Month: November 2020

In midst of a pandemic, Morningside College’s soccer coach Tom Maxon has been having very successful seasons with the men’s and the women’s teams.

The last game of this year for both of Morningside’s soccer teams decided whether they won the conference and automatically qualified for the Nationals or whether they would have to take a longer detour to get to the National Championship.

The first half of the game proved to be a tough one for the women’s team. They had conceded an early goal and had not been able to respond with a goal of their own. At the halftime break, the team gathered on the grass field around Coach Maxon. He began with praise before he went on to voice some critique on how the game has been going up until now. He mentioned that a player on the team did very well in the half. Then he talked about how the team performed so far and what needed to be improved.

During his explanations, he kept on looking around and seeking eye contact with his players. Every once in a while, after finishing an explanation, he would cross out points on a piece of paper that he had scribbled notes on during the first half of the game. There was a calmness around Maxon that resulted from his rather quiet and calming voice paired with very rational words.

Tom Maxon has been the head coach of both Morningside College soccer teams for 20 years. He became the head coach in 2000. He graduated from the University of Southern Maine in 1988. There, he became an All-American midfielder twice and set a school record for career assists. Afterward, he played professionally in Germany and in the US for a few years. He went on to earn his master’s degree in Sports Management from the United States Sports Academy in 1990. He holds a USSF ‘A’ License and has coached several other teams before he became head coach at Morningside College.

Maxon is married and has two children.

For five seasons, he coached in the Premier Development League, leading the Sioux City Breeze team to the 1999 Midwest Regional Final and the Sioux Falls SpitFire team to the 2001 National Final Four. Before coming to Morningside college, Maxon coached at St. Mary of the Plains College and at National American University.

Throughout his career, Maxon has received various awards. He was named Soccer Coach of the Year for either team four times in total since he came to Morningside. This includes the last year, 2019, when Maxon was selected as the Hauff Mid-America Sports/GPAC Coach-of-the-Year after his men’s team won the conference.

There are currently 39 players on the women’s team and 49 players on the men’s team. Maxon is currently surrounded by eight other people who assist him with both teams, but only BJ Wylie is a full-time assistant coach. He helps with coaching, recruiting, day-to-day player management, equipment, and other things on both teams.

Those last two games against Briar Cliff University rounded up the first part of a very unusual season. Maxon explained: “I don’t think there has ever been a year where both teams had been at the very, very top and had been able to possibly win it on the last day.”

Even though both teams are having good seasons, there are still players who are discontent with their coach. Many of them complain because they don’t play as much as they want to.

Maxon said with a sad expression: “It’s so hard. That’s the hardest part of my job. It is so hard. I know that every one of [their] lives are so wrapped up in this and I know that I – and I realize that I hold the key to that. And I can be the angel one day and the devil the next.” He added that, if he were to ever leave the sport, he would do it, because he wouldn’t be able to bear making those decisions anymore.  “If I ever did get out of this game that would be why. It would just be too hard for me to continue doing so all of [them] what I’m doing to all of [them].”

Maxon puts a lot of work into his preparation for games. He watches a lot of films, talks to the teams about what they can do, has done, and know they can do. He gives them confidence, but most importantly, he tells them to love and enjoy it. Especially more difficult games are the games that they play for.

Maxon cares a lot about his players. That’s why he includes the leadership groups of both teams in almost all decisions that he has to make for the teams. This includes deciding on the gameday lineup and helping to pick what to do in practice.

Bailey Powers, captain of the women’s team, explained that Maxon is a good coach, because “he cares about all of his players equally. No matter your position or how much you play the values your character above your skill.” She added that he lets his players be well-rounded people. He allows them to fix their mistakes and leaves them in the game to gain confidence.

On the question of what she would like him to change, she answered that he sometimes changes the formation at the wrong times in a game. He also doesn’t make the team aware of problems until after the game or the halftime break. The players would rather have him tell them about it during the game right after making a mistake. Lastly, she said that she would like him to stick more to his word and throw people off the team if he warned them. While this hasn’t been much of an issue during this season, there were occasions during past seasons where he should have been stricter.

Noah Aniser, a player on the men’s team, praised Maxon saying that “[h]e always has the best interests of his players at heart. He is a very kind person, but he agreed with Powers on the point that Maxon needs to be stricter and give more advice during games

For U.S. Stars in England, There Is Now Only Red and Blue by Rory Smith (The New York Times)

This article is a feature of four US women’s national team players who went to Manchester. Two of them joined Manchester United, while the other two players joined Manchester City. The interview is mainly about their impressions of the new country, their new team’s mentalities, issues in their lives in Europe that were caused by the pandemic, and the national team.

It is a feature and not a news article because it is not about a news event that just happened. It is rather about an interview which is about the moves of these players to new clubs. I like the article because there are also short videos of the actual interview. I have read several articles by Rory Smith now and I generally like his articles. I am guessing that he organized the article according to the interview. The only thing is that I feel like the actual article should say more about the actual game that is mentioned in the lede.

Homer, the polar bear, passed away after 16 good years at the Midland Zoo.

