Apparently My Son Is James Bond

  Colorado’s Third Congressional District, which extends across the Western Slope and along the state’s southeastern region to Pueblo, is up for grabs this year. […]

Elbert County Commissioner Robert Rowland announced late Thursday that he is resigning from the Republican Party and becoming an unaffiliated voter. Rowland’s decision was originally […]

Democrats are celebrating a new poll by Magellan Strategies that shows Hillary winning Colorado by six percent over Donald Trump. Cue the sad trombone: The RealClearPolitics average that showed her ahead by 4 percent just days ago, today shows that gap closing quickly. And, it includes the Magellan poll. Hillary’s lead is reduced to 2.6 […]

Ponderosa's Cameron Nuzman didn't have any teammates in the race, but he wasn't alone while running the course at Norris Penrose Events Center in Colorado Springs during the state cross country championships.

Nuzman warmed up by himself, not with six or seven teammates like many fellow competitors. He was the only Ponderosa runner who qualified for the Oct. 29 state meet.

But many members of the Mustangs' team were on hand to support Nuzman.

"It helps to have the team there, even if they were not running," he said.

Nuzman, a senior, finished 43rd in the boys 4A race with a time of 17:12.5.

Green Mountain freshman Kasey Klocek, who was the only Rams' qualifier in the girls 4A race, was sixth in the individual standings with a 19:27.6 clocking.

"It wasn't bad being the only runner," she said. "I had the team cheering me on."

An ice day

I have always admired runners, but sometimes it doesn't look fun at the end of cross country races.

It was a warm day with the temperature reaching near 75 degrees at the state cross country championships and there were plenty of runners ushered into the medical tent for aid.

It looked way too busy to me, but apparently it was not unusual, according to a medical technician who said it was pretty typical with dehydration, exhaustion and swelled knees and ankles after falls.

It was estimated that at the start of the day there were at least 30, 20-pound bags of ice on hand to help runners recover.

Jeffco softball honors

Jefferson County announced its all-league softball selections, and the top individual honors were shared by four schools.

Arvada West's Brenna Millikan was tabbed as the Class 5A Coach of the Year and pitcher Gianna Browly of Ralston Valley was selected as the Most Valuable Player.

In the Class 4A Jeffco, Valor Christian junior pitcher Ali Kilponen was named the Player of the Year and Dan Porreco of D'Evelyn was the Coach of the Year.

CHSAA Hall of Fame inductees

Mary Shea, a standout athlete at Thornton, and Ron Vlasin, who coached basketball at Arapahoe and Littleton, are two of the eight people being inducted in the Colorado High School Activities Association's 2016 Hall of Fame class.

The 2016 class will be inducted during ceremonies Jan. 25, 2017 at the Radisson Hotel-Denver Southeast, I-225 and Parker Road.

Shea played volleyball, basketball and tennis at Thornton and helped the Trojans win the 1980 state basketball title as a senior. She played college basketball at Wyoming and coached the Thornton volleyball team in 1997 and 1998.

Vlasin compiled a 546-165 record in 32 years as a basketball coach. He coached at Merino, Littleton and Arapahoe. In six seasons at Arapahoe, the Warriors compiled a 96-23 record, and his Littleton basketball teams were 125-64 in nine seasons. He also coached baseball at Arapahoe for six seasons.

New ThunderRidge boys lacrosse coach

Colton Mattei has been named the new boys lacrosse coach at ThunderRidge.

Mattei, son of Regis Jesuit girls basketball coach Carl Mattei, coached the past two seasons at Machebeuf where he compiled a 6-23-0 record for a program that had won a combined five games in the previous three seasons.

He inherits a ThunderRidge program that has gone 21-39-0 in the past four years.

A play to remember

Several people have commented that the final play of the Oct. 28 football game between Cherry Creek and Prairie View was one to remember.

Prairie View senior Patrick McKinney, who is wheel chair bound with cerebral palsy, was given a hand-off and wheeled into the end zone while being cheered on by Thunderhawk and Bruins players.

Colorado Springs during the state cross country championships.

Nuzman warmed up by himself, not with six or seven teammates like many fellow competitors. He was the only Ponderosa runner who qualified for the Oct. 29 state meet.

But many members of the Mustangs' team were on hand to support Nuzman.

"It helps to have the team there, even if they were not running," he said.

Nuzman, a senior, finished 43rd in the boys 4A race with a time of 17:12.5.

Green Mountain freshman Kasey Klocek, who was the only Rams' qualifier in the girls 4A race, was fourth in the individual standings with a 19:12.6 clocking.

"It wasn't bad being the only runner," she said. "I had the team cheering me on."

An ice day

I have always admired runners, but sometimes it doesn't look fun at the end of cross country races.

It was a warm day with the temperature reaching near 75 degrees at the state cross country championships and there were plenty of runners ushered into the medical tent for aid.

It looked way too busy to me, but apparently it was not unusual, according to a medical technician who said it was pretty typical with dehydration, exhaustion and swelled knees and ankles after falls.

