it is a sport.

I think the guest blogging experiment is a postive thing. It gives the readers and the writers another view they could take and look upon.

That's all for now!
BYEEeeEEE! =]

Coming into my freshman year I was highly looking at in basketball. Being ranked 16th in the state only managed to put more pressure on my shoulders. We also had other big name basketball player attending Desales like Alex Kellogg, Elijah Allen, and also Dane Johnson. I attended Columbus Desales High School my freshman year and I received a chance to showcase my ability on the freshman & JV team. My motivation was unbelievable I worked hard every day getting ready for my up in coming basketball season. Your ability can only get you so far and I learned that experiencing dramatic events.

Throughout tryouts we ran, did different drills, and also got some opportunities to do some five on five. Me and a couple other future players would wake up around 5:30am lift weights and also run the track. Not being over confident but when finding out that I made the team it really didn’t come as a shocker I pretty much already knew. Making the JV and freshman team was an accomplishment but I felt like I should have been picked for the varsity team. Varsity is the highest level to compete at in high school, most freshmen don’t ever get a chance to experience varsity because of the already experienced upper classmen.

Talking with my dad he expressed to me that learned from upper classmen is a stepping stone. My dad said “sometimes the coaches will not put you on varsity not because of your ability but to give you a chance to learn from others.”

and that's a wrap

This week I am going to talk about the season. The freshman season is now over. They learned a lot and had fun but obviously, like the end of every sporting season, in every level, there is always things that can be worked on.

We started our season with 13 girls, but then ended with 10. Only the first couple games the two that got moved up to jv, played with us. And only half the games we had 10 players, usually just 9 and in practice we usually always has 9, so when we would scrimmage, I would play. =]

What do all teams practice for during the season?....the answer is a tournament. Since before I really even knew what DeSales was, our freshman teams particiapted in the end of the year tounrnament at Pickerington North High School, till this day we still do. It has around 20 some teams and very good competition. Pick. North itself, is a very tough team and usually wins the tournament. This tournament is double elimination and the seed of your team is based on your record. We got 6th seed, I am pretty sure. We played an okay team the first round, but we didn't play as well as we hoped, but we won.

...A little side note about freshman tournaments. Most schools (all the schools in this tournament)...bring down the freshman that played jv during the season, that didn't get moved up to varsity at the end. Well, we didn't for various reasons so we were playing all the teams that brought down their best freshman.

So...after the round one we advanced to the next round...we played a really good team. The number two seed. We were winning by 8 at halftime and we ended up losing badly. So, that is how the end of our season ended. We did have a winning season and for those of you that don't know what that is...we won more games than we lost. That is a good thing playing the schedule that we had.

Now I'm focusing helping with the Varsity team. Having just graduated I knew and have played with most of the girl's on the team now, so I love helping and watching. There are three seniors. Two that I played with and one that transferred last year so I didn't play with her. But, the two I did play with I was also good friends with. This coming Tuesday is going to be their 3rd game...they have already won two! The interesting thing is the team they play on Tuesday is the team that for the past two years (my junior and senior year) that have knocked us out of the tournament.

That's all for NOW =]!

This week for my blog post I decided to comment and respond to one of my classmates blogs. One of my classmates is going through a very rough time...she is 18 and she found out she was pregnant. Every week I read her blog, because I have seen people go through the scares of pregnancy at such a young age and what it seems like to be the worst time possible to get pregnant. But, none of them were actually pregnant and now that I actually get the chance to see what it's like for someone my age to go through that, I am very interested.

This week she posted about a "heart break." I can kind of relate to this because of two reasons. My mother had a miscarriage, like her friend did and I know many people that have had miscarriages. It's really a sad process.

The next thing I really think about on this subject is this...I was talking to a family member the other day and just saying how life just isn't fair. Well we all know that. But, really...why do people that do not want to be pregnant at the time, get pregnant. and people that really want to be pregnant, they can't for years or months, or maybe ever. That is also a really sad process.

My sister is ready to have a child, and I'm so excited to be an aunt. But, that's the thing...she is ready. I couldn't imagine not being ready to bring another person in this world and actually make it happen. There is one thing that really bothers me about teen pregnancies. When a teen gets pregnant, they are looked down apon, whether you can help it or not, they are. Teen pregnancies can happen to anyone. And what sucks is that people look down on those people that actually get pregnant but they are still sexually active and it just hasn't happened to them, but it could. It makes me mad!

Now, I'm going to kind of relate it into basketball. The summer going into my sophomore year we went through a hard team camp at the University of North Carolina. Then during the year we found out that one of our players was pregnant the whole summer, even at team camp. I just couldn't get over it. She had to stop playing basketball and everything. This topic just really interests me because it's so real and brings out the real in people.

Defense

My team runs three defenses: A man to man help and two zones. The two zones are a 1-3-1 and a 1-2-2. But what we run the most is a 1-3-1. It's a very high pressure zone but we adjust it when we need to.

1 - Zone: 1-3-1

This is how a 1-3-1 is set up. The triangle 1 is the top of the zone. This person gives pressure and is usually the fastest guard sometimes the point guard and or one of the best defenders.

The triangles 2 and 3 have the same exact jobs but on the opposite sides. The pressure the wings when they recieve the ball and have to watch back side when the ball is on the opposite side that they are defending.

The triangle 4 is usually one of the faster players, because they have to run from one side of the court to another multiple times and have litttle time to get there.

