Football Returns To Washington!

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Created: 07 December 2021

FOOTBALL RETURNS TO WASHINGTON (for now?)

By

Chuck Cascio

(chuckwrites@yahoo.com)

      There is a football team again in Washington! 

     Yeah, it does not have a nickname or an official mascot. 

     Yeah, it seems to be an underdog no matter where or when it plays. 

     Yeah, the franchise management’s reputation has recently been soiled by accusations of various unacceptable activities. 

     Yeah, the team's record from 2013-2020 was a dismal 48-79-1.

     Yeah, the team "won" its division in 2020 with a record of 7 wins and 9 losses (thanks to the absurdly weak Giants, Cowboys, and Eagles!) and had a four-game winning streak after losing 7 of its first 9 games.

     And, yeah, this could all turn around and go down the slide by the time you read this. 

     But let's put all of that aside for a couple of minutes and go back to that first statement: There is a football team again in Washington! 

Logo by SportsLogos.Net 

     Four wins in a row, winning against some teams that most fans thought would solidify Washington in the loss column and guarantee another season of frustration, weakness, and just plain poor play. Instead, the Washington Football Team seems to have found something. 

     Call it determination--they never seem to quit anymore. 

     Call it physicality--they hit hard, run fast, jump high, and treat each play as a personal challenge. 

     Call it coaching--Ron Rivera and his assistants have clearly studied opponents deeply, identified opponents' weaknesses, and conveyed to their players how to capitalize on them. 

     Call it execution--the offense runs its plays with confidence, maintaining possession of the ball long enough to frustrate opponents into making errors; the defense reads opponents' plays with a mixture of intelligence and brutality; and the special teams know what they are expected to do and how to do it...such as, yeah, making extra points and field goals again! 

     Yeah, they have still given up 51 points more than they have scored and 80 more yards than gained versus opponents, but those deficits are largely rooted in games earlier in the season. 

     Progress is progress, so look at quarterback Taylor Heinicke, who was released by four other teams before signing with Washington in what was supposed to be a backup position to Ryan Fitzpatrick. Heinicke now has more than 2,800 yards passing, shows guts when running, and displays increasing smarts when having to throw the ball away. 

     Look at running back Antonio Gibson, who has 800 rushing yards and over 200 more receiving.

     Look at receiver Terry McLaurin with over 800 yards receiving. 

     Look at a defense that is improving in rushing opposing quarterbacks, racking up key tackles, and mixing up coverage enough to consistently confuse opponents. 

     All of this with some key players--Landon Collins, Brandon Scherff, Chase Roulier, Jonathan Bostic, and others--dealing with injuries. 

     Room for improvement? Always.

     Is the WFT the best team in the NFL? Probably not. 

     Will they go to the Super Bowl? Not likely. 

     But the point is the quality of play is noticeably improving almost every week. The players are supporting one another during on-field action and on the sidelines. And, yeah, the team is fun to watch again! 

     So, let the future of the WFT bring what it will bring! 

     Maybe some frustrating losses? 

     Maybe a new, appropriate nickname? 

     Maybe an intelligent culture within the management ranks? 

     And maybe, just maybe...even more of that on-field determination, more of the positive team attitude, and, YEAH, more of those wins! 

     And, yeah, all of that makes WFT=Washington's Fun Team (again)!

Readers’ thoughts always welcome: Write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com

Copyright: Chuck Cascio; all rights reserved.

Excerpt from THE FIRE ESCAPE STORIES, Vol. II

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Created: 22 November 2021

By Chuck Cascio

     On that Friday in November 1963, the final high school football game of the season was canceled.

     On that Friday, Ginny wept out loud as she sat next to me on the bus ride home from school; except for her cries and a few other kids sniffling or whispering, the bus was silent.

     On that Friday, my mother and I watched the nonstop news from Dallas in disbelief, in quiet, in fear, wondering what it meant for our country, our president shot, reaching for his throat, gasping for life, his wife standing in the accelerating convertible groping for something—her husband? her safety? her future?

     On that Friday, my father called from work to say that he did not know when he would be home again, that we should be careful but strong, that we should pray, that we should know that he was thinking about us, loving us, even as he did whatever his job demanded to help deal with the situation, to help settle the country, to help provide some degree of sanity to a world suddenly gone mad....

