A real hockey mom

Rachel's back windshield.

Rachel Harris is a Hockey Mom. It even says so on her car. For the past six years, she has nurtured and supported the hockey career of her 12-year-old son, Jack, who is now a rugged 110-pound defenseman for the Arizona Hockey Union U-12 97 team, otherwise known as the Polar Bears.

Jack playing hockey at age 6.

“When Jack was 4, he was invited to the Polar Ice rink in Chandler for a birthday party,” Rachel recalls. “He was frustrated that he couldn’t skate, but he saw some 5-year-old hockey players learning how to skate. He decided right then that he wanted to play hockey.”

Luckily for Rachel, an on-air contributor for Channel 3’s mid-morning show, “Your Life A to Z,” and her husband John, a local attorney, the Polar Ice rink in Chandler is a five-minute drive from their home. But I’d guess that the miles they have put into hockey-related driving since Jack first learned to skate would equal the distance to the moon and back.

“In second grade, he started taking private lessons at 6:30 in the morning. He would work on his skating, shooting and one-on-one situations,” says Rachel, who acknowledges that being a Hockey Mom can be time-consuming. “But it is a lot easier [now] than when I had to stay at the rink and tie his skates.”

Jack has steadily moved up the youth hockey hierarchy, from Mite to Squirt and now to PeeWee. He now has practice three times a week with the Polar Bears and plays about 50 games during the season, which stretches from July until March. Included in those 50 games are six tournaments, some of which are out of state.

Rachel and her mom in Hockey Mom and Hockey Grandma tees.

“We went to Whistler (British Columbia) in July for a four-day tournament against some Canadian teams. It was a great experience for everyone,” says Rachel, noting that several of the Polar Bears families are good friends because their sons have played together for the past six years.

The Polar Bears also played in Denver this past October, and are tentatively scheduled to play in Las Vegas in December and Salt Lake City in the January.

“Travel for these tournaments has made our family more cohesive,” Rachel said. “We usually plan some vacation [time] around them.”

Hocky Mom Rachel and Jack (12).

So what does Rachel think about that other Hockey Mom, who is currently on a well-publicized book tour?

“I got teased a lot during the presidential campaign, especially because I put my hair up and wear glasses. But I’ve had my Hockey Mom sticker on my car for six years, long before anyone heard of her.”

So what are the benefits of youth hockey in Arizona?

“Hockey has taught Jack self-discipline and he is very careful to eat healthy foods. I cannot say enough good things about it,” Rachel says. “And, oh yes, hockey is so great in the summer. That’s when I can’t wait to get inside the rink.” — Dan Barr

2009 Polar Bears Hockey Team.

Chaparral swims to state championship

In the end, it wasn’t even that close.

But head coach Laura Winslow and her two assistants, affectionately known as “the Mikes,” kept the Chaparral High School swimmers so focused that they put their heads down throughout last weekend’s Class 5A Division II championships until they won the final event, the 400-yard freestyle relay.

Then all hell broke loose when it became clear Chaparral had won the championships for both boys and girls. Soon after, as tradition requires, the swimmers tossed Laura, Mike and Mike into Kino Pool. It’s kind of like the Gatorade thing for football coaches, only wetter.

It was a thrilling end to a wonderful season for the team, but bittersweet, too. For many of the kids, Saturday was the last time they’d be seeing much of the seniors. So they dragged out the celebration at the pool, then stopped for dinner on the bus ride back.

Monday brings high fives all around school and some well-deserved recognition. It was cool to see Chaparral Principal Mary Lou Muccino arrive at the pool to watch Saturday’s championship finals.

Then it’s back to life before Chaparral swimming, although for many of the kids, like our freshman, it just means back to club swimming. But with a state championship under their belts. — Mary K. Reinhart

Head Coach Laura Winslow holds the state championship trophy aloft surrounded the Chaparral girls team, which won the state 5A-2 title on Saturday at the Kino Aquatics Center in Mesa. Front row: Christina Radvak, Samara Hernandez, Bianca Repasi, Jourdan Broadfoot, Lindsay Claypool (partially visible), Alexis Mouer, Pierce Rodey. Second row: Kasey Taylor, Sally Wang, Carly Johnson, head coach Laura Winslow, Ashley Brewer, Leticia Lelli, Megan Cox, Maddie O’Malley, Sara Dafoe. Back row: assistant coaches Mike O’Keeffe and Mike Robinson.

