5th Grade Champs

5th Grade Basketball Champs

I have been coaching my daughter and her friends in youth basketball  for the last two years and today we were able to win all three of our games at the Pittsford Youth Basketball tourney and in doing so bring home some hardware.  More important than winning the tournament or any of the games today, I was most proud of the great improvement our girls made in the way they played.  We have been working very hard at practice on our fundamentals and defensive execution and today there hard work paid off.  Along with their development as basketball players I have been very impressed with how well they have adapted to the hard working/hustling style of play we have incorporated   These young ladies continue to make great strides in their individual work ethics and their expectations as a team in how hard they expect each other to work.  Sometimes we as parents or adults get so lost in the wins and losses that we forget to recognize the strides young people make in developing some of the more important skills in life.  Sportsmanship, hard work and toughness are three areas in which these girls have made great strides.  If adults can sometimes get out of their own way I think that we could learn a thing or two from some of the hard working young people in our life.  For example today after the each game I had the girls sit in a circle and we talk about the game and things that we learn.  We always end our conversation by going around and having each girl say something positive about someone else on the team.  What makes this group so special is that they will really make a point of recognizing everyone's positive contribution to the team.  I mean we can always pat the leading scorer on the back or talk about how great someone is playing but with this group they will pick out some of the small intangible things that their teammates do and we will all celebrate them together.

Today this group of smiling, fun, energetic, positive young ladies taught me how people with caring hearts can make others feel special and relevant regardless of how great their athletic status might be.

Lord,
Thank you for blessing me with the opportunity to coach these young ladies.  Continue to help me be the best coach possible for them.  Lord be with each one of them as they continue to grow in both their development as athletes and more important as young people.

Love in Christ,
Scott

Frustration ~ Not Good

Okay... I am frustrated!!!

It seems that I have spent too much time lately being frustrated.  Here are some of the things that I am frustrated about:

1. I have a blog... but I don't seem to be blogging
2. I have a church... but I don't seem to be going to church.
3. My relationship with God is sometimes no existent
4. WORK
5. Youth teams and youth athletics as a whole
6. Not enough time to get things done around the house that need to be done.
7. Home finances

I will stop there because I seem to be getting frustrated with the amount of things that I am frustrated about.  Wow am I a lost cause or what?  Here is the issue... I spend too much time worrying about things that I don't need to worry about.

Matthew 6:25-27  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?

I really need to stop worrying or being anxious about things that I have no control over.  It always seems to revolve around the negative things in my life.  I can't seem to break away from them.  I need to cut off conversations with people when I recognize that topics are moving toward the negative.

Colossians 3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

This verse from Colossians is right on the money.  I really need to focus on what is positive in my life.  I have a ton of things to be thankful for.  If I were to focus on those things I don't think I could remove the smile from my face.  The Lord has really blessed me.  I have to admit that at times I wonder where in the world is the Lord?  I at times ask him for help and I am not sure if he is really there.  However my issue is that I spend so much time focusing on the negative parts of my life that I forget to see the way that he truly moves in my life.  

Lord,

Help me this week to be THANKFUL!!!  Help me to see what is great in my life and then lift praise to you for all the amazing things you have done for me.  Give me the courage to stop conversations that are not positive.  Help me to be bold enough to stand for what is right and not allow others (or myself) from participating in gossip.  

 

Bless me Lord!!!

Love in Christ.

Scott

Communication ~ Its one of the true keys to success

Wow, keeping a blog is not easy.  This last week was BUSY and I feel a little guilty for not updating my blog.  As I look back on my week of busyness.  I realize that there is one thing that jumps out at me.  The skill of communication.  Now before I go off on a rant about communication let me share that  communication is one of the many skills that I need to work on.  I am not the best communicator.  I can communicate when I am forced into a situation of communication but for the most part I am a loner and would prefer to sit quietly at home.
Throughout the week I have noticed that people either choose not to communicate or they think they are communicating but it really isn't taking place.

“The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” 
― George Bernard Shaw

Too many times this week I have witnessed people who get upset and because they are mad at situations or others they just choose to not communicate.  They get stuck in a spot and instead of trying to figure out a solutions they become passive aggressive with their communication   Communication becomes their tool for gaining leverage over others.

