A day before our last school game of the year, we found out that due to a few injuries and a couple of academic ineligibilities, all five of our eighth graders were going to be moving up to the C Squad to play with whatever players they had left for the last two games of the year.  They were very exited to hear this news and are anxious for the experience.  There are a couple of them that deserved to be given a chance to move up at the beginning of the year, as they were talented enough to do so.  RTR is one of the few school districts around this area that does not allow seventh and eighth graders to be moved up to varsity level sports, except in special circumstances such as this.  I have spoken to a number of coaches of teams we have played this year, and just about all of them lost at least one, if not multiple players to the varsity teams.  I applaud all schools that allow this to be done at the discretion of a good coaching staff.  If a player is good enough to play at the varsity level as an underclassmen or even a middle schooler, then they should be allowed to.  Teams only hurt themselves by doing otherwise.  Some of the promising athletes that go through our school, do not get varsity experience until their later high school years, which steals valuable experience and limits potential.  Sports are supposed to be competitive and if someone is better than you, then you should not be upset that they are playing in front of you, age aside.  It is about who works the hardest to become a better player and has the superior skills, at least at the varsity level.  The older you get, the more cutthroat sports are.

    On Thursday night of last week, I decided to travel the whole seven miles down Highway 14 to Lake Benton, MN where the Elkton/Lake Benton boys basketball team was taking on Arlington, SD.  This team plays a South Dakota schedule and playoffs because their main school is in Elkton, SD, but they play a few home games a year in Lake Benton, so I figured with my busy schedule, this would be a good game to watch them play.  It took a little bit to get used to playing four quarters instead of two halfs, as it is played in Minnesota.  They have a very good squad that also has some depth off the bench, which tends to pay off around playoff time.  They rely heavily on about four players for a majority of their scoring and rely on basically two people to handle the ball.  They differ in that way from my hometown RTR team for those reasons.  I would really enjoy being able to watch those two teams play each other, because I feel that it would be a very competitive game and fun to watch.  The game was a back and forth affair with neither team taking a commanding lead in the game, but a late surge by Elkton/Lake Benton along with some good shooting from the foul line, gave them a ten point victory. 

    Last night, I attended the boys high school basketball game in my hometown of Tyler where the RTR Knights played host to the Canby Lancers.  RTR was 19-1 on the season going into the game and Canby was 15-3.  I have attended many of the games played since I graduated and have felt that the competition has been somewhat down in recent years.  I graduated in 2007 and was a member of two state title teams and two teams that lost close games to Ellsworth to go to state.  Both of those years, Ellsworth went on to win the title.  The game last night, however, had an atmosphere that I have not felt since I was on the floor.  Canby is a physical team that can shoot the lights out at any second and also has one really good player down low.  RTR has a very strong starting five, and any or all of them can score a ton on any given night.  When it was all said and done, RTR notched another victory with a final score of 75-66.  The score does not even describe how close this game was all the way through.  Canby got off to a hot start with five early three pointers and took an early lead.  By halftime though, RTR had built its way back into the game and took a five point lead to the locker room.  Canby came out strong in the second half and cut down the lead and from there the lead see-sawed back and forth.  With little over nine minutes still left in the game, Canby's best threat at post fouled out of the game, which was a huge blow to the team's comeback chances.  They never gave up though, as they mounted a late comback that saw the game down to two points difference late.  After a timeout, that should have been taken when the lead was cut to six at the very latest, RTR came out strong and composed and finished off their opponent by knocking down a few late shots and hitting all their free throws down the distance.  The game was very physical, with three players fouling out and as many as seven more with three or four fouls.  The atmosphere was very intense and the refs had a very tough job and I thought they made a few bad calls against both teams, but they were only trying to keep the game from getting out of hand (which they did) and calls were made fairly both ways, good and bad.  I will likely have a blog later completely about reffing, as I have done that as well as coach for seven years. 

    I have been extremely busy these past two weeks with basketball.  We have played five games in the past six days and have another game against Canby on Thursday.  Three of those games were played on Saturday up in Dawson in an eighth grade tournament against Minneota, Lakeview, and Milbank.  Last night, our seventh and eighth grade teams played against Tracy-Milroy-Balaton and we were handed a loss in the seventh grade game, but were able to pull away late and beat them in the eighth grade game.  The RTR girls varsity basketball team and coaches came to watch the the games, which I think may have made a number of the girls on both teams quite nervous and their play showed it at times.  I am hoping for two victories tomorrow against Canby, although I know they will be tough games.  After that, we have a few practices scheduled for next week, as we are playing in the eighth grade tournament in Marshall on February 17th.  I am certain that we will see some tough competition there as well. 