The triangle 5 is usually the tallest and or the post player. They protect the middle of the zone.

2. - Zone: 1-2-2

We rarley run a 1-2-2, but we do it when we think we need to.

The triangle one basically has the same job as the 1-3-1.

The 2 and 3 again have the same job but opposite sides.

And now the 4 and 5 have the same job but opposite sides.

This defense is to protect the middle and let nothing in.

3. Man to Man help

The Blue circles are the offense and then the red trianlges are the defense. In this case, number 5 as the ball. As you can see not everyone is "hugging" their player and dropped down or "sagged" off to help their teammates.

This is how we play our man to man defense.

StoRY TiMe .....

What was the point in driving two and a half hours on a school night to play a team that was number one in the state? That is exactly what I was thinking. Oh and I forgot to mention it was in the middle of winter. But we did it anyway. It was my sophomore year of high school and during my second year of high school basketball. It was just the junior varsity and the varsity playing that night, but all the coaches came to watch.

Like I said before, why did we have to go all the way there on a school night? I had big confidence in my program, but I was pretty sure I knew how the outcome would turn out to be. And I was right; we lost. Yes, both of our teams.

Being the youngest that traveled that night, we were programmed to sit in the front of the bus; that’s just how it always went. My best friend and I were the first seat behind the coaches. So we had a clear view of what was about to happen. A little over halfway home, something terrible started to happen. I stayed still like if I made noise it would get worse. We couldn’t really decipher what was going on, but whatever it was, we know it wasn’t good.

The next thing we knew a coach yelling was, “Call 911! Pull over! We need an ambulance!” We pulled into a gas station when we were all told to evacuate the bus from the back and remain inside the gas station. The coach that had this terrible thing happening to him was the assistant freshman coach, my uncle’s best friend growing up, and the man that persuaded me most to come from a public school to this Catholic high school. We waited outside for a while, until we went inside the gas station. We had to go in though because it was a really cold night, rainy and snowy. If anyone would walk by they couldn’t tell if we had tears or raindrops on our cheeks, but we all knew there were a lot of both. We all got in a circle, held hands, and began to pray. The ambulance took him to the nearest hospital, where his family met him there. The rest of the bus ride was silenced. The only sounds you could hear were sobbing and the music playing in everyone’s tiny headphones, just so they couldn’t hear themselves think about what just happened.

We had no idea how he was the next day we came to school. But what we did know was that we would find out. The announcements prayed for him, not his family, so what did that lead us to believe? That he was fine, just recovering. He was a softball coach too, he actually liked coaching softball better, but I was always too stubborn to say I knew that because I didn’t play softball. So, the girl’s softball and basketball programs were asked to come to the Chapel. We all walked in nervously but in the back of our minds we thought he was okay or was going to be okay. Our head coach stood at the front of the chapel while we all took our seats. He delivered the news to us, while head freshman coach, (one of his best friends), stood by. “Coach Kubin passed away this morning at 6:45, there was nothing they could do. He had a brain aneurysm.” Everyone was silent and you could hear a cotton ball drop. We were told we could stay in the chapel for as long as we needed even if it ended up being all day.

I was still in shock, as were my two classmates/teammates, but we three decided to go to first period. It was when we sat down and looked at each other and started to cry, hard. So we left, back to the chapel we went. It took a couple of hours for everyone to start talking instead of crying. But when we could start talking, we all sat around and told stories about just him. It was nice. We laughed, cried, smiled, and all together. The school even had someone come in and talk to us and help “guide” us through it. She was a counselor of some sort; her granddaughter was a senior and played basketball. Her sons both attended my high school and went on to the NBA. One of them passed away suddenly in the middle of a game. So she knew what we were going through, she helped a lot.

I had never seen a line as long as the one was to get into the funeral home for the showing. When we finally did get inside, we could barley move because there were so many people in the funeral home. The actual funeral was a cold day, we were asked to stand outside and be the guards and make a line while the casket was carried through. We wore our school uniforms as a sign of respect. It was an honor and we were all happy to do it. Coach Kubin passed away on January 6, 2006. Every year, a group of us visit his grave.

The next weekend, so a day later, we had a home game also against a very good team, top ranked. The coaches decided not to cancel it, so we went on to play. It wasn’t going to matter if we lost that day, we played that day for him, and no matter what we knew he would be proud. Our whole program went to school earlier than usual. We didn’t know what for yet, but that’s just what we were told to do. The coaches all bought black wrist sweatbands and silver permanent markers. We could each do it our own way, but it some way or another, everyone’s had “Kube” with a cross on it. Even the coaches wore them. During the game most of the breaks would say, “Kube on three.” From then on before every game I had the honor of drawing a cross with “KUBE” on the board that all the coaches drew on before games and at halftimes. I continued it on until the last game of my senior year.

I coach at my Catholic high school now. I actually coach the same position he had when he was coaching. It is kind of sad being there, coaching, and watching the girls for the simple reason that they didn’t know him. The week of the anniversary of his death I stared at the memorial plaque of him in the gym. My team knew or heard about him, but it’s sad that the seniors, this year, will be the last one’s that were actually coached by him.

A few of my old teammates and I are trying to start an Alumni Game for girls. The boys program has one in honor of someone. Why can’t we? Hopefully that goes well enough to be able to make it a tradition, in honor of Coach Kubin.