"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." —Proverbs 12:18

 The total breakdown of communication becomes a choice.  This is no way to live.  We will never survive with our daily life if we make choices to punish others by just not speaking to them.  This situation usually stems from a person hearing what they want to and not actually listening to the situation at hand.  Nothing more frustrating then trying to help someone and because of their frustration they will only hear what they want to hear.  As a teacher of mathematics this happens nearly every week.  I see tons of students who become so frustrated with the subject at hand that they completely shut down and refuse to be an active communicator.  This, however is not just a adolescence issue.  It happens in the work place within families and it is the Poisson that keeps relationships from prospering.
Another reason for not communicating with others is the fear of being accepted.   This week I have watched as people in my life have chosen to not communicate with others due to a fear of not being accepted.  One of the major causes of this fear is the change in our form of communication from the spoken work to the electronic word.  The electronic word has made it so much easier to speak freely   Now this may seem like a great positive thing and in some cases it can be.  However, what I have noticed is that the skill of "face to face" communication has declined significantly within the past 5 years.  Our children are loosing the art of speaking to one another freely.  I am not stuck in an age where I believe that we should get away from the the electronic word however I do believe that speaking face to face is a vital skill that many of our young people are loosing.
Communication is absolutely one of the major keys to success in any venture.  I know that I have a ton of work to do in this area and at times I become frustrated or just tired of communicating.  My youth basketball taught me a great lesson this last weekend.  We were playing in a local tournament and facing teams much bigger and even more skilled than we were however, we were able to go undefeated in the first two days of competition due to our ability to communicate on the floor.  It was really an inspiring event to watch as an entire team of 8th grade boys decided to push aside their fears of not being accepted.  They choose to communicate in a collective and individual strong loud voice for the betterment of the group.  This bold jump of faith in each other and willingness to communicate gave each of them the confidence in each other to over come other teams and in the long run gain success.  Parents were coming up and congratulating us on our play and it really boiled down to two major things.  Maximum effort and COMMUNICATION.  It was a great lesson people of any age.

Hopefully it won't take another week for me to "communicate" my thoughts in the blog.

Lord,
Help me to be the best communicator I can be.  Don't let me become lazy or passive when it comes to others and their desire to communicate with me.  Help me to value people by being an active listener and focusing on them and not so much on me.  Bless me this week Lord so that I may bring a smile to your face and help me to server you by serving others.

Love in Christ,
Scott

Back to Reality

Well, my vacation is over.  Tomorrow I get up at 5 AM to open the weight room for some of our athletes so that we can crank up our early morning lifting again.  Hopefully we get a good turn out.  I am a little bummed that my Christmas vacation is over but on the other hand I am ready to get back to a routine again.  I miss my students and school.  I am not sure I miss getting up super early in the morning but really after I get up I really enjoy starting the day without anyone else at school.  I can get a ton of things done in my classroom prior to the students showing up.
It has been a great vacation.  I had a great time traveling to visit family in Chicago and wish that we could have stayed a little longer.  I miss hanging out with them and just visiting.  I had an awesome Christmas this year.  I absolutely loved being with family on Christmas Day.  Christmas is such a magical time.  It brings back such great memories from my childhood.  It is also makes me realize that we are making such great memories for our kids.  The part I liked most about the vacation was just having the opportunity to hang out with my family here at home.  From going and hitting with Owen at Extra Innings to catching for Ally while she was pitching to coaching Annika's youth basketball team.  It was a blast.  It was also good to have quality time with my wife Julie.  Too many times it seems that life gets going and even though we live in the same house we may not see each other except for in the morning and the evening.  It was great to wake up each morning and have a cup of coffee with her.
It was a great vacation. I really value my family and the life they pour into me with the love that we share.

Lord,
Thank you so much for blessing me with the people you have surrounded me with.  I am an amazingly blessed man.  I thank you so much for the love we share.  Help me to serve them in a way that would bring a smile to your face.  Help me to be patient and loving as a father and husband.  Guide me in my teaching and give me your vision so that I can recognize students in need.  Help me to know what to do and say when the time presents itself.  Help me to be an active listener so that I can actually hear and understand the needs of those around me.  Bless my family as they all start school up tomorrow.  Help them to turn to you throughout the day.  I love you Jesus.  You are my King.

Love in Christ
Scott

My Basement Project... Back to Lowe's again!!!

Today was a good day.  I got a ton of things done.  It might not sound like I did very much after I get done explaining what I did but the most important thing is that I feel good about what I was able to accomplish.  Spoken like someone with true SWAG (in order to understand that inside joke go back and check out my January 3rd post).
So here is what I was able to get done today.

