First week of the season

"Can I take about 20 minutes of your time today during your 11th period?"

I had to say no. I just don't have it right now.

I remember how providing quality lessons and coaching is. I have no free time. This is okay. I expect it and I thrive. But, this year, I'm also buying a house. And doing National Board Certification. It's a lot on my plate.

I'm always amazed every year at colleagues who scoff when I say that I have to write my plan for practice. After all, I don't write out lesson plans very meticulously. They're 48 minutes, and I know what I'm going to do. I write my objectives on the board and jot down what I'm doing in my lesson plan book. That's it. But, for practice, I've got these 6 kids doing this at this time, and these other 6 kids doing this other thing at that time, and I know exactly who is going to be everywhere at every time. In fact, this year, so far, I haven't planned as meticulously, at least during tryouts, because our fields have been so poor (full of snow and mud), and the results have shown. I've seen some of my least favorite things I ever can see during baseball practice: standing around. Luckily it doesn't happen until after 5, usually, but I'd like to get better at that. I will, once I get to know this team better.

It's only four days into the season, though, and I think I might have the deepest team I've ever had. I posted that as my Facebook update tonight, then thought better of it; it's too early to feel that cocky. One former player was offended, reminding me about 2007, but it was something different there - that team had a bunch of superstars (four went on to play college baseball), which this team doesn't, I don't think. But this team has so much depth, so many solid players all around.