Famous Enough for Now

 

A really cool thing happened after my son's basketball game last night.  As he was walking up to us as we waited to leave, a little guy with a small basketball approached him and asked him for his autograph.  I'm sure this took him by surprise and he did give a big grin afterwards.  As we followed this little guy around he was finding as many of our players as he could to get their autographs on his ball.  While this was an episode of cuteness for our group, it confirmed to me what I have been telling student-athletes for a long time.  

As a school leader, I try really hard to help student-athletes understand why they need to behave and always be the best versions of themselves.  No matter what, somebody wants to be what they are.  To a 13 or 15-year-old kid, this doesn't make sense.  They don't feel famous enough to be asked for an autograph, but to a 6 or 7-year-old kid, they are everything they want to be.  This kid can't wait to be old enough to wear that uniform and take their shots on the floor of the great Max Morris Gym.  For this reason, it is important for our student-athletes to be great role models.  They help grow the next group of kids that can't wait to be them.

It happens that middle and high school kids have to be disciplined or removed from teams.  They lose playing time because they break team rules.  Sure these rules exist for management of the team and to ensure fairness, but I say it is more than that.  It makes sure the kids have guardrails to help them be the best version of themselves.  Our little guys need to see this.  They might watch the pros on TV, but our student-athletes are what they get to see in person and have access to.  They may dream of being in the NBA, but today they want to be a high school basketball player just like our sons and daughters.  We have to help our kids see that they are vital to this mission and even just their presence means the world to some little kid.

Adults, we are not off the hook.  The next time we catch ourselves complaining about our work or burdens, there are some people who wish they had our burdens instead of theirs.  We have to be good role models too and understand our blessings.

Who knows, maybe someday my son will be asked for his autograph because he's rich and famous.  Today, some little kid asked because he gets to wear our school colors and play on the floor he hopes to play on.  He and his teammates are important to this kid and that is famous enough for now.

X - Twitter User?

Calm down.  I don't plan to bash Elon Musk.  I'm not overly impressed with him and I think he just might be another rich person who doesn't know how to stay in their lane.  It's funny when you hear a pro athlete get vocal about a social issue, they are told to shut up and play ball.  Now the shoe is on a different foot.  Mr. Musk needs to be quiet and fix Twitter.

When he bought the platform, I was instantly worried.  In the end, I figured that he was a successful businessman and he should be able to make it work.  The opposite has happened.  Since his involvement, Twitter has lost users, advertisers, and money.  He recently blasted advertisers for what he called holding the platform hostage for ad money.  Not to mention he fired us all up with rebranding it to X, a move I still cannot settle with.

To be fair, I am no social media expert and I have no idea how to right the ship.  I am the "Joe Six Pack" of this universe and my personal experience is what really counts to me.  I joined Twitter in 2012 at the urging of my then-superintendent, Greg Goins.  I wasn't really excited about this.  I was a Facebook guy and that was plenty to keep up with.  I could see myself creating an account and never scrolling through it.  However, Dr. Goins was on to something.  This space was a great place to network with other school administrators.  I enjoyed it and really took my account seriously.

I'm no influencer, but I had a decent engagement to Tweets and I could count on some kind of response to anything I tweeted.  Again, I was staying in my school admin lane but I did branch out and gained more followers and started following more influential people.  I really liked this momentum and I began creating blog content and Tweeting it.  I was on cruise control for several years.

When Elon Musk took over I began to call it the era of the blue check.  Almost immediately this little icon no longer symbolized a verified identity.  It signified a subscription.  This is when my Twitter activity began to slow down.  I don't pay for my little blue check mark, but my Twitter behavior has not changed.  I Tweet the same types of things, hashtag, and tag people just like always.  Overnight I saw my small amount of engagement shrink to nearly nothing.  The growth of my professional network began to slow also.  

In an effort to enjoy Twitter again, I began following sports card collectors to help nurture a hobby of mine.  Still yet, the connections do not feel organic, they feel driven by the check marks of many colors.  In fact, I am now being solicited more than ever to pay to play.  This was waiting on my feed for me just yesterday.  I can pay for reply prioritization.  Seems like the content should drive the platform and not paid prioritization, but hey I'm just a Joe Six Pack.

