Roger That Sports

Team Discovery Not Mailing It In

As Lance Armstrong approaches the last dance on his dance card, his team , Discovery Channel, looks to the future on the back of some incredible talent. This month has had one big blow to the big Texan and his team in the loss of Eki, the amazing Russian cyclist who got the Bronze medal in our last summer Olympic games. But Discovery Channel isn't waiting around to find the next Lance Armstrong, they already have a few incredibly talented cyclist on board.

]]> A few days ago Paolo Salvadelli was the only rider able to follow an incredible heart pumping, gear turning charge up the Dolomites by last years Tour de France podium finisher Ivan Basso, another incredible and well liked Italian cyclist.

This stage of the Giro d'Italia was won by Salvadelli, but the overall was taken by Basso. But that wasn't the only capper on the day for this pro team. This same day, on the only other Pro-Tour event on the calendar, Popo, Yaroslav Popovych, almost won the stage at the Volta a Catalonia, and ended up wearing the leaders jersey! Two huge wins in one day for a cycling team that has been tagged as one dimensional and critisized for years for being solely focused on the Tour de France.

What a day for this team that 7 years ago was a "B" contender. Now they have several riders capable of big tour ambitions. And what about Armstrong? He has one tour left in him and you can't argue with 7! Wow, it is hard for me to even imagine a single rider with 7 tour victories.

But looking forward, Johan Bruynell and the team at Discovery have made some awesome acquisitions in order to remain a hot contender for the years ahead. Popo, Salvadelli, Jose Azevedo, Rider Hesjedal and even Mike Creed. You are going to hear these guys' names in the years to come. And it looks like with Pop and Salvadelli, you are going to hear professional cycling and Team Discovery Channel quite a bit right away.

Watch out for Mike Creed. I've been following him for a while and he has talent. I remember saying the same thing when I saw Lance Armstrong's picture in Velonews the year before he won the World's title. He was sitting in his Texas home in front of a steer skull painted like the Texas flag. Creed is for real and will become a factor in the European peloton in the future. Remember his name. I'm not sure if he is a tour winner, but he will be heard. He has a similar cockiness like Armstrong.

One thing I would like to see is some solid support of George Hincapie. He is an amazing rider and surprising in the tour year after year. His concentration are the spring classics, but it never seems like the team gives him a strong enough roster to win the real big ones. What is amazing about him is he gives it all during the spring, and is able to deliver for Armstrong in July. He is just a machine.

Overall I am real happy with the moves Team Discovery Channel has made. Lance Armstrong has done a lot for the sport in America, just like his predecessor Greg Lemond, and it would be a shame for us not to have a competitive team to ride the tail of his success. But that doesn’t look like it will be a problem in the near term. Now all we need are more American riders, more clubs, more velodromes and more people paying attention to they guys in spandex on the side of the road!

Soccer Dad - My journey as a soccer coach

I remember my soccer career pretty well. My father woke me up on Saturday morning, slapped a soccer ball on my bed and said "hey I signed you up for soccer last night, your first practice is today". At this point, I didn't know what a shin guard was or the difference between a goalie and a sweeper. In fact I was pretty sure a sweeper was what my mother used in the kitchen.

]]> That career lasted about 10 more days and one game. There I was, playing center mid for the VFW team. The ball was coming at me, this big kid, I'm pretty sure he was 18 (we were in an under 10 league) kicked that ball square in my face. At that point I could have sworn he kicked me with his size 10 Nike, but either way, I had had enough and my career was over. I went back to legos....

Recently my enthusiasm for soccer changed drastically. It wasn't the three Spanish soccer jersey's my sister brought home from Barcelona, but my oldest boy's excitement at playing the under 10 league this spring. Yeah, I had a few flashbacks when he said that, but we won't go there.