Chaparral’s state championship boys swim team. Front row: Johnny Kaplan. Second row: Jackson Arn, Tim Giblin, Casey Giblin, Head Coach Laura Winslow, Cody Vitez, Michael Bull and Russell Krzyanowski. Third row: Tanner Roe, Coach Mike O’Keeffe, Barndon Rozell, Coach Mike Robinson and Hank Rodey.

Supporting swimmers

Let’s be honest about this, sports parents. It’s kind of a relief when the season ends.

Yes, the athletes are the ones diving into the water. The coaches, of course, show up before the kids get there and stay until the last one leaves.

But behind the scenes, there are parents — and often grandparents and siblings — making it possible for the contests to take place.

So it will be this weekend, for the 5A high school swim and dive championships at Kino Pool, 848 N. Horne, in Mesa. The action starts at 10 a.m. today (Friday), with girls diving, followed by swimming preliminaries at noon.  Tomorrow’s (Saturday’s) finals start at noon. You can watch it live online, thanks to the Arizona Interscholastic Association.

While plenty of friends and family members will be in the bleachers cheering for their kids and their team in the last of this season’s high school swim and dive contests, a small army of folks will make it happen.

It takes about 25 volunteers to pull off a typical high school swim meet, and that doesn’t count those who bake, buy and serve food for the coaches, officials, timers and spectators. Each of eight lanes requires two timers, another five or six work the computer, announce the meet and ensure proper scoring, and a half dozen or more are officiating, watching every stroke and turn to make sure they’re done correctly.

The parents who help put on the meets don’t do it for the recognition. And it’s not about keeping an eye on their kid, because — as any swim parent knows — these student athletes don’t really have time to get into much trouble.

Mostly, I think, it’s selfish. With two swimmers on the Chaparral High School team, it just feels good to be around these teenagers and their dedicated coaches, and so I look for opportunities to be there. There is great joy in watching my children have fun and compete and be part of something that is much more than just strokes and turns.

Chaparral is a remarkable program and we have a great opportunity to take state in our first season in 5A Division II. This is a competitive crowd and they want to win. But when I asked Chaparral parents for their thoughts about the season, they didn’t focus much on that.

“I have been moved by the Chaparral coaching staff and their commitment in developing our kids as athletes, but more importantly developing them as people,” says Sydney Mouer, parent of junior freestyler Alexis.

Chris Wallace, whose daughter Tessa will be swimming the 50 free, talked about “belonging to a team of great kids and athletes who work hard to achieve their goals.”

Sure, it feels good to win. And yes, there will be a sense of relief when the meet ends Saturday.

But no matter what happens, there is reason to celebrate. All too soon, those reasons will be heading off to college.

Mary K. Reinhart

Xavier badminton team wins state championship

Julia Friedman (left) and Weslie Norris.

All eyes in gym were on them. The focus of state badminton championship between Xavier College Preparatory and Mountain Pointe, which had started an hour earlier with six simultaneous singles matches, was now squarely on the doubles match between each school’s number 3 ranked doubles teams. The first and second ranked doubles teams had just started to play their matches, but not many people were paying attention to them. Even the players for those doubles teams kept glancing over to court number 3, where Xavier’s Weslie Norris and Julia Friedman were playing Mountain Pointe’s Danielle Stewart and Nadya Zolotova.

Julia already had won her singles match, as had her teammates Carissa Pappas, Danielle Dozer and Danielle Mark, to give Xavier a 4-2 lead in the team competition. One more win would give Xavier the title and everyone in the crowd of more than 200 knew it.

