You ever make a wrong turn and end up somewhere you didn't want to ever be?  I did that once with a fellow engineer in Philadelphia.  He turned on to a toll bridge to Camden and I told him to do a U-turn in the middle of the bridge rather than go to the toll booth.  There wasn't any traffic at that time of night but he went to the toll booth and asked the "gentleman" if he could make a U turn behind the toll booth and not go into Camden? The guy gave us circuitous directions to get back to the entrance of the bridge and and asked for $5 for the toll.  When my buddy asked again about a U turn the A$$hole stuck his face into the car and, in his best New Jersey accent, said "Hey Listen $hit face.  If I said you could make a U turn, would I have spent all my precious time giving you directions?"  We drove around Camden for about 10 minutes and made our way back to toll booth entrance where he charged us another $5.  I said I would never go back to Ne...

 Here's Coach Bennaka' plan to bring success back to the Smithville MO program.  It was well worth the couple of hours of analysis for his team to get this response.  Read it twice and then go DO IT. Gramps, First, again, I really appreciate all of the time you put into analyzing our team and for all of the work that you do on the blog. It has been incredibly useful for me as a coach. It's also comforting to know there's at least a shred of evidence from an independent perspective to show that we are indeed improving as a program over a long period of time. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day process and it can be difficult to take a step back and remind ourselves about how far we've come together. On to the questions... Gramps: What are you doing to change the culture?   Coach Bennaka: For us, and I use that term specifically, it's about the understanding that it takes an army of people to make a program work. When I first got this job, I wrote a l...

 I had a couple of communications last night that I thought I would bring up.  First off, someone from Christian OFallon messaged me to let me know that two top scorers on the team had transferred....  Kristian Davis (457 points last year) has transferred to Cardinal Ritter and Raynard Horry, 5'7" PG, had moved to Fort Zumwalt West.  That impacts three teams and  I have adjusted my projection to take those moves into account.  If you have news of a transfer, in or out of your school, let me know and I will adjust the write-up.   Another communication was about the St. Louis Suburban conference's makeup.  I wasn't sure so I emailed Larry Cunningham, Athletic Commissioner for SLSPHSAAA (that's a mouthful), and his short answer was "That is up to each individual school".  So that means a few schools might still opt to move up or down in the four color-coded conference set-ups.  Eureka moved up to Yellow for last season to get better co...

Corrected 9/26/2021 9:30pm  I had a delightful message from a class five boys coach in the North Kansas City area, raving about my statistical model for winning percentage.  He has coached the team for the past three years with a progression of 4, 6, and 13 wins in those first three years.  He is changing the culture and he is a fanatic about using team and individual statistics to analyze where the team needs more work.  His efforts seem to be paying off and he is even more excited about this coming year.  I might have more on how he is making a difference in a future blog. I normally would not do this for anyone, but he charmed me into analyzing his team this coming year.  I went back and looked at his first two years and came close to predicting his actual record.  This coming year could possibly project for 16 wins.  I hope they actually come close to that projection.  I might have to charge for other coaches' requests. LOL One of my gran...

 Many of you have had a chance to read some of my conference prognostications by now.   I have not gotten feedback as to whether they make any sense or are just a bunch of BS.  The winning percentage mathematical model is a novel approach to predicting future success but many may think dubiously of it. What did Mark Twain say (or it might have been Disraeli, who Samuel Clemmons stole it from)?  "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" I have used statistics my entire life to model different processes in the food industry.  You take the important factors, control and adjust them in a specific range or array, and you can develop a quadratic or logarithmic equation that describes the process to a certain degree.  The more complex the system, the less likely you will describe it in exact terms.   I once had a scientist on my staff who designed a low-fat kettle potato chip in a mini-fryer and with a hot air gun.  He undercooked the chips in the Fry D...

 The best reasons for the St. Louis Suburban alignment come together in the Suburban Blue conference.  First off, teams of similar ability can all compete within their conference with some level of success, and, Two, the conference alignment allows competition between teams of very diverse economic, a wide geographic area, and levels of ethnicity.   It combines the opportunity to compete and an opportunity to meet and learn more about a very diverse St. Louis population.  Hopefully, this is a rich learning experience that cannot be taught in a classroom. For Suburban Blue, you have teams that have not had a lot of success in prior conferences.  In Blue, each team has an opportunity to win games and, hopefully, compete for a conference championship.  I like the way that the St. Louis Suburban Public High School Athletic and Activities Association has built a great plan.  You can learn more here.  about how it works. To see all of the conferenc...

I received good news on the foot yesterday.  Healing nicely but might need a skin graft over the wound in a month.  And the doc allowed me to start exercising again so I will be on the exercycle or rowing machine, trying to get down to fighting weight. Today's pre-season predictions are for the Suburban Green conference, which U City dominated on overall season record, but technically, McCluer North won with three wins to the Lions 2-0 record.  Of course, we all hope that the pandemic will not impact teams like the Stars, Hazelwood East and West, and Ritenour, who didn't even start practicing until January and only played a handful of games in February or March.  Let's hope everyone is vaccinated and they won't have to wear masks again for this season.  Actually, the mask mandate on courts was a little comedic, as most of the players wore them as chin straps anyway. So, while U City lost some other world talent in Jalen Hampton and others, I still think the Lion...

 This has been a roller coaster month for me.  I started working on the Pre-Season prognostications and ended up in St. Luke's hospital over the Labor Day weekend, having a major staph infection in a surgically corrected big toe.  They removed the plate in the big toe and took out about a 3" by 1" plug of infected tissue.  I have been taking antibiotics through a pick port and wearing a wound vac on the foot for about three weeks.  If some of my predictions seem a little off-beat to you, it might be the narcotics.  LOL  The toe is healing nicely and I am amazed how well it is healing.  But enough excuses. Time for the Suburban Red Conference and it doesn't take a drug-induced mind to imagine how good Pattonville will be this year.  Kellen Thames is lighting up the fall league and Coach and Father Kelly Thames must be licking his chops for the season to begin. I haven't heard of any changes in St. Louis Suburban Conference alignments but, the...