If you watch any high school athletic contest you can't help but notice that poor coaching is becoming the norm. Go to a baseball or softball game and you are sure to witness players throwing the ball to the wrong base, not knowing the game situation, and making fundamental errors. Last week I was watching a game when the home team was in the field with one out and runners on first and second. The batter hit a slow ground ball to the second baseman, who instead of getting the easy out at first tried to force the runner at third. The long throw was very late and rather than having runners on second and third with two outs, the home team was facing bases loaded with one out. Those two runners later scored and the home team lost the game by, you guessed it — two runs. Coaches are simply failing to teach the basics. Any high school basketball game will produce two or three instances where a player will be on a semi-breakaway with a defender close to his/her hip. Rather than attempt to beat the offensive player down court and take a charge or attempt to knock the ball away at mid-court, the defender will inevitably try to make a spectacular block from behind to get the crowd all pumped up. Almost every attempt of this nature will result in a silly foul yet we see this exact scenario play out game after game. In football, a running back will break away on an outside run and as soon as he clears the last defender, with nothing but green grass and end zone in front of him, an overzealous lineman will throw an ill-advised block and be called for an unnecessary clipping penalty, nullifying the touchdown. Coaches simply need to do a better job of teaching the basics and then demanding that their players master and put into practice those same fundamentals……….The Ellenville School District Board of Education election and budget vote took place after deadline but I am always hearing people claim that we need new blood on the board, people with new ideas. One has to think that the Board of Education meetings would be a lot more interesting if nothing else, had Francis Gurgui been elected. At the very least, Mr. Gurgui would have shook up the status quo………..Good to see the Boston Celtics lose to the Orlando Magic in the N.B.A. playoffs. Boston is just easy to dislike and most of us Yankees fans don't think Boston has done anything right since they took the lead in the American Revolution…………While I mowing my lawn last Saturday a van pulled up in front of my house. I turned off the mower and approached the van, which was filled with five children, a dog, and a mom and dad. The mother was dressed in a Yankees jersey and the dad was sporting a Mets tee shirt. The kids appeared to range from ages five to fourteen although I'm not sure how old the dog was. The couple was checking out the red brick house down the street that was for sale and the mother asked me how the neighborhood was. I told her it was a quiet section of town and that I rather enjoyed living here. The family was from Middletown and the father mentioned that they were looking to escape from what he described as "the negative influence." Dad informed me that four of his five children were honor roll students and the conviction in his voice led me to believe that it would be in the best interest of child # 5 if he too got their grades up to expectations. The mother said, "It looks like a lovely area but we haven't heard very good things about the school district." Those of us who live in Ellenville are aware of a very special condition that is indigenous only to those who reside in Ellenville. While we recognize the natural beauty of the area, the many wonderful people who live here, and the opportunities that are available to us to raise our families here, there is always a caveat. It's as though we must somehow apologize for living here. You meet someone at the mall. They ask where you live. You hesitate before answering, "Ellenville." And then you wait for the inevitable, "Oh, yeah, Ellenville" response. Well I decided at that very moment, as I talked to this young family whose parents wanted a better life for their kids that I was no longer going to feel the need to apologize for being from Ellenville. "I have four kids," I said. "Three of them have graduated from Ellenville high school and are doing very well in college. My daughter will graduate next year and I have been happy with the education provided by the Ellenville schools. As a matter of fact, if you are parents who stay involved in your kids' education, it doesn't matter where they go to school, they will be successful." I was on a roll and I couldn't stop myself. It was as if I was the real estate agent and my commission depended on convincing these people to buy the red brick house. I told them that the reputation the Ellenville school system has is far worse than anything I ever experienced in my time here and in fact, the Ellenville schools are probably as good as most. I then got a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down the phone number to the district's administration office and encouraged the parents to call and set up an appointment to tour the school. The couple took the piece of paper, thanked me for my time and drove off. I went back to mowing the lawn. You see, if we are ever going to get Ellenville back to where it belongs, we have to first stop apologizing, stop feeling guilty, and take some pride in living here. In fact, it was paramount that I finish mowing my lawn. I couldn't have an overgrown lawn. We just might have a new family moving to Ellenville. Until next time…

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