Badminton is usually played in a quiet gym before a handful of people. There was nothing quiet about the Shadow Mountain High School gym, especially after Julia and Weslie won their first game 15-3 in just six minutes.

“It definitely made us more nervous,” Julia said, “but we tried really hard to keep our focus.”

“We had never played in front of a crowd like that before,” Weslie added.

Julia and Weslie were able to keep their focus for eight more minutes, which was the time they needed to win the second, and deciding, game 15-6. The shuttlecock had barely hit the net and fallen to the floor, when the Xavier players on the other two courts stopped in the middle of play and rushed over to hug their teammates.

“It’s the best feeling ever,” Weslie said of the moment she and Julia won the deciding match to win the state title.

The Dozer family.

Afterward, parents posed with their daughters around the championship trophy. Danielle Dozer’s dad, Rich, former president of the Arizona Diamondbacks, had posed for similar photos exactly eight years ago to the night, when the Diamondbacks won the 2001 World Series. Rich recalled how Danielle, then age 9, ran around the Diamondbacks clubhouse spraying champagne after the dramatic Game 7 win.

“I was much more nervous tonight because it is my own daughter,” Rich said.

The Diamondbacks winning the World Series may be the greatest moment in Arizona sports history, but I have a pretty good feeling that, for Rich Dozer, it now comes in second to his daughter’s team winning the 2009 5A state badminton title. — Dan Barr

Back row: Head Coach Nancy Meyer, Danielle Mark, Danielle Dozer, Cate Welch, Carissa Pappas, Assistant Coach Susie Murphy. Front: Julia Friedman and Weslie Norris.

Xavier College Preparatory's 5A State Championship badminton team.

You’ve got to show up

One of the great lessons that sports can teach is that you have got to get up after you have been knocked down.

Danielle Mark learned that lesson Monday night at the state 5A badminton semifinals at Shadow Mountain High School. Because she did, she and her Xavier College Preparatory Gator teammates will play for the state title this Wednesday night against Mountain Pointe.

Xavier badminton doubles team Carissa Pappas (left) and Danielle Mark.

Three weeks ago, I wrote about Danielle and her doubles partner, Carissa Pappas, when they played a Saturday tournament at Chaparral High School (“What most of us don’t know about badminton”). On that day, I asked Danielle what advice she would give young girls who wanted to play badminton.

“Our coach always says, ‘You’ve got to show up,’” Danielle told me on that day. “Show up both mentally and physically.”

Well, on Monday night, Danielle was nowhere to be seen in her singles match against Chaparral’s Joelle Fang, who displayed a deft touch with drop shots and placement. Danielle was skunked in the first game 11-0 and lost the second game 11-8. The match was over before it began. Danielle was frustrated, flustered and upset with herself.

About 45 minutes later it had all turned around. Now playing doubles with Carissa, who had previously won her singles match, Danielle looked like a different player. She was confident and assertive when only a short while earlier she had looked listless and confused.

With Xavier’s other doubles team losing and Chaparral threatening to pull even in the team match, Danielle and Carissa convincingly won their doubles match in straight games, 15-2 and 15-1, and in doing so propelled their team into the state finals.

“It’s not over yet,” said Carissa after the match, “but this is amazing.”

“We have been wanting this from the get go,” said Danielle of the state title. “And now we are so close.”

Xavier will have its hands full on Wednesday with Mountain Pointe, which beat Millennium 5-3 in a spirited group of matches on the other side of the gym. If nothing else, the Mountain Pointe girls should get the tournament award for “most creative team shirts.” Theirs are black and state on the back “We put the Bad in Badminton.”

The essence of a great teammate is showing up when your team needs you the most. Danielle got up after being knocked down on Monday night and now her team moves on.

