The hard language reality of high school football

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Doug Rogers recently said something which bears repeating: "If any of you have ever been on the sidelines of a high skewl fooball game like I have, I assure you that you would be absolutely appalled at the language and attitude of ANY given coaching staff. This whole Academic Magnet thing is a joke to me personally. I was in the military for 11 years and have never heard some of the language I had to listen to on the sidelines. We really need to look at the bigger picture. Just my two cents."

Like Doug, I have spent a lot of time on the sidelines of high school football games and I will spend time on the sidelines tonight. I have heard coaches curl the grass with their language. I have watched, from a distance as they said things which even the worst lip reader on the planet could interpret.

The comments section on FB are full of replies of people complaining about these coaches. Hang on to that thought a moment; I have to shift gears.

I reminded of what my late grandmother said about former UGA football coach Ray Goff. "He's not mean enough," she said when Vince Dooly announced Goff was being replaced after less than spectacular performances at UGA. Other said Goff was certainly not suitable as a head coach for the same reasons. One person said Goff was best as a recruiter, because he could make parents feel good about their children attending UGA.

Someone, perhaps MA, is going to remind me of an NFL coach who was never abusive toward his players, racked up an impressive win record and is routinely listed as the "Coach I'd most like to play for" by NFL players. I don't really wonder why more NFL players didn't join his team in that case. They didn't because of NFL rules and money, mostly money.

That coach is an aberration.

 Let's shift back to the people complaining about high school football coaches.

Lemme ask you this: Which do you want, a winning football team OR a coach who doesn't swear on the sidelines? Pick one because you cannot have both. Sure, sure, there are aberrations like that NFL coach. But of 1,000 high school coaches with winning records, 999 will be the kind who explode with language that makes some people cringe.

So, which do you want?

I already know.

You want a winning football team. Yes, you do. Attendance in the stands proves it. A winning team packs the stadium. A losing team has only the most die-hard fans most, not all, of whom are parents of children on the team.

The kids want a winning team. When the coach delivers victories, turnout for the team rises. When the coach can't put together a winning season, kids migrate to other activities.

The Board of Education wants a winning team. Losing coaches have a hard time getting their contracts renewed. Winning coaches are courted by other schools.

Winning is what matters. If it takes a coach who can knock the bark off a pine tree at 20 paces, then we'll just have to replant the trees.

Parents of players, you are the worst of the lot. As MH said, "I find it hard to equate any reality into a game where professionals are so over paid that parents would rather their kids get permanent injuries to get on a team."

Complain and disagree all you like. Actions speak louder than words and reality proves you don't really care what kind of language a coach uses so long as he delivers the win.

Of interest to gun folks - A top 20

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Joe Saxon said there's something about owning a gun and being able to walk into just about any hardware store and know they have ammunition for it.

Can I get a witness?

It's one thing to own gun, but quite another to be able to feed it. A gun without ammunition is an expensive stick. Consider this article from Outdoor Life on a new wildcat round. Jim Carmichael says "This new wildcat may be the ultimate answer for long-range deer and varmint hunting."

Really? And what, I ask, is wrong with the .243? The .308? The .270 and of course the venerable and mighty .30-06? If you wanna get really technical, the 6.5 Leopard is already duplicated by other wildcats. I say it is a duplicate, but I don't have absolute proof. I do have a conversation with the guys at C4HD who tell me they've cranked out so many wildcatter dies they can't tell me for sure.

Where is Mr. Carmichael gonna get ammo for the 6.5 Leopard except from his own reloading press?

Say he goes on a hunting trip with this rifle and loses his ammo supply. Now what? He's either buying or borrowing another gun.

Which rolls me right back around to my original point. It's well and good to have a rifle and a cartridge that you absolutely adore, but if you can't get ammo for it, then what?

Plenty of people have done the 1, 2, or three gun SHTF scenarios, A few have even reached beyond to include 5 guns. I'm asking you what you'd have in the gun safe if you were limited to 20 guns?

