Football is over…

So, Pee-Wee football is over. Both Antonio and Marco are done for the year. Now it’s all about Basketball, Tae Kwon Do, and Wrestling.

Both Antonio and Marco are in Basketball. At Antonio’s age, they begin to travel from town to town. He hasn’t had a game yet and the practices are early, so I actually haven’t seen him so much as dribble the ball yet. Once the games begin, I’ll do my best to make them. However, there are 2-4 games a week so I won’t be able to make them all. Marco’s basketball is more like a clinic, always for 1 hour on Saturdays, but that doesn’t start until January and I should be able to take him without any conflicts.

Giovanni and I have both returned to Tae Kwon Do after a 6-month hiatus. All my kids have been doing Tae Kwon Do for years. Giovanni and Antonio have black belts and Marco stopped at Purple. The thing is, Marco and Antonio do so many sports year-round, I can’t see paying top-dollar for Tae Kwon Do and see them go to one class a week. Giovanni and I have no such excuse. So, back to the grind. We do classes together so it’s a lot more work for Giovanni who doesn’t do kids classes anymore. He’s also doing awesome. I see his technique and it seems to be better than I remember, like it all gelled in the time he took off. I’m super-psyched to watch his progress. I am sorely out of shape and each day I hurt something new. Feels good though, and I am really excited to be going back.

Marco has started Wrestling. While Football is his new love, I think Wrestling is where he will be a star. He’s simply awesome to watch. He has a huge amount of natural instincts and gets better and better with each practice. This past week, he was in a tournament at John Glenn High School out in Elwood. He won gold, but didn’t go home with it.

What? Yes, you heard me. Marco won a gold medal but didn’t go home with it.

He was rough-housing with one of his teammates as the tournament was winding down. The other kid got hurt, purely by accident. I came over and saw that the kids was ok (he was), and asked Marco to apologize for the accident. He gets this way; he gets all shy and doesn’t want to apologize. He’s embarrassed. I understand that, but still I pressed him to do the right thing. It could have been over in a second. But, nothing. I told him calmly that if he didn’t apologize, there would be no medal and we’d go home. No apology came and we left without a medal. We had a long and good talk later that day. He learned his lesson and I’m sure it was worth more than winning a score of medals.

I feel bad, though. My friend Steve and his son Daniel came to see him wrestle and because I felt the need to leave with Marco, I left early without leaving time to catch up or properly thank him for coming. Anyway, sorry Steve and look forward to Lunch on Thursday!

Here is a video of the first two matches. I didn’t post his third match since it was against his teammate. Anyway, enjoy: