Dear Kid,

Have you heard the latest about college football players? The Chicago NLRB (National Labor Relations Board) ruled that college football players (specifically the players at Northwestern) are employees of the university. And therefore that they are allowed to form a union. Possibly even a more perfect union.

The players (and player advocacy groups of which there are a surprising number) are tickled pink. The school (and other colleges of which there are an unsurprising number) are not a bit amused.

Part of the statement from Northwestern read “Northwestern believes strongly that our student-athletes are not employees, but students.” As if being students and employees are mutually exclusive, which—duh—they are not.

The NCAA, knowing who supplies the butter for its bread, gave the ruling a thumbs down. Then again, the NCAA has a lot on its “we’re being sued” plate and claims it didn’t order dessert so please make this go away. Not likely.

The whole issue is muddy at the moment. There will be appeals. The ruling (basically) only applies to private colleges at the moment, and most football factories are state schools. There will also be questions (the kind you put off answering until the very last minute of the exam) about what players will demand when, as, and if they unionize. Current speculation is they will not be asking for money (because that could raise bigger problems like ineligibility) but instead will want things like better health coverage and better protection from head injuries. And probably an extra serving of butter on their bread.

I find the whole conversation fascinating. I suspect there will be many, many changes in college sports (did I mention the NCAA is facing a lot of law suits?) over the next few years. Probably none of those changes will result in female mascots, but they could result in a better situation for the players and the colleges. (Yes, I believe there are ways everyone can win if only people will sit down together and think rather than yell at each other in capital letters and giant red magic markers.)

Unfortunately, it seems more likely that the lawyers will get rich while the universities and the NCAA go kicking and screaming through the process.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Well, not too surprisingly, it turns out that I know even less about basketball than I thought I did. Also not surprisingly, Grandma has Provided Information.

There is such a thing as donkey basketball. It is generally played as a halftime entertainment-slash-fundraiser at a school game. Participants (sometimes students, sometimes teachers, sometimes firefighters, etc.) ride (or attempt to ride) the donkeys and play basketball.  Our district (being as how we are in the greater Cincinnati area and Way Behind the Times) has not (to the best of my knowledge) partaken in this particular event.

Of course, donkey basketball has been around since the 1930s and Cincinnati isn’t really an entire century behind.

“When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it’s always twenty years behind the times.” Mark Twain

I’m guessing that our athletic director never heard that donkey hooves are great basketball court floor conditioners.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Well, it’s March Madness.

SUNY Albany lost to Florida to the accompaniment of much yelling at the TV.This surprised pretty much no one as Albany was ranked dead last and Florida was ranked considerably higher (#1 is considerably higher than #last).

Almost all the Ohio teams lost as well. This surprised many people and broke many brackets. (It is considered unlucky to have your bracket broken as it means you will not win $1 billion. But don’t feel bad–the odds of creating a perfect bracket are one in nine quintillion* which are pretty big odds. Then throw in that these are college players and you’re better off betting on finding two identical snowflakes.)

Meanwhile, people who did not bet on March Madness will make all sorts of overdone bracket jokes on Facebook { }.

March Madness continues until April 5. Which means our television will take a lot more abuse over the next few weeks. (I wonder if I need to report TV abuse…)

The first NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was in 1939 and had only eight teams. Now there are some number just short of a quintillion.

Sportswriters are having fun writing about a potential Cinderella Story, wherein a low ranked team might win. It is lovely that they are (correctly) assuming that predicting the winner is a fairy tale, but ever so wrong in the particulars. Basketball players almost always keep both shoes on their feet, the shoes have no heel to speak of, and while the shorts they wear these days are voluminous they will never be confused with a ballgown. Sportswriters clearly are not focused on fashion.

That pretty much exhausts my knowledge about basketball in general and March Madness in particular. Maybe I can find a guest blogger to write something useful as we get farther into the tournament. Or not.

Tanner is graduating today. Be sure to send Auntie M a congratulatory text.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Once upon a time, people ran to get away from hungry, annoyed lions and hungry, annoyed mothers. They also ran to catch food so their mothers wouldn’t be hungry or (as) annoyed.

Then the Greeks discovered that even without lions or mothers in the immediate vicinity, people could run long distances to deliver messages. The runners sometimes died at the end, but that was ok because they invented the marathon and that’s something to be proud of.

The modern fitness movement was born when people discovered that by running you got to wear skimpy little outfits and look at other runners in skimpy little outfits. Also, you didn’t go too far so if you really had to take a cab home at the end it wasn’t too expensive.

Since running is boring (as my son would say, that is a fact not an opinion), people decided to get competitive about it. One way was by wearing cuter and more expensive outfits and shoes. Another was running 5Ks, 10Ks, and the Boston Marathon. Still another approach was to get tested and brag about test numbers at the Apres Run Adult Beverage Gathering.

Enter the VO2 max test, generally considered the Big Kahuna of fitness testing.

Official Definition
VO2 max (also maximal oxygen consumption, maximal oxygen uptake, peak oxygen uptake or maximal aerobic capacity) is the maximum rate of oxygen consumption as measured during incremental exercise. It is measured as “milliliters of oxygen used in one minute per kilogram of body weight.”

Basic, Easy to Understand Explanation
During exercise, an athlete needs oxygen. As the intensity of exercise goes up, athletes use more oxygen–up to a point. There is a point at which oxygen consumption plateaus even if the exercise intensity increases. This plateau is the VO2 max. The longer it takes to get there (the higher your VO2 number), the more fit you are. (More or less.)

