My Last Post from the USA

Hi All,

Sorry for leaving you in the lurch for the last few days.

O.K so we headed down to the University of Georgia, hoping to at least win one game to give us a good shot of heading to the regional championships.  What a day it was.  Very hot and very humid by 10am!

So in the first game we hung with them for the first 4 innings before they went crazy with the bat.  We ended up losing 8-0 in 5 innings.

Come start of game two, we stuck with them pretty well again but were tied in a big struggle at 2-2 going into the 7th inning.  In the 7th, our bats went crazy, ending with a score of 7-2 after a line drive smash over the left field fence by our first baseman. Good for you Courtney.  She had struggled a little with the bat at the start of the year but fought and fought to get back into the line up which culminated in this very exciting 3 run home run.  We then went out int he field and shut them down int he bottom of the 7th to win 7-2.

After all the excitement we got on the bus for the 8 hour ride back to Farmville.  I had given my goodbye speach to the team on the field and not much needs to be said about that.  I do truly hope some stay in touch.

On arriving back in Farmville, it was a quick goodbye with many just racing for their cars to get home to bed.  We were in for a chance at Regionals and the girls only had a small break before practice started again.  Coach dropped me home reclaiming her car and we agreed to continue to work together by distance the best we could.

On Sunday night we all eagerly awaited the results of the NCAA decisions on who would make the final spots for the Regional Championships.  Unfortunately they did not find it within themselves to name Longwood to the post season fixtures.  With such a good season behind us, having beaten many of the good teams who did make the final cut, it is difficult to see what more we could have done to make the tournament.  Perhaps being an independent school it is impossible to make the tournament.  In any case, the team 100% deserved to make it and shame on the NCAA for not including Longwood in its post season program.

In the morning, I picked up my hire car, got a coffee and headed up to NJ to see my American family.  It took me 8 hours to drive up but I didn't get lost.  It is a bit hard it is one highway the whole way, good old I95.

I spent the few days I had catching up with Ernie and Virginia and their son Evan.  I also got to see my good friend Nanette and met her husband.  I also caught up with some older friends who I also knew from the first time I hit the USA.  Geo and his wife Caroline and their daughter Natalie and son Nick.  Both well grown now.  Nick who is 9 wanted me to come see him play baseball which I enjoyed.  He went into pitch and didn't do so good so it was interesting to have my first 9yo client ha ha.  We then went for dinner.  I also took some time to get a massage (which I fell asleep during) as well as some final shopping.  I had a little extra luggage to send home so I put that in a big box and sent it home.  Was expensive but I garentee I am still ahead on the cost of what I bought here compared to Oz.

I also got to see Virg's parents.  Her mum is not very well and it was sad to say goodbye to such a vivacious woman, who I will most likely not see again.

Last night was a final goodbye dinner with everyone which was really nice.  And I got to deliver the sports presentation I put together for Longwood where nobody came, so I did finally manage to present it to somebody :-)

So this morning I got in my hire car and drove back down I95 to Washington Dullas Airport for the long journey home.  It was such an easy drive i got here at 2pm for a 6.20pm flight! I only have 30mins left and it will be boarding time for the flight to LA, then a 90min stop over and then the 14.5 hour flight home to Sydney.

So this will be my last blog from the USA about my 3 month journey into US College Softball.  I don't wish to reflect on this experience as a whole just yet, referring perhaps to wait a few weeks before giving my final thoughts on the experience.

But this will not be the last of my blog.  As many of you who have read the entirety of this blog will know, it has not just been a travel journal but has also included many of my own thoughts on psychology and philosophy.  I intend to continue to write about my thoughts on these subjects but perhaps at a lesser rate than this blog has been written at.  What I intend to to do is write about each experience or learning opportunity as it presents its self. Hopefully this will be on a weekly basis.

So please keep checking in with me.  It would be good to hear from people who have been reading the blog to know what you think?  I do appreciate everyone who has taken the time to read my blogs and it has been a pleasure to share my experiences with you to this point.  I look forward to speaking to you in the future.