He was found dead in his exhibit this morning. The two younger polar bears Yukon and McKenzie, aged 9 and 10, were removed from the exhibit and are being monitored by veterinary staff.

Sara N. Getty, the zoo keeper, described Homer as very curious and playful. She added that the polar bear will be missed terribly.

Dr. Shanda Lear, a senior staff veterinarian, explained that “[t]he zoo will perform a necropsy to try to determine the cause of death”. But those results will only be available in a few weeks.

The zoo director Chris P. Bacon said, “We will do everything in our power to determine how this bear died. Animal welfare and the preservation of species are our primary goals here at the zoo.”

Polar bears have thrived at the zoo since 1985. Their exhibit allows the bears to engage in natural behaviors. They are ambassadors for their wild relatives, educating zoo visitors about these threatened animals.

Bacon also confirmed that there were two other deaths at the zoo this month, but that these deaths are unrelated. A 10-year-old female bobcat named Regina died of renal failure and a 6-year-old giraffe named Kenya died after breaking her neck when her horns for caught in her stall.

Don’t blink… USWNT star Tobin Heath would nutmeg you in a hot second by Graham Hays (ESPN)

The article is a profile of Tobin Heath, a US Women’s National Team player. According to the article, she is one of the most technically skilled players on the USWNT. She considers attacking to be an art and defending a science that can be learned. She loves to have the ball at her feet. The problem with that for a lot of coaches is that she is sometimes more focused on a 1-v-1 than scoring a goal. Other teammates have described her as being a “vibe”.

The article starts with the narration of a story that happened in the soccer player’s sophomore year in college at UNC. Then, the article describes her career from being a very young child to becoming the soccer player that she was at the time when the article was written. Some quotes and information from former teammates and coaches are included as well.

Nathanael Roop considers himself to be dependable. Friends and family can count on him when they need something from him.

Over this past summer, he got a car. This means that friends at college come up to him every once in a while to ask him to drive them somewhere or pick them up.

A few weeks ago, Roop was asked by a friend to drive her, because she is an international student who does neither have a license or a car. As per usual, he agreed right away. Even though there is a global pandemic going on everything worked out as planned. They went to the unusually quiet and empty mall to get a new pair of cleats.

A Lockdown With Loopholes: New Virus Restrictions Come Into Force in England by Benjamin Mueller (The New York Times)

The article is about the second lockdown in the UK. Apparently, a lot of people don’t take it as serious this time. They just keep on going to work and finding loopholes in the regulations which are already not as strict as they were in the first lockdown.

The lede gives the most important information right away. The journalist then focuses on various issues. He starts with the most important information first and then ends with paragraphs where he explains things more in detail. I honestly don’t know if the journalist wrote it that way or if it’s just what Johnson did and didn’t do or say, but I feel like the article is a little biased and directed against Johnson, England, and Europe. For example here:

“The situation exposed the enormous difficulties of European governments, struck by second wave of the coronavirus, as they try to put the genie back in the bottle after months of encouraging people to flock back to offices and pubs.”

International students:

Covid-19 is impacting international students’ plans to come to Morningside College this year.

There were very strict travel bans this year which didn’t allow international returners to come back to the United States until very late in summer. New students had additional difficulties, because they couldn’t get their visas to come here.

Lillian J. Lopez, Head in the Accounting and Business Administration Department at Morningside College, explained that the situation is mostly out of the college’s control. These are government regulations and rules that the college can’t change. The most important thing for her is not to create panic and provide frequent, accurate information.

“I think our responsibility is to be ethical, to communicate in an accurate manner and then to be available to answer questions, but there is nothing I can do to change government regulations”, Lopez summarized.

Science story:

Future astronauts on the moon might have easier times finding water or ice on the moon.

The New York Times published in an article that a team of scientists found evidence of water on parts of the moon where the sun shines according to a paper that was published in Monday’s Nature Astronomy.

Paul Hertz, the director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said during a news conference on Monday, “This discovery reveals that water might be distributed across the lunar surface and not limited to the cold shadowed places near the lunar poles.”

That water might be difficult to collect, but these small ice water deposits could be a “real game changer,” according to Paul O. Hayne, a professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, who led that research.

Election:

All of the US is tense while Joe Biden and Donald Trump are going head-to-head in a close race to become the next president.

It is the day after the election. Most states have already finished counting the votes. Only Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, North Carolina, Georgia and Pennsylvania do not have official results yet.

Joe Biden is currently leading with 253 electoral votes versus 214 for Donald Trump. His votes in percentage is also a little bit higher than Trump’s.

Some Trump supporters have announced riots if Biden were to win the election.  Supporters of the latter candidate are a bit scared about that.

At the same time, a lot of them celebrate every single new electoral vote that Biden gets. With Michigan and Wisconsin both voting for him, Biden technically only needs 17 more electoral votes.

If he were to get Arizona and Nevada, he would have exactly the 270 necessary votes to become president. Therefore, a lot of people are anxious to get results from those two states.

Maddie’s quote

In short, Biden needs two more states, most likely Arizona and Nevada, to vote for him to be able to become the next president.