Why don’t we all get tested?
First of all, true VO2 tests are expensive.

Secondly, it hurts. Not in the I-just-got-a-boo-boo-now-it’s-all-better way, more like please-shoot-me-now-and-remind-me-to-never-ever-do-this-again way. Somewhere around the point you get close your max, your body begins to object (and you can’t pay attention or you’ll mess up the whole test). Then your body goes from aerobic metabolism to anaerobic metabolism at which point everything goes south muscularly speaking. Muscle fatigue and failure, build up of lactic acid, feeling that your lungs are going to explode, and other (less joyful) experiences. Yum. You’ve got to really want it.

VO2 Factoids

• The average untrained healthy male will have a VO2 max of approximately 35–40 mL. The average untrained healthy female will score a VO2 max of approximately 27–31 mL.
• Training may double VO2 max in some individuals, and will never improve it in others. Since having a bigger heart significantly increases VO2 max, the Grinch became much more fit when his heart grew three sizes. (Never thought of the Grinch as an exercise icon, did you?)
• Elite male runners can consume up to 85 mL, and female elite runners can consume about 77 mL. Five time Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain is reported to have had a VO2 max of 88.0 at his peak, while cross-country skier Bjørn Dæhlie measured at 96 mL.
• But don’t be too impressed. Siberian dogs running in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race have VO2 values as high as 240 mL. Woof.
• Studies show that sedentary people can improve their VO2 max by over 20% by running a minimum of 25 miles per week at high intensity. No thank you.

So if you should happen to encounter a VO2 max test, bring your sneakers, your big heart, and your mental toughness. You’ll need all three.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid,

Hope you are enjoying Spring(ish) Break so far. In honor of the icy weather we went to see the Cincinnati Cyclones play last Saturday night.

It was pink in the rink night for the Pink Ribbon Girls (fabulous women). We had pink glow sticks, the players had pink and black jerseys (j’adore!), and the Cyclones pulled out a win in a shoot out (Pi and I love shoot outs so we were all happy).

Which ever group was working the concessions must have had a good night too, because I paid $4 for a bottle of water, because of course a bottle of water should cost $4. Yeesh.

More importantly, the ice was pink and excuse me but how entirely cool was that? Extremely cool and kudos to the Ice Crew (yes, there really is such a group).

Pink ice of course led to the question “how do they do that?” and while I love you dearly I decided to go to a higher source for information. I even went higher than My Friend The Internet. I went to Sean Lynn of the Cyclones who exceeded All Expectations by answering me on a Sunday when he should have been hoarding $4 bottles of water for Winter Storm Titanic and the impending Ice Doom.

According to Sean:

The ice is painted with a giant wand sprayer with pink ice paint. It starts with one coat and once that coat dries an additional coat will be added. It usually takes a few coats. Once the pink appears even and our ice crew is happy with the color, the remainder of the evening is spent locking in the pink color by building layers of clear water/ice on top of it. By creating these additional clear layers, the pink is able to show through and last the entire game. To remove the pink, we will use the zamboni to do a series of dry cuts. This will slowly remove the clear layers and eventually the pink layers revealing the ice surface that we are accustom to for all other games.

Which was a great (and speedy) answer (and proved how smart you are) and I thanked him muchly and–wait, Ice Paint? Makes sense, but what is ice paint?

Unsurprisingly, you can’t use regular paint on an ice rink. I have asked the JetIce people (they make ice paint) for some more information, but unlike Sean they weren’t sitting around waiting to answer my questions. So I’ll get back to you when I know more.

Sean also suggested we watch this video about how they make hockey rink ice.

Have a wonderfully, colorful day, sweetie.

Love, Mom

Dear Mom,

What’s with the goat?

Love, Your Kid

(but not the only one, the only one)

Dear Kid,

I’m so glad you asked. (I was going to tell you anyway.)

Can you figure out which one is my #1 All Time Favorite?

In Green Eggs and Ham (probably the third best Dr. Seuss book as measured by the My-Opinion-Meter), Sam-I-Am offers green eggs and ham with a goat or on a boat. Imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, I opted to copycat both the boat (since you were on the crew team) and goat (because it rhymes).

Then I got thinking about the goat and realized that if your school had a goat as a mascot it would have made my (rhyming) life easier. (And by “easier” I mean “make more sense.”)

The only college that has a goat as a mascot (that I could find) is the US Naval Academy whose mascot is Bill The Goat.

But Bill was not always the USNA mascot. The original mascot was the Navy Monkey (which was actually a gorilla) because monkeys were then Secretary of the Navy George Bancroft’s favorite animal. Bill the Goat replaced the monkey in 1893 and for a few years there was mascot confusion (two cats, a bulldog, and a carrier pigeon each had turns) but Bill has reigned alone since 1904.

Why a Goat?

Ah, yes.

For many a moon (also many a century), ships sailed with livestock (especially goats). Goats provided fresh milk and butter (indirectly) and were the furry equivalent of a garbage disposal. They were also useful for disposing of trolls but there weren’t many trolls on the high seas as they tended to live under bridges at the time.

Bill the Goat (of USMA fame) has a habit of being kidnapped (even though he’s a full grown goat). The only napping I support involves REM sleep so if you’re interested you’ll have to go look it up yourself.

Love, Mom

Know any other schools with goat mascots? Let me know!