2007 Reflection

As we look back on last year, I would like to thank my friends and clients who have made this year so special. What started as a dream in 2003 finally culminated this year as the business is now my ONLY full-time job (prior to August 2006 I had multiple full-time jobs! Yes, it's possible!).

My family and I moved into our second home, and first one in the Charleston area. Our house in Irmo sold three years to the date from when we bought it, and after our apartment lease ran out, we purchased our beautiful home here in Goose Creek.

Our son started school last year, and is a typical five-year old male: he's scatterbrained, he doesn't pay attention to detail, and all he thinks about is playing. Oh yeah, he's pretty smart too and loves to read, and seems to be artistically inclined. No telling what he is going to be when he grows up, as his interests change on what seems like a weekly basis.

My father died in 2007. It wasn't like we didn't see it coming, but nothing really prepared me to see my father's lifeless body in a hospital bed or in the casket. I can see it clearer today than I did back in July ... at the time everything was like a movie to which I was half-paying attention. I dream about my dad in those circumstances, and I seriously wish I could have just one dream where we're playing catch with ball and gloves or going fishing down at Pete Smith's pond or just sitting in the living room watching The Dukes of Hazzard (the show; yes, I'm that old to remember it new). I never wish for my dad to come back; why would I want him to return to a body that had heart disease, total kidney failure, smoke-damaged lungs, high blood pressure, near-total blindness, and leukemia? But I sure want to go to where he is. I want to "shed the sins and sorrows I have carried all these years." (Brad Paisley, When I Get Where I'm Going) As my body ages and starts to wear out, Heaven is a sweeter and sweeter reality. Eternal fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit ... and all the ones who accepted the Lord and preceded me in death ... in addition to all the things that a new, perfect body will bring. And there are a lot of things I have to do before I go -- but you know, I really don't have to do them.

Rain and sunshine in 2007. More of both predicted for 2008. I'll try to do a better job of keeping the blogosphere informed as it happens instead of putting it all in one batch in my January 2009 posting. :)

This post was originally begun the day after Christmas on my notebook in a hotel room with a spotty wireless network. I ended up getting a few autosaves, but never got to post. It probably seems weird to do a "Year in Review" piece halfway into January, but I like to finish what I start.

Winning and Losing

Someone has surely written a book on the subject of the psychology behind winning and losing. One day I intend to find that book and read it. Today I want to talk from personal experience.

I like to win, but I hate losing.

I did not say "I love to win and hate to lose". Love and hate can come in varying degrees, but without any other quantifier, you'd place love and hate at opposite ends of the spectrum, or as counteracting forces. Like vs. Hate is no contest. Hate overwhelms Like in a hurry. Only Love can combat Hate on an equal footing.

Maybe every coach feels this way, or maybe it's just me. I think the idea initially came to mind after hearing an excerpt of a speech from some top college b-ball coach among the caliber of Kryzyzewski, Knight, Pitino et al. It wasn't Wooden or Dean Smith, but I can't put my finger on who it was. Regardless, the unidentified coach shared the sentiment. A loss is a lower valley than a win is a pinnacle.

I suppose one coach in each division of basketball feels differently: the national champion, state champion, conference champion ... that coach that wins the final game of his postseason, the game at the end of the schedule where no further possibility of advancement exists. Once you win that big one, you hit the pinnacle. But you don't live there. If you continue to coach, you will lose again, and you'll be back in the cycle.

This creates the existentialist's question: why do it if it ultimately leads to more sorrow than joy? For me, the answer is that I love the game. Yes, love. I love to see players develop. I love to see joy in their faces after a hard-fought two-point win like we had last night, or after the overtime win last Friday night.

And ultimately, I end up caring for the players. As the season starts, I see players as chess pieces that, once aligned in the proper position and each using her skills and strengths at a high level of proficiency, give us an excellent chance of being successful. Then you see what motivates them, what makes them cry, what makes them fail, and you realize you're working with more than machines: these are carbon-based life forms that believe, and feel, and fatigue, and make mistakes, and sometimes perform better than you knew possible. And then you care for them as people. And ultimately, one day you can count these players among those that call you a friend.