I don't know yet if I will soon be an ex-Twitter user.  I do know that I will use it a lot less and it is already a low priority for me when I post something.  Maybe Musk will sell off the company and it can see the good ole days again.  That might be the only way he can fix Twitter, X, or whatever the young kids call it these days.  I dare not hope for too much.

Stand for the Pursuit

I get to stand for the anthem a lot.  I mean a lot a lot.  Between my ball games, my kid's ball games, and family ball games, I might stand for the national anthem up to 2 or 3 times a week for four months during basketball season.  I even have a favorite spot to stare at on the flag.  It's the star closest to the middle of the whole flag.  I have a favorite anthem.  It's the gospel rendition by the Gaither Vocal Band.  I play it at all of the games that I work.  Give it a listen.

When I stand for the anthem I might notice those not standing, but it does not bother me.  I can't speak for or judge people's relationship with our nation.  I definitely understand mine.  The flag is a symbol that means different things to different people.  When I stand for the flag I see a continuum that seems to be open-ended.  The stripes represent our thirteen colonies and the stars represent our fifty states.  When you look at this as a storyline, our journey between these places in time, a lot is being said here.

From our beginnings as colonies to now, our nation has seen many ups and downs.  Despite this, we continue on.  The framers of the constitution designed this experiment to never be finished.  Our country is designed to endure and regardless of how ugly our history has been, we move the needle in the pursuit of happiness.  I know that the needle moves differently for some, but it does move.  I stand in respect to recognize our nation's pursuit but also I'm aware that our nation is not perfect.  This nation is mine and I will chase perfection with her.  That is why I stand.

I know that people really get upset about this and those reasons are not lost on me.  One might say a service member fought and died for the flag and you should stand for it.  That is a fair statement.  A veteran might tell you that he/she fought so you have the freedom to not stand, and that's also a fair statement.  Either way, standing or not standing is dependent upon your relationship with your country.  If you feel connected, you will stand.  If you feel disenfranchised, you might not.

Because I understand my relationship with my country, you can stand or sit during the anthem.  I really don't care.  If given the task of convincing people to stand if they don't, I would simply say that you should stand.  Stand as a cheerleader for our nation in her chase to form a more perfect union, the pursuit of happiness and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.  This is what the founders were chasing and they left it to us to finish the chase.

The Stories In Between

One of my student-athletes got some upsetting news.  She has injured a tendon in her ankle and will be out of basketball for about a month.  I know some are thinking, it's only a month.  These people have never worked with or coached a very determined junior high girl.  She returned from her doctor's appointment and signed in with a walking boot and tears in her eyes.  She's a good kid and it's hard to see a student struggle.

As the day went on, my dad brain kicked in and I called her down to the office.  I could tell she was still upset and the day had not gone well for her.  As I began my words of encouragement, I happened to look up and see a picture of my daughter from a golf match her senior year.  I decided to share a story with my student.

Before her freshman year began, my daughter was hitting golf balls with me.  I was preparing for the one time of year I play golf at the Redbird Scramble.  She was new to golf clubs and clumsily hitting balls next to me, but I was not really paying attention to her as I was razor focused on my incredibly poor golf game.  Somewhere during that visit to the driving range, she hurt her right shoulder.  More specifically, her AC joint that connects the collar bone to the shoulder blade.  She was getting ready for freshman volleyball and it was uncertain how this would affect her serving.  She was treated by a fantastic physical therapist and was back on the floor in no time.  Returning to her usual level of play would prove to be difficult.  She was suffering a big setback just like the student I was telling the story to.

As fate would have it, she did not return to volleyball and joined the golf team.  This was the very sport that was the source of her despair.  She worked really hard.  She enjoyed competing and the grind of the game.  She saw her scores drop in each of her last three years of high school and was an all-conference golfer her senior year and played in the IHSA sectionals.  That honor doesn't make this a success story.  Her willingness to try something new after a setback and push herself to be successful is the story.  These stories need to be accessible to other budding athletes.

I'm not sure if the story helped.  I know that she listened and thanked me before she left.  I even offered to set her up with the same fantastic physical therapist that my daughter saw.  

