Six With Sticks

by Six Kennedy kids and their parents

Category Archives: Noah


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Watching Noah play for FCA

Noah played this year for FCA.  He was their leading scorer.  They mostly played him at midfield because of his speed and scrappiness.  But occasionally he got to play attack.  Last weekend, in one game, his team won 6-4; in that game, Noah scored 4 goals and had two assists.  I rarely got to go to his games, so Marcia started filming them towards the end.  I returned though from Canada with Liz on Saturday, and got to see his last two games on Sunday for FCA this summer.

On Saturday, he scored three goals in two games, and had two assists in very little time.  In the first game on Sunday, he barely stepped on the field in the first half, but got a goal.  In the last game, they played him most of the game at attack, his natural position.  He scored one goal early in the game, and late in the game, the score was tied at 4.  At the end of regulation, it was still tied at 4, and so they went into overtime.  They won possession and called a timeout.  Below is the video from after the timeout.

 


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Gobble, gobble, go!

I don’t have pics of Maggie or Jack, because we didn’t attend the event.

Maggie, Luke, and Jack all competed in Gobble Gobble Go at their school.  Maggie completed 16 laps.  Luke completed 8 laps.  Jack completed 13 laps.  Jack beat most of the 5th graders, and was tops in his grade, 1st grade.  Maggie might have been tops in her grade, 5th grade.

It is Thanksgiving morning, and we have been talking about the Turkey Trot.  I just threw the clothes in the dryer, as it is 23 degrees out.  I am not running this year.  Liz, Noah and Maggie all want to run.  It is almost time to wake them up, so we will see.


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Fall is for soccer

Noah, Luke and Jack all played soccer this fall.  Luke and Jack are really enjoying their teams and playing.  It has been a rainy fall, and a lot has been canceled.  But they are enjoying it none the less.

Noah is playing on two teams.  He did not participate fully in tryouts so that he would be placed on the B team, which he was.  But then he went to a pickup game in the summer, and the A team coaches saw him, and asked him to double roster.  It has been a great opportunity for him.  He is having fun and competing on both teams, and we are really enjoying both sets of coaches.

One of the parents on the Gold team takes pictures of all of the boys.  It is really great when parents do this.

Noah captured above playing for the Catonsville Cobras Gold team.  With one game left in the season, they are sitting in first place in the league.  If they win next weekend, they win the league.

The kids are out cheering on Noah.  Jack needs to put on some weight.

Jack playing for the Avengers

Luke playing.  He loves playing in the goal.


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Noah – soccer champ

Noah had a great season playing for the Catonsville Elite.  He was coached by Tim Lovell and Alan Barnes.  I really like those guys. They kept the team very competitive.  They won all but one of their games, and won the league. Marcia and I missed many of his games because of lacrosse and field hockey.  We each got to only one or two games.  But we are so impressed and proud of Noah.

He hustles all over the field. The coaches don’t take him off the field. He is never cocky.  He is very humble. He takes care of business.  And he likes protecting his friend, Cole, who is the goalie. Noah is a defender, and takes his job seriously.  Check out his game face.

Congratulations to Noah and his teammates on another successful season, and a championship!

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Marcia and I missed his championship game.  It was his last game of the season and fell at the same time as Liz’s IAAM championship game.  It also coincided with a tournament that I was coaching Maggie in for lacrosse.

I am very sad to miss any of the kids’ competitions, because I really enjoy watching them more than anything.  At the same time, I know that by putting less pressure on them that they play for themselves.  They are not out there to please me or their mom.

Noah is a competitor.  If he keeps the right mind set, I think he can go really far with sports.


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There and Back Again: A Big Red Tale

Snooze. Beep Beep. Snooze. One eye open. 3:33. Good sign, gotta get up. I was taking the kids today on an adventure. I didn’t tell anyone where we were headed, including Marcia. We got them loaded in the car and we were off by 4:30. I was taking them somewhere they had never been. And I hadn’t been back to Cornell in 17 years.

I put over 4 hours behind the wheel before anyone woke up. Then they were up the last hour of the drive. We pulled into Manos Diner in Ithaca around 9:30 for a little breakfast before seeing the sites.

