Bob Padecky » padecky

In case you want to help….

padecky — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:15:38 +0000

Many people have called or texted about contributing to Nate Wagner’s Trust Fund. Nate is the 3-year old son of SRJC defensive coordinator Lenny Wagner and his wife, Catrina, who underwent 9-and-half hours of brain surgery a week ago to remove a malignant tumor.
Make checks payable to either Marilyn Forgey (Nate’s grandmom) or Lenny and Catrina Wagner and send it to P.O. Box 1988, Novato, CA 94948 c/o Marilyn Forgey (Catrina’s mom).

Obsession is the coin of the realm

padecky — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:44:14 +0000

I talked to Dr. Tom Mitchell, a sports psychologist, this week about USC offered a 13-year old a football scholarship. The conversation quickly turned to athletes being obsessed about their sport.

“I talked to this great musician and he said he played guitar 13 hours a day,” said Windsor’s Mitchell, who taught sports psychology at SRJC for 20 years and was the men’s head basketball coach for 12. “I’m good friends with Chris Mullin and he played seven hours a day. I don’t know of anyone at the high level, in sports or otherwise, who wasn’t obsessed.”

For the last nine years Mitchell has interviewed and created personality profiles on every player the Golden Warriors will be interested in the annual NBA draft.
“Every one of them told me they were obsessed with making it to the NBA since they were little, usually by the age of 8,” Mitchell said.
Meaning, obsession is the rhythm of today’s star athlete. Does Mitchell like it? No. Do I like it? No. Is it here to stay? Yes.
The column on Mitchell will appear within the next few days.

Gametime is 7 p.m. tonight

padecky — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 19:17:52 +0000

It would have been nice if I had included the gametime tonight for the Elsie Allen-Santa Rosa charity rugby match.
So bring a raincoat and prepare to get wet at 7 p.m. at the Cardinal Newman football field.

He didn’t leave his name

padecky — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:24:45 +0000

But I wish he did. He is a Sebastopol resident, father of two young girls, who read my column Thursday about the Analy boys and their success.
“My first-grader wasn’t even interested in basketball until she came to a boys game last year,” he said. “Now basketball is all she talks about. You were right in the column. The interest in this area is really high because what the boys have done. You see it everywhere, including just on the playground courts.”

She’ll never get rid of the poster

padecky — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 02:29:19 +0000

Her players made a poster for Lacey Campbell, SRJC’s women’s basketball coach, and posted at the entrance to his office at Haehl Pavilion.

“Mama Bear, Your Little Cubs wanted you to know we’re ready to play. We’re ready to go.”

Each of the players signed their name to a little bear paw-print. It was their way of telling Campbell that their biggest problem this year – lack of consistent focus – was over.

And it came at the right time. The SRJC women begin play in the state tournament Thursday.

This was a first for me

padecky — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:27:59 +0000

Byron Craighead, the retired trainer from SRJC who was the trainer for the U.S.’s bobsled team at the Vancouver Olympics, gave his interview to the Press Democrat last week – and he didn’t know who he was speaking to.

“I heard a name but I didn’t hear all of it,” Craighead said.

Yet Craighead gave me the interview and his digital camera memory chips. And only then did he ask for my name.

I’m 63 years old. I’ve been interviewing people since I was 16. And never, ever, have I conducted an interview in which the subject didn’t know who I was. Then again, I probably, really, have never met a guy like Bryon. Yep, when my days are done and I look back on them, Byron will be right up there with all the other Unforgettable Characters I have met.

To say that he is a trusting soul doesn’t even begin to describe it.

What would you do?

padecky — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:57:02 +0000

If you’re white and a football player with talent, would you accept a scholarship from a historically black college? That was Mike Bogdanovich’s situation a couple of months ago.

Morgan State in Baltimore offered Bogdanovich a full ride. Bogdanovich was a star linebacker both at Windsor and SRJC. The school is 3,000 miles away besides. What did Bogdanovich do?

It’s one thing to say you are color-blind and never have to prove it. It’s another thing to be faced with a situation. As Lawrence Livingston, the recruiter for Morgan State, told me, white kids do bail when Morgan State offers a scholarship.

Last year there were three white players on the 79-man roster. So what did Mike do?

Read my column on Mike that will appear either Saturday or Sunday.

Here’s how you get to the Olympics

padecky — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 01:26:14 +0000

You have a conversation with your kids’ elementary school teacher.

That’s why Byron Craighead did in 1972. He struck up a friendship with Don Kane, a teacher at Forestville Elementary. Craighead’s two girls were going there. The two men found they had a common interest: sports. Craighead was an athletic trainer. Kane was involved in the U.S. synchronized swimming.

Kane eventually asked Craighead to become involved in the U.S. national team. Thirty-eight years later Craighead made to the Vancover Olympics as the trainer for the U.S. bobsled teams. That’s the short version. The longer one appears in Friday’s Press Democrat.

A walk-on versus scholarships

padecky — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 04:58:27 +0000

The Montgomery girls play Carondelet Wednesday night and you would think Carondelet has everything going for it. After all Carondelet has won six of the last seven NCS titles. Carondelet has two girls going to Division 1 colleges on full rides. Meanwhile, Montgomery has Kate Havness who is hoping to hook on with someone as a walk-on.

Yet, from what I saw Tuesday at practice, Montgomery has that look all good teams do – The Vikings can not be intimidated. sure, winning 15 games in a row helps. But what makes the difference, and what’s so hard to achieve for any coach, is that 12 kids find themselves playing together, not apart. Basketball, more than any sport, places a premium on that and Steve Bell, Monty’s coach, has struck the right balance between instruction and being hands-off.

“The key for me is not to be white noise to the kids,” Bell said.

Meaning, when he speaks they listen. They have listened so well that when I spoke to Bell for 20 minutes, the Vikings ran their drills without Bell speaking so much as word. That’s not just a good team on the court, that’s evidence of good coaching.

You’ll want to call the cops. Don’t.

padecky — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 21:34:22 +0000

For Sunday’s paper, I wrote about Marc Monene, a Rohnert Park resident who has a shooting range in his house. He also has a wife and 9-month old daughter.

And I would expect, when people put all that together, they would get tweaky. I would advise against it. As I said in the column, if everyone used and respected a firearm like Marc Monene, the stereotype of the wild-eye gun nut would cease to exist.

Marc is a 15-time California state in three shooting disciplines. He is in Colorado Springs, Colo. this weekend for a preliminary competition that he hopes will eventually land him in USA’s Olympic rifle team for the 2012 Olympics in London.

He is an elite marksman but, more so, he is safety-conscious. His wife, Anna, takes Mia, the baby, into Mia’s room when he target practice before he shoots and they stay there until he finishes.

Now someone would say that’s only one guy. There has to be gun nuts out there.

Maybe there are. But in hearing Monene’s story and observing him, my perspective widened. And a stereotype was broken.