Please enjoy these last few photos of my experience here.

Warmest regards,

Damien

University of Georgia Scoreboard.  And showing off their World Series Appearances on the homerun fence.

Looking from the outfield.  Sorry Penn State, you didn't make your new place as good as this older place.

From the infield out.

U Georgia's indoor training facility.  AMAZING.  Yes that is an all clay floor like their infield.

Young Nick the hitter.

Young Nick the pitcher.  He has certainly grow from the little baby picture I still have in my wallet of him dressed in a Phillies jump suit ha ha.

Last Games

Hi All,

Well its been a busy few days.  Here's whats gone on:



Friday - we practiced.

Saturday - we played a double header against East Carolina and University of Maryland/ Burlington Country (UMBC).  We lost to East Carolina 9 - 1.  They had a really good pitcher but she was incredibly annoying.  What is probably not so well understood is that the girls are between the  ages of 18 and 22 years of age.  They are just outa high schoolwhere things are...well...a little over the top.  Most girls will not go out and play without their make up done and something done to their hair!  Most girls have a BIG bow in their hair that goes with the colour of their uniform.  There is also chanting and all kinds of other shinnanigans including tribal hand gestures and the like.  This team from East Carolina was over the top!  Why am I picking on them more than other teams?  Well they did that one thing I cannot stand on a softball field..... disrespect the opposition by bunting and stealing when you are 7 or more runs up.  There is nothing more disrespectful in softball or baseball.  We had to play them again the next day, so this action formed a big part of our debrief and inspiration for Sundays game.

Then we played UMBC and beat them pretty convincingly.

Sunday - we only had to play one game... against East Carolina.  We were alot more switched on for this game and made a good adjustment by staying of pitches out of the strike zone.  This really got their pitcher off balance and off her game.  We won 3 - 0 with two of our girls hitting some timely home runs.  That will teach them for disrespecting us on Saturday!!!!!

Monday - I was up at 0530 for the bus ride at 0615!  It  was 3.5 hour ride down to North Carolina and Campbell University where we were due to play another double header at 1200.  Campbell is a Christian University and once again forced their beliefs onto us.  This time is was prayer before the game.  Oh and I must mention that these girls wore the BIGGEST bows in their hair of any of the other teams I'd seen.  I must say though, Playing Campbell reminded me of home probably more than at any other time that I have been here.  Their schools colour is exactly the same orange as my car, which I miss.

Anyway, a softball game is 7 innings, but in the first game we had to play extra innings and we went to 11 innings before we won 4-1.  One of our bench players came on to hit a 2 run home run which was just unbelievable for her.  Well done Marcy Boo.  I was very happy for her and so was her mum who ran to get the ball, only to have it demanded from her by an official from Campbell.  Now apparently Mrs Marcy went off at this guy, not very Christian for a person who on Sunday pushed a Christian publication about the story of Easter into my chest imploring me to read it!!!  She knows I do not have faith and continually tries to get me to see 'reason'.  Apparently this book had 'facts' in it about Easter, I told her I know the 'story' of Easter.  Don't get me wrong though, she is a lovely lovely lady and so are the whole family.  It is all done in jest... kind of ;-)

So the second game was quite delayed.  But once we got under way, we ended up winning 5-4 in 9 innings.  So we ended up playing close to 3 games in two!  In the second game, one of our players stole third base.  Our hitter swung at the pitch and ended up in the box when the catcher tried to throw our runner out.  Apparently, through NO deliberate action on the part of our hitter, our hitter was in the way of this girl trying to make a good throw.  This is part of the game, however the catcher didn't like it much and pushed our girl in the head!  This was broken up by the umpire.  The girl got off lightly as there is no reason why she was not thrown out by the umpire for that alone.  But the opposition cried foul like you would not believe.  This umpire was pretty weak though, he'd made some terrible decision throughout both games.

