I’ve definitely mentioned in my journals
that I like to win, and that sentiment extends to Michael and our football
team; but a win was not to be for us today.
That made the Grand Summit players, coaches, and fans very happy – and made
the road trip and dealing with a rainy night worth it for them.
I am so not glad that we could help them
out with that, but before I get to the rest of the football night report; let’s
cover the news from the rest of the day.
While rain was a possibility all day; we
didn’t get any this morning or through most of the afternoon. Tai Chi by the river was nice; Michael stayed
for breakfast because Mom didn’t think that he should settle for Pop Tarts on a
game day; and we both eventually ended up at the school on time for our
respective practices. Both the
cheerleaders and football players had light workouts followed by meetings; and
then we were set free at lunchtime with the afternoon off before the big
game. Michael had to get to the Inn to
help out there, and Rowen and Tim had things to do too; so we didn’t get to
talk for very long after our practices.
I can tell you that Tim was worried about the game, with now-obvious
good reason; while Rowen and I were very happy with our squad. We’ll still get a lot better as the season
goes along, but we were ready for the game by then; and I don’t think that any
of us were even a little bit nervous about our first game of the season.
Having the afternoon off from cheerleading
felt strange, but I had lots of chores options available once I got home and
had a quick lunch with Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana.
With the rain in the forecast, I opted for mowing the lawn; since it was
a job that I could get done with the time I had available before I’d need to
get cleaned up and ready for the game. I
also helped Mom and Aunt Leanne with some of the dinner prep work for the
dinner and football or movie night that we were hosting at our house; and had
my own dinner while they continued to work so that I could be back at the
school in time for the pre-game meeting and set-up with my squad.
Before I get to that, while I was busy with
my practice and working; Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana spent the morning at the lab;
the twins were at KidZone for the afternoon; and Mom split her afternoon time
between her grocery and supply shopping and chores at home. Aunt Leanne came over after the kids had
finished their afternoon naps, and while I didn’t get to spend much time with
them; I did get to have a bit of cuddle time with Brianna while having my
dinner. As of now while I’m writing
this, I don’t have many details from the dinner I missed out on while busy at
the school; but I can report that most of the girls opted to stay home for a
chick flick movie night instead of going to the game and getting rained
on. Most of the guys felt obligated to
come out and support their two-time champions, and Ethan, Ehlana, Naomi, and
Aiden came with them; but the younger kids were kept at home.
The game set-up in the rain wasn’t fun, but
we had a good meeting after that; and the rain didn’t really dampen my
enthusiasm at all – or Rowen’s. Jenny
wasn’t happy about the rain; but she was about as fired up as I’ve ever seen
her to have Joel there watching her cheer for the first time. He probably won’t be here next Friday night
for that game, since he’s heading home and spending the long weekend with his
mother and their family; so this will be the only chance he’ll have to see her
in action with our squad. That
experience has likely been mixed for Joel, since Jenny gets a lot of attention
from boys at the games and tonight was no exception to that; but she did leave
with him tonight and didn’t do any flirting with those admirers tonight
either. Jenny’s assured us that she and
Joel are not going to attempt long-distance dating after he heads home; but she
does really like him a lot and wishes it could be different.
I’m procrastinating a bit now; so let’s get
to the football game part of this update.
As I’ve already mentioned, Tim’s worries
were proved out tonight; and we lost big – by a score of fifty-six to
twenty. There’s no way to sugarcoat it;
our team made a lot of mistakes; we fell behind early; and it just got worse as
the night went on. The bad parts of our
game included five turnovers by our new quarterback. I’m not going to put all of the blame on one
guy, since Ray had lots of offensive line problems too; but the three
interceptions were pretty much on him – and that number would have been even
uglier if Michael and Tim hadn’t played defense on offense with another dozen
bad throws to block what would have otherwise been more easy
interceptions. All of the interceptions
and the two quarterback fumble-turnovers led to points for Grand Summit; and
they let up on us later in the game or the score could have been even worse.
The only bright spots in the game for our
team came from Michael and Tim – both on offense and defense. Tim score two touchdowns and Michael scored
one. All three of those scores were on
big-yard plays thanks to after-the-catch runs.
They had other big plays too, but those opportunities were then messed
up by turnovers; drive-ending incompletions or no-gain runs; and the two missed
field goal attempts that Captain JJ whiffed on from distances that he could hit
last year. He missed one of the
touchdown extra points too; which is why we only had twenty points on those
three touchdowns. I don’t want to place
any major blame on Jason’s shoulders either; but I am going to comment on his
leadership style tonight.
Most of my information for that comes from
Michael and Tim; and they waited until we were back at my house and in the
lounge before venting over the game and their new captain. You can be sure that they didn’t exaggerate
anything, though; and Jason is not their favorite team mate right now. Before I get to their issues with Captain JJ,
which is his own preferred new title; I’d also like to mention that having the
team kicker as captain is very different for the guys because they don’t have
him on the field with them for most of the plays. Sure, Jason does sub now and then for special
plays, but our team was never in a position tonight to use any of those plays;
so he was only on the field for kicking plays.
