I killed a deer on Saturday night driving home from the Lakeland/Ashland hockey season opener.

I was going only 55 on Highway 2 coming up to the Hwy 51 interchange in Hurley. Dawn was looking at the big mountain (or hill rather next to the road) and I glanced at some construction sign for about a second.

Then a doe literally jumped out from the side of the road and into my car. The doe hit my front right bumper (giving me only a four inch cut on my bumper -- that's it) and flew backwards 10 feet, snapping its neck on impact with the pavement, and flipped and twisted and slid through the snow along the side of the highway.

I drove back to see it, called it in to the Policija, and investigated the body myself. It's head was spun around, its leg bone went through the skin and fur, and there was very very very little blood -- if any.

Seriously, my damage is that of a car backing into me with a trailer hitch and this deer was all folded up like a pretzel.

Either way, it was pretty freaking cool. However, it ruins the fact that I had never been in an accident before... I knew, though, that moving up to the Northwoods would likely mean I would hit a deer before Christmas. However, I was gaining confidence when I saw how little the deer up here run across the road, compared to down in the south. In the south, they run all over, and routinely run into the side of people's cars. Up north, they usually just stand there in bewilderment of a car speeding by.

But yeah, I'm fine, my lady is fine, and my '02 Taurus is fine. Perla was being babysat at the time and missed the whole thing.

Just thought I'd throw that all out there....

My revised and ready for print column on AAU.
*note, when I first typed out my AAU column, I did it in the heat of the moment with no editing. After re-reading it, it kind of sucks and is somewhat hard to read at points. Here, I have developed some of my ideas and have done some editing on my own. However, it is not New York Times ready... That will come later... hahaha


AAU basketball is slowly ruining athletes and sports

AAU is slowly degrading sports.
I stand by that statement.
I grew up playing traveling team basketball in the mid 1990’s. Our team – started when we were in fifth grade and ran until eighth grade – was from our town, not from great players from around the area or state getting together to play. We played as a team representing our school and our town. This traveling team helped us grow together as a team and as friends before we got into high school.
I didn’t think it was that bad. I didn’t think any youth traveling teams (AAU) were bad until I started finding out just how much it costs to play AAU.
I’m glad, now, that my parents disliked it. It cost them loads of money. My team didn’t even play in tournaments in Las Vegas, Indy or St. Louis. We played in Evansville, Beloit, Madison and Oregon, WI.
We played area teams on Saturday’s and the occasional Sunday in the winter months. Our traveling teams didn’t keep us out and away from playing other sports or doing our homework. We had practice twice a week for about an hour and a half or so at a random gym in town.
However, in today’s world (the world of AAU), parents drive their kids many miles just to practice with kids from other schools. They do this year round.
Why?
So that the kids have 1/1000th of a better shot at playing college basketball? What’s the benefit then? The NBA? Not really.
For the amount of money that parents are pouring into AAU, be it into coaches, league, shoes, and tournaments (hotels, foot, gas, traveling expenses), the money they would save if they weren’t sending these kids everywhere would essentially pay for college.
I love college sports. I played baseball in college. There is a different commitment that you learn as a college athlete in order to handle both your sport and your schoolwork. That commitment is not taught outside of the school year during summer ball.
The only out-of-school league I played in during high school growing up was Legion baseball, in which whoever from our team wanted to keep playing some more played during the summer.
We didn’t play fall ball as other schools and teams do. We didn’t travel to Florida in December. And yet, some of us played college baseball.
With the AAU-fest of today’s world, we are ruining our children of being allowed to play what they want to play and to play just for the love of the game and the love of being with friends.
Kids used to be two or three-sport athletes. Today, those kids are rare. It’s especially worse in basketball.
Boys stay away from football because they don’t want to ruin their basketball career. They don’t want to disappoint their coach – or their parents.
The parents, the coaches, and the colleges. They are the ones who benefit. AAU makes the sport more of a chore to some, rather than a fun game.
Slowly but surely, our kids will be playing only one sport.
Why? Because otherwise no college will call on them. Lets face it, playing a college sport is the only way to live life, right?
Oh, it’s not?
Wait, you’re right, living your life through your child is what to do in case you failed growing up. So why not get your kid involved in AAU right away?
My daughter is 19 months old. Does anyone know if there is a local 2-year-old AAU basketball team in the area? It could sure teach her to love basketball, and it will help me pay for her college expenses.
Getting back to my original thoughts, I started “traveling team” when I was in 5th grade, the first year it was available to any one in the town. By the time I was in 8th, our town had it down to 3rd grade. Today, I’ve heard kindergarten and 1st graders are playing traveling and AAU hoops.
This is just wrong. Kids don’t develop their bodies until they’re are in their teenage years.
I had a teammate who was six feet tall in 6th grade. Guess what? He was 6’1” as a senior in high school. He went from a dominant post player during traveling ball into a guard/forward with an outside jump shot.
He didn’t even play basketball after his junior year of high school. I quit my sophomore year. I was wore out, and I was the one pushing myself.
My parents never pushed me to be the best basketball player I could be. They knew I loved to play, so they let me play. When I was done, I was done.
My little brother didn’t get into sports until he hit high school. He hated being dragged to every game of mine, or of our oldest brother.
When he hit high school, he realized that he could run – fast. He doesn’t have the eye-hand cooridnation to hit a 90 mph college fastball and he couldn’t juke a 200 pound linebacker – but he could run fast in a straight away, so he joined track and field.
Knowing that he is not a great “athlete,” he has since developed a love of sports that he didn’t have growing up when he was forced to go to all of my games.
Now I wish I hadn’t played every sport that I did. He is slowly becoming a good guy to talk to about sports, and he is relatively new to the subject.
I have a feeling this is happening more and more in the world than just in the Krebs household.
Until we as a community start to ease back on this whole “Let’s find the next Michael Jordan at age 7,” it is only going to get worse.
Despite my disgust for youth being exposed, I am a fan of the NBA drafting players out of high school. Many great players have come from there – Kobe, Kevin Garnett, LeBron, Amare Stoudamire, and Tracy McGrady.
But I am not a fan of recruiting and offering scholarships to players who are 14 (coughUSCcough).
We as a social group (or even the athletics commissions from around the states) need halt our kids from playing these sports all year long, each kid in America will turn into an exact replica of a kid in China: One kid plays basketball, one plays baseball, one does gymnastics, and the one who can’t do any works either in a rice paddy, toy factory, or jeans factory.
I was originally a fan of the AAU world. The idea is great: Give kids a chance to play all year round against other great players.
But since I’ve developed my brain and developed how to think for myself, I can see that the AAU cause in general is slowly taking away America’s truest sports hero – the all-around athlete.

