Not figuring it out

It's frustrating to be at the end of a season and know now all the things I should have done as a coach this year. I'm in my third year as a head coach, and for some reason I'm still not getting it quite like I should. Or maybe this is the best one can do at the end of a season. All I know is that I wrote the passes for 2:30, and I got to the locker room at 2:45 and no one was dressed yet. I got out to the field at 3:00 and the kids were still not quite ready to be in their stretch circle and start playing catch. The opponent showed up before we got our warmups done, completely eliminating that aspect of our home advantage. I laid into them after the game about it, but the damage was done.

My two other coaches today were thrown out during the game. I've never had such a combative umpire. I told him, "You're the most combative, most eager-to-throw-someone out umpire we've had every year. Why do you have such a thin skin?" and then turned away to walk away, and he told me, "If you keep walking away from me, you're out of the game." Yup, so I'm walking away, doing my best to avoid a conflict, and that's going to get me tossed? I'm going to report his sorry ass to the league commisioner.

As you can pretty much discern, it was a shitty day to be a baseball coach today. It was also a fairly shitty day to be an English teacher, as the Math department bogarted half of my kids to take some sort of practice HSA. This pretty much completely obliterated my lesson plans, and I'm going to have to reteach half the class - and they all happen to be the worst students I have - while the other half of the class holds up for a bit or does something else that I give them. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's annoying. I believe this was a directive from North Avenue, and I just don't get it. We in the English department aren't allowed to pull swarms of students from classes to take practice tests. Why not, uh, just take practice tests during class? I guess that would make too much sense. (Plus, the vast majority of our students passed the test last semester. I realize this isn't the case for all the schools, but they should know by now that one rule does not fit all.)

I'm ready for a fresh start. Thank god I'm a teacher and can have that fresh start every year.