This effectively has postponed the project that I was working on with Matt. We do not have a decent time table for when the outing could happen. We are hoping that we can get it in around August, and it seems to be something that could happen. DeWine has said that somethings will begin to open up in Ohio starting in May, so there is a decent chance that this could gain some legs and we can work on it again. But until then, I guess we just have to wait and see.
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It is said and done, we will not be going back to school this year and thus canceling the spring season. I think our head coach said it the best. It is truly a sad time for everyone involved...
The Governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, is scheduled to make a ruling here at some point in the near future of wether or not we will be going back to school. The coaches and the athletic department have been in discussion for if and when this might happen, but it is not looking too good at this moment. We are preparing for the worst, but are hoping for the best. We decided to cancel the infield meeting today and we are going to have one big team one this Friday to hopefully talk about us coming back to school.
In other news, a proposed MLB divisions were released if the league was to return to play in the respective Spring Training states of Arizona and Florida. I thought the divisions aligned pretty well. Here is a link to the article: MLB Realignment Following the lead of the last two positional days we decided to watch Justin Verlander's no-hitter against the Blue Jays of last season. We decided on this game to watch because what is better than watching a no-hitter? A perfect game would be pretty cool, but there have not been any in the past two years. However, it was a great learning point for the pitchers and catchers to watch how Verlander and Chirinos, the catcher, worked together to call a great game. This was meant by us because we wanted to have our catcher call his own game. I believe that Verlander and Chirinos were in disagreement only one or two times total, which is remarkable. We had about 15 kids show up the meeting to watch it with us. It was something that was nice for us to do to keep a sense of normalcy going for the kids, and for ourselves.
Today was delivery day for the laptops around the community. The building subs as well as some of the administrative team took to the streets to deliver the laptops. I only had 20 to give out which took around 2 hours of just tooling through Princeton's surrounding communities. It was a day I personally enjoyed as I was able to get out of the house for a bit and enjoy some alone time. I did not get to see any of the reactions. Only a simple knock on the door and then I was gone. Maybe I should have been a UPS driver cause I am pretty good at these no contact deliveries. It seems as if sometime next week we will be receiving the hot spots and then delivering them sometime in the near future.
Following the lead of the infield meeting, we watched another Reds game that highlighted some great outfield play. We analyzed the routes they were taking, emphasized bad cuts and good cuts, positioning as well as the offensive approach of both teams during the game. We decided to watch a game where the Reds played the Dodgers to highlight one of the best outfielders in Cody Bellinger and how accurate and strong his arm was from the outfield. He also has one of the most electric bats in baseball as he won the National League MVP last season. The boys enjoyed watching the game with us through a more analytical stand point. We only had 4 guys with us again, but it was definitely a game worth watching.
Between the ten building subs, we were able to get through the list of kids who were not completing their work fairly quickly. I only had 6 people to call today, of which only 2 answered. So numbers were down from the last time. Starting on Thursday of this week we will be picking up laptops from the high school and delivering them to these homes that need them. Separate cars to ensure proper social distancing measures and a contact-less delivery. The hot spots are scheduled to come in next Tuesday, so we will see how that goes!
The MLB actually did something pretty cool for this whole pandemic, they made every baseball game available from the last two seasons free for streaming. So, today, we decided to watch a Reds game and analyze the infielders on both teams to see how they attack the ball and how they position themselves throughout the game. We also took a look at the offensive side of things where we analyzed swing patterns and pitch sequences done by each team. They boys seemed to like it. We had about ten kids in there with us today watching this game. We chose a game from last year where the Reds faced the Angels because one of the world's best defenders is on the Angels as well as the best player in all of baseball.
This was the biggest group of the week thus far, however there were a lot of repeat players coming back to talk to us. It was a pretty good conversation today as well. We also caught wind of the MLB trying to isolate the league into their Spring Training states, Florida and Arizona, and realigning the league based on team location. I think that it would be a great idea if they can pull it off until this lifts, if it ever lifts. Bleacher Report had the article from a couple days ago, and it was a great read. We have also been talking about the looming implications this will have on the NCAA stage. I have been in contact with my old coaches at Tiffin, as well as some of the boys that I know are affected by this. It is important to remain optimistic, for sanity reasons, but remain cautious.
Same thing as Tuesday here, we each had to call ten different kids and get their status update on why they are not completing their assignments. I had a higher contact rate today, with 6 kids/parents answering the phones. They all were grateful that we were taking the lengths that the district is to ensure education can continue. Sometime during next week we will begin to distribute the laptops, and then it seems like we are working with a local tech company to help us pass out hot spots to those that are in need of them. I do not know if they are for them to keep, but I think it is a great idea for these low income house holds to be able to access the Internet and their school work.
We had our outfielders meeting today, with the same stipulations that the infielders had, three hours from 12-3 to hop on and chat with us. It is a good way to keep the kids involved with the program still, we only had about 4-6 show up, it was fine to have a more personalized conversation and the kids really got a lot out of it. Being an outfielder is tough when you do not have anyone to hit you fly balls and work on your reads during an on-field batting practice session. The best advice we gave them was to work on agility, getting stronger, and strengthening their arm. We told them that they just needed a net to work on long toss, and to just visualize the release point getting higher to ensure maximum carry. I feel the worst for the outfielders because they only got maybe 10 days of work in before we had to call it quits.