    I have also had a passion for sports has been a life-long one that began virtually before I could walk, from stories that my parents have informed me of.  I was involved in football, baseball and basketball in high school, and was the recipient of various awards and accolades as a member of these sports.  I still play many sports in my free time as I participate in a few basketball leagues, play slow pitch softball in the summers and have even taken up the sport of volleyball, which I am getting quite good at now.  After I graduated from high school, I immediately started volunteering as a youth basketball coach for a sixth grade boys team and have coached just about every year since.  That group of boys are now seniors at RTR High School and have only lost one game this season.  After I coached boys for two years, I started dating the woman I was recently married to.  She, of course has younger sisters that played basketball, which led to me coaching girls basketball first at the fourth grade level and then at the sixth grade level last year.  I was not sure what to expect when coaching a girl's team for the first time, but was pleasantly surprised with how similar they are to coach and how well they responded to my coaching.  
    This year, the coaching positions for the seventh and eighth grade girls basketball teams at RTR were open, and some of the parents of the girls I coached last year recommended my wife and I as good candidates for the position.  We were contacted by the principal and before I knew it, I had my first paid coaching position, as I had been volunteering when coaching the younger age groups.  My wife is also an accomplished volleyball coach, as she recently took her Junior Olympics team to the National Junior Olympics Tournament this past summer.  We have had a successful year with both groups this year as our seventh grade has a 5-3 record and our eighth grade has a 7-2 record.  We only have two games left this season, as we play Canby tomorrow night and Tracy-Milroy-Balaton next week.  We are planning on taking them to a few tournaments once the season has concluded as well.  I hope that I can continue coaching in the future, as it works well with my career in agriculture, which will keep me busiest in the summer and early fall while basketball takes place during the winter months. 
    

    As I stated in my first blog, I am interning with CENTROL Crop Consulting this summer and I am extremely excited about it.  There will be many new tasks that I will learn how to perform and new equipment that I will learn how to use.  I will primarily be going out and using a GPS to locate certain spots and then gathering soil samples from the fields of area farmers and testing this soil to find out it's composition as well as what nutrients it contains and ones that it requires.  Upon gathering the soil and testing it for these facors, I will then get to perform research on what products I would recommend the farmer use on his field, such as fertilizer, pesticides/herbicides, which hybrid of seed and from which company, and any other things that I may have noticed while analyzing or researching.  Next, I will continue to monitor the farmer's fields as the crop grows and monitor it for any diseases, pests, or signs of nutrient deficiencies that can be corrected to produce a better yielding crop at harvest.  
    I feel that I am going to enjoy everything this internship has to offer.  I will learn how to use state of the art equipment utilized in the agriculture industry today, work closely with and develop relationships with area farmers, work outdoors much of the time, monitor the crops through their whole growth cycles, monitor crops for a variety of different diseases and pests, and essentially get paid to give the farmer honest and reliable advice without trying to push any one type of product on them.  I will simply be giving them the best advice on how to get a good yielding crop on whatever field and soil type they may be trying to grow it on.  As I grew up on a farm and am related to a seed salesman, I know that as with any form of sales, the salesman is always trying to convince you that their product is the best.  CENTROL is aimed at removing this from the equation by being an unbiased source of agricultural knowledge that farmers can depend on for reliable information without having one type of seed or chemical pushed on them without knowing if it is their best choice.  I like what the company stands for and I feel that It is the type of place that I will enjoy working at. 

Hi everyone!  My name is Barry Alderson and, as you have already concluded from my blog title, I am an Agronomy major.  I wanted this first blog to try to represent what I am and what I am striving to work for in my work career.  I was previously going to school for teaching and coaching, which I still enjoy doing as I am currently coaching 7th and 8th grade basketball teams at RTR Middle School  I also grew up on a farm and enjoyed all the time outdoors as well as farmwork itself.  Torn between the two passions of my life, I chose the one with the overall best career outlook and allowed the other to be a part-time job of mine.  I am excited with the direction I have chose and plan to intern with CENTROL Crop Consulting this summer and will graduate after the summer semester.  I hope to get a full-time position with the company after my internship or find one with a company that performs similar services to farmers.  I still plan to continue helping my dad and cousin on our own family farm when I am able after graduation.  I also intend to coach basketball over the winter months, as this works out perfectly around my busy summer and fall schedule in the agriculture world.  Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading up on the blogs' of others throughout the semester.