Manos Diner - first stop in Ithaca

Manos Diner – first stop in Ithaca

First stop had to be Schoellkopf Field. I took the kids out onto the turf and they loved it. Noah started sprinting from one end of the field to the other. Elizabeth and Eden starting running stadium stairs. I told them where the locker room was and showed them where coach Richie Moran took us all after each game for a post game party.

Six at Schoellkopf Field

Six at Schoellkopf Field

Love this Stadium and those stairs

Love this Stadium and those stairs

Hall for post game lacrosse gatherings

Hall for post game lacrosse gatherings

I was proud and excited to tell Marcia and the kids all about my days at Cornell. I showed them the slope and told them about Slope Day. I showed them where I sold daffodils for Daffodil Day, raising money for cancer research with my fraternity. I told them about the Hot Truck, and showed them my fraternity. My freshman dorm has been torn down and replaced with newer buildings. We walked through campus and I showed them the statues of Ezra Cornell and Andrew White. I showed them some of the libraries and where I had classes. We saw North Campus, and West Campus. We saw Collegetown – less bars than there used to be, and more Starbucks.

Marcia and the kids at Cornell

Marcia and the kids at Cornell

Cornell or Hogwarts?

Cornell or Hogwarts?

Fuertes Observatory

Fuertes Observatory

Legend has it that if a virgin crosses between the two statues at midnight, they will cross the quad and dance a jig. The statues have never moved.

Legend has it that if a virgin crosses between the two statues at midnight, they will cross the quad and dance a jig. The statues have never moved.

Far Above Cayuga's Water

Far Above Cayuga’s Water

Looking down on West Campus - much different than when I went there

Looking down on West Campus – much different than when I went there

The kids loved seeing the plantation. We spent a good bit of time there exploring all of the trees. And we had a picnic late in the day, the last stop before heading home. As a student, I never really appreciated the plantation. I ran around and through it for lacrosse, but never had a picnic or took in the beauty of the place.

Newman Overlook at Cornell Plantations

Newman Overlook at Cornell Plantations

I love Luke in this picture

I love Luke in this picture

Picnic in Cornell Plantations

Picnic in Cornell Plantations

The main attraction had to be the gorges. All of the kids had lots of fun exploring the gorges. They ran along the paths to get to the gorges. Unfortunately, they weren’t allowed to swim. I was really disappointed in this, as I remember lots of people swimming there when I was a student. It is now an offense that you can be arrested for. Bummer. I still waded out into the waterfalls, but we decided against letting the kids do it.

Ithaca is Gorges

Ithaca is Gorges

Gorge above Beebe Lake

Gorge above Beebe Lake

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I found the spot where I jumped from the side of the gorge 20 years ago. I didn’t repeat the act, but was kind of impressed with how high I had jumped from. Young dumb and stupid is no way to go through life, Kennedy!

Where I jumped 20 years before

Where I jumped 20 years before

For me, this was a great trip. There were reasons that I left Cornell, and there were reasons why I put it in my past, and haven’t revisited it. It was great though to remember on this trip all of the joy I experienced at Cornell. All of the beauty of the place. And to share that with Marcia. And also with the kids.

It is an impressive and beautiful university. I wish I had appreciated it for all that it had to offer when I was a student, athlete and fraternity boy. There was so much that I didn’t do as a student, and wish I had been a bit more mature in those days. I am so grateful though for the experiences that I did have, and that I am able to share even glimpses of those experiences with my kids. It made me so proud that they were genuinely interested in the trip and my stories. Maybe one day one of them will be lucky enough to experience Cornell as a student.


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Six with skis

Last night, we took a little trip up to Ski Liberty. None of the kids had ever been skiing before. And I hadn’t been skiing since before Marcia and I met, over 17 years ago. So, we piled the oldest 4 kids into the van and drove up there.

We started them off with a lesson.

Marcia - dropping off kids at Ski school

Marcia – dropping off kids at Ski school

Ready for ski school

Ready for ski school

Ready for some skiing

Ready for some skiing

Maggie loves skiing

The kids were off with their instructor and Marcia and I were able to take a few runs by ourselves. I took a few runs down the back side of the mountain by myself and was able to ski a Black Diamond before meeting back up with the kids. An hour lesson and they were doing great.