Today, the building subs started to call home and gather information that will allow us to move forward with the technology aspect of this situation. Each of us were assigned to call ten kids today and enter their information into the Google Sheets document. Of the ten I called, only three answered...which is what we were kind of expecting. So, the script called for us to leave a message with the callback number assigned to the High School's office so that they were not going to call us back. Everything went smoothly for the three that I was able to reach. One parent even said that the kid had told them that there was no work to be done...I felt sorry for that kid cause the parent seemed pretty upset. Especially because they had Internet and the means to access it regularly.
We decided to open up the infield meetings today and we gave them a three hour window where they could come on and talk to us. These meetings are going to go from 12 to 3 to allow most of them to wake up...and have something constructive to say. We had about 8 kids show up to this meeting, and it was great to talk about something other than the coronavirus. They are still hopeful for the school season to return, but they are more optimistic about summer baseball happening. Albeit, that the out of state tournaments probably will not be happening, but the local ones still have a chance. As we talked more about it, baseball tends to lean towards social distancing more than really any other major sport. So, we think that this has some legs to it, and could potentially be something that the MLB actually goes after and gives the people something to watch.
Some kids had good questions to ask, and we were able to answer them, either visually, or with description. It seems like everyone is holding in there pretty well thus far! Today's events included a call with the coaching staff and all of the players who wanted to join. It was sent via a Zoom call by our head coach and we discussed a whole mess of things from the potential weighings that this is going to have on college sports and the trickle down throughout the divisions of sports. The main topic was how there are going to be tons and tons of grad transfers looking to move up in their role since the NCAA granted the extra year of eligibility for the spring sports seniors. We also discussed having positional meetings every other day where kids can come in and talk to us about what they are doing to get better and we can try and coach them virtually. I think this is great idea because we can throw up screen shares of YouTube videos showing them drills that they can do on their own. Certain workouts as well can be accomplished through YouTube, especially in home ones. As far as the positional break downs go, Mondays will belong to infielders, Wednesdays to outfielders and Fridays to pitchers and catchers. It sucks that this is how we have to handle this situation. It has been a great spring, weather wise, in a long time.
Today was mostly spent on a video call with the building subs, and administration. The problem that arose today was that the administration does not want calls home coming from cell phones where a number could be accessed easily. They wanted to protect the anonymity of our cell phone numbers, but we did not have access to the work phones that the teachers make the calls home with. One of the building subs came up with the idea that we could just use *67 before each call and this would send the number out as blocked. Everyone thought that this was a great idea and would protect our personal phones.
The next step was coming up with a script that would allow us to answer each question that the kids, or parents would have going forward. This took about an hour and we developed a pretty thorough script that would go along with the Google Sheets document that was being made and shared with us during the duration of these meetings. The main goal of this is to ensure that the kid's needs are being met, and that we do not loose any potential eligibility going forward. The coaching staff was trying to think of ways where we could get the kids more involved. However, this can be difficult sometimes because not every kid has access to reliable Internet, or even a device to use on it. These needs are and were being looked at by the administration to see ways to help fix this dilemma and make it the best that we possibly could. So, the idea came down from administration that they would use the building subs, myself, to help distribute these items to kids around the community that needed them. Starting next week, the building subs will be making calls home to kids who have either missing assignments or are just not doing them. This data will be gathered in an Google Sheets document and updated daily by the building subs, and then we will act on those numbers in the following weeks. I think this is a great idea, and we have the resources to do so. Each classroom at Princeton has a cart of 25-35 laptops with chargers that could be distributed out evenly across the community. Hopefully, we can still go back in May, but it is looking ever so doubtful.
So, the head coach here at Princeton is a math teacher, and since I am only a substitute, I really have no work to do at this time. However, our principal came up with an idea to allow substitutes to sit in on teacher's Google Hangout meetings to see the kids and keep another familiar face in the virtual classroom. This was also done to allow there to be two adults in a "room" in case there was some obscenity or vulgarity shown by a student. So, today I hopped on a call with the head coach and kids checked in for a couple of minutes at a time. During the down time, we were able to talk more about our contingency planning and what we are going to do if we get to play in May. Mind you that our game hats are still on a shipment delay from China since March 10th...so we will see how this all unfolds and we hope for the best.
Today, the coaches had another "Pow-Wow" in which we continued to discuss the future of our sports. It was good to get to vent with the other coaches about the situation that is surrounding us every day. All of the coaches work at Princeton High School, so it was nice to talk to them about how they are handling all of the changes that are going on with the virtual learning as well as trying to keep our athletes in shape. It was also a great experience with the athletic department here as they were able to answer any questions that were coming up and were extremely sympathetic for all of the coaches who are missing their spring season. It is a truly surreal time, but I think that it is showing how flexible coaches and teachers are in this time as we begin to move towards another month of online schooling and no athletics to help ease our minds.