Once again though, Christian College, hitting people in the head during a game of softball.  I can't stand this hypocritical behaviour.  It is one of the big reasons I began to lose faith in religion.  One of our people responded to someone on our team pointing this out by saying "Christians are humans too, even Jesus turned over the tables in the temple".... O.K fine, BUT DO NOT preach to me one minute and then do exactly that which you preach against the next.  You become a hypocrite by your own standards and lose all credibility.

So after the game it was showers and then dinner and then a 6 hour bus ride to Athens, Georgia!  We got in at 0300hrs!  The plan was then set to get up for brekky at 1100.  I didn't sleep well as I never really do in a new bed and when I have to get up to an important alarm.  So we got breakfast and then practiced.  Tonight we went out for a very yummy dinner.  Best I have had since being in the USA I would say.

Tomorrow we have a double header against the University of Georgia who many believe is the best team in the country!  I am very much looking forward to playing them.  After the games we have an 8 hour drive back to Farmville... yuck!

When we get back I will get as much sleep as I can and then I am hiring a car to drive up to Philly to see all my friends before I leave.  I don't have much time so I will try to maximise my time with everyone to the best of my ability.  I was sposed to be up there today however these games were thrown on at the last minute.  Oh well.

Below I have included a variety of photos.  I will explain each photos as I go.

Speak soon

D

This is a cake Mrs Marcy made for our last game at home!  The green is the cake and the rest you couldn't eat :-)  With all players and players and ME having a slice, there was still heaps left :-)

Another photo of the cake.

 

The next two photos are again of our trainers cute little puppy who found a liking for ice!  Must have cooled her belly :-)

These three photos are of the Campbell field.  Note the orange :-)

Another week of full on Softball

Hi All,

Haven't written since Saturday as there has been little to tell yet lots and lots of softball.  Here is the weeks diary as well as next weeks schedule:

Sunday - 5pm - 5.30pm weights.  5.30 till 8pm team practice.

Monday - From 1pm until 7.30pm, each girl came for 1.5hrs for hitting practice.

Tuesday - From 12pm until 5pm, each girl had to find time to do weights for 30mins then came for 1.5hours of hitting and fielding practice.

Wednesday was the forced day off.

Thursday - From 12pm to 5.30pm, each girl came for 1.5hrs, they did conditioning,  fielding and then hitting.  Then they all had to come back at 5.30pm - 7.30pm for 2 hours of team practice.

Friday - We have team practice at 5.30 - 7pm.

Saturday - We play a double header at home starting at 12pm.

Sunday - We play a single game at 1pm.

This was meant to be the end of the season with everyone leaving school and heading their separate ways, including me beginning my visiting of friends, however the following has been added to our schedule as of Tuesday evening.

Monday - We depart Farmville at 0615am for a 3.5 hr drive to North Carolina for a double header.  When that game is finished, we drive down to Georgia to stay the night, about a 4 hour drive.

Tuesday - We will most likely practice.

Wednesday - We play a double header against probably the best team in the country, University of Georgia.  Once that game is finished, we begin a 7.5 hour drive back to Farmville arriving about 12am.

If this seems too much, consider that this week is final exam week as well and most of the girls have up 5 exams each this week.  Some of the girls have had to come and practice at 1pm with exams at 3pm.  I believe this is over the top.  But that is all I will say in this domain.

As for me, when we return from Georgia, that will be it for me in Farmville.  I will get some sleep and then hire a car and drive the 5 hours up to my friends in Moorsetown NJ, just outside of Philadephia.  I will then try to do my best to see everyone before heading home on Wednesday 18 May.

Just for some fun, our athletic trainer bought in her new puppy today so I thought I would show you some photos of her.  I just LOVE dogs and puppies :-)  Her name is Catcher and she is 6 weeks old.  She is a mix of a chocolate and white Labrador :-)  Isn't she soooooo cute? :-)

See you all soon.