But enough with all that: right now I see a team that is finding its identity and that is getting better in every practice and every game. I'm starting to think about a run in the state playoffs. And dare I say that the possibility of that pinnacle described above--winning the final game for which a team is eligible to play, a state title in this context--is becoming something that I'm willing to believe in.

Tonight, we took a step toward that pinnacle with a tough road win over what could be the toughest competition we'll see short of a state semifinal game. I've seen the other two contenders in our region play, and I think we can take them. We must now play without letdowns and continue to improve on ... what am I doing with all this coaching talk in here?!? I should save it for the locker room!

Champions Again!

"One for the thumb" could almost be the rally cry for the Adams State University women's cross country program after winning its fifth straight national championship. I say almost because none of the harriers would actually own five team championship rings, as they would have exhausted their eligibility after four seasons. It's entirely possible that one of them obtained a medical hardship waiver (AKA redshirt) and was still awarded a ring ... ahh, you know what I'm getting at!!! Not only did these Grizzlies run away with (pun intended) another title, their male counterparts finished tied for second nationally. These runners certainly are in "rare air" up there at 7,000+ feet above sea level.

The Sunshine State Conference calls itself the conference of national champions, and it can add one more notch to the belt after last Saturday night. The team doing the notching was the University of Tampa women's soccer program. Congratulations Spartans! It is with somewhat mixed feelings that I offer praise, because Tampa did knock off Columbus State, another client, in the Elite Eight during its championship run.

On the men's side of the draw, Midwestern State University dropped its national semifinal game to Franklin Pierce in penalty kicks. Praise is still in order for the Mustangs who were ranked as high as #7 nationally during the regular season.

After winning last year's national crown, Tampa volleyball will have to settle for an Elite Eight appearance this year. The Spartan netters fell to Washburn in the quarterfinal and finished the year ranked #4 by the AVCA.

Two national titles, one runner-up, one semifinal appearance, and two quarterfinal appearances by ATHLETICSITE.COM client schools. Not too shabby at all. :)

It's been almost three months??? Get outta here

August 29 couldn't have been that long ago, but it was. He he

Well, since I haven't linked to this blog yet, I guess I'm just writing for myself anyway. Still, that's no excuse. Today was not a good day. I'm helping coach a basketball team that hasn't gotten to practice in about six days, and it shows. Very badly. I became very frustrated with the players today and kind of lost my cool. That wasn't good for me. I've had blood pressure issues in the past from coaching, and I should not let it reach that point ever again.

Houston Baptist's site (www.hbuhuskies.com) has now launched, and Florida Tech is on the horizon. Hopefully I have a couple more to post about in the next few days. Florida Tech should be launching around the first of December.

Ok, so I've been tardy

I haven't done any posts over the last -- wow -- two months because of the volume of work that has come in. Four new sites have debuted since my last post:

• Rogers State (www.rsuhillcats.com)
• Sunshine State Conference (www.sunshinestateconference.com)
• Southern Wesleyan University (www.swuathletics.com)
• Midwestern State University (www.msumustangs.com)

Houston Baptist is the next client on the list, and hopefully we'll be able to announce at least one more new client in the next two weeks.

You may have read in my last post in June that my father was teetering on the brink. He passed away on July 6. In lieu of flowers, the family requested that donations be made to the National Kidney Foundation in his name (Charles McCain).

School has begun, and I now wear the hat of a parent in the circle of education. I hope my former experience as a teacher is a blessing and not a blight as we work with the school in the education of my son. I'll have to post some photos of the first day of school soon. Well, maybe not soon ... more like when I get low on work again.

A Purpose

Not since I've been a camper at summer church camp or been a student in college have I come across something that forced me to take a hard look at my life the way I did today. The website is http://www.johnplaceonline.com/ and the articles in particular were the series on synergy.