I like winning as much as anyone.  I think trophy cases are fascinating and I'm always looking at gym banners wherever I go.  Those stories should be told, but the stories in between them can be far better.  Many familiar names in sports have incredible back stories that make their success seem inspiring to me.  NBA star Serge Ibaka was born in the war torn Congo as one of 18 children and lost his mother and father.  Basketball was an escape from poverty and despair.   MLB pitcher Jim Abbott threw a no-hitter with only one arm.  Olympic gymnast, Kieran Behan, overcame 15 months in a wheelchair, then suffered a head injury and several broken bones before qualifying for the Olympics in 2012.

Almost anyone can tell a kid that Micheal Jordan won six championships despite being cut from his high school team, but that story is not that inspirational and is not accessible.  I'm pretty sure he will not visit your practice to tell your players about how awful that was.  All kidding aside, if we want to motivate young players we have to tell the stories that happen in between the successes.  Invite real kids to speak and tell their story.  Give your kids a person that they can relate to and have a relationship with.  That's how we motivate kids to have a growth mindset and push through the tough stuff.  It makes them better players and people.

Always Eat Last

I was walking down the hallway to my office when a fourth grader decided to walk with me.  He noticed that I had a white Styrofoam container with me and some napkins.

"Are you just now eating lunch?" he asked.

I replied, "This is when I always eat lunch."

"It's like 1:30." he said with confusion.  He added, "Isn't it cold?"

"Sometimes it is."

He pressed on with, "What if there's no food left?"

"Then I don't get to eat."

He said with a look of disappointment, "Well that's stupid.  Have a good day Mr. Cass."

What my friend doesn't realize is that I always eat last.  It doesn't matter if it is lunch, a celebration or professional development meal I always go last.  I was once thrown a farewell celebration when I was moving on to a new district and they had to push me into the line.  I do this at home too.  To me, this small act of courtesy is important though it might puzzle others.  

I've done all the leadership courses and read a few books, but some of our best leadership examples just come from having a unique set of manners.  Letting everyone eat before me is a way of putting my people before me.   It is symbolic of their needs being at a higher priority than mine.  Sure I've eaten a lot of cold lunches over the years and sometimes had to take a trip down the street to a drive thru, but I take comfort in knowing that everyone else had been fed.  

As I look back, this comes from my mother.  She had to scrape to make sure we had enough so she would take what was left after we had all eaten.  For me, this is what the head of the household does and it has crossed over into my professional life.  I often hope my children take notice and that value can be transmitted and passed on.  I place a high value on servant leadership and I may not be able to teach my son how to rebuild a carburetor, but he can learn how to serve others.

What are some ways you serve others through small acts?  No act of kindness is small, but we all have our little things that others may not understand.  They make you unique and will help define your leadership style.  If you can't think of anything, always eat last.

My Twitter Safe Space has been Violated

I only take advantage of two social media outlets, Facebook and Twitter.  They are very different spaces for me and have their own unique ecosystem.  My Facebook friends are people that I actually know and have had some type of speaking relationship with.  I'm very choosy with these people.  I use Twitter as a place to connect with educators and admins as well as fellow baseball card collectors.  My Facebook feed is full of those who like drama and fights (which leads to unfollows and hides) and my Twitter feed is peaceful and full of people that love to lead and teach.  I finally had drama in my Twitter world and I did not like it one bit.

I saw a Tweet a couple of nights ago that resonated with me so I liked it and replied.  It was supportive and innocent and I felt good about it.

After a few likes and some new followers, I began to see these replies and it shocked me.  This is new territory so I had to read them twice.  Both of these folks are teachers and were calling out another teacher for refusing to bias her civics students towards one party over the other.  Or, that any position is always a political position.  Neither of these folks truly understand the struggle of the social studies teacher these days.

I had an angry parent call me about some comments made in their child's history class.  He alleged that the teacher told the students that the KKK was founded by people that would be considered Democrats and that now their membership is mostly made up of conservative extremists.

