vol. 39

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat...
-- Robert Frost

i had the opportunity to meet Michelle Stoner a couple months ago when Beck and Bevington started the coffeehouse at GS -- i was really impressed with her work and she reads very, very well -- she turned me on to a new endeavor in the pittsburgh area known as weave magazine -- great, grassroots type of publication -- so i get updates from the magazine sent to my email and i got one late last night (of course, i wasn't able to sleep again, so i checked out one of the poets who is in their upcoming issue) her name is karen weyant, and we went to pitt together -- haven't heard or seen her in probably 12 years -- pretty cool to see that she's doing well -- and her work, which i always thought was strong, is even better...

• you may or may not know about espn's beat the streak -- this thing has become an obsession -- don't get involved if you aren't willing to get hooked -- currently my streak is back at 0, as i won my first game last night, then lost the second when psu won at the buzzer -- this was after break my 8 game losing streak -- i'm now up to my 2nd win of the month -- you've been duly warned...

• i'm now in my 17th year of coaching track and field -- that means 17 years worth of "first weeks" of practices -- undoubtedly this is the most difficult week -- we deal with all of the kids who didn't think they needed winter track and are out of shape -- the ones who did another sport and are nowhere near in track and field shape -- and those who should be in shape and who aren't -- on top of this, the first two days of this week were absolutely brutal -- we've dealt with snow and rain plenty of times -- but nothing was ever as cold as our first two days this year -- the point i'm trying to make, though, is that this has been my best first week ever -- the kids have been great -- they've listened, taken direction and want to get better -- they haven't complained (at least to us...) and they've given us a ton of hope for a successful year...

• trust me, there aren't many things worse than when you're a coach and you dread going to practice...