After recently taking a different job, I was able to not only get my son to practice but his mother volunteered me to coach 13 little rascals in a game I had 10 days experience in 23 years ago. I was playing soccer when the biggest thing in town were the transformers. So, what did I know about soccer drills, a league, rules of a soccer game, or pretty much anything. So I went to a few website, and here are some good ones for any fathers who find themselves in this same predicament.

Soccer Drills
How to coach soccer

And you can't forget this site - FIFA FIFA has lots of resources available to you. It is also great to show the kids what the professionals are doing.

So after consulting the internet, I found out I had an assistant. A 15 year old high school kid who apparently knew soccer. This was a great start. I figured that I knew kids, having two little boys I was confident of that, and he knew soccer. My job was to keep the kids in line so that he could teach them the game. This worked out nicely.

The most difficult thing was making sure each kid brought their soccer ball to practice. You'd be surprised how hard it is to play the game without a ball. But everyone remembered their uniforms, even at practice. Hey they are ten, the uniforms are the most important part of the whole thing.

Coaching soccer turned out to be one of the highlights of all my time with my sons. My son is just turning 9 and at this age they really start to come into their own and show some promise athletically. I saw some kids that are going to be successful at any sport they chose to play. We'll see some of them on ESPN I just now it. I prefer the 10pm SportCenter in case you were wondering.

Our team won 3 games, tied 2 games and lost 2 games. I don't think anyone really counted, but it starts to become important at this age. The really amazing thing is being able to positively affect a kids life. You could tell which ones needed a father figure that they lacked at home. You could tell the ones that needed a little discipline and the ones that needed a little more leash. I tried to remember each of their names from day one and spend time with each one in instruction and just listening to them.

I learned a lot during my time coaching. I learned that a sweeper isn't a broom, the center mid is always the first to tire, and every kid wants to be goalie. I learned that parents want to see their kids score, kids take care of ball hogs themselves, and soccer is definitely not a "no contact" sport. I learned how to coach the game with these kids and learned that teaching them how to win and how to lose is as important as winning or losing. Most importantly, I learned that coaching kids under 10 soccer isn’t so much about soccer, soccer balls, shin guards, uniforms, drills, goals, wins or losses. Its about those kids, its about community, and things like this are really what life is all about.

So if someone says "hey, want to coach soccer?" Give it a shot, it may turn out to be the best three months you've had yet.

Self Defense - IDPA

Self Defense, now, you may not think this is a sport, and honestly it isn't along the line of football or baseball, but defensive pistol shooting has became quite the rage over the last two years. Maybe its where I come from, but this is a hot sport and is growing larger every year. And with everything in the news lately, self defense is on people's minds.

]]> The International Defensive Pistol Association, www.idpa.com, hosts competitions all over the country and almost every single weekend. Here is the lowdown: Essentially defensive pistol shooting as a sport is the use of handguns, everything from Smith and Wesson revolvers to the newest Kimber Ultra, to solve real world scenarios where self defense is key. All competitors are required to use real life equipment during competition.

Regardless of your stand on weapons, I think this is an incredible way to spend a Saturday. Its a highly controlled environment, simulating a situation that you may actually find yourself in. Situations like carjackings, home invasions, and other practial and realistic life threatening situations that test ones skills at surviving those situations. The organization focuses on shooting skills and getting through difficult scenarios safely.

I think this is great. All too often people buy handguns and get way to little training. Self defense and home defense is a learned skill, how better to learn this skill then through controlled competition, lead and instructed by highly skilled and experienced professionals. Many of these self defense experts are former police men and women and highly trained military.

The competitions allow owners of standard factory produced pistols such as the Beretta 92F, Glock, 1911 models, and single action stand by's such as Smith & Wesson service revolvers to test thier skills in high intensity self defense scenarios. There are no assult rifles or crazy high powered weapons, they are all common, factory issued pieces.

