Ice is back with a brand new invention ... well not new but improved!!

Like Fawkes in Harry Potter arising out of the ashes of a lost basketball season, the blog is back!!! As anyone who has ever attempted to get into my head can attest - several trained professionals are standing by now to provide testimonials!! - several months without emptying my head of a dizzying array of ideas is like allowing North Korea and Iran to get nuclear weapons. Oh wait .. that is happening. Unstable minds want to know what's going on up there before they see a mushroom cloud, and I'm more than willing to oblige.

But where to begin ... hmmmm ... always a tough one.

I'll take season recap for $200 Alex.

For those of you who are unaware, I am - among my many other avocations - a high school basketball coach. Most people would argue it is the definition of insanity to entrust your self-worth to a group of 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 year old boyz2men, especially willingly! Four months a year I trade this temporary insanity for the endorphin rush a big win can provide and the pride in watching boys morph into men before you very own eyes. I'm not into herion or cocaine - or meth for that matter - but all three are probably healthier long term than the stresses brought about by trying to corral thirteen different personalities and skill levels into a cohesive unit. This past season presented a unique set of challenges I hadn't encountered in coaching before. We graduated eight players and had another player transfer out of school from the 2011-2012 version of the Clark Cougars, leaving behind a core of four players who had received meaningful playing time. The season's prospects were about as bright as Mitt Romney's during our summer league trying to integrate new faces into the mix, and early November practices didn't do much to lift the specter of a Mitt-like performance (you know .. around 50% or .500). A season opening loss to Madeira by two points, a drubbing at the hands of Summit Country Day and a surprising loss to Cincinnati Country Day staggered the Cougars out of the gate and dropped our record to 2-3 with a daunting run of games ahead. The answer to our malaise came from a source as unlikely as Jed Clampett's bubblin' crude - our alumni. In a Saturday morning practice which will go down in infamy, a copious amount of running was mixed in with a scrimmage against eight or nine former players ... and the results were about as pretty as the Walking Dead. Current players dropped like meteorites from the Russian sky under the relentless pressure of past players who had lived Clark basketball and weren't going to watch it fall off after they left. It's quirky how the great basketball programs work like that .. and even quirkier how the players who still wear the jersey want to make the 'old-timers' proud. What came from the ground after that shot in the dark astute coaching move was a 13-4 rampage to close out the season and a 2nd place conference finish behind the #1 team in the state Summit Country Day. The defense ramped up to the suffocating level, holding opponents to under 50 PPG on average. The offense did enough to win games, often times doing our best Johnny Carson impression by putting on a late show of fourth quarter heroics. A first round tournament romp over Williamsburg, followed by an alley brawl victory against Finneytown set up a showdown with Madeira in the Sectional Finals. Vince McMahon couldn't have scripted a more intense cage match than what transpired that Friday night at the Cintas Center. Four quarters and two overtime periods later, our season was over. Madeira bookended our season with losses and ended what was one of my most enjoyable seasons ever as a head coach. We had strong leaders, hard workers and a never-say-die mentality which carried our team far beyond their individual talents. I'm going to miss all our Seniors - especially David Burt, Jr. David was around for 53 wins in his three years as a full-time Varsity player, two league championships, a sectional championship and a district championship. You don't get to coach many kids who win like David did and his loss will leave a Grand Canyon sized gap in our team. Aaron Toney, Mecca Bosley and Kenny Thornton were among the hardest workers I have coached and set the tone everyday in practice. The returning players will need to get their lab jackets on to concoct such a potent mix of leadership, hard work, skill and sacrifice to get the Cougars back to the lofty heights we reached this season. And now I can finally exhale for a month until I get back into my hardwood laboratory for off-season workouts.

Before I go I would like some feedback from the peanut gallery about our season goals - I had enough feedback from our coaches fans in the stands to develop a very thick skin, so fire away. Here are our season goals (22 game season remember): 1 - Win 12 games ASAP. 2 - Finish top 2 in our league. 3 - Play in March. The rationale behind our goals is as follows. 12 wins guarantees us a winning season which begins the path to goals 2 and 3. I think we should always be in the top 2, if not win, our league despite the competition we face. And playing in March means you are playing for a Sectional Championship, District Championship, Regional Championship or State Championship. Ponder for a while and get back to me ....

Until then I bid you adieu and hope to parlez avec vous demain!