To define your life message and life purpose is a daunting task. It's particularly daunting because I see humanity as four groups of people:
* Those who know their purpose and are fulfilling it;
* Those who know (or believe they know) purpose, yet are spending their time in a career or lifestyle that is not working toward that purpose;
* Those "happy fools" (as I call them) who are perfectly content working their 9-to-5 days, happy with their jobs, and no real "greater purpose" exists for them; and
* Those who know no purpose and are also unfulfilled on a daily basis (unhappy with jobs if they have them, no real motivation to accomplish or succeed at anything).

I don't believe those are ranked from best to worst. Obviously the first is best and the last is worst, but I struggle to rank the second and third in my unnumbered list above. I'm almost persuaded that the happy fool is better off than the unfulfilled mission. That's why I say defining your life purpose and mission is a daunting task--once you "eat of the treee of the knowledge of good and evil", you can never return to the innocence possessed before. That is, once you have defined your life purpose, you can't recant later on and say you have no purpose. Saying that would be a lie. You have a purpose and are now choosing not to fulfill it.

I encourage you to spend some time on this site. He writes from a very religious-neutral standpoint, but many of his principles appear to be Bible-based. These concepts would be very easily ported into sermons. I bring up faith here because I'm getting to what I've defined as my life message and purpose. This could change over time, as it has changed since graduating from college 14 years ago, but for today it is:

My desire is to help people know the Lord and walk with Him daily. I want
to help organizations—such as camps, churches, and Bible colleges—financially
and physically. In order to be able to afford to do this, I choose to make
my living as a private business owner involved in website development for
college athletic departments. I have chosen this line of work because I am
a former sports information director at the college level, and coach and
athletic director at the high school level.

So now you know a little more about me, and what makes me tick. I don't publish that in an effort to get more business because someone might be sympathetic to my cause. I'm not going around selling candy bars for $1. I do the line of work because I love it and believe I do it well. I'd rather my motivation, and what I do with my profit, stay private and personal, but because of the topic at johnplace, perhaps I can inspire someone else to define a purpose and life message.

Another thing that I found in another article was this line:
"Do you understand and approve of the reasons you live your life the way you do?"

Can you read that sentence and justify any bad habit you've allowed to creep into your life? What obstacle/sin exists that you can't defeat just once? Just once? Let's say it's smoking. I choose that because right now my father, a lifelong smoker, is experiencing heart disease, kidney disease, Parkinson's disease, and partial blindness brought on by a series of strokes that is also limiting his mobility. He will be confined to a wheelchair or hospital bed soon, or he'll suffer that final stroke that will shut down a crucial part of the brain and that will be the end. He just turned 64, a man who did physical labor all his life after military in Vietnam, and if he'd never picked up a cigarette, it's safe to say he'd still be operating his own flooring installation business. My son is five, and quite likely he won't have a grandfather by his sixth birthday. He did a little better than I, though: my last grandfather died when I was six months old. Of lung cancer.

Can you make it through the next temptation to smoke? That's the only one we're worried about right now. Let's skip this one cigarette break. It will be both tougher and easier to skip the second cigarette break: tougher because of the nicotene withdrawal, but easier because you have a victory under your belt now. Ok, let's go for #3. Don't tell yourself, "well, I'll smoke the third one; I'm trying to wean myself off." So, you're going to wean off poison? Drinking less poison will help the recovery process??? Drinking NO poison is what will restore you to health!

Do you understand and approve of the reasons you live your life the way you do?

When you can say yes to that question in all honesty, you're reaching your potential or heading to the bottom. "Drugs or Jesus", as Tim McGraw sings. Tomorrow can be better than today. Reach that potential.

With only one post in June ...

I look like a slacker. So here's the second one, and perhaps final one, for the month.

Last night there was a terrible fire in West Ashley (for non-Charleston-area folks, that's inside the Charleston city limits, west of the Ashley River) that killed nine firefighters. If you haven't seen it on national (and even international news), the Sofa Super Store caught fire and as the place heated up, the roof collapsed killing all inside. Our prayers are with the families of these brave men. On a business note, sympathies to the Sofa Super Store for the losses they will now incur due to this loss. Insurance does not "make everything right again"; it only softens the blow of such a loss.