The 5A badminton state championship will be at Shadow Mountain High School, 2902 E. Shea Blvd, at 6:30pm Wednesday. Admission is $5. The championship should be highly competitive. From what I saw on Monday, if any of the girls gets knocked down, they won’t stay down for very long. — Dan Barr

Never too young to run

Most marathons now have age minimums for participants, but there was a time when 8- and 9-year-olds ran the New York City Marathon. Today’s New York Times story interviews some of those child runners from the late 1970s and several doctors who say there is still “no real medical data to say that kids should or shouldn’t run.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/sports/27marathon.html?emc=eta1

What most of us don’t know about badminton

The Duke of Beaufort would have been pleased that so many people were playing and watching his game in Scottsdale today. In 1836, the Duke invented the modern version of a game that dates back to ancient Greece and China, and that the British had run across in their then-colony of India. He named the game after his English country home — the House of Badminton.

Today’s scene at the Firebird Invitational badminton tournament at Chaparral High School was far removed from an English country home. Sixty-five girls from nine Valley high schools filled nine badminton courts in the Chaparral gym, which had five state title badminton banners hanging on the wall.

Two of the players, the doubles team of Danielle Mark (at left in photo) and Carissa Pappas, from the currently top ranked team in the state, the Xavier College Prep Gators, shared with me some things about badminton that most people don’t know.

Despite its elegance, badminton is a lot of work, they said. The Xavier team practices three hours a day, five days a week. They start the day at school at 6:30 a.m. for an hour of conditioning work, which includes sprints, footwork agility drills and core/abdominal exercises such as the plank, bicycle crunches and working with medicine balls. After school, they have two hours of practice on badminton.

Both Danielle and Carissa first played badminton in freshman P.E. class. Danielle started playing competitively as a sophomore and Carissa as a junior.

“It is not a common sport and not something that people would expect to be competitive,” Danielle said. Carissa likes the mental side of the game. “You can have all the physical skills, but if you have a bad mental game, you can’t win anything.”

“I don’t know what I would do without badminton,” Carissa said, noting that there are no college scholarships available in the sport. “I would love to play in college.”

“So what don’t people appreciate about badminton?” I asked them.

“That it’s actually hard,” Danielle said. “It uses a lot of physicality and balance. You are constantly moving.”

Carissa compared badminton to tennis, which she once played competitively. “Badminton has more quickness and little spurts of energy,” Carissa said. “Tennis is more fluid.”

So what advice do the two Xavier girls have for those of us who play badminton once or twice a year at a picnic? “Hit through the bird. Don’t tap it,” Carissa said.

Danielle had more general advice, which extends well beyond badminton and other sports. “Our coach always says, ‘You’ve got to show up.’ Show up both mentally and physically.”

The 5A high state badminton championship will be played this year at Dobson High School in Mesa. The team competition will be Oct. 31 and Nov. 2 and 4. The individual singles and doubles championships will be Nov. 6 and 7. Admission is $5 and kids under 5 are free. If you or your daughter is interested in learning more about badminton, you should go. I have a pretty good feeling that Danielle, Carissa and the rest of their Xavier teammates (below) will show up. — Dan Barr

Those of us with children in the ocean

If you need more evidence that swimming is a lifetime sport, the La Jolla Rough Water Swim is proof positive.

Our family recently followed the Chaparral High Swim and Dive team for its annual trek to the lovely seaside town just north of San Diego to compete in the 1-mile ocean swim off La Jolla Cove. Son John, a junior, and daughter Emily, a freshman, are longtime club swimmers and teammates.

La Jolla Rough Water Swim

For the high school athletes, it’s an early-season bonding event, a quick two-day turnaround that leaves the team slightly bleary-eyed and sore on Monday morning, but brimming with a sense of accomplishment, wonderful memories and a newfound appreciation for each other and their sport.

For those of us with children in the ocean, the Rough Water conjures up a mix of excitement, fear and extraordinary pride.

For this year’s 2,038 finishers — ranging in age from a 6-year-old to Virginia Flagg, 83, of La Jolla — it is testament to hard work, endurance and the joy of swimming.

The event itself — now in its 93rd year — is so well run that there’s really no need to worry (still, that’s what I do best). Lifeguards on surfboards are placed along the triangular course to keep swimmers from going too far off track and aid those who are struggling. The dry land scene is well organized, too, and includes food booths and plenty of room in grassy Scripps Park above the cove to spread out and relax while awaiting your swim. Teams and families come from up and down the West Coast, Arizona and Colorado to compete in America’s oldest and largest open water swim competition.