With ammo availability the key requirement, here's what I'd have, if I could afford it:

SHOTGUN

A 12 gauge pump - This is the best all around gun. It can shoot light loads of No. 12 shot all the way up to 1 ounce slugs. It's good for everything from squirrel to bear. Why a pump? Less maintenance and more reliable than an auto and faster backup shots than a single shot and more shots than a double-barrel.

A 20 gauge pump. Less kick than the 12 and less punch too. But a 7/8 ounce chunk of lead at 1,200 FPS is gonna flatten what you shoot.

RIFLE

I can go bolt action or single shot with these. Bolt provides a faster second shot than a SS, but a SS is the most accurate and reliable. The sole exception is in a .22. I will take a SS .22 any day over any kind of repeater.

.22 short, long, long rifle - Gimme a .22 and I can kill anything that is native to North America today with one shot. Guaranteed. I've dropped animals weighing more than 1,000 pounds with a .22. I dispatched an elk, mortally wounded, with a .22 revolver. Biggest hog I ever killed, .22 and he dropped.

.22-250 - Anything bigger than a medium hog, this is a head-shot only proposition. But if you are after meat or hides, this will do it out to 1,000 yards.

.223 5.56 NATO - Runs neck and neck with the 7.62x39 as being the world's most common military-style rifle round.

.243 - I don't consider this - and I know this is gonna make some folks mad - a suitable rifle for big deer and larger game. However, small deer, small hogs, etc, you betcha. YMMV.

.270 - Second only to the .30-06 in my book.

7mm Mag - Ubiquitous and no other reason at all.

.30-30 - North America's most popular deer round. If a store has only one box of ammo for a rifle, this is gonna be it.

.308 - A short .30-06. Will handle everything up to most bears. With a head shot, even the biggest bear will wait for you. BONUS! You can load it subsonic and stick on a suppressor.


.30-06 - The King. Load 110 grains and you bust varmints. Load up 220 grain round nose and you can stop a moose.

300 Win Mag - Not as common as the others in this list, but it is in the top 10 best selling rifle cartridges in the United States.


HANDGUN

I prefer revolvers. More reliable.

.380 - Not the strongest to be sure, but the main criteria is feeding the gun. And, it'll still kill supper.

.357 - Shoots .357 mag, .38 special and .38 S&W.

9mm - Underrated, especially when +P ammo is used.

10mm - A 10mm will also shoot .40 ammo. Yes huhn.

.44 mag - Dirty Harry, here we come!

.45 ACP - The original slabsides.

This list is not 20 yet. I add two that I just happen to like and just want in my 20-gun collection.

16 gauge shotgun. Purely emotional decision, I admit. Dad left me a Stevens nickle-plated SXS in 16 gauge and der yaggo.

.45-70 - This old buffalo cartridge has made a comeback in recent years because of cowboy action shooting. It's not extremely common, but can be found. It is also capable of killing any land critter on the planet up to and included the Big 5. Load it hot with 500 grain monolithics and I'd hunt Cape Buffalo and elephant with it. It's a lot MORE common that the other dangerous game rounds.

Controlling your thoughts

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The recent attempt by the City of Houston to get ahold of preacher's sermons on homosexuality et al has got a number of people riled, including the American Civil Liberties Union.

I have read reports that the subpoenas were filed by a "pro bono" attorney, done without the mayor's knowledge and it's just a fact-finding effort.

For the record, I don't believe any of that. The attorney filing the paperwork may not be getting paid in cash direct, but that lawyer is getting something for this other than a "feel good." The mayor knew about this. I have covered politics and politicians for 30 years now and when a politician says "I didn't know" about something like this, he's lying. So yes, I am calling Annise Parker a liar. As for it being a fact-finding mission, the same can be said of just about any witch hunt.

