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I will preface all I’m about to say by stating I have been involved in yute sports from every angle, player, coach, official, and administrator, I always felt like I had a pretty good handle on what we, at least I was trying to accomplish with yute sports. And call me a romantic, but I truly believe athletics are an extension of the classroom. With all that being said everyone is aware of the current state of officiating at all levels. Shortages, bad officials, inexperienced officials working to high of levels, rinse, repeat. Over the weekend while supervising a club softball tournament I read numerous posts on FB complaining about umps… from C level to a HS Varsity HC complaining umpires cost his team a sectional championship in a 7-6 that featured his opponent hitting a grand slam. Most of the posts, complete with pics and vids did show a generous strike zone. But the recurring theme I heard was yes it was like that the every game of the sectional. Everything I saw as an uninterested third party looked consistent to me. WTF else can you ask for? I will assure you when I’m on fire behind the dish I’ll still miss a couple. Which leads me to the point of this paperback. I’m 61 years old and I realize I’m from another time, but in my thinking, we need to adjust to Blue’s zone. That would seem a LOT more logical than bitching about balls and strikes on FB wouldn’t it? Today I got involved in this gem on FB. 11 YO gets punched out on a pitch in the other batters box, it’s a bad call, but it IS the call. My point is my thought process in ALL of this I’m trying to teach my kids A) shit just went wrong, how are you going to react and B) to control what they can control. And don’t waste energy on stuff you can’t. Instead of whining on FB and looking like a TOTAL BEOTCH, what if we taught our kids to make adjustments. If Blue’s got a wide zone, let’s throw our hands at it, foul it off and maybe the next pitch will be something we can do something with. On the other side of it, when you’re sitting over there on that bucket, don’t you keep calling farther and farther out until you figure out Blue’s limit is? What are we trying to accomplish with youth sports today? As an official and administrator, what are we doing? Are we here for the NIL money, college scholarships, have fun, child development, social status ( yes I’m looking at you in particular Westfield), I’m down with whatever just let me know what we’re trying to accomplish

I love winning as much as the next person, but what happened to finding a way to win through actions rather than words and complaints. This is the reason we have little girls and boys going out into the real world instead of young men and women. We have parents, coaches, and leaders holding the hands of student athletes to make sure everything goes perfect for them. One thing I never understood as a child, but now can't appreciate enough from my parents was their ability to allow my siblings and I to fail on our own, and sit back and say you got knocked on your ass what are YOU going to do to figure it out because once you get out in the real world there's no one to sit there and hold your hand through this whole thing we call life. We're crippling our youngsters by not allowing them to fail similar to what you said with the strike zone. It's bigger figure it out.

My point is that I don’t want the government involved with non-public schools at all. They shouldn’t be.

Agreed and it likely wasn't intentional. IMO, the Bears would be accepting the Hammond offer this morning if they weren't deadset on building in Arlington Heights. At first I thought Indiana was foolish to get involved since they were likely going to be used. In hindsight, it was a win/win for them. In a matter of a few months they were able to put together a deal that Illinois still hasn't been abled to finalize since the Bears bought the property over 3 years ago. Braun and his buddies jumped at the idea of showing businesses in Illinois how easy it is to get deals done in Indiana.

My guess is the legislators called their bluff, even if it was not intentional. I have come to believe Hammond was a bluff on the part of the Bears ownership. My guess is Arlington Heights will end up being the site used.

That was kind of what I thought the guidelines were when I said I think the amounts are way too high...

It's been capped at $260,000 for a couple of years now.

No arguments from me on the burdens faced by Illinois tax payers, but those are fairlytale numbers in that article. There's not single for pro profit business who is going to buy that land from the Bears or previously Churchill Downs and pay $350M per year in property taxes. I believe at this point New England and Miami both own their own stadiums and pay less than $5M per year in property taxes. Arlington International Racetrack was paying around $9M per year in property taxes before going out of business. For comparison in the business world, All State was paying around $4.7M in property taxes on their massive 186 acre corporate campus in Northbrook, IL, prior to selling it. The article also fails to mention the gain in Sales Taxes that will come from the Arlington property once the Bears fully develop it into an entertainment district. The Bears bought the property. They've already said they'll pay 100% of the cost to build the stadium if they build in Arlington. They just want tax certainty and infrastructure around the property to be increased, which is what any business buying that property for development purposes would ask for. No business is buying that property and gladly accepting a $350M/year tax payment. At that point it would just sit empty.

We were inducted on the same night. Have known Paul for almost 20 years. No one in the state has done more to promote high school football than Paul. He and TA were partners in the early days of the Indiana Football Digest. Kindred spirits.

This.