All posts by jlang@nafcs.k12.in.us

Forum

Columnist shares her Winter playlist

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Paige Thompson,

Photographer and Columnist

Winter playlist:

“Holiday” – Vampire Weekend
“Two Weeks” – Grizzly Bear
“Sprout and the Bean” – Joanna Newsom
“The Story I Heard” – Blind Pilot
“Strange Times” – The Black Keys
“Godly Intersex” – Of Montreal
“Oslo in the Summertime” – Of Montreal
“Cigarettes in the Theatre” – Two Door Cinema Club
“What you Know” – Two Door Cinema Club
“You’re Not Stubborn” – Two Door Cinema Club
“Sad Sad City” – Ghostland Observatory
“Here Comes Your Man” – The Pixies
“Young Folks” – Peter, Bjorn & John
“Empty”- Ray LaMontagne
“All I Want” – Joni Mitchell
“The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders (Part 1: The Great Frontier-Part 2: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now) ” – Sufjan Stevens
“All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands” – Sufjan Stevens
“Pink Moon” – Nick Drake
“From the Morning” – Nick Drake
“Woods”- Bon Iver
“Blood Bank” – Bon Iver
“Blindsided” – Bon Iver
“The Only One” – The Black Keys
“Know your Onion!” – The Shins
“How It Ends” – DeVotchKa
“Sprawl 2 (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” – Arcade Fire
“Brackett, WI” – Bon Iver
“Finch on Saturday” – Horse Feathers
“Falling Through the Roof” – Horse Feathers
“In the Hot, Hot Rays” – Fleet Foxes
“Quiet Houses” – Fleet Foxes
“Ragged Wood” – Fleet Foxes
“Two Towns from Me” – Blind Pilot
“Your Head is On Fire” – Broken Bells
“Here Comes My Baby” – Cat Stevens
“This is Not A Test” – She & Him
“On the Bus Mall” – The Decemberists
“Blue Skies” – Ella Fitzgerald
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” – Ella Fitzgerald
“Mack the Knife (Berlin 1960)” – Ella Fitzgerald
“Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes

Sports

Coaching ethics epidemic

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 Ty Elliot

Sports Co-Editor

As a sports fan, there is nothing better than watching your favorite team beat up on the opposing team, especially if that opponent is a heated rival.  I love watching the team I root for win by a lop-sided 30-point dominating performance.  But with recent complaints and bad coaching ethics shown lately across numerous sports, it begs the question; when is enough, enough?
For most coaches, the thing they least worry about is when they should take out their star players if they were winning by a large margin.  But maybe coaches should worry more about this growing epidemic in sports.  In the old days, old fashion beat-downs were taken with a grain of salt, and were looked at as the better team won.  But today in sports, teams take it a sign of disrespect when teams run up the score when winning by a large margin.  Fans that pay the money to watch these events certainly want to see the best players play until the end.  With the economy affecting sports in numerous ways, should coaching ethics really be a main concern?
I have also seen some recent behavior by coaches that has me concerned.  In Connecticut, during a high school football game, Manchester High School had wristbands that contained the name and signal of offensive plays.  After a play, one player came up out of a pile and signaled to the sideline that he had lost his wristband.  It turns out that Southington High School, the opposing team, took the wristband and used it throughout the rest of the game to steal the other team’s plays.  Why play the game if you know what the opposing team is going to do?
In Texas, Covenent High School played Dallas Academy in a varsity girls basketball game.  Dallas Academy has eight varsity players and about 20 girls in the high school.   Dallas Academy is winless in its past four seasons.  Covenant had a 59-0 lead at halftime.  Covenant went on to defeat Dallas 100-0.  Dallas Academy felft as though Covenant was running up the score and was still shooting three point shots late in the fourth quarter. Covenant’s head coach was later fired.
So when is enough, enough?  Personally I want to see my team give the opposing team a beat-down.  Therefore I have no problem with teams leaving their best players in until the game is over.  There is no rule that says you have to take your star players out when you’re dominating the opponent.  And if one of those star players in the end gets injured as a result of continuing to play, then the coach made a critical mistake that could cost his or her team.  That is the risk coaches take and why coaches should take this problem more seriously because despite the fact that they want to play until the game is over, it can cost your team in the long run with a devastating injury in garbage time.  The only exception is the Covenant and Dallas Academy game.  If your team is winning that much, and your team hasn’t given the opponent a single point, then the coaches should take the responsibility to do the right thing and end the game.  It may look like a joke in the end, but coaches have to worry about the well being of their own players.  They are already embarrassed by the margin; you don’t want them to lose confidence.
Then the subject falls to cheating.  The stealing of the opponents’ playbook or anything that contains their plays is unacceptable.  Not only is it absurd, but it makes your team looks like a group of cheaters.  If your team has to cheat to win, then the coach obviously thinks his team isn’t good enough to win a clean and fair game.
With Lindsay Lohan in and out of rehab, why not have a coaching ethics seminar and rehab center?  At the seminar, coaches instead of learning how to quit their addiction to drugs and alcohol, they can learn how to show sportsmanship.