1. I went to the bank.  Might not sound that great of an accomplishment but I had to deposit some money.  The reason is that we are trying to refinish our basement and we are right in the middle of the construction.  I am doing some of it myself and the rest of it I am contracting out.  So we have some bills to pay for the work that has already been completed.  Another reason it is so important that I go to the bank is because our gas fireplace is broken in our house.  We just found out that the manufacturer is now out of business so they do not make replacement parts for the valve the is broken.  So our options are to turn on the fireplace and hopefully avoid the house exploding due to the gas leak in the bad valve or purchase a brand new fire place.  Obviously we are going to go with the option number two and look to purchase a new fireplace.  This comes at a bad time because as I added before we are finishing our basement and so we have other expenses to take care of.  Oh... the stresses of not having the money to take care of things in your home.  The crappy thing is that the fireplace is only 8 years old.  I am not an expert but don't think we should be looking at a new fireplace every 10 years.  If that is the case I think I would rather just build a chimney and do it the old fashion way.
2. Went to the Lowe's to get lumber.  Once again if you haven't figured out we are finishing our basement (come on now try to keep up here, so far I have a picture and have stated that I am finishing the basement two different times).  I am framing in the basement and this is the third time I have had to go back to Lowe's to get more wood for the framing.  Every time I go I get what I think is enough and then inevitably I end up returning to get more lumber.  Hopefully this is the final trip.  Wishful thinking!!!
3. Updated my blog so that hopefully others can read what I am writing.  It was cracking me up the other night.  I finished my post and then I could not find it on the internet.  I thought to myself, what the heck am I doing this blog for if I can't even reflect back upon what I am saying.  Seems like a pretty awful waste of time if all I am doing is typing things in only to never see them again.  Anyway I am in hope that I hit the right buttons and now I and others will be able to read what I am posting.
4. Last but not least.... I worked on my basement.  Starting to see a theme here?  I am very excited about getting this basement done.  I really enjoy working on it and teaching myself the ways of a contractor.  I am not even close to being labeled as someone that has a clue as to what they are doing but I am enjoying the process.  I really like doing things myself and if I could I would do more.  To avoid my house going up in flames I am going to contract out an electrician and also have someone come in and do the dry-walling.  Past that it is still up for debate as to what else I will do and what else I will contract out.  

So there you have it... that was my day of accomplishments.  Like I said I am sure that many people would wonder what I did with the rest of rest of my day but I am my fathers son and therefore I am not the fastest worker on the planet.  However I do remember everything that my dad built since I was a little kid and I can honestly say that I can't image anyone doing much better than he did.

Lord,
Thank you for keeping me safe today.  I love spending quiet time in the basement working and listening to worship songs about You while I work.  Those are some my most favorite moments during the day.  Lord bless my family tomorrow and help me to bring you honor as I serve you in my role to be the best father and husband I can be.  I give you all my praise.

Love in Christ
Scott

Happy Birthday, but please no singing

Tonight we had the family birthday party for my son Owen.  He will turn 14 years old on January 12.  He shares his birthday with his mom.  She kind of sees it as she shares her birthday with him.  Not really sure she enjoys sharing that day with him but either way they have the same birthday.  Because there are so many people in our extended family and people become so busy it is really difficult to find some night or weekend to celebrate birthdays in our family.  Tonight we were able to get the majority of the family here to celebrate Owen's 14th birthday.  Birthdays are pretty special and our family (the extended family of Olivers) do a pretty nice job of celebrating.  Usually we have a everyone over to someones house.   Feed them all some delicious dinner, find some sporting event on TV, open presents and then last but not least sing happy birthday.  Now let me perfectly clear here... my family can not sing.  We are terrible.  I thought I saw the dog trying to burrow his way under the couch tonight while we were singing happy birthday.  It was awful.   Pretty sure we would become famous if we could find our way into an audition on American Idol.  I can hear Randy Jackson right now, "Yo Dog you guys are... brutal."  The funny part is, we have realized how bad we are and we completely embrace our awfulness.   In fact I think we now make an extra effort to be worse then the time before.  Tonight for Owen's birthday serenade it was no different.  Remember singing Row, Row, Row your boat and having people start at different times while singing the song.  It sounded really good when you were little.  Well that is a little like our singing of the Happy Birthday song, but just imagine it with about thirteen people all starting at different times and singing off key.  Don't forget volume.  I mean each individual wants to have there inept singing ability heard so you have to sing LOUD.  It is awesome.  Awesome in a fingers on a chalk board kind of way.  Above is a picture of Uncle Marc really giving Owen a great rendition of Happy Birthday.  As you can see Owen is happy, embarrassed and if he can endure the tortures sounds of his relatives he might still have an appetite for cake and ice cream when it is all over.

