Monday blowout

Hey gang – its Rob here on a Monday- if you havent heard, the usual Monday poster Ned Ryerson is stepping down from his post after a long and successful career writing this nonsense due to to personal reasons, and we all wish him well. For the time being I will do this job twice a week, with my usual Friday post continuing as before; and we may or may not find a replacement for Ned, but until then, as the circus people say, the show must go on. So here we are…..

Doesnt take long to find something wrong with P1– Leo with his new kickers somehow can jump 6 feet in the air and dunk. Milford is playing what amounts to a stooge team in New Britain, which is located in Connecticut https://www.csdnb.org/

and obviously is just learning to play basketball as the Larks go on to win by 50, but normally the defenders are at least trying to stop a potential dunk, and the Britain guy not only doesnt have his hands up, his eyes close at the prospect of the thundereous dunk thats to follow.

Marty excitedly describes the Milford surge which is somewhat realistic in high school, but not like anything we’ve seen lately.

Then in P3 Cami overreacts to the game situation- and no coach who ever coached yelled Dont blow this lead! Good coaching is about accentuating the positive; with a big lead, most coaches say play like its zero-zero, to keep the team focused, but the enthusiasm is a bit phony IMHO. ( Yet another tick against the writer for not knowing the sport he’s writing about )

So we’ll see if it was the shoes, or Leo’s emergence as a confident scorer, or more likely just a great game against a pushover opponent that Little Sisters of the Poor coulda beat. (Got that reference from my old college dormmate)

Lets close it out with a song huh?

Riding On The Bus With Gil

Welcome aboard the Milford team bus. Spread out, there’s plenty of room. There’s room for maybe Marjie, too! (We established that Marjie is back in one strip of the Barajas. This model has no glasses. Maybe she had lasik surgery?)

Marjie wants to know how the team is doing now that Kaz is gone and Gil’s answer is more about how Gil is feeling. (Devastated and lonely, of course. He’s probably not allowed to get all sweaty in the weight room with Coach Cami.) The team probably barely noticed since most of them are fresh recruits or barely sentient minor characters in this story.

As always, Gil is looking to the future, as in those two guys who got muscled off of the chocolate sales turf by those Valley Tech Sharks. I think it’s those guys name Leo and Darius. L&D are low men on the totem pole so they must share a seat, but they seem pretty content with it. Will they be part of a bright, Kaz-less future or will they be casualties of the impending Chocolate War?

eta: Alright, so I misidentified the sleepy people on the bus. Gil’s musings make more sense in reference to Tays and Coach Cami, but get a room, amirite? Yeah, I forgot we had also seen Heather at some point. Marjie’s too smart to hitch a ride on the school bus since she’d have to smell Gil’s Lavoris breath for two and a half hours each way…..also, Heather Burns eats worms!

Taysed to Meet Me

Here’s the new Interim Assistant Coach, Emmett Tays, to whom we were introduced at the very beginning of the Barajas Era. Presumably Interim Assistant Coach slots in below Head Assistant Coach, at least in seniority if not in experience. Based on the team’s reaction in yesterday’s strip, there’s gotta be more backstory to Emmett between his Milford High days and now.

Head Assistant Coach Cami looks honestly relived to have Emmett there. Her lack of expertise was beginning to show during drills. Now she can step back and turn her focus to the Milford girls’ team, where she has more experience and will receive less attention. What’s that you say? Milford has no girls’ basketball team this season? I wasn’t wrong about getting less attention then, was I?

Although he looks a little deflated, Gil wastes no time in presenting Coach Tays as power bottom, a position Kaz would never take for him. The balance of power should soon shift, however, once Emmett gets wind of the salary history of his position. Looking forward to the upcoming strip, EEOC v. Milford School District, Pearl, Thorp, et al.

I Thought Gil’s Tongue Was Frozen To The Flagpole Again

Check it out. Gil, Dr. Pearl and Coach Cami all have flag duty. Maybe Gil and Cami have flag duty and Dr. Pearl supervises all flag duty? At any rate, all are assembled by the flagpole to discuss the dire fiscal situation which has been hanging over the basketball season.

Coach Cami has a plan to raise money by having sponsors pledge money to have student athletes lift stuff. Like any stuff? Like here’s ten dollars, can you lift this economy sized bag of kitty litter into the back of my Pacer? I suppose what Cami has in mind is something more organized, but the odds are we’ll never really get the fleshed-out scheme fully explained, but we will see lifting. Maybe they’ll raise enough money to pay the legal fees when this vaping thing blows up in their faces. Ever mindful Dr. Pearl wants waivers signed. She’s got enough process servers hanging around outside her office as it is.

Isn’t panel three a thing of beauty? Canada geese flying over Old Glory while Dr. Pearl angles for minimal legal liability for the latest hairbrained scheme to endanger the students.