Leading from the sidelines when Coach
Robinson is already doing that may not work very well; though I won’t declare
that a fact after only one game. I can
tell you that badgering, blaming, and insulting Michael and Tim will not work
to motivate them – especially when they’re blamed for things that weren’t their
fault – like most of those interceptions and incompletions. Jason apparently can’t tell the difference
between blocking an interception and dropping an easy catch. His compliments for good plays were all
back-handed too, and while that sort of thing might motivate some people; it
doesn’t work for at least half of his current team mates. Michael and Tim were on the receiving end of
a lot of crap from their captain, and so was Lucas; since we had almost no
running game tonight. While he wasn’t
having a good night; Lucas’ problems were mostly due to mistakes on our
offensive line and a defense that was determined to stop the run as soon as
they saw that our passing game was such a mess.
Lucas should have gotten praise for dealing with that and not giving up
any turnovers despite getting hit a lot tonight – and usually behind the line
of scrimmage.
The game-time issues with their captain weren’t
the worst of it for the night. Michael
and Tim were not at all happy with the locker room rant at half time that Jason
unleashed on his team; and the post-game insults and complaining had them
wishing that they weren’t such nice guys.
None of that happened while Coach Robinson was with them, so he’s likely
unaware of the problem, and since Jason wasn’t bashing his fellow seniors and
best friends at all; none of them stepped up to help their younger players. The shock of being so soundly beaten in a
game might have had something to do with it; but then Tim thinks that all of
the seniors are delusional and agree with their captain’s assessment of the
game – and which players were responsible for the loss. Jason even blamed the weather for some of
their problems despite the fact that the rain wasn’t an issue for the Grand
Summit players at all.
I don’t want to drag this out, but losing
the game was bad enough; so having their captain rip them apart in front of
their team mates when it wasn’t justified at all really had Michael and Tim
feeling angry and disappointed. They’re
going to need to find a way to deal with that; but Rowen and I didn’t try to
help them out with that tonight. We were
just there for the cuddles and so that they’d have sympathetic ears to nibble
on once they’d finished venting. ;^)
Since the game went so badly for our team,
I’m not going to go all sunny and happy with the cheerleading side of the game
report. The rain kept us damp most of
the night, but we did our best to cheer on our team despite not having a lot to
cheer about; and our halftime routine was a big hit with the spectators for
both teams. Actually, that’s one thing
that I really should mention about the game – the number of spectators we had
tonight. I didn’t think about it at all
before the game, but the rain brought a lot of the area campers into town for
shopping, dinner, or pub time; and quite a few of them ended up stopping by to
watch some or all of the game. We had a
bit of that last year for the first game; but not nearly as many as we had
tonight.
Getting back to the cheerleading action,
the highlight of the night for me was our halftime routine. This year, our singing in the rain – umbrella
mash-up included more acrobatics than last year; Rowen and I lead that part of
our routines; and the other girls had some cool tricks with their umbrellas too
that all worked perfectly tonight without even one mistake. I’ll also be a bit proud of my squad and
declare that our halftime routine was better than the show the Grand Summit
cheerleaders put on – despite the fact that they have a bigger squad and had a more
ambitious routine. Don’t get me wrong –
they were good; but we were better tonight!
Moving along, the post-game festivities
were not at all festive for our team.
The congratulations with the Grand Summit players, coaches, and
cheerleaders was tough for some of us; the friends, family, and fans visits
after that were bittersweet, and as I’ve already mentioned; our players did not
have fun in the locker room after the game either. Rowen and I had more fun than Michael and Tim
did with all of the post-game action, but we also knew that they weren’t having
fun; and did our best to get everything done so that we could meet up with them
and come back to my house. We already
knew by then that there wasn’t going to be a post-game party for the team
anywhere; and Michael and Tim didn’t want to hang out with any of the other
guys by then anyway.
The movie night was still going on at home
when we got here, but it started wrapping up once the men were back from the
game because we’re all going to be busy this weekend with the big move and
other work. We had a little chat with
everyone before coming up to the lounge; Michael and I took care of getting
Ethan and Ehlana into bed; and Rowen and Tim had snacks, drinks, and a movie
ready to go by the time we joined them in the lounge. Michael and Tim took care of the post-game
venting first; and then we enjoyed the cuddle and a movie time.
Michael and I both need to be up early in
the morning, so we only watched the one movie; and then I went downstairs to
see all three of my friends out. Michael
stayed for some bonus goodbye hugs and kisses while Rowen and Tim did the same
thing out on her front porch; but then I came back up to my room; got ready for
bed; and got started on my computer and email checks. There was a bit of family business to deal
with along with a couple of family and friends emails to read and answer; but
it hasn’t taken me long to get all of that done – and I didn’t use a time phase
to do that tonight. Getting to sleep
before midnight wasn’t going to be an option anyway; but I mostly skipped the
use of any Magi power tonight because I didn’t want to use the extra
energy. I’m going to need to re-charge
after using a lot of power this week; so I’m going to try to take a day or two
off from any major power use if I can do that.
That might not be an option if any healing
is needed for any of my favorite people due to the moving work, chores, or
baseball tomorrow; but we’ll see how that goes.
For right now, though, all I’m really interested in doing is
sleeping. It’s going to be a very long,
busy weekend, and that’s all I have for tonight anyway; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