      I looked out at the back yard blanketed in darkness. A small light shone on Ginny’s porch, so I went outside to see what it was. Someone moved in the narrow stream of light. “Ginny?” I called softly across the yard.

     “Yes, Mike, it’s me,” she said, shining a flashlight toward me. “Meet me.”

     We met where our yards touched.

     “You okay?” I asked. 

     She had been holding the flashlight toward the ground, but now she turned it to her face, revealing a bruised, swollen eye. “He did it,” she said. “Randy. He said I was a ‘queer’ for cryin over a dead president....  When I didn’t stop cryin, he punched me. I got one good scratch on his face ’fore Paw grabbed him and threw him out the house. Maw, she started cryin and put ice on my eye. She tol’ Paw he’s gonna have to do somethin ’bout Randy, else she’s gonna take me and move out.” Ginny looked at me, the flashlight’s beam illuminating the colors of her bruise like a flashing pinwheel. “I don’t want to move, but I jest can’t keep gettin punched. I don’t want to fight like a scared animal ’most every day. And I don’t want the president to be dead, Mike. It’s jest not right that he’s dead.”...

     The Thursday following that Friday in November was Thanksgiving. My father still had not been home, so my mother and I rode a quiet train from DC to New York and then took the subway to Brooklyn. In the small tenement apartment with Uncle Sal, Capricia, and Sally-Boy, we ate turkey and sweet potatoes, none of the Italian fare we normally consumed. Nor was there the usual noise and loud talk that went along with our dinners together. The world was still somber, contemplating what it had witnessed, the assassination, the swearing in, the arrest, the murder of the president’s assassin on live television while in police custody, the new president, the unanswered questions. 

     Still, during the Thanksgiving dinner, an occasional laugh slipped in, a warm gesture, a kiss.  My father called in the middle of dinner to say that he would be home when we returned to Virginia that weekend. He had my mother give the phone to each person individually, and he told everyone, including Sally-Boy, that he loved them and gave assurances that things would be okay.

     On the fire escape after dinner, Sally-Boy and I each nibbled a piece of Thanksgiving pumpkin pie....

     “I don’t get it,” he said. “He’s up in a building. He sticks a rifle outta the window. He spots the president’s car comin. He makes three shots. Boom! Boom! Boom! President’s head blows apart. That guy was a hulluva shot. I don’t get it. Wish I could shoot like that.”

     “Why? What are you going to shoot?”

     “I don’t know. Not the president. Some bad guys. There’s always some bad guys to fight.”

     “Did you like the president, Sally?”

     “Yeah, sure, I guess. I mean, I don’t really give a shit ’cause the stuff the president does, it don’t really matter to me. Tomorrow it’ll be a week since he got blown away. It’s too bad, sure, but, hey, I’m still here, and I got stuff to do.”

     “We all do,” I said, wondering if that Friday in November actually changed the world at all...

...the Friday that I thought affected everyone...

...the Friday that brought daily life to a halt...

...the Friday that channeled horror directly into our homes...

...the Friday that would eventually merge into a lifetime of other Fridays.

     That Friday.

Readers' thoughts always welcome: Send to chuckwrites@yahoo.com

Coffee-Shop Kids...and Hope

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Created: 04 November 2021

COFFEE-SHOP KIDS…AND HOPE

By

Chuck Cascio

www.chuckwrites@yahoo.co

     Kids. All ages. They wander into the coffee shop daily after school. They meet sometimes to sip a beverage but often just to interact informally with one another. 

     Mostly, they laugh. They occasionally talk about a project--from school or something to do at home or an idea blossoming from their fertile imagination, the latter prompting infectious chatter among them.

     Yes, they are often loud, but their energy is inspiring. It provides me with some much-needed hope. Hope that the disruption our society is currently experiencing will be addressed by the youth of today in their own way. 

     Will that way be different from, say, the ways of previous generations?  Of course. Because that is how change occurs. That is why my music-loving parents had a hard time understanding the appeal of the raucous rock-and-roll of my youth as compared with the melodious songs of Sinatra and Dino and the opera arias that wafted throughout our home. They came to realize, perhaps reluctantly, that what they were hearing was not “wrong.” It was just what fit a new generation.