The Rough Water is no mean feat, and the Sept. 13 event — John’s fourth, Emily’s second — absolutely lived up to its name, with 10- to 12-foot swells and much slower times to prove it. In all the years we’ve been hanging around La Jolla, I can’t remember seeing waves this big.

Younger swimmers, up to age 12, swim a 250-yard loop within the cove. The amateurs (all but three of the Chaparral crew), ages 13-18, swim the mile in separate boys’ and girls’ heats, following a course that takes them out to sea for 800 yards, above the La Jolla Underwater Ecological Reserve, banks left for 460 yards, then around a second buoy for the 500-yard leg back to shore.

A men’s and women’s masters event follows the same course as the amateurs, in several waves to accommodate nearly 1,000 swimmers, ages 19 to 83-year-old Virginia. The 3-mile Gatorman course is basically a roundtrip from the cove to just short of Scripps pier. Among the 491 finishers were Chaparral swimmers Sam Morgan, Tanner Roe and Cody Vitez. Sam took fourth overall, with a time of 1:01:38.

The camaraderie with fellow parents and former strangers is a comfort and a hoot — all of us lining the boardwalk three and four deep. Peering through binoculars to get a glimpse of our kids as they gather on the beach for the start. Getting out of each other’s way so we can snap a photo. Hollering their names though we know they can’t hear us. Looking out for each other’s children as they come back into view after they round the second buoy and head for shore. Congratulating each other before rushing off to embrace our wet, salty, exhilarated swimmers.

As proud as we are of these teenagers, the Rough Water also has something to offer their parents, and grandparents. Most of the top finishers were in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

In the men’s masters, you have to get to 14th place before you find a 19 year old. The third-place finisher, 42-year-old Patrick Brundage of Scottsdale, a dad with our club team whose daughters swam the 250 and the mile, came in just after 53-year-old Scott Bonney of Burton, Wash. Ben Weston, 28, of La Jolla took first. Tanner’s dad, Peter, 49, one of the Chaparral chaperones, also swam the mile.

The women are equally inspiring. Connie Falcon, 30, of La Jolla, took first; Amy Dantzler, 45, of Los Angeles, came in second; and 50-year-old Robynn Masters of Salt Lake City took third.

I don’t know if most kids took notice of the “old folks,” although my daughter and her friend chatted up Virginia after her swim. But as a runner nearing my sixth decade and wondering how long my knees will hold out, swimming holds the possibility of lifetime fitness. How many other sports can several generations enjoy together? How many are prescribed as rehab for injuries, at the same time offering a cardiovascular workout while building endurance and muscle strength? How many offer a head-clearing mental workout at the same time? Just swimming.

We’ll be back next year to cheer on the Chaparral High team, and our youngest will try his first 250. Interested? Check out the La Jolla Rough Water Swim home page to learn more. — Mary K. Reinhart

It takes more than spirit

Seven members of the Mountain View High School spiritline.

“It’s not Marcia Brady’s cheerleading anymore.”

That’s what Dannis Zazueta, head coach for the Mountain View High School spiritline told me at Friday night’s football game. The Mountain View cheer and pom squads are the current Arizona 5A state champions and have had an excellent cheer program for years. “A lot of these girls have wanted to be Toro cheerleaders since they were little girls,” Zazueta said.

Nearly 400,000 boys and girls currently participate in high school cheering nationwide, according to a recent survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations. That works out to about 21 cheerleaders at every high school that participated in the survey.

Cheerleading is far more demanding, both athletically and in time commitment required, than it was a generation ago. The Mountain View cheerleaders practice from 7 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday, followed by weight training during the school’s second hour.

“These girls are all top athletes,” Zazueta said. Most, if not all, of the Mountain View cheerleaders are accomplished gymnasts or dancers. The girls are also tough. Cheerleading has the highest rate of injuries of any high school sport. Higher than football, basketball, soccer or anything else you could think of.