It was estimated that at the start of the day there were at least 30, 20-pound bags of ice on hand to help runners recover.

Jeffco softball honors

Jefferson County announced its all-league softball selections, and the top individual honors were shared by four schools.

Arvada West's Brenna Millikan was tabbed as the Class 5A Coach of the Year and pitcher Gianna Browly of Ralston Valley was selected as the Most Valuable Player.

In the Class 4A Jeffco, Valor Christian junior pitcher Ali Kilponen was named the Player of the Year and Dan Porreco of D'Evelyn was the Coach of the Year.

CHSAA Hall of Fame inductees

Mary Shea, a standout athlete at Thornton, and Ron Vlasin, who coached basketball at Arapahoe and Littleton, are two of the eight people being inducted in the Colorado High School Activities Association's 2016 Hall of Fame class.

The 2016 class will be inducted during ceremonies Jan. 25, 2017 at the Radisson Hotel-Denver Southeast, I-225 and Parker Road.

Shea played volleyball, basketball and tennis at Thornton and helped the Trojans win the 1980 state basketball title as a senior. She played college basketball at Wyoming and coached the Thornton volleyball team in 1997 and 1998.

Vlasin compiled a 546-165 record in 32 years as a basketball coach. He coached at Merino, Littleton and Arapahoe. In six seasons at Arapahoe, the Warriors compiled a 96-23 record, and his Littleton basketball teams were 125-64 in nine seasons. He also coached baseball at Arapahoe for six seasons.

New ThunderRidge boys lacrosse coach

Colton Mattei has been named the new boys lacrosse coach at ThunderRidge.

Mattei, son of Regis Jesuit girls basketball coach Carl Mattei, coached the past two seasons at Machebeuf where he compiled a 6-23-0 record for a program that had won a combined five games in the previous three seasons.

He inherits a ThunderRidge program that has gone 21-39-0 in the past four years.

A play to remember

Several people have commented that the final play of the Oct. 28 football game between Cherry Creek and Prairie View was one to remember.

Prairie View senior Patrick McKinney, who is wheel chair bound with cerebral palsy, was given a hand-off and wheeled into the end zone while being cheered on by Thunderhawk and Bruins players.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to the idea of leadership.

Can't imagine why.

Leadership is one of those hard-to-define characteristics that are essential to the proper functioning of organizations. And it's hard to define because there are so many different styles of leadership. There's the high-minded, philosophical type; there's the micro-manager; there's also the force-of-will brilliant types; screamers, or calm. And all of those styles work, in the right settings and with the right people.

What does a good leader look like? I can't tell you, but I know it when I see it.

Actually, one of my favorite aspects of teaching young adults was always trying to develop the leadership capacity of the students I had. And, I'll be honest--;my track record was mixed, at best. My own shortcomings hampered their growth. And, let's face it, young adults have a difficult enough time leading themselves from one place to the next without worrying about leading any of their peers around. Still, there were some who just got it, and were (and are still) amazing.

One of my most basic tenets of leadership that I tried to impress on them was that "Leadership is Service." The leader, at his or her core, is not the one who orders people around, but is the one who sees a need and does something about it. If that means cleaning up after everyone else goes home, then so be it. If that means taking on special projects, then so be it. If that means arriving early to work with individuals who are struggling, then so be it. That is what leadership is. Only after a group sees somebody doing those kinds of things are they willing to follow them.

Which, I guess, is what is so distressing about the state of politics in America right now. Political office has become a "good gig," whose best use is to land the next good gig, whether that be on reality television or, say, running a foundation.

Which is why it was so refreshing to hear Evan McMullin explain why he's running for president.

Yeah, that's Evan McMullin, with two "L's."

Haven't heard of him? I'm not surprised, though he has become a bit of a media darling lately. Evan McMullin is running for president as an Independent, and his entire strategy is based around winning Utah (which, according to some polls, he is doing), which will then deny either of the major party candidates enough electoral votes to win the presidency, at which point the whole election would go to the House of Representatives, where he thinks he might be able to win.

Talk about trying to draw to an inside straight.

So, I went to hear McMullin speak last week in Lakewood, just to see if there was anything more to this quixotic campaign than a protest. And, it turns out, there is. As McMullin explains it, Trump is an unacceptable candidate, so somebody needed to challenge him to represent core American values. And, after hearing too many "leaders" in Washington rationalize their unwillingness to take that on themselves, he came to two realizations:

One, somebody has to do this. And two, if nobody else will, then he would.

It's not like he went into 2016 dreaming of spending the entire last half of the year on the road, eating rubber chicken dinners, trying to convince people that voting for him wouldn't be a wasted vote. He did it because he saw a need, and decided to do something about it.

I wouldn't put money on his electoral strategy panning out, but it is refreshing to hear somebody in politics talking like they understand what service is, and, by extension, what real leadership is.