The parent said he had no problem with the first part of this statement and Democrats did start the KKK.  He was upset that the teacher claimed that mostly conservative extremists are members now.  He was obviously a Trump  conservative based on the comments he made towards me personally and the HIS-story that he was providing.  Somewhere in my politeness I managed not to tell him his child's teacher was correct and he was wrong, although it was tempting.

While left leaning Twitter users like the ones above have an unrealistic view of civics education, the real trouble for teachers is that the poor logic and ideology comes from home and we have to try to steer it to the middle of the road just to be able to teach the content.  This is difficult and unfair to expect of us.  Maybe if I would have become a math teacher, I would not have to worry about parents polluting my content. Sarcasm obviously inserted.  Find me a math teacher that hasn't heard the phrase, "That's not how I learned it in school."

I was a new teacher 21 years ago and this was a problem then.  I had a student tell me that Catholics were not Christians.  When I asked her why she thought that way, she told me her dad told her that.  As the years have passed on, we are seeing a huge movement towards people taking political ideology to the extreme and teaching young kids the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties is no longer a simple task.  

While I agree with the commenters that we hold the key to setting these things right, the landscape makes it nearly impossible.  We have a large portion of families (especially after COVID) that believe that schools are the government and because the government is stupid, we cannot tell them what to do.  This makes teaching civics very difficult not to mention enforcing general school policies.  Not long ago I had a parent contact a state legislator to talk to me about her daughter's lunch detention.  Yes, I said lunch detention and yes, I said state legislator.

So for anyone who thinks they have great ideas for teaching civics and government, stop violating my safe Twitter space and write a book or something.  Write a curriculum.  Get your hands dirty, because the people that have doing this for years have their hands full and we could use the help.    

What's It Worth?

 As an older guy getting back into the card collecting hobby, I struggle with some of the nuances that were not customary when I was a  kid.  A big one is the struggle to know how much a card is worth.  I see this question asked time and time again on card Twitter.  I see people disagreeing over the price of a card when it was sold in Facebook groups.  There seems to be no good way to value a card these days.

When I was a kid, it was simple.  You bought a Beckett, looked it up and got excited when you saw those little arrows going up for your card.  The matter was solved and there were no arguments.  The internet had complicated this to a fault.  A great example is the curious case of Jose Uribe.  There was a time that his 1990 Fleer error card (wrong birth date) was listed on eBay for thousands of dollars.  There are a ton of conspiracy theories around why, but the hard reality is that this is a common player.  I even got in on the act and put one up that I pulled on a YouTube video to see what kind of attention it might get.  As you can see, it got next to none.  And yes, my cynical listing title did not help I'm sure.

As much as I chuckled at this, it seemed to happen again with a Todd Zeile rated rookie card.   It was listed on eBay for thousands of dollars noting a very small error.  This doesn't make a card valuable and I often wonder if this is like many other internet scams where the scammer might list lots of these hoping to get one or two interested fools that might pay the money.  Cards are hot these days and the internet is a way to make some quick money by duping people.

I think my biggest frustration is not just people using the internet to over hype or over inflate a player's card, it is the notion that when a great card is pulled we have the moral dilemma to either sell it or keep it.  I heard a man say the other day that they have taken the hobby out of the hobby and this is a prime example.  Take the Tweet below.  If I had pulled a 1/1 card, I would keep it.  A true hobbyist would love to be the "one" that has the card.  Part of me thinks this is a fake, but if a 13 year old decided to sell this card, he had help from an adult that doesn't actually get it.  The hobby has become a business and does not seem like much fun anymore.  Unless you count big pulls turning into big money fun.  This is not a hobby, it is basically gambling and there are a lot of newcomers trying to cash in.

My therapy has come from moving away from today's hobby and trying to relive my own glory days.  I buy old cards from my day (Junk Wax) and enjoy them for the second time around.  To answer the question, "What's It Worth?"  The answer is uncertain.  I sold a Jordan card on eBay that booked for $100 and got way less than that for it.  I know that it is worth what people are willing to pay for it and there is no magical way to have all the right answers.  I have a binder of cards that I will never part with and that makes them invaluable to me.  If I tried to sell them, they might be worth $200 to the market.  That's what I get for deciding to live in the junk wax era.  Stick to the hobby and your cards will always be worth something to you.