Rookie of the Year

MelodyJoy had her first exposure to volleyball at Multnomah's free volleyball clinic today and seemed to enjoy it! She was the youngest and smallest one there but the MU volleyball team was great in working with her.

The Girls of Summer

A Quick Family Trip

Last weekend, we went down to Klamath Falls for a couple of nights to attend Jordan Lyman's wedding and visit our old church. Here are a few photos from our drive home.

At Salt Creek Falls, a quick stop near Oakridge as we drove to Eugene . . .

On Monday, we spent the day on the lake with Jeannette's brother, Scott, and some of his family.  I enjoyed reading my Grisham novel in the front of the boat . . .

4 Seconds of Chariots of Fire '07

Just a few seconds of Jordan running the 1600 meter leg of the distance medley relay today.

First Track Meet of '07

Today was the Basin Relays, a low key kind of kick off to the track season. In addition to some "regular" events, a number of coed novelty races are run, such as a hurdles relay where three boys run hurdles in one direction on the track, say in lanes 2, 4 and 6 and as soon as they cross the finish line, three female teammates run the hurdles back the other direction in lates 3, 5 and 7.

The meet started off with the 3000 meter race and I was excited when Jordan came off the start line in good position and was in 10th place after the first lap. He continued to remain in the top ten throughout the race, alongside his teammate Corey Collins. With two laps to go, someone at the finish line yelled that they were in the final lap, so Corey and Jordan really kicked it in. As they neared the finish line again, they heard their coach yelling that they had one lap left!

In any case, they managed to pass several runners and Jordan finished 6th in 11 minutes, 5 seconds. For the first meet of the year and Jordan's first ever experience at the 3000, I thought that was a pretty decent time.


In a real surprise move, Phillip decided two weeks ago that he wanted to try track and field, too. He's going to be running distance events as well but he didn't participate today. His first meet will probably be in about two and a half weeks. Today he dressed down but his role was limited to helping Coach Zach keep track of where people needed to be on the field.

Jordan also ran in a distance medley. If I remember right, it started with Maggie running a 1200, followed by Corey doing 800 meters, then a new girl at Hosanna doing one lap (400 meters) and then Jordan ran the final leg, which was 1600 meters. Jordan was in a pretty deep hole by the time he got the baton. It was hard to tell how well he ran and we didn't get a stopwatch on him, but considering that he had run two miles just an hour earlier, he seemed to do okay.

Hosanna's Season Comes to an End

The Hosanna Christian School Lions rolled unbeaten through their conference season and moved into the play-offs. Starting four seniors, it seemed possible that this was Hosanna's year. They won their two regionals last week and tonight they moved into the second round of play-offs, with McKenzie High School coming to our home court from up near Eugene.

As expected, warm-ups were as close as Jordan got to the game. Coach Shaw stuck with his five starters for all but a few minutes of the contest.


Nevertheless, MelodyJoy was quick to pick Jordan out as the team ran its drills.


McKenzie is an interesting team in that it has no seniors and features junior Drew Wiley, a 6'7" post-slash-guard who supposedly has verbally committed to play for U of O already. He was a very nice player, especially at the Class A level, but it's hard to imagine him playing D-1. As Jeannette said, though, he's only 16 and probably has a lot of development and a few inches left in him. He has a nice shot, including from outside the arc, and nice moves. How he will do against players his own size and who are stronger will be interesting to see.

The game got off to a great start . . . very fast paced. Both teams were playing at a very high level and the first quarter ended 17-15 with McKenzie on top. But it was clear that HCS was going to have match-up problems with only one starter over 6 foot tall. Besides Wiley, McKenzie was taller than Hosanna at every position. In the second quarter, the Lions managed just one field goal.

In the end, HCS fell 56-40 to a very good McKenzie squad. They played good defense, were disciplined on offense, have talent and size . . . and even if they don't win it all this year, they'll be very dangerous next winter, returning every player on the team. It was sad to see Hosanna's season come to a close but the guys have a lot to be proud of.

A Good Day in the World of Sports

Yesterday was a very good day in my sports world, which nowadays consists almost entirely of simply Hosanna and OIT athletics.

Hosanna Christian School's varsity boys team won its regional tourney in LaPine last night and moves on to districts with a home game on Friday night. I attribute all of their success to adding Jordan to the squad last weekend. He actually did get to play about six minutes in Friday night's blowout of Gilchrist High School but, of course, didn't see the light of day in last night's 42-40 nail biter against Hosanna's rival, The Triad School.

Even though he probably won't play a minute the rest of the way, it's neat that he may get the chance to experience a state tournament. Unfortunately, the tourney is eight hours away from here and takes place while I have to be in DC for NACAC's annual lobbying effort. Nonetheless, it may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him and I'm excited for him.

