When I was a sophomore up through my senior year I got the great honor to help coach one of my hometown youth hockey teams. It was a bantam A team. Bantams are mostly 7th and 8th graders. Sometimes you will have 9th grader if they meet the age requirement and don’t want to play high school hockey. I coached the team with my old bantam coach, and my older cousin. It was a great opportune for me to learn a better understanding of the game. It also gave me a chance to give back to youth program that helped me develop as a player and as a person. The big thing it taught me was responsibly. I learned that I had an obligation to these kids, their parents, and the other coaches. They were all counting on me to be there for games and practice, at the same time you have give a hundred and ten percent for every one, just like the players. I also had to give up my weekends and two nights a week for the seasons. I had to learn how to manage my time better than I did before I started coaching. On the week days I balanced school, my hockey practice, homework, and coaching. On the weekends I balanced homework, coaching, having a social life, and an occasional game of my own to play in.
My junior year was the best and most fun I had coaching. We had a great group of players that wanted to learn and improve their game. We played all the bigger programs around the state. When we played those bigger programs we would beat them or at the very least compete with them. When I say we played bigger programs it is like a division 3 team playing a division 1 or 2 team. We were the division 3 team. That same year we made it to state for bantam 3A. We went into that weekend feeling good. All the teams that were there we had already beaten. So we thought we would be a shoe in to play in the championship game. As anyone can tell you, when it comes to playoffs anything can happen, and that is exactly what happened. Our first game we played a team we had beaten three times. We ended up losing that game by one. After that game we had a chat with the kids and told them not to get down. “We still have one more game today, so let’s go out and play the game we know we can play.” So they went out later that day and won. We went on to play the next day for 5th place. We won and took home a 5th place finish. Not what we wanted, but it is what we got along with a great learning experience.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
T.E.D Prize
After watching the TED videos, it got me thinking what I would do to change the world. There are so many things that could be changed; pollution, natural resources running out, and poverty just to name a few of problems the world is facing. If I won the TED prize I would focus on the United States first. The US has a lot of their own problems that as a country need to fixed. The two main problems I would try to fix is the obesity problem that we are facing. Second, I would like to work on something to help the Hispanic learn English. There are many other problems that the US is facing, but these are the two I feel would make a big difference if solutions were found.
After watching the Jamie Oliver video I believe that obesity is a big problem that we have in the United States. I think that we need to start at young age educating people about healthy choices. Parents need to teach their kids to eat health from the get go. Once they are taught to eat healthy at home; we can keep it going by enforcing those habits in school. I don’t mean just at lunch but in the classrooms as well. We need to teach the youth how to take care of their bodies and provide them with the necessary nutrients. Teaching them how to cook the right foods would be a good start. I think that every school at some point should show the movie Super Size Me. It will make to you think twice about going to a fast food restaurant.
The second thing I would do is try to find away to help the Hispanic population that doesn’t speech English to learn how to speak English. I say this because for two summers I work in a factory where 90 percent of the employees were Hispanic. Out of those 90 percent, only about 10 percent of those could speak English well. It was so hard to work with people that I could not understand. This made it hard for the production line to get the product out efficiently. I think that companies or the government need to do something to help get everyone on the same page.
After watching the Jamie Oliver video I believe that obesity is a big problem that we have in the United States. I think that we need to start at young age educating people about healthy choices. Parents need to teach their kids to eat health from the get go. Once they are taught to eat healthy at home; we can keep it going by enforcing those habits in school. I don’t mean just at lunch but in the classrooms as well. We need to teach the youth how to take care of their bodies and provide them with the necessary nutrients. Teaching them how to cook the right foods would be a good start. I think that every school at some point should show the movie Super Size Me. It will make to you think twice about going to a fast food restaurant.
The second thing I would do is try to find away to help the Hispanic population that doesn’t speech English to learn how to speak English. I say this because for two summers I work in a factory where 90 percent of the employees were Hispanic. Out of those 90 percent, only about 10 percent of those could speak English well. It was so hard to work with people that I could not understand. This made it hard for the production line to get the product out efficiently. I think that companies or the government need to do something to help get everyone on the same page.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Free Write
My favorite childhood memory would have to be my summers going up to the family cottage. We went up to our family cottage every Sunday during the summer. The cottage is on Lake Deneveu. It is a little private lake that is south of Fond Du Lac Wisconsin. It is only a mile long by half a mile wide. It is only a 25 minute drive from my house. It is shared by all my aunts and uncles from my dad side of the family. It’s a good time because I get to see all my cousins which is really nice for me because I’m an only child. My grandparents are the ones that live there. It is nice to get to see them and catch up with them.
