Youth Sports

The Olathe Kansas Soccer Club has a great logo; a soccer ball in the center of a sunflower. A patch with that logo is number 108 in the World's Largest Sunflower Collection. A wit once said; 'Soccer is very easy to play. You only need to know two things. If it moves; kick it.........if it doesn't move, kick it til it does.'
The wit left unanswered why European soccer fans riot. With scores of 0-0, 1-0 and 1-1, is it any wonder? They want their money back!! Ninty minutes for goal totals you can count on one hand! At least that's one thing you can use your hands for in soccer. Deep down they know it is boring. Why else would they try to disquise a zero by calling it a nil?
BUT, before I am tempted to throw out too much bathwater, let me say soccer is a great sport for children.
Find a flat patch of grass,
Find a ball,
Start running,
And kicking,
And passing,
And exercising,
And perspiring,
And playing,
And smiling,
And enjoying. And that's the deal with youth sports: The enjoying. We adults should never do anything to douse that enjoyment. No harping at:
The coach,
The refs,
Other players, or
Our own little loved ones.......WHY NOT? Don't they need to understand competition? Aren't they American-Darwins? Survival of the fittest and all that? That's it exactly!! It is youth sports that will teach them the lessons needed for success in this world, things like;
teamwork, and
being fit, and
care for equipment, and
time management (you mean I have to do my homework AND practice tonight?) and
making friends, and
respect for opponents, and
striving hard within the rules. All the types of things they will use the rest of their lives. So that is why we adults should NEVER do anything to dampen the enjoyment of sports, thus causing little ones to quit. For it is that enjoyment that will get them returning year after year after year to the sports that give them so much.
We aren't raising scholarship athletes for Kansas University or professionals for the Chicago Bulls. We are raising young men and women through the fun and lessons of sports. If they go to college free, or cash a paycheck with a pro team logo----those are happy accidents. In fact, even those happy accidents will never happen without the foundation of unbounded enjoyment. 'Ad Astra to you, children of the world. Keep kicking it til it moves.'

Local (loco?) Government

My friend Arnold Cole ran for city council in Overland Park, Kansas. He lost. One of his yard signs (complete with sunflower in the upper left hand corner) is number 2,189 in The World’s Largest Sunflower Collection.
Good representative local government (for that matter, all representative government) is dependent on an informed electorate. In order to insure an informed electorate the meetings of government must be made open to the public. That is, whenever the elected folks get together to transact the business of government, the public must be allowed to attend. A few, a very few, exceptions are made to this rule. Secret “executive sessions” may be held when the subject is one of the following:

1. Personnel matters,
2. Acquisition of real property, and
3. Attorney-Client consultations, i.e. pending or actual legal matters.

However, no action may be taken during the closed sessions. All votes must be taken in public. So you see dear reader, virtually all discussions and, in fact, all decisions, pertaining to city business must be conducted in public. It must be open;

To friends,
To enemies,
To reporters,
To Monday morning quarterbacks, and
To would-be city councilmembers.

There are no smoke-filled rooms in local city government. Every item is discussed, cussed and decided on in public. AS SUCH, each question and comment, no matter how inane, absurd, silly, pointless, stupid, or FOOLISH must be stated, asked, and responded to in public. Hence, my premise that;

Local governing bodies have the responsibility to look foolish.

If they aren’t looking foolish, there must be some smoked-filled rooms in someone’s closet.
Somewhere, sometime leaders of every organization or business have to ask foolish questions or make foolish comments. The main difference between local government and a private business is that the private business gets to appear foolish in private.
The very publicness of the questions and of the answers probably keep the governmental leaders from making even more mistakes than they already make. By the time the local leader hears from the constituents, the press and their family members the logical, correct, best course of action is evident. I bet there have been times when private businesses had wished they had had some public input injected into their decisions. How about;
Coca-Cola & New Coke,
Decca Records & The Beatles,
HP & Personal Computers,
Hubble & Mirrors,
Red Sox & The Babe?
These were all decisions, which would have had more positive and beneficial outcomes, had they had the benefit of public exposure, scrutiny and comment.
The next time your ‘local’ government representative asks a foolish question, and you are tempted to think of him or her as ‘loco’, instead thank him or her. Give some logical common sense answer or advice (don’t laugh), but thank that leader for taking his or her responsibility ‘to look foolish’ seriously.

