10/14/09

At the end of our conditioning every September, Coach Lamar loads us into vans and takes us down to southern Missouri to go on a spiritual life retreat. We have such a great time getting to know each other away from the court. We take a canoe trip when we first arrive. The upper classmen have a good time tipping the freshmen’s canoes. The water was really high this year which created all kinds of fun. We had guys trying to swim against the current (Lukas Weigel made it the furthest), guys going off a rope swing, and even our coaching staff doing back flips off a short cliff. (trust me…that is pretty fun to watch) A couple of guys brought fishing poles and Andrew [Crotty] and Ian [Mathews] tried to ride their canoe down a flight of stairs! Halfway through the canoeing Dr. Edlin, our team chaplain, gives us a devotional (He does this every week). Again it was what our team needed to hear.

When we get out of the river a local church helps to feed us. This is usually the highlight of the trip: a great home cooked meal. The backyard that hosts the meal is amazing: there is horseshoes, volleyball, and of course a giant area for the annual game of football. The upperclassmen again dominated the freshmen and coaches (ask Coach Lamar how many interceptions he threw). That night and the next morning we meet as a team to grow as close to each other as possible. We get deep into the Bible and also into accountability. It's a great experience to go through. There are not a lot of other colleges that do this...yet another reason that I have found MNU to be a special place!

Brenton Bell

9/23/09

We started our annual September conditioning two weeks ago. It has been a lot of work and at the same time a lot of fun. We have had to be either in the gym or on the track at 5:45 AM to condition four days a week. The workouts are hard, but I know we will benefit from them down the road. We haven’t even done the hardest one yet: that will be on Friday when we run the hills. We also lift in the mornings after we do our conditioning, and in the afternoons we usually have open gym from 3-5. We mix the teams up from day to day to see what will be the best fit and to just change it up some. We have a few guys who have been injured and that is never good, the trainers are working hard to get them back on the court so they can continue to improve. This is our last week of conditioning and we start practicing officially in two weeks.

I am really looking forward to this weekend: our annual Arkansas canoe trip. We will leave on Saturday morning and get there sometime around noon. We canoe down the river and stop somewhere along the way to hear a great devotional from Dr. Edlin, who is our team Chaplin. That night we go to some people’s house and eat a great spread of food and have the annual touch football game in the back yard. It is always a good time. The next morning we have a church service and drive back to Olathe. I look forward to spending time with the team.

-Ben Swinger