Working on Flip Board Tonight.
Color Boards
The wind from the week-long storms tore up my number board today. The homemade flip board is the life blood of our offense, so I had to repair it tonight. I wish it would have happened on Monday or something....at least it would have given me some more time to work on it. When we first started designing our offense, we had to find a way to signal plays to our players on the field. There was just nothing on the market which met our needs (off the shelf) ....so I had to build what we needed. Without going into the intricacies of how it all works, I will say that the flip board, the wrist bands, and the color boards all work together to signal a play. Do the numbers look familiar? They should! These are actually WALMART (www.Walmart.com) Pricing Numbers used in the stores everyday. I chose the numbers I needed, punched and grommeted the holes, and built the frame using 1/2" PVC. The numbers are plastic so they are waterproof; however, the wind will sometimes catch the numbers and play hell with them.....which is what happened today. The wristbands you see the kids wearing have plays (with associated numbers) written on the three page inserts. The color cards you see us holding up have different meanings which change often. These cards are made from white plastic waffle board which I cut into usable pieces; then I had them colored and lettered by a local sign/graphics company. It is a pretty complex system for a high school football team; however, it allows us to play up tempo when we have to, and it gives us the ability to call 90% of our plays from the sideline without a huddle. Now, when you hear us calling colors and signaling numbers on the sideline, you will have a better understanding on what is happening.
The practice day did not start off so good for me today. Once or twice a week, I will take the laundry up to the school and bring some cleaned laundry back down to the football equipment room. Of course, we have always used our trucks to load and haul the huge barrels full of laundry. This requires backing your truck up to the loading door. Since the door is not close to the parking lot, it requires some manuvering on sidewalks and maybe hit a little grass here and there. To make matters even worse, the addition of the new facility has really scrambled the route to the door. I pulled my truck up to the door as always;, then, the lawn maintenance guy starts SCREAMING at me: "WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MIND? GET OFF MY GRASS!" among other choice words I wont / can't say here. Well, I had about enough of that shit. (I sure as hell won't be punked up by no maintenance guy) I get out of my truck ready to throw down right then and there. I was preparing to go Ric Flair on his ass. I said: "What the F---k are you talking about? I am here to get LAUNDRY as I have done for 15 years! I am WORKING not F-ing around!" Well, he calmed down when I got out of my truck, but I was still pretty hot under the collar and mouthed off a little more. The matter was resolved before it esculated any further. He apologized for going off the handle, and I apologized for driving on his precious wet grass. Unfortunately, a few of the players saw the whole thing go down from the second story windows, and they were pretty fired up about seeing me get out of my truck ready to throw down. I am sorry for them seeing that. I did not set a very good example for them to follow. "Lessons in Life" once again.
FINALLY, we got in a decent practice today. It poured rain all morning, and I thought we were in for another wet and muddy day. It cleared off before we were set to begin practice, so we got in some nice work. We had our normal Wednesday practice session which included some offensive and defensive work along with some special teams. We are planning for a normal Thursday practice tomorrow as well. Maybe the weather will cooperate. I am tired of being WET.
That is all for today. I am tired.
GZ
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