D

The D-Day Memorial

Hi All,


Before I begin, I want to thank everyone who reads my blogs.  As of today I have hit 724 views.  When I began this blog, I had no idea I would ever get so many views, let alone within the short time I have been away.
With an actual day off I got up early today and headed out of town.  My usual coffee shop wasn't open until 10.00am so I missed that and stopped in for a buffet breakfast for $6.99.  I even found out you can now get sugar free maple syrup which is great for someone with insulin resistance.  Perhaps I will soon find a low GI pancake that will allow me to eat those with the sugar free syrup!!!  Tomorrow the coffee shop isn't open until 12.00 and closes at 5.00pm.  That's not so bad though, we practice at 5.00pm.  Yes 5.00pm on a Sunday.  Some friends have been encouraging me to write more, so I might see if I can belt out an idea for a book.

So back to today, I headed straight up to Bedford, Virginia where the National (some say International) D-Day Memorial is located.  Believe it or not, the memorial is privately funded but does have endorsement from the Federal Government as the National D-Day Memorial.  So the question remains, why is it located in Bedford? Well it had the highest rate, per head of capita, of loss of any town in the USA on the day of the D-Day landing, 6 June 1944.  If I remember correctly, of a town of 3000, 35 men stormed the beaches on that day and 19 were killed.  All 19 telegrams arrived at the corner store on the same day.

Rather than try to tell the story of the memorial in words, I will tell it in photos and captions below.  By the way, Bedford is also the site of Jefferson's second home, however I chose not to got here today.

After the memorial, I headed into town and had a read of my Jefferson book after some lunch at Panera Bread. French Onion soup and a ham and cheese sandwich.  It was whilst I had my coffee and read my book that I received an email from home to say my sister was driving home from my parents house, with my 2 nephews and niece in the car, and a bus ran up the back of her at about 45kmh.  All are O.K although they were taken to hospital for observation.  Lucky Dad told me they were O.K in the first sentence of the email or I might not be here any more.  Hard news to hear from such a distance.

After that I got a massage and saw the movie Source Code.  Not a bad movie, not a bad movie at all!!!!!  Futuristic in story line, but the love story was as modern as any! One day...

Then I bought some nice shorts and headed for dinner at the local Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse.  I had a full rack of ribs yum yum yum.  AND to top it off, there was a game of college softball on ESPN U.  A TV station just for college sports.  Oklahoma v Texas A&M.  The coach from Texas was actually one of the people who replied to my initial emails about coaching over here.  She felt that although her program was full, my resume would open up doors for me.  And here I am.  I mention this game because the girl from Oklahoma was throwing at 72mph.  That is an incredible speed for a 20yo girl.  At my height I threw about 75mph!

After all this though, I jumped in the car and headed home.

Please enjoy the photos.

D

In case anyone was in any doubt where I was :-)

A statue of Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the European Theatre.

O.K so here is where it begins.  The memorial is in 3 stages.  To take this photo I am standing in front of the gazebo in which the Eisenhower statue is situated.  1)  The gazebo along with the grass and plants that you can see is to represent England.  England is representative of where the plans were made for the invasion and where American and other allied troops formed up and trained for months on end in advance of the invasion.  2)  The center of the memorial beyond the first brick wall is representative of Normandy.  There is light blue concrete representative of the ocean and is split into 5 parts representing each of the 5 beaches to be stormed by allied troops.  Then there is an aspect representing the beach landing.  3)  Beyond the beach landing is an arch representing the Arch De Triumph in Paris and the march of the allies onto free France from the Nazi's.  Arch's have been representative of victory over the ages.

This brick structure in front of me in this photo is representative of the below symbol.

This patch was worn on the left shoulder (hope I remember that correctly) of the commanders in the Allied Headquarters in England.  Eisenhower had quite a bit of say in the creation of this patch.  The black background represents the evil of the Nazi war machine.  The burning sword is a centuries old symbol of good triumphing over evil.  The rainbow stripes are representative of an Allied approach to the invasion representing the many nations involved.  Finally the blue is representative of peace. 