Happy Birthday Owen.  Hope you had a good time at your party and congrats on surviving another Oliver family attempt at singing Happy Birthday.

Love in Christ
Scott

Too Cool for School... Swag

I have a problem.  I can't stand the word "swag".  Let me rephrase... I can't stand what the word "swag" represents.  I want to be perfectly fair to the word swag, so I will assume that the phrase swag comes from the slang swagger.  I relate the word swag to some high school kid who can't afford to buy a belt and spends the entire day holding his pants up and then pulling them back down.  Ironically they call this fashion "sagging" and that is a whole other topic that I will wait to go into at another time.  Any ways back to my issue with the meaning of "swag".  Here is my issue.  I have been coaching athletic teams at the high school level for over 25 years and it seems that one of the greatest hindrances to the productivity of these young people is what I have dubbed the "cool guy syndrome" .  I can't believe how many good athletes will totally waste their God given talent on trying to be cool instead of honestly working at getting better. It seems that I have noticed this epidemic climb significantly within the last 5 to 10 years.  I am sure that it has been around for quite some time but I can honestly say that the "cool guy syndrome" seems to more prevalent recently.  I can only look at my favorite channel on TV as one of the culprits.  ESPN... wow can't believe I am turning on the station that gives me so many hours of happiness.  However, it seems to me that we spend so much time celebrating the flashy, egomaniacs that monopolize the current sports scene.  Sportscenter's main program seems to put these athletes on a pedestal and relegate the hard working athletes to special stories.  Now being a Piston fan back in the day (today I am not even sure if the Pistons are still in Detroit let alone if they are still a franchise in the NBA) I can honestly say that I could not stand Michael Jordan.  The guys seemed to get every call and the media loved him.  We (the Pistons) were said to be the "Bad Boys" and obviously that made MJ and the rest of his Chicago counter parts the... Good Guys?  Anyway back to my point about Jordan.  I could not stand him but let there be no doubt that he worked very hard on his game.  He was a cool guy only because he worked hard at his craft.  That is what is missing today.  We don't have enough young men and women that want to work hard (when I say work hard I am not just talking about time either... I mean quality not quantity) at becoming the best they can be.  We live in a society where we believe that things are suppose to just be granted to us because we put time into them.  And if they don't then someone will coddle us or go complain about our misfortunes.  Just for once I would like to go through a week of watching athletics without seeing someone pound their chest for scoring a basket or making a tackle or hitting a home run   Go ahead and rejoice with your team but PLEASE stop celebrating by yourself, because you see when you do it by yourself it really isn't celebrating it is a desperate attempt at making oneself worthy.
Okay, it is now the time when my beautiful wife would say, "its time to get down off of the soap box".  So I will wrap this up by saying, athletics are wonderful.  They have taught me more lessons than I can recall.  I have also enjoyed watching young people become better not only in their particular sport but in life while putting in good old fashion hard work.
Lord, keep me humble.  Let me understand what it feels like to work hard.  Help me to enjoy the process not just the outcome.  Give me your grace so that I can be a better mentor and coach to the teams you have blessed me with.  Thank you for allowing me to be a part of so many wonderful teams and blessed me with so many wonderful relationships through athletics.  I give you all the glory.