And, also, in a pleasant change of pace this year, I didn't feel like I needed to take a shower after listening to his speech.

Ponderosa junior Maddie Gabel has a vivid memory of last season's state playoff soccer game in which she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her rightknee."I slid and blocked a shot, and once I made contact(with the ground),that's when I heard it pop," she said of the sound coming from her knee. "It took 10 months total for a full recovery."Gabel was far from alone in her plight on the sidelines.Numerous studies have concluded that girls and women are more susceptible to ACL injuries than boys and men, with most reports stating female athletes are four to eight times more likely to tear the knee ligament."There are more ACL injuries in women ... Younger women are more at risk, usually the adolescents, teenagers and up to the early 20s, in general," said Dr. Michele Wolcott, an associate professor in the University of Colorado Department of Orthopedics.In the Douglas County School District over the past five years, 42 ACL injuries in girls have been reported. Katherine West, head trainer for Jefferson County Public Schools, said there were 69 knee injuries among girls in Jeffco in the past six years, and 27 were ACL injuries.Why does it happen?Sports like soccer, basketball and volleyball that require one-step deceleration, changing direction and jumping put the most strain on athletes' ACLs, those of girls and women in particular, experts say.But why are female athletes more susceptible to the injury?"Obviously, there is a difference between females and males," said Dr. Mitchell Seemann, team physician for Regis University and D'Evelyn High School. "There have been a couple conferences over the past few years that have come together to try to figure out why (there are more ACL injuries among women). The most common reason for it is what we call neuromuscular factors."One factor includes less hamstring strength in female athletes than in their male counterparts, according to certified chiropractic sports physician Dr. Steven Horwitz, writing on the website MomsTeam, a resource for parents of athletes. Stronger hamstrings can help protect against ACL injuries, he said.Other factors, experts say, include ligaments that tend to have more give, a smaller ACL and tendency toward poor, flat-footed landings after jumping, which puts the knee in a positon to buckle and stress the ACL."We can address some factors," Wolcott said. "We can't change their skeleton or size, so we work on (what) we can, which is how you jump, land and control your landings."There are all sorts of jumps, landing drills, running around cones and doing some agility (drills), doing the cutting and pivoting things when you are not in a game situation so you are controlled and focused on doing it correctly."Trying to prevent injuriesSeemann and West attempted to establish a Jeffco districtwide ACL-injury prevention plan called the Cincinnati Sportsmetrics Program a few years ago."We did have to abandon it, and we learned something," Seemann said. "One, coaches don't want to take 15 or 20 minutes out of their practice to do this kind of stuff. The other factor is girls this age tend not to think this is going to happen to them."The major thing is it had to be done in a setting where you have perhaps one trainer and 30 kids on a soccer team. The key to the training is you have to make sure they are doing the training properly."Some area coaches are trying to take proactive measures.Horizon's softball team lost starting pitcher Kayla Kascak, who said she was hurt during a routine outfield drill in late August.Hawks softball coach Gary Mares is aware of the importance of hamstring training. He has his players do a variety of exercises to strengthen hamstrings and other lower-body muscles."It is very important to train both the front quads and back hamstrings while training the leg muscles," he said.Castle View's new girls soccer coach, Nichol Rodriguez, played college soccer for Notre Dame and the Puerto Rican national team and seven years in the Women's Premier Soccer League."We will be implementing ACL prevention once a week during the season at the end of practices," Rodriguez said of what's ahead this spring. "Also, all of the lifting that is done in the offseason seeks to strengthen all of the muscles and ligaments around the knee for a preventive measure."Former University of Utah and National Basketball Association standout Keith Van Horn is executive director of the Premier Basketball Club, which has locations in Evergreen, Parker and Grand Junction.He said the club puts a strong focus on ACL-prevention techniques."The teams that I coach at the beginning of every practice, with the girls, we implement a few warmup drills that incorporate the proper landing technique, knee positioning, hip strengthening and a number of different things in areas that tend to cause ACL injuries. We started working with an agility group that comes in and works with all of our kids."Arapahoe girls basketball coach Jerry Knafelc has had one athlete, a junior varsity player, go down with an ACL injury in the past six seasons. He said training in the summer, fall and during the season has helped mitigate the ACL injuries.Knafelc said the workouts include movement training, bleacher jumps, lifts with an emphasis on getting the glutes to activate, making sure the knees don't come in when jumping or landing, and having girls look in the mirror to make sure their posture is correct."We put a lot of time into it," he said. "That's the only way it can happen ... You have to have somebody with them to make sure they are doing it correctly."No such thing as prevention?Gabel, the Ponderosa soccer player, said she's not sure how much the drills and exercises help to prevent injuries like the one she sustained."Before I got hurt, I had done those exercises and after I got hurt, I have done a lot of them," Gabel said. "As a preventive measure, I don't really think it helps, but it's always good to strengthen your muscles and try to do anything you can."What it comes down to, if it's going to tear, it's going to tear."