--Tuesday, Nov. 13
My AAU Bitchfest

Ok, so I came across an interesting thread on WisSports.net. It is deleted now, but I made what I deemed a worthwhile post. And just to give you a bit of an unwanted tease, it was in the High School Girls Basketball forum...
--------------------------------------------
I went on to sat that AAU basketball is slowly degrading sports. I stand by that. I grew up playing traveling team basketball in the mid 90's. Our team was from our town, not from great players from around the area or state getting together to play. We played as a team. We played for our school. It helped us grow together as a team in school.
I didn't think it was that bad, until I started finding out just how much it costs to play AAU. I'm glad, now, that my parents hated it. It costed them loads of money. We didn't even play in tournaments in Las Vegas or Indy or St. Louis. We played in Evansville, Beloit, Madison and Oregon, WI.
We played area teams on Saturday's and the occasional Sunday in the winter months. Our traveling teams didn't keep us out and away from playing other sports or doing our homework. We had practice twice a week for about an hour and a half or so as a random gym in town.
However, in today's world (the world of AAU), parents drive their kids many miles just to practice with kids from other schools. They do this year round. Why? So that they have 1/1000th of a better shot at playing college ball? What's the benefit then? The NBA? Not really.
I love college sports. I played baseball in college. It's a different commitment than you learn outside of the school year. The only out-of-school league I played in growing up was Legion ball, in which whoever from our team wanted to keep playing played some more during the summer. We didn't play fall ball. We didn't travel to Florida in December.
With the AAU-fest of today's world, we are ruining our children of being allowed to play what they want to play and to just play for the love of the game and the love of being with friends. Kids used to be two or three-sport athletes. Today, those kids are rare. It's especially worse in basketball. Kids stay away from football because they don't want to ruin their basketball career. They don't want to disappoint their coach -- or their parents.
The parents, the coaches, the colleges... They are the ones who benefit. AAU makes the sport more of a chore to some, rather than a fun game.
Slowly but surely, our kids will be allowed to play only one sport. Why? Because otherwise no college will call on them. Because lets face it, playing a college sport is the only way to live life, right? Oh it's not? Wait, you're right, living your life through your child is what to do in case you failed. So why not get your kid involved in AAU?
My daughter is 18 1/2 months old. Does anyone know if there is a local 2-year-old AAU basketball team in the area?
I started "traveling team" when I was in 5th grade. By the time I was in 8th, our town had it down to 3rd grade. Today, I've heard kindergarten and 1st graders are playing traveling and AAU ball... This is just wrong. Kids don't develop their bodies until their are in their teens.
I had a kid on my team who was 6' tall in 6th grade. Guess what? He was 6'1" as a senior in high school. He went from a dominant post player into a 2/3 guard player with a jump shot. He didn't even play basketball after his junior year of high school. I quit my sophomore year. I was wore out, and I was the one pushing myself!
Until we start to ease back on this whole "Let's find the next great star at age 7," it's only going to get worse.
I am a fan of the NBA drafting players out of high school. Many great players have come from there -(Kobe, KG, LeBron, Amare Stoudamire, T-Mac). But I am not a fan of recruiting and offering scholarships to players who are 14 (coughUSCcough).
Until we as a social group (or even the athletics commissions from around the states) halt our kids from playing these sports all year long, each kid in America will turn into an exact replica of a kid in China: One plays basketball, one plays baseball, one does gymnastics, and the one who can't do either works either in a rice paddy, toy factory, or jeans factory.
I was originally a fan of the AAU world. But since I've developed my brain and developed how to think, I can see that the AAU cause in general is slowly taking away America's truest sports hero -- the all-around athlete.