Maggie - hands on her knees, no poles

Maggie – hands on her knees, no poles

Eden - flying down that mountain

Eden – flying down that mountain

Liz - focused on her turns

Liz – focused on her turns

Noah - No fear

Noah – No fear

And then some night skiing as a family.

Having fun

Having fun

Kennedy gang at Ski Liberty

Kennedy gang at Ski Liberty

We mostly stuck to the bunny hill.

I love how comfortable the kids all were. They got on the chair lifts by themselves, and were calling to each other from the chair lifts and waving to each other on the mountain. It was really cool. Before the night was over, I took Liz over to a bit faster hill for one last run.

It was cool that I remembered how to ski after all these years. And it was interesting that Marcia and I had never skied before. She kept remarking that she never knew how good of a skiier I was. Interesting that we have spent all these years with each other and there are still sometimes things that we don’t know about each other.

Very cool night. They all wanted to do it again. Eden wanted to spend the night. On the way home, we stopped at IHOP for breakfast at night. This morning, with 7 inches of snow on the ground, I took Liz to an early morning bus to NYC to spend a few days with her godfather. The rest of us have a snow day 🙂


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Signature Chumash

Signature Chumash on Flickr

This weekend was the inaugural weekend for Signature Chumash. Sean, my father, and I are running a league for 2nd grade boys, and we’re also having the Redshirts playing the sport. We are doing so at GoalsBaltimore, a new arena in Catonsville.

Signature Chumash at GoalsBaltimore

It was a blast for all involved. We ordered jerseys for the boys that would just pop. They remind me of the jerseys we wore in Canada when we played box lacrosse way back when. We played music while the kids played, and Sean and I ran the games. There was no coaching. There were no politics, and we were able to keep the negativity on the other side of the glass, and there wasn’t much of that anyway. A little carryover from the rec atmosphere, but thankfully I am able to get rid of that.

The kids just played, and they knew that they were playing for fun. They were not playing for their parents. They were playing for the enjoyment of the game.

Noah

When we put the teams together, I tried to make them as balanced as possible. There were several kids that I didn’t know, some that I knew as big, some that I knew as talented, and some that I suspected would be wallflowers. I tried to divide these up pretty evenly and also put Noah and Topher on the same team. When it was done, I traded the biggest kid on Noah’s team to a different team for a kid that I knew would be pretty small. I didn’t want’ Noah’s team to have any advantage.

Topher

At game time though, it turned out that the kids I didn’t know on Noah’s team was actually pretty good, and they ended up beating the other team 11-3.

Liz

When Liz played with the Redshirts, I could tell she was determined. She was determined to score. I have been telling her that she will need to score to be taken seriously as a feeder. So, she went out there on Sunday and scored a boatload of goals. Her team won 18-17. She had the tying and winning goals amongst her tallies.

More pics on Flickr


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Soccer goalie

Tomorrow, Noah plays in the championship game for his soccer league. He is 7 years old. And he is the team’s goalie.

I don’t remember having playoffs, sudden death matches and shootouts at age 7. Yet, that is what has been in store for the last week. Noah’s team has made it to the championship, winning the last game in double overtime. A few games have already gone to shootouts.

I do hope that he plays well and is confident in himself. My biggest worry is for a lack of sportsmanship. The outcome of a game will go one way or another. But how coaches treat the kids, how parents treat the kids, and most importantly, how players treat each other, has me hoping that the outcome is in my boy’s favor tomorrow. If things do break his way, I hope he has learned enough from me that he will treat his opponents with respect and congratulate them for a game well played.

Good luck, Noah. Your dad loves you no matter what!


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Finder of things

Noah has always been very adept at finding things.  Whenever we lose something around the house, he is very helpful in finding it.

For the last two days, George has been complaining about his lost flip flops.  Finally, today, I told him that, if he wanted to find it, he should just ask Noah.

So George asked Noah, and within 60 seconds, George had his flip flops back.  He found them so quickly that George joked that Noah must have been hiding them the last few days.

I asked Noah how he found them so fast.  He said that he looked in the room where his kids slept because they were probably in there.  And he found them under Piper’s bed.

I am continually impressed with my son, Noah.  And I am always proud of him.