Everyone gets up there around 11 o’ clock. It is neat because everyone brings something to contribute to for lunch. We all sit around in the living room and catch up on what is going on with everyone in there life. It is mainly the adults talking about all the gossip that has happen in town that week. The little kids will be in other living room watch a TV show on Disney. The older kids will be listening to what the adults are talking about, and having side conversation about that they did that week, or how their summer is going. It is great to have everyone together in one place. Usually in the background there will be a TV on with a baseball game or a golf game going on. It would not be a day at the lake without some conversation in detail about some hockey matter. I say that because out of my 20 cousins 15 of play hockey. That is where is can get a little heated. It is all in good fun though; no one takes it to heart.
After lunch it is time to go down to lake. Once down there that is when the good times begin. The little kids will go out to the sand bar and play out there with one of the dad selected to go out there; which is usually Uncle Kenny, because he is still the biggest kid out of any of us. The other adults will sit on the pontoon or on land with grandpa and grandma and talk with them. For the kids you can find them in the sand bar or on the boat tubing, wakeboarding, or knee boarding. I love to go wakeboarding, and that is just me and my older cousin Carl. Carl is the one that drive the boat when we go tubing or wakeboarding, because it’s his boat he got for high school graduation gift. You can find some of the little ones up on shore making waterfalls in the sand pit right by our pier. I think that is a tradition, because every grandchild has had a phase of making waterfalls in the sand pit.
I love going to the cottage on Sundays; because it just gives me that family value that is good to have. I mean how many families can say that they get six brothers and sisters together with their kids once a week and have a good time. There are many reason why this is my favorite childhood memory. Here are just a couple, because if I told you all of them just from the lake I would have a novel to tell you. The cottage is one of my favorite places to go. Now that I’m older I understand that this is something a lot of families don’t do. So I hope when I have kids that my cousins and I still keep this tradition going.
Everyone gets up there around 11 o’ clock. It is neat because everyone brings something to contribute to for lunch. We all sit around in the living room and catch up on what is going on with everyone in there life. It is mainly the adults talking about all the gossip that has happen in town that week. The little kids will be in other living room watch a TV show on Disney. The older kids will be listening to what the adults are talking about, and having side conversation about that they did that week, or how their summer is going. It is great to have everyone together in one place. Usually in the background there will be a TV on with a baseball game or a golf game going on. It would not be a day at the lake without some conversation in detail about some hockey matter. I say that because out of my 20 cousins 15 of play hockey. That is where is can get a little heated. It is all in good fun though; no one takes it to heart.
After lunch it is time to go down to lake. Once down there that is when the good times begin. The little kids will go out to the sand bar and play out there with one of the dad selected to go out there; which is usually Uncle Kenny, because he is still the biggest kid out of any of us. The other adults will sit on the pontoon or on land with grandpa and grandma and talk with them. For the kids you can find them in the sand bar or on the boat tubing, wakeboarding, or knee boarding. I love to go wakeboarding, and that is just me and my older cousin Carl. Carl is the one that drive the boat when we go tubing or wakeboarding, because it’s his boat he got for high school graduation gift. You can find some of the little ones up on shore making waterfalls in the sand pit right by our pier. I think that is a tradition, because every grandchild has had a phase of making waterfalls in the sand pit.
I love going to the cottage on Sundays; because it just gives me that family value that is good to have. I mean how many families can say that they get six brothers and sisters together with their kids once a week and have a good time. There are many reason why this is my favorite childhood memory. Here are just a couple, because if I told you all of them just from the lake I would have a novel to tell you. The cottage is one of my favorite places to go. Now that I’m older I understand that this is something a lot of families don’t do. So I hope when I have kids that my cousins and I still keep this tradition going.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
My Choice
So for this blog entry we get to pick what topic we want to write about. When Sheila told us that, I was really excited. Awesome I finally get to choose what I want to write about. This task however was not as simple as thought it was going to. As I sit in my room looking around trying to think of something to write about. I keep drawing blanks. After spending sometime looking around my room, listen to the Dave Matthews Band, and surfing the web I finally got it. As I was looking around my room my hockey sticks caught the corner of my eye. I will write about my past time as a child; Playing pond hockey.