     After all, the appeal of what affects life morphs from one generation to the next. The coffee-shop kids look different from the kids of my youth, just as the long-haired males and mini-skirted females of my generation looked different from the "more appropriately" attired youths of my parents' generation. But that does not mean the kids of today are inherently “wrong.”

     The coffee-shop kids exhibit their intelligence and creativity without even being fully aware that they are doing so. 

     So what if they burst out laughing at some image on a mobile device that one of them shares with the others? 

     So what if they actually talk with their in-person group while simultaneously texting other friends who are elsewhere? 

     It is their energy, creative conversation, and commitment to one another in the informal, after-school, coffee-shop setting that impresses me. 

     But...why do I need hope? Why do I need to wish that what I am seeing is evidence of the reality in which they think...and love...and live? 

     I do not pretend to have answers to those questions, but there are restrictive elements that surround kids today that I find disturbing.  Sure, kids have to understand that there are limits to what is--and should be--considered acceptable. That has been true with every generation, but those things change over time. 

     There is harm in not just letting kids meet and interact and play…as kids. Those informal freedoms result in their own internal guidance and decisions that will lead our society in the future. Suppressing those freedoms will only suppress the creativity that leads to positive changes.

     If in today's world it takes a coffee shop to provide that free, creative environment, then, by all means, I welcome it. Bring on the coffee. Bring on the change. But bring it on freely by letting the coffee-shop kids be, and think, and create with some degree of trust and independence.

Reader response is always welcome. Send to chuckwrites@yahoo.com.

Copyright: Chuck Cascio; all rights reserved.

MAKING 9/11 A LASTING LESSON

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Created: 09 September 2021

MAKING 9/11 A LASTING LESSON

by

Chuck Cascio

     That morning is etched forever in our memories. 

     The first report: A plane has crashed into a building at the World Trade Center. The immediate reaction: This sad, tragic accident will cost countless lives. 

     And then the second plane hits. Another realization: This is not an accident. This is an attack. This is terrorism inflicted upon innocent people in the airplanes and inside two beautiful buildings that highlight the New York Skyline. 

     And then the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. 

     How did you react when you heard? What did you say? What were you doing? 

     My sister and her husband, living in TriBeca just blocks away from the smoldering buildings, evacuated their residence and ran uptown amid the swarm of people, the screams, the ashes, the horrified confusion. 

     I was in the midst of opening a meeting of my new team in my Princeton, NJ, office, when the meeting was interrupted by an associate who called me aside and tearfully told me of the plane crashes, of the World Trade Center buildings aflame, of people jumping out of windows in desperate attempts to be "saved."     

     I stopped the meeting. My new team and I went to a room where we watched and gasped in disbelief at the horrors unfolding on television. 

     The unthinkable. The sense of helplessness. The fear I felt about being unable to reach my sister and her husband whose phones were not working, only to find out later that they were safe. I telephoned my wife and other family members just miles from the flaming Pentagon, and heard from others who were concerned about my own safety. 

     Six weeks after the attacks, my wife and I visited the smoldering space in New York where the Towers once stood. Vast emptiness. Soot still drifting. Ash still smothering the streets and shops, small and large alike. 

      Some things we just do not forget. We hope we learn from those things. 

     What did we learn from September 11, 2001? The instinctive search for the safety of family. The horrifying awareness of the innocent death of others. The sense that we must take steps to ensure our own safety, the safety of those we love, and the safety of strangers. We learned that heroism is real. And we know that deep pain still lingers for many people directly affected by that day. 

     So we should consider the lessons of 9/11 as more than memories. We should act upon those lessons whenever we see those memories emerging again in reality, albeit in different forms both large and small. By doing so, our memories emerge as active lessons...lessons that will help bring a positive meaning to that tragic day.

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(Feel free to email me with your thoughts: chuckwrites@yahoo.com. If you would like to submit a blog piece of your for possible publication on “Blog On!” please query me at the same email address. No work that you submit will be posted without your prior approval, and you will retain all copyright ownership. Submission of query and/or submission of a piece for consideration is NOT a guarantee of publication.)

