Equal Play vs Competitive, Part 1

Ever since I was a kid I have always loved sports. I started playing soccer back when the New Kids on the Block were hitting it big. I started curling at age 10, the first year I was eligible. I was on the school badminton team from age 12 onward. I love sports. I don't play as much as I used to, but I like to stay involved as a coach. I really have a heart for coaching, and absolutely love it. I began my coaching career when I was 13 years old and haven't looked back, though I did go a few years without coaching while I lived in Winnipeg.

Ever since becoming a Recreation Director I have really struggled with the issue of Equal Play vs Competitive coaching styles. Equal Play means that regardless of ability, all of the kids get a chance to play. Competitive means that some kids are going to ride the bench a lot more than they are going to play, but your chance of winning greatly improves.

I am going to be dividing this series of articles into several sections: Equal Play, Competitive, Intangibles, and Conclusions. To lend the series some focus, I'm going to strictly be referring to Senior Varsity volleyball, for a couple of reasons.

In some sports Equal Play vs Competitive isn't an issue. Badminton only allows so many entries per category, so there is no choice but to have try-outs. Soccer teams need to have at a minimum 14 players, and because so many players are on the field at a time it is easier to get away with having weaker players on the field and still field a competitive team. Volleyball, however, is another story. Only 6 players get to play on the court at a time, and it is even harder when you have to consider how specialized each position is.

So as not to have to repeat the facts each article, keep in mind these constants for this series:
- Senior Varsity volleyball (gender neutral, unless otherwise specified)
- Roster of 12-13 players
- Sole volleyball program in the community
- High school sports program, not a club or community program

So I hope you'll indulge me as I hash out the pros and cons of each coaching approach. I struggle with deciding which approach is the better one, and I do hope that getting my thoughts on the matter down for comparison may help me decide which I prefer. I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride!

Central Canada Comic Con

I have been a comic book collector for approximately 18 years. In that time I have amassed over 3000 comic books (if you break down collected editions into single issues it's probably over 4000). I don't buy comics to hide them away in hopes that they will one day allow me to retire on their accumulated value, I buy them to read them. And after 18 years and 3000 comics I have never been to a comic convention.

That changes this week-end!

I am going to be attending the Central Canada Comic Con in Winnipeg, and am pretty excited about it. While there certainly isn't the same scale or celebrity presence as you'd see at the big conventions in San Diego and Chicago (hosts of the two largest annual comic book conventions in North America, if not the world), there are still a few big names I look forward to meeting.

The headliner for the event is Adam West, who most everyone knows from his stint on the "same Bat time, same Bat channel" Batman television show. The younger generation may be more familiar with him as the Mayor of Quahog on Family Guy. I haven't decided if I'm going to stand in the giant autograph line I'm sure he will have, but I will be on-hand for when he speaks for sure.

Julie Newmar, who played Catwoman on the Batman show, will also be present, as well as Peter Mayhew from Star Wars (he played Chewbacca). While I enjoyed Star Wars I wouldn't classify myself as a huge fan (I'm more of a Star Trek kind of guy), but my friend Caleb is pretty pumped to meet him.

But I'm not going to a Con to see television celebrities, rather there are two comic book creators in particular I'm very excited to see. Bob Layton is one of them. Bob is most well known for his work on Iron Man, but I intend to get him to sign copies of the Hercules mini-series he did in the 80's. But the creator I'm really, really excited to meet is Marv Wolfman. Marv has been active in comics and television for many years (if I remember correctly he was one of a few big name comic writers to work on the original He-Man cartoon), and he may be the most well known for his reinvention of the Teen Titans. I just so happen to own issues #1 and #2 of that Teen Titans run (I have a few more too but these are of particular significance), which feature in #1 the creation of the new team and possibly more notably #2 features the first appearance of Deathstroke, a major player in the DC universe since his inception. I am greatly anticipating Mr. Wolfman signing these comics. Ironically his signature might bring the value of the book down, but I really don't care (I'll explain how comic grading and signing works if the interest is there in a future post).

It should be a fun week-end, though surprisingly my wife has decided not to attend with me. I tried to talk her into coming, because the guys who actually have wives or girlfriends are amongst the coolest of the cool at a comic convention! ;)

It's What I Know

Recently I've been struggling with a lack of an outlet to express myself creatively, and after giving it some thought I decided that maybe I should give blogging another try. I used to have a blog at http://jayboaz.blogspot.com, but don't bother checking the link, it no longer exists. I grew dissatisfied with my blogging experience at that address, and I think I have now figured out why.

I was writing what I thought my readers wanted to see, not necessarily what I wanted to write.

One of the first rules of writing is "Write what you know", and I think I kind of ignored that to cater to what I thought my blog readers wanted to see. As such I think the blog suffered, and so did I as a writer. Therefore, that cardinal rule of writing is what inspires the name of my new blog. I am going to be writing about what I want to discuss, period. I think that is how you get the best writing, and even if it is a topic that you, the reader, may not have been interested in previously, I hope that I am able to gain your interest through my exploration of the subject.

I don't know necessarily what I will be writing about yet, but it will be diverse. I won't be writing about things like American politics or the NFL draft, because really, I know very little about these things and don't care to learn about them. Sometimes I will be writing strictly about my opinion on something, other times I may go for a more educational approach. Some topics I'm sure to touch on at some point are my personal life, comic books, amateur/youth sports, cartoons, video games, basically whatever strikes MY fancy, not what I may mistakenly believe others want to read about.

So in closing, I ask of you two things. One, please forgive me for breaking the cardinal rule of writing on my previous blog, and two, please join me as I explore What I Know.