Today the varsity coaches of the spring sports met during a Google Hangout meeting to talk about a contingency plan if we get a chance to get back to school. As I said in my last update, the main concern was that our athletes maintain their health so that if we do go back, they are not too susceptible to injury or poor performance. We also talked about what we are going to do for the senior class. It is unfortunate that we are looking at a season in which would be abbreviated, if we are lucky, there is a chance that we can get some games in, but it is looking unlikely. We are trying to find a way to honor our seniors if the season is cancelled. We have already built in the banners that were planned to be shipped to us with the current budget, so there is a chance that we can actually get them for the seniors. It is truly a wild time and something I never thought I would see myself in.
As the cases of COVID-19 continue to increase and especially after Governor DeWines "Stay at Home Order", the players, and myself were looking for ways to stay active and keep in shape if and when we can play again. I set up their workouts in the pre-season and a lot of the players were asking me if I could upload an in-home workout plan for them. I was more than happy to oblige and get this done for them. It was a simple stretching routine followed by some body weight HIT. (High Intensity Training) This simply meant that they were on the clock for each workout and they could follow along with the guy in the YouTube video that I have been using since I have been locked in my home.
In other news, Matt got back to me and I was able to set up an interview with him regarding his bio over Google Hangout. We plan to have more meetings going on in the future. He told me that if anything comes up he will let me know if I can help, or at least let me see into decisions being made athletically. Today might have been one of the craziest, most unstable and unpredictable days of my life. We were informed that our uniforms and hats would not be able to make it to us by the time of our first scrimmage next Monday due to the Coronavirus holding shipments up. That is not even the craziest part of the day. Shortly before our practice started at 3:00 Governor DeWine enacted a "three week spring break" for all public schools in the state of Ohio. This meant no contact in the building, practices, anything of that nature. Furthermore, the entire NCAA Basketball tournament was cancelled due to the virus. The players were looking at us for answers in all of this, when we really had none. I have never been in a position of just helpless and hopeless before. It happened extraordinarily fast as on Monday there was barely any talk on the virus taking a foothold in the United States.
Unfortunately, since my mentorship is through the athletic office that only reports if there is school in session, I will be not able to work for the next three weeks. I have been in contact with my mentor about setting up potential Google Hangout meetings to discuss current classwork, and how everything is being affected by this order. However, I am more worried that I will not get to coach these boys at all this year. That is what I will miss over these next couple of weeks. Our season is in jeopardy at the moment. Most of the sports world has came to a stuttering halt after the events that have happened today. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is spreading like wildfire here in the United States. So much so that there are NBA players with it, and the NBA has suspended operations until further notice. It would be my expectation that the NHL and MLB are next to suspend play. The OHSAA winter sport tournaments are paused at the moment, and we do not know when the next time we will see a game be played. The majority of the conferences for collegiate basketball have cancelled their conference tournaments that were scheduled for this weekend.
We still have school, and we also practiced today. We were out on the field and we were able to work on our field, setting up a batting turtle to help eliminate foul balls, set up the windbreakers on the fences in the outfield, did some general maintenance on the field, as well as worked on ground balls for the infielders and more fly balls for the outfielders. The pitchers were on their throwing plan, as a lot of them had running and other various non-throwing activities that take place after throwing in games. The weather is holding up for today's scrimmage, which is essentially just the remaining pitchers yesterday and continuing the lineup from yesterday's scrimmage. It went a lot better than yesterday's, as far as time is considered. Overall, though we have two pitchers who have looked good and a couple hitters are feasting on the lower level of arms that we have. It will be interesting to see how we do going forward. We also forgot our radar gun today, so the pitcher's chart does not contain any velocity numbers, but we were still able to track location as well as pitch and result.
Today was another great day outside. We promise we are not trying to hold practices on Sundays, however, baseball is a fickle beast and so is the weather. It just so happens that the best days out of the past two weeks were Sundays. It was nice however, because we were able to give the boys the past two Fridays off. It was an overall good scrimmage. However, we ran out of time and we will have to pick the rest of the scrimmage up tomorrow. We have about four pitchers who still have to throw. Tomorrow's weather does not look too bad. Partly cloudy and windy, no chance of rain and the temperature is in the high 50's so it should be a decent day out there. Below were the charts for the scrimmage today. Per usual, a hitter's chart and a pitcher's chart.
The rain from yesterday did not really affect our field too much, however I guess the maintenance crew treated the grass and we were told to stay off of the field for a day. So we are back on the football field. Today's practice plan involves more base running and we started to get steal times on our guys. As we approach our first game, we will finish this process with up to date steal times for all of our guys. This way we can have it typed out and laminated for our use as base coaches. Furthermore, we did our bunt plays with a simulated defense. Varsity and JV A were together to give us enough numbers to do this. Infielders got some more ground balls as we began to introduce our pre-game routine. Catchers also got some great work in as they got to throw to bases for the first time in a controlled setting. We have another scrimmage slated for tomorrow as the weather again looks fantastic!
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