dinosaur

I was in school on an academic scholarship and I would have flunked out, probably in the first semester. I was too young and foolish to handle that sort of money.

I think that the US is at least a generation away from being competitive with other countries. We lack the youth development here (numbers of competent coaches and programs are limited) and in other places, where soccer is a cheap sport, kids don't have the choices we have here and so most everyone plays soccer. Sort of a twist in that the choices, because we can afford it, limit the numbers of children who get the long term training needed to excel at that world class level. And I agree that the travel ball system of development is counter-productive.

It was. And the bar exam must be easier today than long ago

My cousin got sent over and when they found he could speak French they made him some sort of local hamlet rep. My brother drew #3. I got something like 285. He joined the Air Force. Stressful times

January of 1974 $825 a month

I agree with your idea but I believe that pride exists, except that some people have too much of it. Disrespect claims are a function of too much pride. But shame died away long ago.

The cost is largely because anti-death penalty people do whatever they can to delay the final judgment and a lot of judges don’t want to live with sentencing someone to death, so they either reduce the sentence or punt to someone else. Just a symptom of the liberal push in the justice system.

That is a good summary but the problem is that Iran is different. Mutually assured destruction only works in the other actor is rational and wants to continue to live. The people running Iran believe that a nuclear war is desirable since they believe it will result in a religious victory for their cause. In other words, they don't care about mutual destruction. We would consider them to be crazy. Can't let a person who wants to end the world have a nuke.

I pretty much agree with you. I coached basically everything my kids wanted to play, from baseball to basketball and soccer, all the way from t-ball to high school soccer. One thing that would argue in favor of more playing time is that from age 10 to about 14 kids grow and develop at different rates. So, I would try hard to play everyone enough to try to keep them interested and would work a little more at practice with those that were not the best players. Eventually they got better, which improved the team overall, and they kept playing until they reached an age where they knew that they could not really compete. Never cut a kid or ran anyone off and still see kids I coached who say how they enjoyed playing on that team.

But I had many instances where I offered to give up the coach's role to parents who complained. Never had one take me up on it.

If it makes you feel better, I have seen this a lot and eventually her own children will not want to have anything to do with her once they leave home. But for now, just have to put up with it.