What's going on in the backyard? The squirrel death toll is now up to five. And no matter what Rosie O'Donnell says, the squirrels are the real terrorists, not me. But I am the one with a firearm ...

Rogers State University is just about to unveil its new site, and the Sunshine State Conference will roll out in a couple of weeks. Midwestern State and Southern Wesleyan will unveil probably in the early part of August. There could be a major influx of customers over the next few weeks and months, and when I can say more about it, I will.

New Clients Set to Debut in Summer '07

Take a minute to welcome to the family new clients that will launch prior to fall semester 2007.

Sunshine State Conference: The good folks at one of the premier conferences in Division II will be joining the ATHLETICSITE.COM family in June. Three of its members--Rollins, Saint Leo, and Tampa--are already clients and were instrumental in bringing the conference into the fold.
Rogers State University: RSU Athletic Director Wren Baker was formerly at Southeastern Oklahoma State, that became a client in October 2006, and knew a good thing when he saw it.
Midwestern State University: Following SOSU's lead, Midwestern will be ATHLETICSITE.COM's second Lone Star Conference client. It will make the fourth client west of the Mississippi River and first in the great Republic of Texas.
Southern Wesleyan University: This is the school where the Mike Gillespie without the tarnished image coaches! I count Mike as a long-time friend from my days at Newberry College, and he's labored hard to make the partnership happen up in Central. What other website design firm has six college clients in South Carolina?
Lincoln Memorial University: The Harrogate, Tenn., institution will make the third South Atlantic Conference school to become a client. We didn't get started early enough last year to make this a reality, but everything is in place for a July launch this time around.

Also, look for redesigns at Coker College and Charleston Southern University!

Bang Bang

No more squirrels frolic around the yard, thanks to the rifle. If they even pass through the yard, it must be before anyone gets up in the morning. In fact, I'm having to take aim at squirrels in other yards' trees.

Like the one I got today.

Things started when I fired from my deck at a squirrel in my neighbor's tree. It either struck him or startled him, because he leaped from a limb about 30 feet up and hit the ground with a thud. I never really saw what became of him, although I figured he had to be a goner. I did notice a rodent going up the same tree, so I figured that must be the same one that jumped.

Later, I walked over by the lake to get a better view of what was in the neighbor's trees, and I noticed probably four up there. One was sprawled out across some narrow branches and I had a view like a bearskin rug. Ready, aim, fire ... no sudden leap, no fall from the heavens ... I thought I'd missed. Until 15 minutes later when I heard crack, crack, and then saw a falling squirrel--not like the one flailing and attempting to land on all fours earlier in the morning--that looked dead already and landed on his side. The neighbor's dog was frightened by the dying/dead squirrel; ironic seeing how the coward barked at and ran squirrels that made a path through his yard.

I did my duty, scooping up the carcass and placing it by the lake. When I came back out after my shower, whatever likes to eat squirrel bodies had already carried it off.

That Old Ex-Girlfriend and the Rest of Your Rosy Past

Remember that old ex-girlfriend from eons past and how special she was and how you two got along so well and how she was your soulmate? Ah, she was perfect, you were perfect, and you remember so many perfect evenings together. How beautiful life was. You remember so well ...

Do you? Was it?

Unless you had to break it off because she was on the verge of discovering your secret identity as the Masked Superhero of your municipality, it didn't end all that well. In fact, it wasn't always good when you were together. And there were at least a handful of "qualities" that she possessed that you downright despised. And even if the break-up came as a surprise to you and you were still lovestruck so that you couldn't detect faults in her, I got one for ya buddy: she wasn't so into you. You did something, or you were something, that she couldn't handle.

Why do we "remember" the "good old days" as such? Sometimes it's a nice escape from the problems of today. Sometimes instead of watching soap operas, we create them in our mind of how the past might have played out. And it's not like we want OUT of our current, long-running, stable, healthy relationships--it's just more adventurous to imagine ourselves as James Dean on a bike with Marilyn Monroe in tow ... well, with both alive and all.

