To answer Russ's question, no in my opinion kids aren't outside playing games of much of anything anymore. It doesn't matter if it's basketball, baseball, or football. It's much easier to sit on the couch and play the video game and think it means something. I remember getting in trouble because we didn't want to come in the house, whining to mom because there was still daylight left. Somewhere along the line that script has gotten flipped, and now kids have to be forced to go outside. The seniors in '98 were our last class of kids that had a good understanding of sports as a whole. When you play everyday, even just pickup games, you learn the nuances of the game. We have to teach everything about the sport now, and it's weird for me, because somehow these were things I always just understood. I'm sure someone pointed us in the right direction at some point, but mostly we just played hard and figured things out on our own as we went along. For example, I was talking to the kids about baseball and the Brewer's struggles last season on a long September bus trip out to MN for a Big Ten football game. The conversation gradually turned to the struggles the highschool team has been having, which led me to ask questions about pitching. I was shocked to learn that they had no idea to try and work both sides of the plate, low and away, up and in and so on. The kids that pitched were "just trying to throw strikes" and the catchers basically let the pitchers call whatever they wanted. That was little league baseball, but by the time we were playing Babe Ruth that sort of mentality was gone. The simple truth is that if one doesn't play the game and one doesn't watch or listen to the games, then one doesn't know anything about the game. I don't want to comment on Soccer as my opinions would cause more trouble than it's worth. I also game and always have, but being good at the game for real always meant more to me than being good at the video game. Gaming was just an extension of the competition if it was raining or if we had to come inside for the night. Even when I was older and in high school, we'd game only when we didn't have other options.