Sorry for the delay... I've had a hella busy week...
However, here is my column that will appear in this Friday's Lakeland Times edition (11-9-07)

Throughout the years I’ve learned the WIAA is laughable
By Adam Krebs of The Lakeland Times
When someone asks me what I think of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA), I usually just look them in the eye and sputter a quick, “Ha.”
Not much more is needed in my opinion.
That one syllable giggle defines the joke that I have come to realize about the WIAA. After this past fall sports season, the reasonings throughout the state are obvious.
Originally, the WIAA, like the NCAA and other scholastic athletic conferences, were companies based off helping students learn grow and prosper in life. That’s what high school sports are all about – learning teamwork, discipline, hard work, fair play and sportsmanship.
The WIAA is here to, in my personal opinion, service the young ladies and gentleman of our state. I don’t mind paying the big whigs in Stevens Point to service students, but I do mind when the service becomes tedious and politically driven towards money like the NCAA.
In the football season alone, they as an organization have floundered numerous programs and schools from giving the athletes a fair shot at bringing home the title as “Best team in Wisconsin.”
It all started with the seedings for this year’s football playoffs.
The WIAA was over an hour late in posting the seedings and brackets. Granted, the WIAA is usually late, so it didn’t surprise me as much as it upset me, considering I needed to reach a deadline and tell you fine readers which division and bracket Lakeland played in, and who they were to play.
Being late didn’t bother me. What did bother me was when Winnebago Lutheran Academy (WLA) informed the WIAA of illegal actions.
WLA had used a freshman as a kicker at all three levels during the season, which is a no-no in Wisconsin high school football.
The news came out before the early afternoon, and the WIAA could have somewhat have revamped the brackets.
However, to their credit, they couldn’t take out Team A and just plug in Team B. They would have had to have gone to the list of playoff qualifiers to see which was the next team to get in.
The qualifiers would have changed, though, because of the newly forfeited games of WLA, but a team still would have had to emerge as the top candidate to fill their spot.
A new set of playoff brackets could have been set by late Friday night, if not Saturday morning.
Even on the WIAA’s website, there is a spot in the rules that states: The WIAA football playoff field shall consist of 224 teams.
Unfortunately, the next team to get in was in a different division. Instead of just fixing the Division IV bracket alone, they would have had to plug a team into Division III, drop a team to D-IV, and then a domino effect would take place for all the smaller divisions.
The WIAA decided against making the tournament fair by allowing the next best team to get in (either Horicon or Marinette) and instead just dropped the spot and awarded WLA’s playoff opponent, Kettle Moraine Lutheran, a bye in the first week.
Of the 223 teams in the pool, 222 had to prepare for their next opponent in just three days time. Kettle Moraine Lutheran was given eight days. Fair? Apparently so in the eyes of the seemingly lazy WIAA.
Kettle Moraine is still in the playoffs, and will be facing Somerset in the semi-finals, who just beat Tomahawk in the Elite Eight.
Last year, your very own Lakeland Thunderbirds were in the semi-finals, only to lose the game to Waupaca at Thom Field in Wausau.
This year, because of rules in regards to how many home games a team can host in the playoffs, Lakeland (the fourth seed) was set to take on the number two seed, Menomonie, at home.
However, a Menomonie protest had the game moved to Wausau. Personally, I feel that the third level of the playoffs should be played on a neutral field, regardless of records. However, because of the WIAA’s rules, Lakeland originally should have been granted a home game.
The game was moved to Thom Field. Menomonie had said that LUHS could not have accountable bleacher space for the some 2,000 or more fans the Indians would bring. Also noted as possible liabilities at LUHS: bad, torn up field (as seen in the sloppy, rainy River Falls game), travel time (186 miles, compared to Lakeland’s 190 to Tomah), and other political tidings that Menomonie could get away with, seeing as they are a perennial state football powerhouse.