The plaque below the sash is the speech made by Eisenhower to the troops before they set sail for Normandy.  The tour guide had a tape recording of the speech which we were encouraged to follow by reading the plaque.  Yes it was me who bought up the fact that there is a mistake on the plaque.  On the bottom of the middle column it says 'in victory' when he actually said 'to victory'.  I was promised unlimited shopping in the gift store, but that never happened.

The famous Monty.  The most senior English Commander working along side Eisenhower.

A view back of 'England'.

A view of the 'ocean' leading to the beach of Normandy. It is difficult to see however written across the top of the arch is the word Overload.  Operation Overlord was the name given to the invasion operation.

This granite structure is a recreation of the landing craft the Americans rode to the beaches and jumped out of into oncoming Nazi gun fire.  The Air Force bombing and naval bombardment had not been as effective as was hoped as many shells landed in the water short of their targets due to the terrible weather on the day.  Many of the Nazi bunkers were built to strongly to be penetrated by the bombardment from the air.  The granite landing craft open out into water and then up onto a beach where there are statues of soldiers trying to get up the beach.  The beech that you can see is actually concrete however the concrete to make the beech is actually mixed with sand from Normandy beaches.

A better view of the beach scene.  If you look closely, to the right of the hedgehog, you will see a spray of water shooting up.  When you stand there, the shooting water sounds a bit like gun fire.  This is to represent the gun fire coming at the soldiers during their landing.

These plaques around the outside of the 'ocean scene' have, give or take, the names of every single soldier killed during the D-Day landings.  This is the only place in the world where the names of all soldiers from every country are assembled.  The American names are on the western wall whilst allied forces are on the eastern wall.  There were 12 countries in total represented in the allied force.  The names on the walls are in no particular order, but they are catalogued in the gift store if anybody wants to identify a particular soldier. 

An Australian flag amongst a British, Belgian and Canadian flag against the allied soldiers.

The Australian flag flying next to the American flag.

The statue on the left is a soldier shot on the beach.  The middle statue is an infantry man guarding and guiding a medic up the beach.  Medic's were not armed.  The statue to the right is representative of the difficulty of wading through the water under intense gun fire. 

The book next to the head of the dead soldier is the Holy Bible.  A rather gruesome statue.

A close up of the soldier and the medic.

The tour guide showed us an actual photo of the 104 ft cliff these Rangers had to climb up to get up their beach.  I cannot remember the numbers on how many made it, but many did not.

Any actual spotter plane used for the bombardment on the day.  The white black white black white stripes are representative of the D-Day mission.

This is an Australian medal given to the either mother or widow of a soldier killed in action.  They described it as the Australian equivalent of an American Purple Heart.  A Purple Heart however is given posthumerously to the soldier.  The guide loved our idea.

This is the scene beyond the arch.  One soldier is carrying another who has been wounded. It is difficult to see but the white rocks represent the white beaches and although we not int he right season, you can see red roses blooming.  When the red roses bloom they are representative of the blood red colour of the ocean on that day.  Red due to the amount of blood lost into the ocean by the soldiers shot attempting to land on the beach.  The guide said actual survivors of the day said it is in fact the case that the water was blood red.

An opposite view of the statue of the soldiers climbing the cliff.  The first soldier is coming over the crest of the cliff.  In the background you can see the gazebo.  The statue in the foreground is underneath the arch and is representative of how a soldier was buried on the battlefield.  Bayonette stuck int he ground with the helmet on top.  Unseen is the dog tag draped around the butt of the rifle. 

The brand new Aussie flag flying proudly.

An exact replica of statue found in France.  The significance is that it was a statue representing victory from WWI.  But somewhere int he fighting she had her lower jaw blown off yet the statue remained.  She represents that no matter the fighting, peace and liberty will prevail. 

A view from under the arch down onto the 'beach'.

We were invited that if we wanted to, we could take a flag of our country and place it in the garden of remembrance.  It  did not matter which war our remembered one fought in.  I wrote along the stem of the flag "Albert Victor Shepherd: 28 Battalion; 2nd AIF"

Grandads flag in the garden of remembrance.

Me with Grandad's flag.