En Garde
Fencing classes started this past week. I hoped we’d have more people from the summer fencing camp, but I was the only person to sign up. We did some conditioning and footwork drills and still had time for a few bouts, which I lost. That’s not surprising though, since I’ve only got about fifteen hours of training so far. Everyone else in the class has been fencing for a year or more. I may never get to the point of competing, but I’m having fun and getting out of the house, so I’ll count it as a plus.
In the Small World Department, the other adult in the class is a science prof at NSU, along with his wife. She’s chemistry; he’s biology. Middle Daughter (who teaches dance at the same studio where fencing practices) has her for general science. At least I think she does. It may be Youngest Daughter. Or I could be completely mistaken.
Football Season
It was a decent week for football.
We got to see GrandsonTwo (I’ve really got to work on nicknames for all of the grandkids) play his first game last Saturday. The games are held at the old HS stadium, which is a pretty nice field for 5th-graders to play on. When Diana and I headed out, we didn’t think to bring cash, because it’s the 21st century, right? Everyone takes credit cards these days, don’t they?
It was $5 for adults, which is a fair price, I thought. Except they didn’t take credit cards. Diana was getting ready to call Number Two Son (who was already in the stands) to see if they had some extra cash. Before she could dial, someone in the line pulled out a ten-spot and covered our tickets.
Muskogee lost the game, 35-0 to a bigger and larger McAlester team. Muskogee had most of their boys playing both sides of the ball, but McAlester had enough for both offense and defense. Our boys were used up by the third quarter, due both to the size differential and the heat—it was 100° that day.
Tulane won with a 52-point shutout assisted in part by a 100-yard pick-6. Tulsa won. NSU lost a heartbreaker by two points, but one article I read pointed out that they scored more points in this game than in last season overall. With a new coaching staff and so many new faces on the team, they may well break .500 for the season. I look forward to getting to a couple of games, especially since my daughter is on the pom squad.
Tulane has a rough schedule this year as they come up to play Oklahoma in a couple of weeks. That’s my only chance to see them, as they’re not playing Tulsa this season. I think that’s just a scheduling quirk since the American Conference has fourteen teams and only plays eight conference games each season. Tulane comes back to Tulsa for the 2025 season, so I’ll plan on being at that game.
Michigan
Michigan opens play Saturday night in The Big House against Fresno State. The Wolverines open at 9 in the AP preseason poll. I was a little upset that we weren’t even ranked in the top 5, given that we won all the marbles last season. But realistically, this is a rebuilding season. Yeah, Coach Moore coached half the games last season with Harbaugh’s suspensions, but it’s a little different for him this year. And we lost more than a few players to the NFL.
The NCAA conveyed their Notice of Allegations to the Wolverines this week regarding Signgate, doing so on the eve of the Connor Stalions Netflix documentary. Naturally, now that the NOA has been delivered, the NCAA says
To protect the integrity of the infractions process as the case progresses forward, the NCAA will not provide any further comment on the specifics included.
Which is a joke, right? Integrity? Because there have been so many leaks about this case since the NCAA first announced the investigation, it looked like the Titanic.
Here’s coverage of the documentary from The Athletic and WOOD TV8 out of Grand Rapids. I haven’t seen it yet.
I know a lot of people are clamoring for the Wolverines to forfeit games and to lose their championship, but I don’t see that happening. The only reason to forfeit games is because of player ineligibility, and there’s been no indication of that here. I suppose they could put Stalions on a show-cause order but I don’t know that there’s any actionable evidence that he broke the rules.
Do I think that Michigan had intelligence on other teams’ signs? Yeah. Do I think that other teams had intelligence on Michigan’s signs? Absolutely. Sign stealing is common throughout professional sports of all kinds (and college sports are unequivocally professional endeavors). Otherwise, why would teams have fake signals? Everyone knows that there are people trying to decipher signals and signs. It’s not even a rule violation in the NCAA.
Do I think we’re ever going to know beyond a reasonable doubt exactly what happened with regard to the Wolverines and their intelligence-gathering over the last few years? No, and I’m okay with that.
I know the NCAA will impose some sort of penalty on the Wolverines. I just hope it’s fair, and that other teams recognize the precedent they’ll be setting.
Writing
I’ve managed over 7,000 words this week in my “new office,” which is more fiction than I’ve written all year. I’d say that’s a plus. That’s two new chapters of After, along with substantial work on the outline and character backstories. I’m 38 chapters into it and I’m only about forty days into the “brave new world” after The Event. Adam’s lost a son and a daughter, but he’s found both of his ex-wives and his other daughter. He’s made some new friends, picked up some refugees, and killed two people.
The big question in my mind is, what to work on next week? I’ve made good progress on After, which is nice. But I’ve got two other projects that I feel like I need to focus more on. After is a fun story to work on, but it’s a serial with no clear ending in mind. Ghost of Innocence and The Day The Walls Stopped Talking are both more closed-ended stories. I’ve got a clear ending in mind for Ghost; I just need to get focused on how I’m going to get there.
Walls was just supposed to be a short story as something of a reader magnet, but it kind of got away from me, and wants to become a book. I’m 24k words into it, so it’s clearly no longer a short. Maybe it’ll be a novella. But I haven’t written anything for it in two years.
I’m probably going to work on Ghost before Walls. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve tried in the past to work on a different project every day, and I just could not pull that off. It took me too long to get back into the swing of the story. But I bet I could work on a different story each week. We’ll give that the old college try.
I’m going to work on sorting out the outline for Ghost this weekend so I can focus on that story next week. I’ve got to get a firm grasp on the number of victims, and how the victims are going to go after the bad guy. I also need to figure out how he’s going to go (back) after them. That’s been my biggest hangup with that story.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack for this post has been the Spectrum playlist on Spotify. I really like that it gets updated on a semi-regular basis.
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