The WIAA bit at the bait of possibly turning in a huge profit at the gate for the game, and moved the game to Wausau, which took away any sort of home-field advantage for Lakeland.
Not only did the game get moved, which upset every on the Lakeland coaching staff and team, but the officials hired for the game are not known throughout the area (or even the state) as top-end officials.
I don’t like to harp on high school officiating, because those men work on their own time and do it for the love of the game. That and they are a lot further from perfect that college or NFL coaches are.
However, in this Division II game, the officials showed why they were not looked at very positively.
Numerous times throughout the game, the officials wouldn’t signal that a play was dead until a player fell to the ground. However, in accordance with the safety rules, once a player is stopped and forward momentum has halted, blow the whistle to prevent injury.
Throughout the game, the officials failed to blow the whistle in regards to safety. The calls weren’t just against Lakeland, but against Menomonie as well.
This led to one of the worst blown calls I have witnessed in the history of my life.
Lakeland’s Billy Kuchler was stopped on a first down play at Menomonie’s 40 yard line with just over five minutes to play in the game. Lakeland was trailing by five points.
The refs never blew the whistle.
Two refs, though, did rummage through the pile after Kuchler had been thrown to the ground, five yards back from when progress was stopped, and were looking for the ball. Another ref was spotting forward progress with his foot.
Another ref slowly walked in to make sure everyone was alright and no one was injured. Lakeland head coach Don Scharbarth was already giving his quarterback the next play.
All of a sudden, the whistle no one had heard finally blew – at the south endzone.
Apparently, when Kuchler was being carried up and down Bridge Street by Menomonie's front seven, a defensive back joined Ocean’s 11’s crew and stole the ball and made it to the 20 yard line before anyone in the stadium knew it.
Not a single ref blew the ball dead and returned the players to the northern half of the 50. Instead, they slowly trotted downfield and set the ball up for an extra point.
No explanation was given to Lakeland. I’m pretty sure not one official, outside of signalling one of many unsportsmanlike penalties against the T-birds, looked towards Lakeland’s bench for any reason.
Not only was this a terrible call, but earlier in the game another call was blown.
After Lakeland scored their first touchdown, Menomonie had a third down and long from the far side of the 50. Menomonie threw the ball through the spotty T-bird defensive backfield and completed a pass.
Cory Kuchler hit the receiver so hard, the ball flew out of the wide out’s hands.
The ball flew into the endzone and rolled out of bounds – thus meaning an turnover and touchback in which Lakeland would be on offense at their own 20 yard line.
The official said that the ball didn’t come out until after the player was ruled out of bounds, which is a far cry from the truth. What happened was Kuchler hit the player in bounds, about a yard from the sideline, and on impact of hitting the Indian, the ball came out, landed fairly, and trickled out of the endzone.
Because of this bluster, Menomonie got the ball at Lakeland’s four and scored with three minutes to play in the half, leading 14-7.
Lakeland went down the field and kicked a field goal to trail 14-10 at the half. However, had the TD been erased, the score could have been 10-6 in favor of Lakeland – a huge momentum changer with LUHS getting the ball to start the second half.
By my count, Menomonie was given 14 points in the ball game, which would have made the final score 17-14 Lakeland (in theory).
I cannot say that Lakeland would have scored if Billy Kuchler’s fumble had been called back, but I do believe the citizens of the Northwoods will forever be entrusted with a “What if” debate on this very football game.
How much did Menomonie’s politics play in the game?
The field was changed, the conditions were changed, and the game may have been altered.
Oh yeah, Menomonie exaggerated a little bit in their estimation of the number of Indian fans – by about 1,200 people.
Either way, the game, the location, and the playoffs were not found to be consensual in my eyes.
I can’t wait to see what the WIAA will rig up for the winter sports season.
Adam Krebs can be reached at akrebs@lakelandtimes.com.