I was able to witness one of these competitions first hand. The day before the competition I just happened to walk in on the associations practice sessions, open to all. I just wanted to get some target practice in, and I was able to watch competitors practice. Each weekend's competition has a practice sessions that is open to anyone, and you can attend the practice session only. It still gives you the same feel. The self defense scenario that day was 4 burglers entered your home in the middle of the night. You awake in your bed to see someone coming in your room and they are armed. You have to grab your weapon, immobilize the first intruder, then walk down the hall, using furniture and other things to hide behind. At one point you encounter an intruder that has a hostage and you need to immobilize that intruder. You are measured by the amount of time you take to complete the task and the accuracy of your shot. Make sure you don't hit any of those hostages.

You are timed during each event and let me tell you, this is the closest you can get to a situation like this without actually being in one. And you can see the stress level rise on the face of each person in the room. The second that buzzer rings, your hearts starts pumping. Its a great way to help good citizens prepare for a very unfortunate event. You may say that it doesn't happen too often to warrent a defensive hand gun in the home, but I don't want to be a statistic. And practicing something like this gets you just a little more prepared. I tend to view life as half full, but one can't ignore some of the crazy things going on in society. Protecting yourself just seems prudent.

The competitions are open to all persons who can legally own a handgun. I like that part, don't want any freak in there you know what I mean.

Competitive shooting has been around for a very long time. I have been to many different competitions including a turkey shoot in Pennsylvania. And no that is not where you shoot a truckload of turkeys, you shoot at a target with a shotgun and the closest pellet to the bulls eye wins a frozen turkey. But anyway.. Competitive shooting is a staple of rural America and often televized on the OLN network. Check it out, and if you want to give it a try or just watch, give your local indoor shooting range a call.

Tyler Hamilton - A hero embattled.

In the shadow of steroids in baseball and BALCO becoming a household name, one lone cyclist struggles to clear his name amid allegations of not steroid or drug use, but doping of another kind -blood transfuion. The idea of blood doping has been around for many years, but as far as this cycling fan is aware, this is the first positive test and the first suspension of its kind.

]]> Tyler Hamilton's positive blood doping tests have been well publicised on the top cycling sites such as Velonews and even ESPN. Blood doping is essentially putting someone else's blood into your system to increase the red blood cell count and the amount of oxygen your blood can carry. That in turn increases the amount of work an athlete can do. Aside from the fact that this is probably pretty hard to do, how weird is the thought of putting someone else's blood into your system to do nothing but to increase the speed at which you can pedal a bike! I pass out when I see a needle, the thought of someone else's blood swimming around with mine, freaky weird.

Tyler was one of the most respected american athletes of our time. His work ethic was eclipsed by no one and his morals were unquestioned up until this time. I remember watching him ride into a fourth place finish in the Tour de France with a broken collar bone. He won a stage of that tour with a solo ride that would have made any of us cry to our mothers. As a fan you knew as much about he and his wife, thier dog and his family as you did the number of races he won. He has been an open book and never once gave anyone any reason to suspect anything. He has always been held up as someone with the highest moral fiber. As far as I can remember he has posted rather frank journal entries on his website, www.tylerhamilton.com allowing you to really see what he was about.

But now he sits on his bike, a suspension handed down to him and the end of his career looking like it is coming years ahead of what he ever imagined. His career was reaching its pinacle as he was looking as the rightful heir to Lance Armstrong's throne. This suspension following his best year as a cyclist and one of the best years in American cycling.

But he trains, every day, hoping that he gets a reprieve from a hell he never thought he would get in. I've looked up to him for years, when I rode I imagined I was him, and today, well, I rode like Tyler. I know he is innocent, maybe in time the world will know too.

Roger that sports

Roger That Sports blog, oh yes its here baby. Boo-ya!

]]> Well, welcome to my sports blog. Roger Barechs here. Here I will pontificate on all things sports. Everything from Baseball and thier steriod abusing behemoth's, to curling. Yes I said curling and I know that every four years you are watching it too, don't lie.

I tend to write about the sports I love like professional cycling, football, basketball, and occasionally baseball. So enjoy

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