OIT's men's basketball team secured a spot at nationals last night, winning the league title. Actually, we tied with Warner Pacific College for the league lead but we held the edge on the tie-breaker and thus got the automatic berth. It's so different being around basketball here . . . it's just assumed that we'll make it to nationals every year. This might be our best team ever. (I think we say that every year, but since our 27-3 record is the best regular season record we've ever had, it probably is true this time.)

I was also pleased that my alma mater managed to finish off a very disappointing season last night with a big 1-point win over OIT's rival, Southern Oregon University. They only won five games this year but at least they finished on a good note. Maybe I'm blocking something out but I don't remember a Warrior team ever winning so few games. (The Corban women are having a very good season but I have a hard time getting too excited about it. Maybe I'll get interested if they end up tipping it off against OIT in the league post-season tournament.)

And lastly, I'm happy to report that I won a t-shirt vs. t-shirt bet with my friend Greg Vaughan as the #15 OIT Owls beat the #21 Biola Eagles 7-3- in softball yesterday at a tournament in Ashland. It's very rare (i.e., "never") that I get the best of Mr. Vaughan so I send my thanks out to Coach Greg Stewart and the women on his squad.

Jordan Drives to the Hoop

This afternoon, in the first half against Butte Falls, Jordan drove the baseline but couldn't finish. He only scored two points in today's game, on a lay-up in the second half.

The video clip is about 34 seconds long and you have to get about halfway through it before he makes his move. He is at the right hand corner of the screen most of the time.

One Day, Five Basketball Games, Plus an Auction

Today was pretty packed. There were four games at Hosanna. I had to be at school before noon in order to run the clock and scoreboard for the JV girls basketball game. This was followed by Jordan's last JV boys game of the season. Once they got out of the preseason, playing mostly against larger schools, they had a very good year in league. Jordan says they stand at 10-2 in league with today's blowout of Butte Falls to finish first among the JV squads.

As reported previously, he's been getting quite a bit of playing time, starting most games and playing about three-quarters. Today, since it was the end of his JV season, I shot some video which I'll upload soon. He only had two points today but played pretty well.

After his game ended, I stayed for part of the girls varsity game (which they lost by two . . . it's been a long season, but they're a young team with no seniors) but he had to stay for the whole thing because yesterday he found out that he is going to get to "swing" for the rest of the season, playing varsity. He won't get much PT, of course, but it should be a good experience, especially since the varsity took first place in league with today's win so they will go on to postseason play, starting with regionals next weekend in LaPine, I guess.

After the varsity game, Jordan reported that he got to play the last three minutes or so and "got my first varsity foul." I didn't get to see any of his game because tonight was also the annual Hosanna auction. Jeannette and I helped greet people as they arrived and then I got roped into playing MC for awhile. For a short time, it appeared I might actually have to do some auctioneering but our professional auctioneer arrived just in time to save me from that fate. A reserved parking place in front of the school for next year received a bid of $1800 or so.

$25 a plate for tri-tip steak served on paper plates with plastic utensils always seems like a stretch to me but people seem to have a good time and a good spirit. The fundraiser is pretty critical to the well-being of Hosanna. We didn't buy our tickets early enough this year to get in on the crab dinners, which is just fine with me. We sat with Bob and Sue Thompson and Rick and Laurie Hetherington, and it was fun to hear about the Hetheringtons' rapidly approaching trip to Russia as they try to finalize their second adoption from there. Laurie was one of the first people we got to know after we arrived in Klamath Falls seven years ago.

After we finished dinner, Jordan and I scooted over to OIT for his fifth game of the day: The Hustlin' Owls vs. Eastern Oregon University. We got there just before halftime and EOU was playing us very tough. EOU has historically been a fairly weak program but their new coach has brought in some good, big players and they are ranked 23rd in the most recent national poll. (Tech was #7.) At one point in the second half, the Mountaineers were up by eleven, but the Owls fought back and won 78-69.

OIT's website reports that "All-American guard Levell Hesia went over the 2,000 career point mark scoring 25 points duplicating his effort of the night before in a win against #13 Albertson. Hesia, the all-time OIT scoring leader has amassed 2,009 points to date." Levell is a 5'5" guard from right here in K Falls and he is an amazing player. He makes driving lay-ups from the most incredible angles and last night against a very quick Albertson squad, he ran the court like a pinball bouncing from defender to defender.

Tonight's win pretty much guarantees OIT's men will finish second in the conference, though they have an outside shot at tying or winning the championship. We've won seven in a row.

Finally, in closing, I apologize that the blog has been relatively boring lately and, in particular, that Melody sightings are somewhat rare. I've just been too busy and gone too much. However, I can summarize up the latest state of Melody affairs with this: She's about 22 months old and continues to prove herself to be a most advanced child . . . It seems she's already entered the terrible two's.

