Tim Tebow: Fans should thank home school equal access laws

This article was printed in the Boulder Daily Camera on December 17, 2011.

No one would be talking about Tim Tebow’s football excellence had the Florida legislature acted differently when Tebow was nine years old. In 1996 the legislature allowed home-schooled students like Tebow to participate in local public school sports programs.

In high school, Pro Bowl line-backer Jason Taylor also benefited from such home-school friendly policies. But in college the NCAA revoked Taylor’s football scholarship for reasons related to his home schooling. In 1994 he successfully challenged the decision and regained the scholarship. After this case, reports ESPN, the NCAA streamlined eligibility requirements for home-schooled athletes.

In a 2007 ESPN interview, Taylor spoke out in support equal access for home-schooled athletes: “It’s important to let the kids know, and the people who are holding the kids back know, that there’s a lot of kids with a lot of potential.  … They just need a chance. … It’s a problem when you have sixteen states in our country that say it’s OK to play and the other 34 still have a problem with it. … Look, the parents are still paying tax dollars. If [the students] can’t play in the school system, then give the tax money back.”

The Tebow family has lent their name to TimTebowBIll.com, which advocates legislation “to allow homeschooled students equal access to sports and extracurricular activities” in Alabama. According to the site, Colorado is among 24 states that now allow equal access, while 15 have introduced legislation.

Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz thanks home plate umpire

The Philadelphia Philllies just won their second consecutive National League Championship, and are headed to the World Series.   Ronnie Belliard made the last out with a fly ball to center field.  On the replay, I noticed what Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz did: Before heading out to the pitchers mound to join the celebration, he turned to home plate umpire Tom Hallion to say something to him, and made a friendly gesture.  My guess is that he thanked him for calling a good game. If so, I admire this., as it’s a classy thing to do.

Harry Kalas calls Mike Schmidt’s 500th home run

Harry Kalas died on Monday.   Bob Ford at the the Philadelphia Inquirer has a good story, and are the side bar links.  Also check out ESPN’s coverage and videos here, which includes a video narrated by Jayson Stark, who I grew up reading in the Philadelphia Inquirer.  It includes a the video and Kalas’s call of Mike Schmidt‘s 500th home run.  I get choked up watching it, and remember seeing it on TV, watching it & cheering with my brother Andy and his friend Phil in 1987^*.   Here it is on mp3, with some music from This Week in Baseball in the background.  Or you can play it right here:

^*OK, I don’t think Phil knew what we were all excited about, but that adds to the memory somehow.

Adam Bender

Adam Bender, 8, is one of several kids who plays catcher in Southeastern’s rookie league at Veterans Park. What makes Adam stand out is that he plays one of the toughest positions on the field with only one leg. … — Lexington Herald Leader

Click here for the videos, and here for news stories.

(via Rossputin)

Welcoming winter

The last softball game of the season was postponed one week because of snow, and the weather last Wednesday was fabulous for the final game of the season. Once again I enjoyed pitching, regardless of the score, and took a few moments to take in the beauty of the black silhouette of Rocky Mountains under the moon in a midnight blue sky. That evening a felt a bit sad, and the following quote by Bart Giamatti came to mind:

It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

Hero: Eric Cornell

A couple weeks ago at I had the pleasure of playing against, and pitching to, Eric Cornell (Nobel Prize, Physics 2001) in the Staff Council Softball League at the University of Colorado. After once again experiencing his down-to-Earth enthusiasm, his volunteering to be the umpire for the first inning or so, I realized that I admire him enough to acknowledge him as a hero on my blog. Little did I know when I realized this was that he’d written a short article in an effort to save the softball league from bureaucratic insanity. The Colorado Daily published it on my birthday. Should that link expire, I’ve saved it on my page here.

He also sponsored a resolution proposed to the student government for them to do what they can – at this late stage of the field renovation plans – to keep the league going next year.

On Thursday of last week I joined a handful of other softball players and league volunteers (I volunteered in ’04 and ’05) to communicate to the student government how important the league was to the campus community. I was happy to incorporate the concept of social capital, made popular by the book Bowling Alone. A handful of the students had heard of or read the book, so that was a good sign.