Providing a spiritline at football games is only part of what these girls do.  At state and national competitions they perform routines that are far more intricate and physically demanding than anything they do on the sidelines of a football field. This year’s Arizona Spiritline State Championship will be on January 30, 2010 at Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley. The national championship will take place at Disneyland in March.

“What else should people know about cheerleading?” I asked Zazueta.

“Most of our girls are on honor roll and at the top of their class,” the coach said proudly. — Dan Barr

Herding cats

“They look like a herd of cats.”

That’s what I thought as I ran around the track at Chaparral High School this morning while the freshman football team was practicing. Thirteen-year-old boys have notoriously short attention spans, and that is on full display at freshman football practices.

Many of boys still have baby fat on their faces, arms and legs — and almost all of them will grow several more inches and put on 20 to 40 pounds during the next two or three years. As the boys scrimmaged, the coaches did all the things that football coaches do to focus the attention of their players. They yelled, cajoled, encouraged and yelled some more.

As I ran around the track, I had two flashbacks. One was to 10 years ago, when my older son Andy and about 60 other boys were going through their first days of freshman football practice. They, too, wandered around like cats while the coaches strained to focus their attention on football and operating as a cohesive unit.

I then thought of a comment that a reporter friend made to me three years later, in December 2002. Andy and his teammates were seniors and the baby fat was long gone. They had just upset the defending state champions in the state semifinal football game in Tucson. They scored the winning points after a lengthy drive that ate up much of the clock in the fourth quarter.

“That drive began more than three years ago,” my friend said. He was referring to the thousands of hours of work the boys had put in together on the practice field and in the weight room since their freshman year. He was also referring to the fact that, during their lengthy game-winning drive, Chaparral had returned to plays from their freshman playbook.

With nerves, emotions and crowd noise running high, the coaches called the plays these kids had run hundreds of times during practice and games. These plays, which were now hardwired into Andy and his teammates, were the same ones they had stumbled through at the beginning of their freshman year. But they no longer looked like a herd of cats. They had become a team — and a week later they would win the state championship.

As I ran around the track, one of the freshman coaches starting yelling at a player for not paying attention to something. The coach got in the player’s face and told him to get off the field and stand on the sideline. I ran a few more laps around the track, and as I finished I walked past and caught the eye of the boy on the sideline, who was still a little chastened.

“Hi, Coach…I mean, Sir, how are you?” the boy said.

I was tempted to share what I been thinking about as I ran around the track, but thought better of it for two reasons. One, I didn’t want the coach to yell at him again for not paying attention. Two, there are just some things you have to find out for yourself. Adults often want to tell kids about the “big picture,” and I am often guilty of that myself.

Instead, I told him that both of my sons and many of their friends had played football at Chaparral and that it had been a great experience for them.

“When do you play your first game?” I asked.

The boy’s face brightened. “This Wednesday!”

I was tempted to expound on the fact that his first freshman game was the first step in a long journey toward becoming part of a real team, but feared I’d sound like a pompous blowhard.

Instead, I told him the only thing that most high school athletes want to hear, from their friends, family, teachers — or just some guy running around the track.

“I’ll come watch the game.”

SEPT 3 UPDATE:
Saw a spirited, if predictably sloppy, first game of the freshman football season Wednesday night between Boulder Creek and Chaparral. Boulder Creek won 27-26 after both teams scored touchdowns in the last 100 seconds of the game. There were some exceptional plays and lots of what let’s call “learning experiences” or “teaching moments” by both teams.

I watched the game with my friend, Dr. Steven Pitt, one of the country’s leading forensic psychiatrists. Steve’s son, Beau, plays left tackle for Chaparral, and Steve was trying to master the art of watching his son through binoculars while watching the rest of the players and talking with me and others as well.

From what I saw last night, Beau, who is already 6 feet and 170 pounds, has a far greater upside as an offensive lineman over the next four seasons than his dad has in manipulating binoculars. I look forward to watching the two Pitts develop their respective football skills. — Dan Barr