Boys Basketball, Sports

Hardcourt tip-off

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Ty Elliot,

Co-sports editor

With football season now over, players start to take the basketball court as the new season is underway.  As the basketballs bounce high so do the upcoming hopes and goals for the Highlanders this season.  With the success of last year, this year’s team looks to build on and try to continue the winning tradition.

            Last year the Highlanders finished with a record of 15-8.  Losing key players like Cody Banet, Brandon Codey, and Jeffery Thompson detracts from the overall experience of the team, this year’s team appears to be just as experienced with six seniors and six juniors on this year’s squad.  Filling the void left behind by those seniors will not be easy, but returning a core group of players will help ease the role. 

The Highlanders will have an easier task because they have now gone through one more year of head coach Randy Gianfagna’s system. Based upon last year’s results, it seems to be working.  Gianfagna has had great success as a head coach with a 161-134 overall record.  His 33-53 record as head coach of the Highlanders though does not accurately represent his overall success.   Despite the record as Highlanders coach, Gianfagna’s Highlanders had a lot of success last season.  His players have continued to grow and gain valuable experience playing in his system. 

            “We played in tournaments at Purdue, Salem, and in Louisville.  We have really worked on our skill work and our weight training,” said Gianfagna.

This year’s squad appears to have a significant athleticism and overall depth advantage compared to other teams in the past.  Juniors Jordan Thompson and Nick Bombersbach are two athletically gifted players on the team.  Adding multi-talented players like senior Jeremy Jefferies and junior Tanner Wortham will add more depth to the bench. 

“Our overall depth is good.  I think 1-19 Junior Varsity through Varsity is the deepest we have ever been.  With our depth, it makes our practices more competitive,” said Gianfagna.

            Last year the Highlanders made strides in big games, but when they played tough competition they struggled.  When the Highlanders played their heated rival the New Albany Bulldogs last season at FC, the Bulldogs brought their A game.  The Bulldogs and their dynamic duo with Donnie Hale and Chris Whitehead defeated the Highlanders.  This season New Albany and Jeffersonville seem to be two of the better teams the Highlanders will play this year. 

            “We have to cut down on the turnovers.  We also need to rebound the basketball better,” said Gianfagna.

            The Highlanders will have to plug in a lot of new players into key roles.  The team has to replace 67% of their scoring, rebounding, and assists from this past season.  The team lost their top three leading scorers, top four assists leaders, and their leading rebounder from last year’s squad.  Gianfagna said he believes that two players in particular will ease into those roles.

            “I think Barret will step up a lot.  He’s a three year part time starter and we hope he will average a double-double.  Connor will help in scoring, and a lot of other guys will surprise people,” said Gianfagna.