I had a moment like this Sunday, but no girl was involved. It was a career of mine twice removed that made me long for life back a decade. Before I was a business owner, I was a college sports information director, and before that a high school math teacher. Sunday night was the baccalaureate service at our church, and the last batch of students I taught are graduating this Friday. Hearing some of their words of praise for current and past teachers triggered a nostalgic response in me.

Yes, I longed for the old days of being a mostly unappreciated high school math teacher. You know, the old career was the old girlfriend. Starry-eyed, I imagined going back into the profession to impart my knowledge, to touch lives. "I'd be a much better teacher now, now that I'm a parent, now that I've seen the outside. Just give me one more chance," I begged of the old gal that I had dumped almost five years ago.

Now, why did I dump her again? Was it the low pay or the long hours, or both? Was it the unmotivated student, or his overexpecting parents, or both? Was it the student that wouldn't learn, couldn't learn, or didn't learn that soured it? Was it all the forms and phone calls--administration--or was it the laissez-faire attitude of 1/3 to 1/2 of the class that made me feel like I was wasting my time? Was it kids like Phillip and Patrick and Joni and Nathan and Sara? Were there not enough kids like Trey and Tessa and Cooper and Katie and Daniel and Josh?

I found a nice blog, Rate Your Students, that helped spell it out for me. All the people in the profession who are venting just to maintain their sanity made me realize that my rosy past had thorns as well as blooms. I got more complaints over grades, classroom tactics, and failure to spoon-feed than thank-you notes and pats on the back.

If I may corrupt a Yogi Berra quote (as if a corrupted Yogi Berra quote isn't redundant enough): "The past ain't what it used to be." It's not the way you remember it. Nine out of 10 of you are better off now than you were five years ago. Don't long for the past--it won't catch up with you if you slow down and wait for it. Are you in a new career, a new relationship, a new ANYTHING? Remember why you left the old, and let that be that. The children of Israel, after being released from the slave captivity of Egypt in Exodus, often recalled how "good" things were in their days of captivity. Narrow-minded, willful myopia and a selective memory will make you forget the good choices you made and why you made them, which in turn will make you bitter and discontent in the present.

My good friend Jo Dee Messina said it best in "Bye Bye":
Bye bye love, I'll catch you later
Gotta put my foot down on my accelerator
With the rear view mirror torn off
I ain't never looking back
And that's a fact

We could all stand to tear off some rear view mirrors.

Call me Chuck Connors

One down, one million to go. Beginner's luck maybe, but I got my first kill this morning.

As that little rodent ascended to the top of my neighbor's fence, I took aim with my Crosman air rifle, got him in the crosshairs, and pulled the trigger with the barrel resting against the deck crossbar. Pow! He jumped about a foot into the air, and I'm thinking I just scared the critter. Not the case. He climbed back up the fence, jumped to my fence, ran about ten feet and then toppled over into my yard. It was the type of fall a stuntman would take in the old westerns after being shot off a balcony. He fell between the fence and the outdoor storage building, and when I rushed down to see what had become of him, he was not there. He went about another 20 feet, I guess hoping to hide and recover from whatever just struck him . As I neared him, he did not run, so I knew I had delivered what was probably a lethal blow. With the aid of a garden spade, I broke the creature's neck to end his suffering. Upon moving the body out to the water's edge for the rest of nature to feast on, I saw that I had struck him between the third and fourth rib, likely piercing his heart.

It was pretty freaking cool. I had anticipated missing, missing, missing, and then finally grazing a squirrel. I figured I'd need to adjust the scope and shoot at some targets to really fine-tune this pellet gun, but no.

By the way, we haven't seen any more squirrels at all today. Same as when the first casualty went down to the rat trap. I'm almost sad that I haven't had anything else to shoot at.

Number One

Welcome to my very first blog ever. Not THE first blog ever, just my first blog ever.