Brutal Antipathy, a devout atheist and one of the most rational people I know is likewise quite bent about this. He wrote to me:"Talking about Houston mayor Annise Parker's subpoenas ... for churches to turn over their sermons pertaining to homosexuality, gender identity, or herself.  Her office has now 'narrowed the scope' of the subpoenas so that it is only 'speeches' given on those topics. 'Scuse me, but isn't a sermon a speech?"

Indeed it is. However in a part of the law I don't understand, churches are tax exempt. Why? People point to the First Amendment and the mistaken idea of "separation of church and state." Me? I think churches ought to pay taxes on everything except their charitable work like a food bank (which the church I attend has).

In another byzantine twist of the law, churches only get to maintain their tax-exempt status when they do not engage in obvious political activities. Supposedly.

The truth screams otherwise. Jeremiah Wright, the current president's former pastor in Chicago, has politic'ed from the pulpit. Other megachurch leaders have done the same. Why aren't they the subject of government scrutiny? Because they are too big and too well connected. Tax exempt status maintained.

It's a clear case of picking on someone who can't effectively fight back. It's what bullies do.

BA says, "This is again one of those issues of separation of church and state.  The state, in this case the city, is attempting to bully and intimidate churches into silence. The mayor is saying that churches are only free to promote what she, a self-identified and open lesbian, approves of."

The Thought Police, led by liarberals and cantservatives of the ReDamnoboobicratican stripe, are out to shut you down and shut you up. If they can manage to shut you sideways, diagonal and inverted, they'll do that too.

BA extends the logic: "Now to take a ride on the slippery slope, but it can't be helped. If the mayor of Houston is allowed to tell churches they are not allowed to interpret Leviticus 18:22-23 as literal, what is to stop her from telling churches they are not allowed to interpret Romans 4:25 as literal? While this is unlikely to ever happen (though I seem to recall something akin to this happening in Soviet Russia), it should never be within the power of the state to dictate what we can and cannot believe. That wall of separation is there to protect everybody. WBC has as much right to believe what they believe as the LGBT community has to believe what they believe."

Except government will not accept this. And that, luddites and geraniums, is exactly what this is all about.

The great cover up

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This is not about a media or government coverup. Partly it is about a conspiracy and partly it is about simply covering up as in wearing clothes.

Dunno why, but I got to thinking about Muslim women wearing a burka and Ku Kux Klan members wearing their full-head and body covering outfits. I thought I remembered a court declaring the full hood of a KKK member to be illegal. A hood with the face exposed is entirely fine.

So, I set about looking for the court case which decided this. I found out, there ain't one. It has yet to reach the US Supreme Court. Meantime, various states have ruled in different ways. The most recent case found in favor of the person wearing a full-face hood.

So. Let me ask you what's the difference in these two people?

Aside from some physical attributes - white outfit v. black outfit, setting, etc. you cannot tell anything. You do not know why each person is so dressed. You do not know if it is a man or a woman, nor can you say definitively that it's not the SAME person in each picture.

Beyond question, you cannot tell what the person is thinking, plans to do or the reason for wearing such attire.

Therein is the danger.

We have elements in society today who demand the Thought Police show up in force to accuse, prosecute and condemn those who think differently. These elements have no problem in saying their own views, thoughts and words are sacrosanct.

Parity is not even a word in their dictionaries.

So. If we intend to ban the public wearing of the garb on the left in the above picture, I suggest you to parity demands the same of the garb on the right. If the face must be exposed in the left picture, the same must be applied to the one on the right.

Parity.

Now, two divergences:

1) While I'm here, lemme rock your world a bit about the KKK. My kid's mother grew up in Central Mississippi where the Klan had a presence. She describes the outfit then as a little more than a civic club with a streak of vigilante justice that was applied across the board regardless of the ethnicity of the person targeted. Abusers were common targets, no matter who they were.

2) While researching this, I stumbled across stories of the ACLU repping the KKK in various cases. I posted about that, resulting in this thread.