Playing pond hockey as a child was the only thing I did in my free time. In between school, homework, hockey practice, and traveling the state on the weekend to play hockey, it was pond hockey. Every since I was a little kid I always had my own rink in my backyard. I would say from the age of four all the way till I was thirteen when I grew too big to skate on it. I can remember my dad in the fall putting up the boards and lights. He would also get up an hour early in the morning just to go out and water the rink, so I would have a nice smooth sheet of ice to skate on. I didn’t care how cold it was outside I would go skate for hours on end. I would get home from school, put my skates on, and skate till supper. Then after supper go out and skate again till it was time for bed. I didn’t care if I was skating by myself which happened most of the time since I am an only child. I was in my own little world and nothing else mattered.
Now that I’m 21, I still find myself going back to my childhood. I go down to the park by the Loggers field and skating for hours, and it still doesn’t matter if anyone else is there or how cold it is outside. Because it is place where I can forget what is going on in my life and just get lost in the moment. I love going down there and seeing little kids. They remind me of myself at that age and sometimes I will play a little pickup game with them. It brings me back to my childhood. That is why hockey is such an important aspect of my life. No matter how old I get “it’s always a great day for hockey” said by the famous Bob Johnson, former Wisconsin Badgers hockey coach.
Playing pond hockey as a child was the only thing I did in my free time. In between school, homework, hockey practice, and traveling the state on the weekend to play hockey, it was pond hockey. Every since I was a little kid I always had my own rink in my backyard. I would say from the age of four all the way till I was thirteen when I grew too big to skate on it. I can remember my dad in the fall putting up the boards and lights. He would also get up an hour early in the morning just to go out and water the rink, so I would have a nice smooth sheet of ice to skate on. I didn’t care how cold it was outside I would go skate for hours on end. I would get home from school, put my skates on, and skate till supper. Then after supper go out and skate again till it was time for bed. I didn’t care if I was skating by myself which happened most of the time since I am an only child. I was in my own little world and nothing else mattered.
Now that I’m 21, I still find myself going back to my childhood. I go down to the park by the Loggers field and skating for hours, and it still doesn’t matter if anyone else is there or how cold it is outside. Because it is place where I can forget what is going on in my life and just get lost in the moment. I love going down there and seeing little kids. They remind me of myself at that age and sometimes I will play a little pickup game with them. It brings me back to my childhood. That is why hockey is such an important aspect of my life. No matter how old I get “it’s always a great day for hockey” said by the famous Bob Johnson, former Wisconsin Badgers hockey coach.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Ted Response
First, I would like to say that this is a pretty cool thing they are doing for the young. The one thing that stuck in my head was something he said in the beginning about how they let the kids "pick up sticks, hammers, and other dangerous things." Another thing that he said on the same topic was that they are trusted not to hurt themselves or the other people around them.
I like this concept for a couple of different reasons. The first is the kids are being treated as an adult and are being trusted with "big boy tools." I think that a child will take that as "wow; they trust me to use these tools." I think a child will see this as a big deal, to be given that trust. It gives them self confidence to do things on their own, instead of having people always telling them how to act and do things. This way they can new try things on their own and not have to worry if they are doing things the right or wrong way.
This camp also gives them the tools they will need to be successful in life. What I mean is that someone is not always going to tell them what to do for their whole life. This camp teaches them independence at an early age. It will give them the life skills that they will need to be functional in society. Also it will make them less likely to be dependent on someone to help them with things.
I like this concept for a couple of different reasons. The first is the kids are being treated as an adult and are being trusted with "big boy tools." I think that a child will take that as "wow; they trust me to use these tools." I think a child will see this as a big deal, to be given that trust. It gives them self confidence to do things on their own, instead of having people always telling them how to act and do things. This way they can new try things on their own and not have to worry if they are doing things the right or wrong way.
This camp also gives them the tools they will need to be successful in life. What I mean is that someone is not always going to tell them what to do for their whole life. This camp teaches them independence at an early age. It will give them the life skills that they will need to be functional in society. Also it will make them less likely to be dependent on someone to help them with things.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Grant
Hello all, my name is Grant Gysbers I'm 21 year old, an only child. I come from a small town Waupun. It is two and half hours away from La Crosse. I'm in the marketing program. In the summer time enjoy fishing, wakeboarding, golfing, or just spending time out on the lake. In the winter time I love to play, coach, and watch hockey. Also I like to ice fish, and snowboard. I like to watch the TV shows Entourage, weeds, Dexter, and Two and a Half Men. I like to listen to all types of music. I'm pretty laid back and easy to get along with.
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