Ripkin/Alomar/The Streak

The 2007 World Series ended last Sunday night. The Boston Red Sox won. Their two championships in four years have cost them their we-are-lovable-despite-our-large-payroll luster. This Kansas City Royals' fan will root for them once they get to their next World Series (afterall they are American League) but prior to that, it is them against the field.
One ex-Red Sox player, Roger Clemens, appears on item 2,789 in The World's Largest Sunflower Collection. The item is an uncut sheet of baseball cards copyrighted from 1990. The cards were produced by Jumbo California Sunflower Seeds. The cards have the Major League Baseball Players logo on them. Tellingly there are no MLB TEAM logos on the cards. So Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey, Jr., Bo Jackson, Kirby Puckett, Rickey Henderson, Tony Gwynn, Don Mattingly, Howard Johnson, Will Clark, Ryne Sandberg, Eddie Murray, Cal Ripkin, Jr., et al, appear in logoless head gear.
Since Baltimore's Ripkin (he of the 2,632 consecutive games played streak) is on the Sunflower baseball card sheet, I wish he would have publicly stuck his nose in the Oriole second baseman Roberto Alomar's spit-in-the-face of umpire John Hirschbeck incident.
On September 27, 1996 Hirschbeck did what umpires have done for over 100 years. He called Alomar out on strikes.
From that, an arguement resulted.
From that, an ejection resulted.
From that, the spit in the face of an umpire resulted.
From that, a 5 game suspension resulted.
From that, an appeal resulted.
And that is where I wish Cal would have stepped in. Because the suspension was under appeal, Alomar was allowed to play the next game. (Boy if nothing else, baseball is due process. Everyone gets their turn. Everyone gets their fair-ups. Even Alomar.) But to negate that misguided appeal, Baltimore shortstop and Alomar teammate Ripkin could have said,
"Roberto, you don't spit on umpires."
"Roberto, you don't spit on authority."
"Roberto, you don't spit on baseball."
"Roberto, if you insist on playing, I sit. If I sit, the streak ends. If it ends, I will let everyone know the reason why."
Cal Ripkin played in every game from May 30, 1982 to September 20, 1998. September 1996 would have been a great time to offer up the streak. I suspect Alamar would have sat, and Ripkin would have been immediately inducted into every parent's Hall of Fame for the message he sent to America, especially the children.
By-the-by, that extremely light Alomar 5 game suspension was imposed by American League President Gene Budig. Budig had previously been the president of Kansas University. As a Kansan I say, "Ouch!" Ad Astra Per Aspera, indeed.

Ad Astra Per Aspera

As a life-long resident of the Sunflower State, and curator of the World's Largest Sunflower Collection, an eclectic mix of over 3400 items that use the sunflower as a design element, I love our Kansas State motto, "Ad Astra Per Aspera". That motto translates from the Latin to: "To The Stars Through Difficulties." When the Kansas State motto is joined with the Kansas State Flower, the two speak volumes about the type of people who settled Kansas.
"To The Stars Through Difficulties" seems to describe the Sunflower's, and Kansans', lot in life. The Sunflower keeps her eye on the Sun (A Star), all the while her roots are dealing with difficulties. And Kansas has her share of difficulties, such as: drought, strong winds, floods, poor soils, tornadoes, snow drifts and temperature extremes. With difficulties like these, is it any wonder that it took hardy people to populate the state? And those hardy people could not have chosen a better state flower than the hardy Sunflower to inspire future Kansans. Nor could they have linked it to a better State Motto to remind those same future Kansans to keep their eye on the goal, and to deal with difficulties as they come.
As owner and curator of the World's Largest Sunflower Collection (oh you saw it on TV last week? On Rare Visions and Roadside Revelations? My mother is so proud! And my children so embarassed!) I guess I should invite you to view the collection. It resides in Lenexa. Come visit.