The camp lived up to the promise of full contact football but fell short of the promise of teaching fundamentals. They started to teach fundamentals on the first day, but it was quickly apparent that the coaches would pick one or two favorites to spend time correcting. I would be surprised if the coaches knew my son’s name even with it written in large letters across his helmet. Although they showed the group of kids the techniques, I don’t remember them correcting my son once as he did them.

As the week wore on, the drills disappeared after the second day and it became more of a scrimmage in preparation for the final day game. There is value in experience playing, but they were running plays without correcting the blocking techniques, etc. The coaches only seemed excited by the tackles and the hitting. There was a clear preference for some kids over others. My son was assigned to the “2nd team defense” which apparently means he only gets to participate in about 20% of the plays even though every kid pays the same amount to attend camp. By the third day I felt I was paying for my son to drink Gatorade and watch the 1st team practice all day.

This scrimmaging was supposed to culminate in the O-D Bowl on the final morning where you are supposed to see all the progress your son has made all week. He was put on the offensive line for 3 plays in the first half even though he had been taught defensive line and running back all week. With 4 minutes to go in the second half, he hadn’t played another down. Finally, I decided to say something to the coaches insisting to know why he wasn’t playing. After all, this is an instructional camp, not a competitive league. Finally he got in a few more plays at the end, but they put him at wide receiver which he has never played and ran running plays away from his side for the remainder of the game.

During the week, the “national sales rep” continually pitched the camp urging us to sign up for next year and save $200. He would throw out the same famous names over and over again as proof that attending the camp could lead to scholarships and maybe the NFL. I hate to burst his bubble, but anyone who got into a Div 1 program or the NFL was going to get there anyways. There is no way this camp could have improved the players that much in just 3 days. I think they prey upon the vanity of the parents who want to make their children into superstars. It’s like the people who play the lottery actually count on winning to fund their retirement. There are some “serial football campers” who attend almost every camp they can with their parents all summer long.

My son didn’t complain once about the 8 hours/day they practiced, but he does not want to go back. Some of it is because of the fights he saw off the practice field. He was particularly disturbed by one where older kids beat up on a younger kid. Next year, we will probably go to a Sports International Camp like we did last year going to Matt Light’s Patriots Camp. There wasn’t full contact, but it was better organized and the kids got autographs from Patriots every day. That’s really what they want.

What I’m worried about is the pending liberal take-over of all three branches of government. What happens if President Obama gets to nominate a liberal to the Supreme Court? It is apparent based on this week’s decision on the Second Amendment that Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, and Stevens have no regard for the Constitution. If there is one more liberal that agrees with them, we are doomed. How anyone can argue that the Second Amendment doesn’t mean what it says because we live in a different time and place from when it was written is insane.

In a dissent he summarized from the bench, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.”

He said such evidence “is nowhere to be found.”

Nowhere to be found??? How about right in the Constitution? It’s there. Get those glasses checked old man. “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
It’s the old liberal trick. If you say something loud and often enough, it must be true. I bet you think the emperor is wearing clothes too. Justice Stevens, whether you like it or not, the Constitution was in fact designed to limit the tools available to local officials so they don’t infringe on our basic liberties. That is the entire point of the Constitution. You sir are an idiot.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “In my view, there simply is no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house in crime-ridden urban areas.”

Um, yes there is dumbass. Aside from any Constitutional argument, I would bet everything I have that the ridiculous D.C. law has not deterred one crime BECAUSE CRIMINALS DON’T OBEY THE LAW! I’m not sure why gun control freaks don’t understand this. It probably did however prevent an innocent person from protecting himself in “crime-ridden urban areas”.

If you don’t like the Second Amendment, there is a method for altering the Constitution which does not consist of activist life-appointed Justices taking matters into their own hands. This is not an interpretation they are undertaking, it is a bastardization based on their personal beliefs.

Even if you are not thrilled by John McCain, you MUST vote for him. This election is bigger than who the next President is. Can you imagine an unchecked Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government with no regard for our Constitution?

We will fondly remember the destruction of the Lakers on this very night.

Celtics 131, Lakers 92

Does anyone still think Kobe Bryant is on the level of Michael Jordan? Boston fans chanted the painful truth during the game, “You’re no Jordan!” Does anyone still think Kobe Bryant is even the best player in the league? I think Kobe still does.  He wasn’t even the best player in this series.

McCain = Bush blah blah blah. Do people actually fall for that?

Ok, Senator Obama, what is your plan? Oh it’s to create a Windfall Tax Profit. Brilliant. Problem solved. Oh and there’s more. “Obama backs using money raised through an auction of greenhouse-gas emissions credits to bolster research and development projects, while imposing requirements on how much renewable energy public utilities would have to buy.” Oh yes, I see how that can get us off foreign oil. Let’s make Al Gore rich while solving nothing and ruining our economy at the same time.

Change is not always a good thing.

My personal position?   I have always been in favor of hoarding our oil and using up everything in the Middle East first.  When the rest of the world runs out, we will be the only ones left.   Higher gas prices should be our incentive to get off foreign oil.  Let the market take care of it, not government. However, there is a limit to how long we can wait with this strategy.  I’m starting to shift my position a bit.  If we are not going to get serious about hydrogen cars then we really need to start drilling and building more refineries and nuclear plants before we can’t afford to drive to work anymore.  It would be many years before we start seeing the results of new drilling.  Obama says it will be 10 years and uses that as an excuse to not drill.  To me it seems like a reason to not wait any longer.