The Keenan Family 411

Behold...Shanie's First Baseball Hit!

This brief video footage is something you'll want to save.  It should be worth a pretty penny someday...when Shane joins the line-up for the New York Yankees and bats in the clean-up position about 20 years from now, we can all say it started with this memorable hit.

Besides smacking a nice shot right up the middle, he celebrates the hit in a unique (and somewhat dangerous) way. 

Please note that Annie, who is running from 3rd base to home plate in the video, is alive and well. 

Click here and prepare to be...amazed!!!

Hoops, Baby!

The Keenan's are moving forward with their secret plans to achieve complete dominatation of the world of athletics, and the latest stage is Cameron taking up basketball.  He's holding his own so far and enjoying all the running around that takes place.  However, although he's mastered the act of running forward at a steady pace he's getting tripped up (literally) with the quick side-to-side stuff, but he's gettin' there!

Meanwhile, Mike has taken on the role of assistant coach for Cam's team and has discovered that coaching basketball is much more difficult than watching the NBA on TV.  But luckily, Justin's dad is the head coach and clearly knows what he's doing and the kids are benefiting greatly.  Meanwhile, Mike doesn't know didley about running a basketball practice, so he's constantly praying that the head coach doesn't come down with swine flu.

That's My Boy!

Well, it looks like I've arrived at that moment in fatherhood where you start to get genuinely excited about your child's athletic endeavors. Amy and I took the kids to the high school track after dinner yesterday because Owen's been asking to do some extra soccer practice and Cameron wanted to get some running in because travel soccer uses a pretty big field.

Cam started out with a one mile run and clocked a 9:37, which I thought was relatively impressive for an 8 year-old. Then he joined us on the infield for a lengthy soccer session. When it was almost time to head home, I challenged him to do a 2nd one-mile run and he quickly accepted. To my astonishment he covered the distance in 8:12, and he managed to run the final straightaway in an all-out sprint. Not bad considering that his 3rd grade gym teacher is working toward having the class do a one-mile run by the end of the school year.

So now that we have a standard to work off of, I have a feeling that we'll be taking trips to the high school track more often. In the meantime I will try to stop having daydreams of my kids dominating the Glastonbury High School Cross Country team someday.

We Love Lime-Green!

Sometimes you can't win.

I'm coaching Owen's under-6 soccer team this season, and I received an e-mail on Sunday morning from the league coordinator indicating that the uniforms have arrived and the coaches can pick them up from her front porch at anytime. 

I immediately thought back to my first season of coaching when I received a similar e-mail but took my sweet time in picking up the uniforms.  The result was that I was the last coach to pick them up, which meant that I was stuck with the last color available...a putrid lime-green that made me nauseous every time I looked at it.

Well, not this time!  I was no newbie coach anymore...I knew what to do!  The e-mail from the league coordinator was sent out at 7:15am and I was on her front porch at 10am.  I would have been there a couple hours earlier, but I had to wait for Amy to wake up.  Nonetheless, I was the first coach there which meant that I had a veritable rainbow of colors to choose from! 

But I made a strategic error.  I brought Owen with me.  Why?  Because Amy and I are wonderful parents and we thought he would get a big kick out of picking the color for his soccer team...something special, right?  And he did get a kick out of it!  Heck, he was beside himself with excitement and glee!  He couldn't contain himself!  And he knew exactly...without a doubt...what color he wanted. 

Well, you can probably guess the ending of this story.  Team #2 is now the proud owner of lime-green uniforms.

Amy Set to Make Dodgeball Debut

I am waiting with abated breath for Sunday night when Amy jumps onto the court with a handful of her friends to play dodgeball.  No, not with a bunch of elementary school kids, but with full-grown adults.  I did not realize until last weekend that dodgeball was played past the 6th grade.  Not only that, but there are enough dodgeball adults in town to warrant the creation of a full-blown league! 

In any case, you can be sure there will be a dodgeball photo album on the weblog in a few days.  It's hard to explain, but for some reason I'm looking forward to watching Amy and her cronies scurrying around the court while getting pegged with kick balls.