11/5/2019 (I wrote this yesterday and just discovered I didn’t post it, sorry)
A man came by to get his Alkaline water today and as we talked, it came out that he coaches 3rd, 4th grade boys basketball in some city league or church league action here in Fort Payne. So, since I spent several years doing that in Oxford,AL and New Braunfels, TX, I did a bit of “kibitzing” with him about it.
As he was leaving, I asked him if he ever watched NFL football games and he said he did. I asked him if he had seen that Kliff Kingsbury was now coaching the Arizona Cardinals? He had noticed that and we talked of the irony that brought that head coaching job about. Kliff was the Head Coach at his college alma mater, Texas Tech for a few years, having worked his way up from briefly playing pro ball, then small college, then Texas A & M quarterback coaching. Texas Tech expected more in the short number of years he was there than he could produce, so they fired him at the close of last season. He then was offered the quarterback coaching job at USC. It was hardly cooled as a news item till it was announced Kliff was the new Head Coach of the Arizona Cardinals! Wow! a strange set of events!
Why is this an interesting topic for my blog? Because from 3rd grade in New Braunfels, Kliff has been a favorite athlete of mine. (At 3rd grade level, he competed in junior olympic running and scored nationally.) I watched him for about 12 years, the first 6 (4th grade through 9th grade) in football and basketball. His Sophomore year in High School he became exclusively football. He never had a bad game or an unproductive day or game in his chosen sports back then. And, I was privileged to be his 6th grade basketball coach in the NB city league.
Yes, I was Kliff’s basketball coach in the 6th grade. I may have been the reason for his success in football. You see, he was a terrific basketball player for his age in 6th grade. But, when he was in 9th grade he was singularly the best 9th grade basketballer I had ever seen up close…and I’ve seen a few. But, a year later, he chose football over basketball and I’ve lamented that decision ever since, taking full responsibility for losing him from round ball to pointy ball!
In our 6th grade league we had a 3 pass rule (every time down the floor the team with the ball must make 3 passes before anyone can shoot) which was a really good rule for learning basketball. But, in the 4th quarter the passing rule would make it impossible for the team behind to catch up. So the rule didn’t apply to the 4th quarter. If we were behind, I would say to Kliff at the end of the 3rd quarter, “Kliff, take the ball to the basket and score.” He would say, “yessir,” and do just that. We had one game we were behind something like 15-4. In the 4th quarter, Kliff scored 12 points and had 3 assists and we won 22-20! That’s how good he was.I saw a 9th grade game, his first after football season, in which he came off the bench in the middle of the 3rd quarter, team behind by about 10-12 points. In the remaining 12 minutes of play, Kliff had about 16-18 points, 3 or 4 assists, 5 or 6 rebounds and we won by about a dozen or so!! Yet he became a football player!…uh…I mean super star! (I still claim I taught him what he needed to know, that’s why he became a superstar in a different sport. Make sense to you?)
Go! AZ Cardinals, Go! Go, Kliff, Go!
The SIMH today was “Why Not Me?” by the Judds (back when they were both beautiful, mother and daughter.) As a matter of fact this song was the title song to their first album to hit the charts. The song was never one of my favorites, but as I’ve said before the SIMH comes for no particular reason, just is there, bouncing around in my head. The Judds were, however, quite unique in music lore. Mother/Daughter duos, especially with the daughter being lead are very rare: can you name another?
Another college basketball season has kicked off (Go Will!) and has a big blast night tonight in Madison Square Garden. Duke vs. Kansas and Kentucky vs. Michigan State—top four rated teams in their opening games, kind of unusual. I wonder if the losers will still be ranked that high tomorrow.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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