I tend to get started on everything computer-related a little late. But hey, at least I start, right? I got my first taste of Windows (3.1) around 1995, the Internet around 1997, and designing websites in 1998. I entered the world of serious website design--the phase where I began to get high profile clients and not just churches and mom-n-pop places, the phase where I was reaching my target niche of college athletic departments--around 2003.

I found the career that I thought was going to be my calling for the rest of my life--college athletics sports information & media relations--when I was 29. Sheesh, I was married for eight years before becoming a father. Maybe I get into everything a little late. (Ok, don't read too much into that last one.)

I can still remember the conversation I had with the Maestro back in '98. He told me about the website that he had started weeks earlier, and that I should make a website.
ME: "Why would I want to build a website? I don't have anything to say."

And now I'm blogging. I guess I found something to say.

That would've been a great place to stop, but if this is going to be a substantial blog, then there should be a real topic for each post. This one is going to talk about my latest preoccupation: ridding my yard of squirrels.

We bought our place at the end of February, and really love it. Nice fenced backyard, man-made lake out back, sort of on the cusp of "in the woods" but with a four-lane busy highway 300 yards away. When we first got here, those little squirrels looked sooo cute running along the fences, hanging out on our deck, jumping from tree to tree.

And then we started landscaping. And they started tearing up the landscaping. It was like Japan bombing Pearl Harbor. War had been declared.

Now the previous tenants--your run-of-the-mill, tree-hugging, recycling, "our-dogs-are-our-kids" sort of people--probably learned to be "at one" with the squirrels. I'm more of an Andrew Jackson or Teddy Roosevelt type. If something's in your way, you move it or go over it. You don't learn to live with little annoyances in life with a "Serenity Now" chant; you change the things that can be changed.

I don't know if squirrels in my backyard is something that can be changed, but I'm giving it the old college try. And I'm beginning to ramp it up quickly:

1. Run out the door and go "shoo squirrel, shoo." Now, that's only effective if I'm about 10 feet from the critters, and then I could be completely mute and they'd run.
2. Throw a collection of larger pieces of gravel collected down by the water at them. Pretty effective in scaring them away IF you happen to hit within about six inches of them. I've managed that all of twice.
3. Rat traps. NOW we're getting somewhere. One kill and several near misses, and the near misses scare the living acorns outta these animals. That's pretty satisfying to see one leave the yard in what could best be described as the fast-motion sequence at the end of Benny Hill episodes. But only one kill out of, what, 100 squirrels?
4. Air rifle. Just bought it Saturday and have only fired two pellets. Squirrels now run when I open the door, so I can't get a good shot unless I'm already out there. Plus, unless I suddenly morph into Chuck Connors, I'm going to miss more than I hit.
5. Ancient Chinese secret. My online search for ways to rid yards of squirrels yielded remedies such as fox pee (can't wait to explain that one on the credit card statement), suggestions on how to hang a bird feeder to keep squirrels out (but I can't put MY WHOLE YARD on a slippery pole), the aformentioned pellet gun, and the ever-so-humane catch-and-release traps. Yeah, if I got one of those suckers to walk into my trap, I would probably terrorize it with power tools in the garage until it perished of heart failure. But I didn't use any of those (except the rifle).

What I did use from the Internet is a twist on a recipe I saw on a Canada Reader's Digest site. My version calls for a whole onion, a clove of garlic, about an ounce of cayenne pepper, a tablespoon of dishwashing liquid, and as much water as I could top off the blender with. I didn't have any Tabasco sauce, but I can't imagine Tabasco making this product much more vile. I took the top off the blender and the aroma almost took my top off. Potent is not a strong enough adjective to use for this concoction. And trust the author: no matter how much you liquefy, this junk will not spray out of any type of container. Its texture is pretty much like you eating spaghettios and then vomiting into a spray bottle.

I was conflicted on using it to start with. On one hand, I would like nothing better than to "cap" one of these rodents, yet at the same time I'm attempting to keep them away. I'll report back on how effective this toxic vomit is. Or let you know if I'm any good behind a trigger.