Bird Brown

As I was sitting there watching the melee unfold in front of me, I thought about what it would be like to coach a team where I could hand pick each of the players at the top of their game and put together the team that I wanted from a huge player pool.

Instead of being offended or upset at the opponent, we found ourselves cheering for not only the cracker of a goal he had just scored, but also his celebration routine because of his passion for the moment and the enjoyment he had sharing that moment with his teammates.

He’s a testament that life doesn’t have to get you down, that you can still take on each and every day with a huge smile on your face. And mean it.

Did those movies make us beat Urbana or give Oakdale all they can handle? They weren’t solely responsible, but they surely played a major part in the success.

As parents, and even as coaches, we keep telling our kids and players that whatever they decide to do is fine with us and we do and say all the “right” things, but subconsciously do we even believe ourselves?

I remember playing sports, both organized and neighborhood, but there was plenty of time to just be a kid.

Establishing a national holiday on the day after these events would not eliminate all workplace inefficiency on those days, but it would significantly reduce the amount of hours lost in missed work and low productivity of the post-event Walking Dead.

We are fortunate in our community to be blessed with so many volunteers in all of our recreation programs. It’s not the kids. It’s not the parents. You can’t even blame the referees this time.

The coaching our kids are getting these days is a far cry from when those same coaches were coming through their respective youth programs as players.

Referees play a major role in every sporting event and most of them work very hard on their craft, continuously updating their certifications and trying to make themselves the best they can be. But some of them can put a black mark on the entire profession.

Bird

The game became known as futebol de salao with its own specific set of rules and leagues and began to be played in every corner of one of the world’s largest countries.

A turf field there would be a welcome addition to a community who is still upset at the loss of their school and a proper use to the field who bears the name of a Carroll County sports legend.

In high school and college, my personal statistics were always better when I was wearing No. 11. In my first year of not wearing my favorite number in college, I went scoreless for an entire season maybe for the first and only time in my life.

It’s easy to blame the media for finding these stories and spreading them through print and electronic media, but maybe we should blame a bit on ourselves for eating up these stories and creating a market for the media to serve by searching high and low for stories of “fallen angels.”

Sports are littered with some of the craziest superstitions as athletes turn their attention away from their own contribution in the success or failure of a sporting moment to an intervention of some powerful, mystical force.

Say what you want about the influence of corporate sponsorships on today’s sporting events, but without them and their importance to the televised version of the game, there would be no athletes wiling to sacrifice what they have to sacrifice.

As each year passes, the percentage of my life that I spent on that campus is reduced, yet the impact that it had has continued throughout the up and downs of the rest of my life.

Making a change is never easy on the player. It’s even worse on the coach whose job it is to put the players on the field that gives his team the best chance of winning. It’s a difficult decision because of the relationships that we form with each player.

Even in the years that I’ve been coaching in the club game with my own sons, the idea of a college showcase has matured over time.

Somewhere between the fairway and the green after little fanfare, my son said, “this is just watching two nerds take a walk and trying to trash talk each other.”

You can guarantee that each season, regardless of whether it is an indoor or an outdoor sport, each of us is faced with the decision on whether to hold practice. And at least once each season the decision we make will be wrong.

Our tailgating now is somewhat reserved with more emphasis on the variety and quality of the food versus the consumption of alcohol that we had in our younger days, but that’s fine with me.

I have mixed feelings when I see the impressive displays of our military might at our sporting events with bombers flying over the stadium, huge flags draping the fields, and the recognition given to the veterans in uniform at the games.

I absolutely have cut some kids in my club years based on their attitude on the field and toward other players and the behavior of some of their parents. You may not agree with it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t own up to it.

Every coach has our own style of handling our teams and we need to stay true to who we are, and not try to be someone else.

The players for all teams work their tails off in practice, try to learn and apply the techniques and styles of play of their respective coaches, and then do so under intense pressure from the game itself.

As I look across the county and see many of the kids playing multiple sports throughout the year, I feel fortunate to have coached them in soccer when they were younger.

Instead of Why Not, this season has become more of a What the Heck?

Bird Brown column for Sept. 30, 2018.

The pride that comes with competing alongside a group of your teammates and coming away with a victory is hard to find anywhere outside of team sports.

What I have realized through my experiences and my recent academic ventures is the alarmingly similar trends that are being reflected in the growth of youth sports as a business enterprise.

You can only imagine what awaits you if you push yourself to your highest limits?

These questions came not just from my younger players, but from some of the older high school kids that had gone to the game with us.

Fantasy sports aren’t just for football anymore as one can find or start fantasy leagues in practically every walk of life.

Not only should Art Modell be in the Hall of Fame, there should a wing of it in his honor that every player or fan that comes through should pay homage to.

As your son or daughter gets ready this week to compete for those positions, let me offer some of “Bird’s B’s” that may help to improve their chances.

Bird Brown's column for July 29, 2018

After a soccer fan’s dream summer, what is one to do now?

In raising my own kids, I have tried my best not to be one of those “pushy” fathers that makes my kids get involved in things they don’t want to do, but I also have tried to instill in them the trait of finishing something they started.

If you want to eliminate the theatrics that is becoming so prevalent in the game of soccer, use the same VAR technology used to confirm the official’s call to penalize the player/actor for his or her attempt to embellish the official’s call.

When we face adversity as coaches, it takes special skills to keep the team focused toward achieving its objectives.

Don’t forget about what caused the mistake, but you can unpack it in practice and review the cause without the pressure of the game situation.

For those that don’t share that passion, I know it’s hard to watch a sporting event without having a dog in the hunt, and the embarrassing failure of our U.S. men’s national soccer team in last year’s qualifying matches could easily turn someone away from watching this summer’s World Cup.

I believe a lot of the social issues we have now can be traced back to a lack of parental participation with their children.

What is so important about a particular number, whether it be the number of revolutions the earth has taken around the sun during your lifetime, or the number you wear on the back of your jersey?

It is hard to really appreciate what it takes to make it to “The Dance” in any sport at any level.

It seemed like he would reach out to me when I was teaching or coaching and every time that I had a free moment to catch up he was on his way back in to the hospital for another round of treatment for his cancer. 

How do you repay the time and energy that she puts into us without even a hint of payback? 

The Derby, known as “the fastest two minutes in sports,” is the longest running sporting event in the country.