A Tale of Three Boys

Today was what has increasingly become a typical day in the Muntz household . . . shuttling boys here 'n' there for various activities. It started at 7:30 AM--painfully early given how busy this past week has been--with delivering Phillip and Jameson to OIT for the LEGO Robotics competition.

For the last six weeks or so, Jamey has been working with a group of other 4th and 5th graders on building a LEGO robot that they programmed to accomplish several assigned tasks. Phillip did the same thing last year, and Jameson was on that team, though not in a key role. Well, with the team being so young this year, and having a young first-year coach as well, it was pretty challenging to make progress so we kind of drafted Phillip to help out at the last minute. He got the software and their programming loaded onto our laptop, then did some additional programming this morning.

They ended up doing fairly well, partly through good luck I'm told. In terms of the tasks their robot accomplished, they apparently ended up with the third best score out of nine teams. I think the kids had a good time and it was neat to see how Jamey fit in with them and that they clearly liked and accepted him. To see a boy with Asperger's socialize the way he does is nothing short of a miracle.

Around noon, I went over to Hosanna with Jordan for his first game of the season. He's clearly playing much better this year, with confidence and more strength, but has a ways to go. He's on JV again. In the pre-season, they will often play the freshman teams from the larger schools, because there aren't very many small schools within easy driving distance. Today they played the Mazama freshmen. Jordan didn't start but he got some good minutes . . . probably playing 12 or more out of 32. No shots but a couple of nice plays.

On the scoreboard, the game was a disaster as HCS lost 74-35 but it was encouraging in some ways. Last year, they lost to Mazama's freshmen by a much more lop-sided score, and the coaches were pleased with much of what the boys did on offense. On defense, well, there's still some work to do.

I now run the clock and/or scoreboard for a lot of the games, which I kind of enjoy . . . even though it's pretty stressful. Today was the first time that I have done both at the same time. Other than forgetting to start the clock for a second several times--which is almost inevitable--I managed to stay on top of things. At least no one yelled "Start the clock!" at me.

Number 800

Last night was a big night for the Oregon Tech Hustlin' Owls. They were playing in Salem against George Fox University, an NCAA III team, in the Corban College tourney. The game started out rough but midway through the first half, the guys got their act together and made it close. In the second half, they ran away with it, 84-73. OIT is 12-0 on the season now. No big deal. Just another win.

The big deal is this: Coach Danny Miles recorded his 800th career victory last night, all at OIT. He is in his 36th season at Tech. He is now #9 on the all-time wins list.

A neat angle on last night's game is that Levell Hesia, OIT's All-American point guard really took the game over when the Owls were struggling. Levell ended up with 27 points on the night. He's the only person on the court who, at about 5'5", is shorter than Coach Miles. I wonder if sometimes Coach watches Levell and flashes back to his own playing days. I'm sure Levell took special pleasure in making sure he got that 800th win right on schedule.

I've worked with a number of basketball coaches over the last 20+ years. Some were great people. Some were very successful. It's been rare to find coaches that were both. Dan Miles is one of them. Here is a guy who . . .

• was an All-American quarterback and still holds some national passing records, I'm told . . .
  
• was also all-region in baseball and all-conference in basketball, even though he stands only about 5'6" . . .
• has been named to multiple halls of fame . . .
• lives in a beautiful house at the Running Y resort . . .
  
• took a team that was 1-21 the year before he started at OIT and, over time, built it into a program that has gone to nationals 11 times, winning the national championship in 2004 . . .
• basically owns the city of Klamath Falls.

According to the OIT website, "Miles was named NAIA Division II Mens Basketball Coach of the year in 2004 as well as being honored as the recipient of the A.T. Slats Gill All-Sports Coach of the Year (2004) and received the 2005 Cascade Conference Coach of the Year Award. Miles has been named Conference All-Sport Coach of the Year on four occasions. Other honors awarded Miles include: Conference Coach of the Year (six times), Northwest Coach of the Year (twice), West Coast Coach of the Year (once), and was a finalist for National Coach of the Year in 1974."

In other words, he could be a real jerk and get away with it. But he isn't. Yeah, basketball is his focus, but it's not what makes his world go 'round. The coolest part of this story for me is that about four years ago, Dan Miles became a Christian.

To me, it's amazing to see someone who seems to be successful, well-liked and happy realize that there's still something missing in his life. Danny doesn't talk about his faith a lot, but it colors everything he does now. He helped start a Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at OIT. He gave copies of The Purpose-Driven Life to his team a couple years ago. He no longer looks to run up the score on weaker teams. And I get the sense that he has a new balance in his life and truly is happy now. Watching his teams play on Danny Miles Court is probably my favorite aspect of life at OIT.