Johnny Hammersticks

It’s not my personal FB page, and I do not treat it as such. None of the “friends” of the Schmarnaw Valley Lacrosse Facebook page are family members or friends of mine. I use it to communicate information pertaining to the team (e.g., practice times, cancellations) to players and parents. Every once in a great while I will comment on a player or alums page if they post about a great achievement or something like that. In this case, I was acknowledging his awesome day of fishing. Brook trout season is a huge deal up here ?

This is Vermont, man. No such policies exist, or better I say...are enforced. I am an educator as well, and one of our biggest problems is truancy. Sure, we have policies in place, but ultimately they are never enforced. Even when reported to DCF they don’t do anything. In this case, his parents were allowing him to stay home and would call his absence into school. Again, not the most “skilled” parents in the world, and certainly no importance placed on education, character, or committment in this family. I’m no being judgmental. It just is what it is.

It is. That is why he was only eligible for about 5/13 games this season anyway.

I would respect him a great deal more if he were honest. Even if that meant telling me to $&@# off. ? He’s a sophomore who will likely be a sophomore again next year.

? Sad thing is there will be a varsity pin waiting for him at our end of year banquet, but I doubt he will show now. I’m not going to confront him unless he decides to come out for the team next year. Now I have some leverage and can institute a zero tolerance policy with him.

What ever happened to being a man, going to your coach, and saying “coach, lacrosse is just not my priority right now and I just can’t commit to being part of this team, so I’m going to hand in my gear.”??

This makes absolutely no sense to me. If you don’t want to play a sport and you want to go camping or fishing, that’s fine, but don’t sign up to play a varsity sport then.

Many 6 year olds at the schools where I work can’t even identify all of their letters. Back in the day they called that ****ty parenting. Today they refer to it as “acquired dyslexia.” Not kidding.

Eh, karma’s a b***h man. I never said NYC, and if you know Vermont, NY state is only a 30-40 minute drive from where I live. Kids go there all the time. Was what I did “passive aggressive” as you say? Maybe. But if he were telling the truth then my seemingly innocuous FB comment would have been insignificant.

I wish I could have confronted him earlier, but I never had any grounds to do so. His lies to get out of practice usually were “coach, I’ve been throwing up all night so I had to stay home from school.” Then I would have his friends/teammates tell me that he was out playing basketball when he was supposed to have school. I had no proof other than heresay, so I never had a solid reason to confront him. His parents didn’t give a crap that he was missing school, and he was probably lying to them too. I couldn’t call his parents to verify. The other one he used often was “coach, I have a dentist appointment at 5:15 (we practice 5-7), and I’m probably going to have some work done so I won’t be able to make it to practice.” Now, I found it interesting that anyone would have a doctor/dentist appointment that late in the day. I went to my AD and ran it by him, and he said that there are some providers in the county that accepted Medicaid and took appointments into the early evening due to the volume of patients they need to see. Again, his “friends” would tell he was lying and skipping practice, but what was I supposed to do? Call his parents and confirm that he actually had a dentist/doctor appointment? I don’t think so. The thing is, I have had several conversations with him about his “commitment to the team” and carefully call into question his frequent absence from practice and the impact on the team. He would always just shrug it off. “Sorry coach, it has been a rough semester and I have been sick a lot.” He actually is a pretty charismatic kid. Probably a budding sociopath. I actually have pretty strict policies about missing practice/games, but this kid always found ways to skirt around them. For example, there are only four acceptable reasons to miss practice; you’re sick and cannot attend school, family emergency, academic obligation (e.g., honor society induction), or significant religious committment (e.g., first communion). Any “no call-no show” regardless of the excuse resulted in loss of playing time. I adhered to that very closely. This kid just always managed to get around the rules in the handbook.

I know! The balls on that kid! He’s not a very good liar.

I don’t suspect that he will be back next year ?

To be quite honest, I thought if he were telling the truth it would just be a nice gesture on my end. If he were lying, however, I fully expected that he would be called out by someone. My program is in shambles. No feeder program, and no support from the town rec program. I take what I can get.

I know. I still feel just a little bit bad about it though. ? Fair point. Like I said, I don’t feel great about what I did but I couldn’t resist. One thing I failed to mention is that we had to forfeit our final game. My Athletic Director’s rule for lacrosse is that we have to forfeit if our roster drops below 13. He says it’s not safe to play the games with such low numbers. He would have made our 13th player. A lot of disappointed players including 4 seniors who lost their opportunity to play their final game on our home field.

So I coach a varsity lacrosse team here in Vermont. I have a player who is one of my better players, but he is very immature, is a horrible student which makes him ineligible frequently, and he lies all the time to get out of practice. Up until now I have just ignored it. I don’t have the numbers to bench him when he does show, and I don’t think he has the best role models at home. He’s generally a pretty decent kid so I let him slide. If I confronted him he’d probably just quit. Anyway, yesterday (sat) was our final game of the season. I was already low on numbers with a couple kids injured. He texted me a few hours before the bus was supposed to leave and said that his grandfather had emergency surgery, and that he had to drive down alone to NY to be with him in the hospital because his parents couldn’t make it down there right away. I didn’t question him, and just wished him and his grandfather the best. Even though, deep down, I suspected that he was full of crap. I have a Facebook page set up to communicate with my players and parents, and this morning I noticed that he posted a picture of he and his friend trout fishing (caught some nice brookies). I commented on his photo “You’ll have to let me know your secret spot is, Pseudonym Paul. I hope your grandfather is on the mend. You’re a good kid for going down to support him in his time of need.” Either a nice comment or trap set ? I went out and mowed the lawn, and when I came back inside I checked my FB. Sure as hell, the next comment below mine is from his mother. “What the hell is going on, Pseudonymn Paul?!?! What is wrong with Papa? You didn’t go to NY...you had a bonfire with your friends last night in my backyard!!” I kinda feel guilty, but I kinda feel like he had it coming. Jerk move?

Bringing my son to the NCAA lacrosse championship in Foxboro tomorrow. Ticket prices dropped more than 65% since before the final 4. Got lower level, 45 yard line, 10 rows up for $44/ticket. Right behind the team bench areas. I’m super pumped about this. Looking to make this a tradition with my boy.

58 Does this mean that I’m not on the Autism Spectrum?

I’m in the same boat, man. I try to play online with my friends who play all the time and it isn’t even fun. I usually just play the missions.

Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey is my fav. My go-to when I take the fam out for IC is mint chocolate chip.

Oooooh, lighten up Phyllis. We Cuse and Bona fans co-exist just fine around here. Just some good-natured ball breaking. It is, however, a Syracuse basketball thread. Just sayin.... Is there some rule dictating that in order to start a thread about your team, they need to have name recognition beyond a 30 mile radius of the university? Serious question. Mods?

Even a blind squirrel finds a but every once in a while. Syracuse will keep Bona on their schedule. They like to play at least one D-3 squad every year, and I hear SUNY Binghamton’s schedule is already filled.

Battlefront II is a lot of fun. Doom got me hooked for a while. I think I got it used for like $12. My go-to is NHL18.

Guns don’t kill people. People with full face tattoos kill people.

Depends. When does the XFL start again?

Doubt it. He’s completely burned that bridge, IMO. Along with Ray Rice and Colin Keapernick....welcome to the NFL black list, Ritchie. I hope he gets help, but I never want to see him in a Bills uni ever again. Buh bye ?