By Nick Ring
Overtraining?
I didn’t think that Tito was over-training us. These work-outs were short and intense and while some of it was hard, I think it was all manageable.
Kyacey was raising concerns that we were working too hard and we shouldn’t be doing the stuff that Tito was making us do, and he was basically blaming McCray’s loss to Bryant on Tito. I thought that Kyacey was being a little bit unfair to Tito because I thought Tito was doing his best to be a good coach and Kyacey was shitting on him for it. He was trying to plant seeds of doubt in all of our minds about the training and regardless of whether the training was right or wrong it just wasn’t helping any of us to try to cause a mutiny within the team.
In my opinion I think that trust in your coaches is a crucial part of the training process. I have had the pleasure to work with some amazing coaches in my hometown and my trust in them has been a part of my success. Trust is part of what makes the coach/athlete relationship work. If you can’t trust your coach and his/her perspective on your game and take the advice, then who will you trust? Your coach is trying to help you with your success so I think you should let them help you. Don’t insult them by telling everybody else that their help sucks.
As far as I was concerned Tito was being reasonable with his workouts and he was also doing his best. I was learning new stuff and some of it I never would have even tried if I never trained with him and been open-minded enough to listen.
I didn’t see what the fuss was about, and I was just enjoying the process. Even if you don’t like the training, it would all be over in just a few short weeks and you would get to go back to your old routine anyway. I just didn’t think that complaining would be a constructive use of energy.
Kyacey Confronted
Kyacey had been pretty vocal in his criticisms to me and the other team Ortiz members. I don’t know how Tito heard about it but obviously had and it was now time for a talk. He sat all of us down to hash it out like grown-ups. In fact, I really liked the way Tito handled the situation. He was giving Kyacey a chance to say what he wanted to say and bring it out into the open and wasn’t being too confrontational about it either.
Tito was taking charge the situation in a really mature way and I felt a lot of confidence in him at this moment as a coach. It took the wind out of Kyacey’s sails without turning it into a big fight. If Tito had handled this situation more aggressively like many people might have, this situation could have been really ugly. I thought that addressing the situation in this way brought everybody on the red team more together.
Dodgeball
I know it is only a game, but this was still hard to watch. We got killed in this stupid game. Not only did we lose all 3 games, but we also lost the practice game – booooo we suck! Worst dodgeball team ever!
It was also funny to watch Chuck gloat over the game, to see his look on his face of his feelings of superiority over Tito was priceless. I don’t know if I have ever seen such unbridled happiness out of Chuck. I don’t even think he looked that happy when he beat Tito in their 2 original matches and all it took was a dodgeball game. But props to Chuck, he has an arm like a cannon.
Oh No You Didn’t!
Court called me out, and I thought it would be funny to wag my finger at him.
I think most people when they meet me think I am a bit weird. Also I do have a bit of a different sense of humor than most people and it takes them by surprise. I am pretty foul-mouthed and I like to make a lot of gay jokes.
Me and my friends back home find this shit funny, but in the context of the Ultimate Fighter house this humour got me labeled pretty quickly as the gay guy in the house. I think most of the guys in the house knew that I was joking but I also think some of the other guys thought I was a homo.
Regardless, I thought the situation was completely hilarious so I just kept going with it, and if anybody (usually Yager) ever said anything to me about being gay, I would usually just act even more gay until they shut up about it. I thought it was funny.
Anyway, we were all just sitting down at the bleachers waiting for the fight announcement. Chuck has control and there is only two guys left the Chuck can sick on me – Court McGee and Joe Henle. I figured Court was probably going to call me out because I couldn’t see him call Seth out because they just fought a few days earlier.
Chuck calls Court up and I was just sitting there waiting to be called. I thought it would be funny to give him the old finger wag like a southern United States diva.
I just figured they all thought I was gay anyway, so why not get a laugh out of it? Immediately after I did the finger wag everybody on both teams laughed and I got a mini-applause. I knew that after that little display I probably would be stuck with the gay label in the house, but it was well worth it.