I mentioned “bonding” among people in the same or related departments, and “bridging” that occurs between people from different department who would not ordinarily interact. Through this, I noted, we get a sense of community by, for example, seeing people we know as we walk through campus. Knowing more people also promotes smooth conflict resolution, or as I said “we’re less likely to be a jerk” when we either know the person or have a know are aware that we know people in common with someone we’re working with. Many students nodded in recognition. I could have acknowledged Guns Germs and Steel for that idea, but decided I’d been academic enough.

Spring is here, spring is here…

Well, not quite. Surely Boulder is due for a blizzard of sort, but last night I played softball for the first time this year. A double-header, and I pitched for most of the first game, and all of the second. It’s slow pitch, so my job is to give them fat pitches to hit, and that I did. Still, sometimes they hit them poorly, and I found that I gave myelf credit for it, as if I’d managed to trick them or something. Still, it was nice, I felt like I had not missed a beat. The atmosphere was nice for an all men’s league, too.

None of the above. That is, asexual people, as reported in the New York Metro. What would abstinence advocates say to that? Cheating?

Taste

I was at a friend Ben’s house to watch the Super Bowl. Eagles almost pulled it out. What’s the percentage of successful on-side kicks, anyway? I read something about that recently. Paul McCartney sure has the head bob thing going when he performs. There’s something a bit off-putting about his style. It’s as if he’s doing a cover of his own songs. The emotions I sense from him do not seem to match the song, rather, they seem to say “Hey look, I’m singing this song now (for the Nth time), isn’t it great?@! Woohoo!” Yet, the guy is still writing songs and is ambitious enough to try different styles. So that’s admirable.

Ben’s friend Pauli will soon be a chef, and Ben says that because of his influence, he can now taste the difference among different types of salt, and “organic” vs. normal milk. Pretty neat. Like anything else, cooking and tasting is a skill to be acquired, and with it, a greater appreciation of life.

Download thoughts.

On Wednesday I got into the lotus position in yoga class, and more importantly, I got out of it. So that’s progress. My trip back East for Thanksgiving was nice. My brother plays in a slow-pitch softball league that does not use a mat for the strike zone. Once a year I live with cable TV, where I can indulge in CSPAN’s Book-TV and The History Channel. Book-TV had the author of Know It All, who read the entire Encylopedia Brittanica. THe History Channel has a show called Conspiracy!, which is fun. The one about whether FDR knew about the attack on Pearl Harbor was pretty good.

I also saw the movie, The Incredibles, which was enjoyable, and it was nice to see the message that we should be proud of our virtues. Rather anti-egalitarian. Yet, the villian was pretty smart, himself.

Last night’s Objectivist meeting was fun – if debating the legitimacy of intellectual “property” is your idea of fun. On the topic of policy, I started reading The Economic Laws of Scienctific Research. The acknowledgements section was great, as Terrence Kealey, the author, mentioned his “enemies.” I should quote the passage. Hillarious.

Home runs and the c-word

First of all, I don’t know if this is true. I have not looked at the data. But say it is. It could be that the ballparks are smaller, or that the pitchers are worse, that the hitters are better or stronger. Perhaps the bats are different. Yet, some researchers at the University of Rhode Island looked at the balls. Pretty neat. Surely there’s a more comprehensive article about this. In any case, a home run is among the most boring way to score in all of sports, but TV news loves showing them. Bummer.

A few nights ago I watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where Larry David used the “c word.” Yeah, I know, he’s a dumb ass. Still, he had a point that there’s a double standard, there being no equivalent word for male anatomy that is so offensive. I mean, the c-word is the worst, much worse that the f-word. But why? It really packs a punch. And then there’s the whole censorship thing, as if words carry some strange magical power. Anyway, I should look into why the c-word has its status, and for how long it’s been this way … are there equivalents in other languages, or in England, Australia, or other English-speaking countries? Does each language have a word that carries the most taboo? Hmm.