            Gianfagna said that junior Connor Schellenberg will help this team with his scoring ability.    Schellenberg indeed has a great ability to score, and he said he has worked a lot in the off-season on his game.

            “I have done a lot of personal workouts with my AAU coach, and I shoot for a couple hours almost everyday,” said Schellenberg.

            The team has its eyes set for a sectional championship.  Because they will have to play a lot of great teams, their goals are set high.  Junior Jordan Thompson said he and his teammates have high hopes and expectations for this season.

            “We want to win sectionals, beat our rivals, and become better basketball players,” said Thompson.

Kara Beard, News

Kalmey settles into FC

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 By Kara Beard,

Staff Reporter

    As we continue to proceed through the 2010-2011 school year, we welcome new teachers into the building. During the past few weeks the most recent addition to the English class has been a sub filling in for English teacher Jenny Adams. Her name is Camille Kalmey.
                Born and raised in Louisville, Kalmey started her education at an all-girl Catholic school called Sacred Heart Academy. With the strict rules and dress code, Kalmey still found interest in many of her regular studies.
                “I was a little bit weird in school because I found a lot of my subjects interesting, I loved math and solving the problems but I also loved English and science. Most kids usually take a liking to one of those subjects but that was never the case for me, I liked them all,” said Kalmey.
                After graduating from Sacred Heart Academy, Kalmey went on to college at IU in Bloomington.  Not knowing that she wanted to be a teacher, Kalmey went on to pursuing a major in science.
                “I didn’t really enjoy science as much as I did in high school but my counselor and others realized I was really good with kids so they are the ones who encouraged me to get into teaching.”
                Once Kalmey graduated from IU with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English, she started to pursue more and reach higher goals. She went on to getting her master’s degree in journalism education and to receive her specialist’s degree.
Moving forward in her career Kalmey started teaching at Scribner. She taught 7th, 8th and 9th grade English for one year and then transferred to New Albany.
                “I never taught freshmen at New Albany, except Journalism 1 and yearbook since those classes had a mix of all grades. I did like it at New Albany, except some of the students at New Albany tended to act out, whereas Floyd Central students want to learn and try to explain things to you if they don’t get it,” said Kalmey.
                After 11 years of teaching at New Albany, Kalmey’s husband, who works with Kindred Healthcare, got a job offer located in the south end of Florida.
                “I don’t work because I’m being forced to,” said Kalmey. “I like working with students and seeing them develop,” said Kalmey.
                It wasn’t long after Kalmey and her husband settled in their house, she started looking for a job and came upon a job offer at Saint Andrew Catholic School. Being Catholic and having attended a Catholic school when she was younger, Kalmey accepted the offer.
                “Students, no matter where you go, tend to be similar in a lot of ways. They all seem to want to learn. But this school just seemed to be disorganized and it would get very frustrating trying to deal with it all as a teacher and that would have to be the biggest difference between Saint Andrew and Floyd Central– it’s nice working in a school that is organized.” said Kalmey.
                It was not long after accepting the job offer at Saint Andrews, that she wanted to return to the New Albany/Floyd County area.

                “The school wasn’t my reason for wanting to return, the community in general wasn’t what we wanted to raise a family in, so that’s one of the reasons we came back. The bright and sunny weather was nice, but I will not miss it,” said Kalmey.
                However, she did not know that once she returned she would already have a job waiting for her at FC.
                “One of my friends found out I was returning, and they told Mr. Jensen, so he contacted me saying Ms. Adams wasn’t coming back, and that’s how I ended up at Floyd Central. But, I really love it here, the teachers are great and they really look out for each other along with the students,” said Kalmey.
                Yet, even though Kalmey has only been here a week and a half, she still sees a bright future ahead of her working at FC.
                “The administration is on the ball, the teachers have respect for other teachers and the students are awesome and wonderful to teach and learn from as well, so I would definitely love to work here for many years to come.”