Love in Christ,
Scott

Things to Do

Today was all about trying to get things done before my last week of vacation gets away from me. I would love to think that I could work at home but if that would ever come true I would have to be really disciplined because I can too easily find myself working on other things around the house instead of the task at hand (can you say ADD). This is why today revolved around my "things to do" list. When I got up this morning I read a post on twitter from Tonya Bassett that said, can't waste time need to get things done today. That's when I decided I better get myself organized and begin with making a to do list. My wife doesn't always believe in to do list, especially when it comes to me. I can understand why. She says that I sometimes spend more time getting my things to do list written than actually working on the things that need to be done. Unfortunately I think she is sometimes correct. So here is what I got done today:
1. I was able to update my baseball website with some alumni information and player birthdays on my calendar. This month in our baseball family we will be celebrating the birthdays of Cody Long on January 20 and Paul Valdez in January 29.
2. I am writing a journal for each of my kids as they grow older. My hope is to give each one of them the journal on a special day in their life. Maybe their wedding day or some other major event. The problem is that I too often gone long times in-between entries and so I need to be more disciplined in keeping up with those entries.
3. BILLS. Today I spent a large part of the day looking at our family finances. This is another area that I need to stay on top of. I really need to get organized and go to a financial planner and begin to look at what needs to be done so that Julie and I can retire and be comfortable.
4. Last and most important item on my list was to spend good quality time with my family. I can too often get caught up in trying to take care of task and forget that there are real people around me that mean a heck of lot more than any task. This is one area of my life that I really want to work at this year. I spend way too much time focusing on task and neglect the real relationships that The Lord buts in front of me. I need to be more people oriented and less task oriented.

Lord,
Help me to be organized and efficient with my time. Also give me your wisdom and patience so that when I am doing a task and I am interrupted by someone that I take the time to listen to them and give them my attention over the task at hand. Help me to realize that people are more important than the jobs I am trying to complete.
Thank you for the amazing blessings you have poured upon me and my family. I give you all the praise and glory.

Love in Christ,
Scott

Family, Perspective and The New Year

Family, Perspective and The New Year

Happy New Year!!!  

Today is the first day of the new year and a time when the Oliver family gets together to celebrate football of course. We gather together at my parents house and celebrate the New Year by watching football all day long. It really isn't much of a family event as the guys sit around and eat themselves to sleep and the girls either play cards or finally give up and go home alone. Not much of a celebration. This year was not much different but something happend that made me proud of my little family.  At the end of the night after everyone had left my folks house my kids without much asking went and cleaned up so that my mom and dad did not have to do it by themselves. It's may not seem like a lot but take into consideration that we get enough food and beverages to feed a small army. Without a single complaint my three kids went to work to make the basement livable again. It was great to watch them as they cleaned up the mess that others left. Then helped each other gather things so that we could go home and spend time with their mother who like most of the women left the celebration hours prior to the final TV timeout. It's funny how little things like watching your kids get along and work together can make a parent so proud. It's not like they don't like each other or spend a large amount of time fighting (I mean they do fight like cats and dogs sometimes) but it just makes me feel a sense of family when they chose to get along and look out for each other. 

The kids working together was one of the bright moments of the day. Now lets take a look at one of the dark periods of our New Years celebration. Michigan lost to South Carolina by a last second  touchdown pass. After the shook of the loss and getting past my brother Marc wishing death upon all of the fans and alumni of the Gamecocks it was time to take to twitter to see what the rest of the Michigan faithful were saying about the lose. It always amazes me to hear sports talk radio or follow twitter and listen to people complain about the play of the team or the coaching descisions. As I was reading some of the tweets I came across a couple of comments made by some of the players and it made me stop and think about these young men. You see that is exactly what they are... Young men. Hardly old enough to vote, have a beer or even have a full time job. These are young men who as one of them put it, "playing for the greatest university in the country". They are the ones that really have to endure the lose. They are the ones that are taking on the pressure of an entire fan base to succeed. Yet in the end they count on each other to stay positive and remain grounded.  Wish some of the adults that call in to the radio station would do the same. It gives a whole new perspective on how well the coaches do at grooming these young people. I am humbled by the comments some of these players make about the fine universities they represent and the teammates they compete with. It gives me hope that hard work and loyalty is still something that our American society cherishes. If you work hard enough and you surround yourself with good people then a loss is not what defines you. What defines you is how you respond to adversity and the actions you take in response to that adversity. Today I was upset and disappointed to see Michigan lose but proud of the responses of many of the players as they took to the social media outlets to thank their fans and most importantly to thank their teammates for standing by them. 

Even though the New Year was not celebrated with a win by the Wolvines it was a success. I am excited about the possibilities of starting anew. My plan for this year are to become more healthy by staying in shape and eating better. Along with that I want to organize me life a little better and that starts first and foremost with getting myself closer to God. I always feel better and more grounded as a husband, father, teacher and coach when I am focused first on my relationship with Jesus.  I pray The Lord gives me strength and perseverance to stay committed in my spiritual walk with Him.  I am excited about the possibilities that lay ahead of me. 

So here is to 2013, may it be a year full of spiritual and physical growth (and if the good lord sees fit maybe a couple more wins for the Wolverines). 

Love in Christ,

Scott