Bring back the 50's, hoops, track, tri's, and FCA

Over the weekend, I looked at the forecast and saw that the overnight "low" on Sunday night/Monday morning was 50, but was going to plummet from there. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to run in shorts, I did my run before school on Monday OUTSIDE and IN SHORTS. Not a common occurence for January. It was great and I felt like I was flying (as opposed to all bundled up and tight the first thing in the morning on a COLD day).

I think I'm going to be able to survive this college basketball season because Arizona is coming around. It's all relative, but they beat conference "leader" Arizona State at their place last weekend. Arizona's tied for second place at 4-3 in the conference with 5 other teams and the leader is Cal at 5-2. The Wildcats are home against the NoCal schools this weekend (Stanford/Cal), so we'll see where they stand. They have been playing better of late. The crazy part is no Pac-10 teams are ranked and the USA Today Poll did not even have a Pac-10 team in the "others receiving votes." (PS - Penn State is still winless after a heartbreaking finish to a game against Wisconsin Sunday. Don't want to talk about it).

Over the weekend at the indoor track meet, we had some good performances. Our 400 guy hit the state qualifying standard and three jumpers and a couple of relays hit the district qualifying standard. No meet this weekend (meaning some quality training for me Saturday and Sunday), but then we head up to Geneva, Ohio next weekend to the indoor track called the GaREAT Sports Complex. This place is allegedly the greatest invention since sliced bread. I'll be sure to report back after going there this weekend. I'm just excited that there are two jumping pits, so the jumping will go a lot quicker.

On Sunday, there was a triathlon clinic here in the 'burgh sponsored by the Pittsburgh Triathlon club and it was standing room only (and not even enough room for that). Beth and Chad were two of the speakers. Beth shared her knowledge about nutrition and Chad talked about "winter" training. It was also fun because we had a chance to catch up with MB and Kim after.

Thursday night, I've got a neat opportunity coming up. Back at the start of the year, I was approached by a student about being the teacher sponsor for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It's been fun being the sponsor of the group and seeing the students organize and discuss their faith. Being that we're in a public school, I cannot promote my ideas about faith with the kids, but I support them in other ways like helping to plan times for meetings and keeping organized. We've had a solid 4-7 students come to our weekly-ish meetings.

This Thursday, the Pittsburgh FCA director was able to land a connection to our high school. His name is Don Kelly and he's an alumnus of Lebo and currently a major league baseball player. He was willing to come and speak to the local high school FCA groups before he heads out for spring training. He was on the Pirates opening day roster in 2007 and shared time between the Pirates and AAA. Last year he did the same thing with the Detroit Tigers and has signed a minor league contract with a major league camp invitation again this spring. I'll be really excited to hear what he has to say and what the kids get out of the talk. If there's a Q&A session, I'd want to ask him what Jim Leyland is really like (since he's a Pittsburgher and Leyland managed the Buccos back in the early 90's).

I'll be reporting back on this also in the near future....

Back to Facebook Scrabble. I've got a 7-letter word with no place to put it!!!