Author: Lee Aase

Husband of one, father of six, grandfather of 15. Chancellor Emeritus, SMUG. Emeritus staff of Mayo Clinic. Founder of HELPcare and Administrator for HELPcare Clinic.

AAU Basketball in Las Vegas

I’m in Las Vegas today through Tuesday for the Adidas Super 64 basketball tournament, as our Minnesota Fury Gold 16U team (my son Joe Aase and nephew Tom Aase, as well as their Austin High teammate Zach Wessels are members) is participating in one of the largest events in the NCAA July evaluation period.

The tournament organization seems to be making full use of technology and social media (here is its Twitter account, and it’s using the #Super64 hashtag).

More updates to come as the week unfolds.

Update: The Fury Gold defeated San Pedro, CA this morning in their only game today. The final was 67-39; the halftime score was 46-20 and the Fury coasted the rest of the way. Here are the video highlights:

Tomorrow’s games will be tougher.

Search for the Dumbest School Fight Song

Our basketball games in the Chicago suburbs this weekend in the King James Summer Showcase (my son Joe was playing in the 16U division) were held at Lake Zurich (IL) High School. As I was reading the list of conference and section championships won by the Lake Zurich Bears, I also couldn’t help notice the words to their school fight song, on a placard donated by the class of 2005 (click to enlarge):

We’re loyal to you, Zurich High

We’re white and we’re blue, Zurich High

We’ll back you to stand against the best in the land

For we know you have sand, Zurich High (Rah! Rah!)

So bat out that ball. Zurich High

We’re backing you all. Zurich High

Our team is our fame protector on bears for we expect

A victory from you, Zurich High!

Chatee, Cha Ha! Cha Ha Ha!

Fighting Bears, Fighting Bears, Rah, Rah, Rah!

“For we know you have sand?” Really? And while I’m sure some of the punctuation and phrasing was missing, I was scratching my head at “Our team is our fame protector on bears….”

When I was growing up in Austin, Minnesota I always thought our school fight song was pretty solid, with maybe just one glitch:

Win, Win, Win for old Austin High!

We’re gonna win this victory!

Win, Win, Win for old Austin High!

Winners we’ll always be! Rah! Rah! Rah!

Go, go, go for Scarlet and White!

Our colors stand for might!

Waving for those courageous and bold, so

Fight! Fight! Fight!

“Winning this victory” seemed a little redundant, but overall I think it’s a pretty solid fight song.

Here’s your chance to get in on the fun as we crowdsource the best and worst of school fight songs. In the comments below, post the lyrics from your school song (whether high school or college) and/or those from your arch rival. Depending on the level of response and interest we may select some finalists and vote have a public vote.

I know I’ve seen some pretty bad school song lyrics in high school gyms throughout the midwest, and I’m sure there are many more like them. This is a chance to bring them all together in one place to give them the recognition they deserve.

Let’s get this contest started! Rah! Rah! Chatee, Cha ha!

Update: Just to clarify, I’m not calling Zurich High’s the dumbest school fight song. I hope the revised headline makes that point. I would like to know what the context of “we know you have sand” is, but maybe there’s a really good explanation that would be extraordinarily meaningful. I’m just using some song lyrics that struck me as funny to crowdsource (and celebrate) a list of interesting and peculiar fight songs that may have made sense at the time they were written, but for which the lingo is way out of date. And it’s all in good fun.

Further update: This from a reader in Illinois: “The Zurich song borrows heavily from the Illinois fight song – Illinois Loyalty. Illinois Loyalty was written around 1906, when “having sand” alluded to the strength and utility of sand bags on the farm.”

Widgets for a New Project

I’m working on an interesting new project, and we want to include some Mayo Clinic-related widgets in the sidebar. Here’s an example of one for Twitter:

I look forward to sharing information on the project as we’re ready to roll it out. For now, this is just my way of showing colleagues how this widget would appear. Note that the dimensions of the widget can be changed.

Here’s where you go to create your own widget. This one looks for tweets mentioning “Mayo Clinic” OR mayoclinic.

Basketball Recruiting Season Begins

My son Joe has just finished his sophomore year of high school, and so as a member of the Class of 2013 this was the first day he could receive calls from Division I basketball coaches, according to NCAA rules. Today he’s talked with coaches from Cal Poly, Illinois-Chicago and South Dakota State. It’s an interesting process, and our first experience with it at the D1 level.

Joe has had a fun spring season with the Minnesota Fury Gold 16U team (along with two other players from his Austin High School team – his cousin Tom, also a sophomore, and freshman Zach Wessels.) Their Fury team is 35-4 on the spring and is playing great team ball. They resume tournament action in July, playing the King James Summer Showcase in Chicago, the Best Buy Pump N Run tournament in Minneapolis and the Adidas Super 64 in Las Vegas.

In June, Joe, Tom and Zach are playing with their Austin High School teammates in several team camps. This weekend they play at Iowa State University in Ames, and last weekend it was in Cedar Falls at University of Northern Iowa. Here are Joe’s highlights from the game against the Howard Pulley 16U team, one of the top AAU all-star teams in the state. Joe was 11/14 from the field (8/9 from three-point range) and had 30 points. The Packers dropped an 86-84 contest on two free throws by Siyani Chambers with :06 remaining.

Note: This video includes every shot Joe took in the Pulley game. I thought it was helpful to show the misses as well as the makes. And at the 1:00 mark I missed the finish on his breakaway dunk. It’s kind of hard to get all the action when you’re sitting under the basket instead of at midcourt.

Here is a more extended highlight reel that is mostly made up of footage from Joe’s sophomore season in high school.

We’re looking forward to what should be a fun Summer. I’ll occasionally post some updates here in the coming months. See the Packer Fast Break Club site for more in-depth coverage.