Copyright: Chuck Cascio; all rights reserved.

THE CHALLENGES OF 2021 AS WE OPEN SCHOOLS

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Created: 23 August 2021

(The following piece by Elizabeth Arons, CEO of the Urban Schools Human Capital Academy, was also shared with Bellwether Education Partners.—Chuck Cascio)

THE CHALLENGES OF 2021 AS WE OPEN SCHOOLS

by

Elizabeth Arons

Chief Executive Officer

Urban Schools Human Capital Academy (www.ushcacademy.org)

earons@theushca.org

August is typically always the most challenging time for any public school district Human Resources/Human Capital/Talent Management office as the district gets ready to open schools. But in a “normal” year, these challenges are mostly predictable.  Districts can usually estimate the number of resignations and retirements of staff based on previous hiring years.  They often hire early, predicting roughly the same number of vacancies as in past years.  They also can estimate predictable leave of absence requests, likely numbers of new substitute teacher candidates, staffing needs based on class size ratios, and the list goes on.  

But this year is different.  Only a few months ago, it appeared the Covid-19 showed signs of waning.  Then the Delta variant took hold.   And HR/Talent departments nationwide are challenged in ways never before imagined.

Here are at least a few of the dilemmas causing HR/HC/Talent departments in school districts to be stuck:  

·      Will there be a larger number of vacancies as some teachers, especially those nearing retirement, decide not to return to in-person learning?  

·      Or will there be fewer vacancies or need for new hires if significant numbers of students have left the district or opt for remote learning?  

·      Should a district even offer the option of remote learning to accommodate those students who did better in that environment, or should they require all students to return to in-person learning, which many experts think is essential to better student outcomes. 

·      If they do offer remote learning, do the subject fields match the teachers who are requesting to teach remotely?  

·      How many teachers, principals, counselors, bus drivers, food service workers, etc.will apply for leaves of absence, fearing exposure to the virus, especially among younger, unvaccinated children?  

·      Should the district require vaccination for all employees, like a number of businesses are now doing?  If not, what happens if a staff member contracts the illness and exposes everyone, students included, to the disease. 

·      All things considered, should HR hire up or should they lay off employees?  

Those of us who support and advise Departments of Human Resources are equally challenged.  In pre-pandemic years, we have always advised them to “overhire” a bit at the start of the school year, anticipating last-minute vacancies or leaves of absence.  We also push hard to hire earlier in the Spring, when the candidate pools are largest and the applicants are better qualified.  HR has always had significant difficulty filling critical shortage fields – math, science, special education, Spanish, bilingual, computer science, etc.  – because traditional Schools of Education at colleges and universities don’t produce them. And to make matters worse, Schools of Education have been declining in enrollments for several years – down 15% - causing some urban and rural districts whom we serve to scramble even for typically oversubscribed fields like Elementary and Social Studies. 

Teachers have been significantly stressed during the pandemic, shifting rapidly to remote learning without adequate training, guidance, or revised materials.  Some adapted quickly, others were struggling the entire year.  In addition to shifting to remote instruction, many had a hybrid model, teaching some students in-person and simultaneously teaching others at home.  One of the most compelling reasons teachers stay in the profession is the love they have for interaction with their students, but that reason was certainly diminished during remote learning.  And as we look forward to school opening, the Delta variant is now challenging the likelihood that in-person learning will be the only mode of instruction for all students.  In addition to all the staffing challenges, most districts are gearing up for mental health issues that have been impacted during the pandemic for both staff and students, including loss of family members and friends to the disease.

While many of the districts we serve have been back to in-person learning this past year, the Delta variant has proven to be more contagious and presents even greater challenges than the original Covid-19 virus.  We wish we had easy answers to opening schools this year, answers to help guide our hard-working HR/HC/Talent divisions nationwide.  But our organization, like so many others, is taking one day at a time, following the science and hoping that once schools are open, all students and staff can adjust to whatever the circumstances are and stay safe.  

(For more information and updates on important education issues, visit www.ushcacademy.org or www.bellwethereducation.org)

(Copyright: Elizabeth Arons, all rights reserved.)