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The #pray4rebecca t-shirt was created via the CustomInk website. The shirt is pictured below. Go to the CustomInk site and fill out the information then return here and use the PayPal button to pay for your shirt. Let's show Rebecca how much she is loved!!

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The Cardinals and Scottie Pippen

I grew up in Central Illinois, just north of Peoria, in a little town called Chillicothe. It was a big baseball area and the fan lines were drawn between the Cubs and the Cardinals. It was almost as if the AL only existed to get beat in the All-Star Game and then play in the World Series. My family was a die-hard Cubs family. I liked to tell people, once I got to college and beyond, that where I grew up you rooted for the Cubs or the Cardinals and my Dad brought me up right. Yes, there as quite a bit of playful animosity between the two fan bases since they were rivals, but other than 1984 when the Cubs finally went to the playoffs after 39 years, the Cardinals ruled the rivalry. As I have grown older the “playful” part of the enmity has gone by the wayside. It’s nice to have a rival – I’m a huge Bears fan and we hate the Packers, but I respect loyal Packers fans – but there is an underlying issue that has been bothering me for a while….and I think I might have stumbled across some reasons as to the purpose of this enmity.

Let me go back to my Little League days to help explain my theory. I LOVED Little League. After Valentine’s Day I would get the itch for practices and bug my Dad about signups. I lived for the summers when I could play all day and all weekend. My birthday was in the middle of August, which doesn’t seem like a big deal at first glance, but my parents started me in school early. I was always the youngest person in my class. As the related to Little League, I hardly even played with my classmates. Most of my teams consisted of guys who were a year behind me in school. I also had an older brother, two years my senior, who played as well. I always watched and studied my classmates and my older brothers teams and noticed a few interesting tidbits.

I can’t explain it, but there was always one guy who was far and away the best player. Usually, this was the guy who matured the fastest and therefore could throw faster and hit it further than the rest of the team. Two names stand out for me, Bill Akright and Dana Bannister. Both were absolute flamethrowers who scared the bejesus out of any little kid, like me, who had to face them. Now, I’m not tooting my own horn, but I was a pretty good ball player. Never the first pick, but I considered myself a dirtbag who would do anything to win. Consequently, there were times where I got called up to the leagues above me to substitute for missing players. A very cool reward…unless I ended up having to face Akright or Bannister – then it was just making sure I didn’t piss down my leg as I walked to the plate.

A little about me: yes, I was a scrappy ballplayer, but once boys got to the age where physical things started to happen, I stalled. To say I was a late bloomer is a gross understatement. Let me put it plainly for you – the day I graduated high school I was 5’3” tall….and I had grown about 3 inches the last nine weeks of my senior year. Make sense now? I digress. When I played Little League these giants throwing BB's at what seemed like 100 mph scared me to death.  I didn’t back down but I was never hugely successful when I got called up. I liked playing with my own age group. Again, there was always the easy first pick for any coach putting together any of my teams. After that though, it got interesting. After the mega-starts were a lot of really good ballplayers. At the time, I liked to fancy myself as one, but who knows how they looked at me. These guys were so close in talent that the position they chose could make all the difference in the world in getting noticed. My brother is a great example of this – he was a catcher (I was too, but also played the other positions up the middle of the field in 2B and CF) so he set himself apart. Was he the mega-star? No. But he was a really good player who played a vital position. One thing that always bit me and my brother in the rear in Little League was that we didn’t play the political game. We didn’t toot our own horns and neither did our Dad. Our play would tell the story. I understand that choice.

So how does this all this relate to Cubs and Cardinals fans? Let’s connect the dots. There were three major types of players in Little League – the mega-stars, the really good players who had to be political to get ahead, and the little scrappy guys (like me) who just wanted to play all day long but would never carry a team. I think we can correlate each of these players with a team in MLB today – the mega-star would be the Yankees. 27 World Championships is all we need to day about that classification. The really good player would be the Cardinals – 11 World Championships, great history, but will never reach the Yankees level. Finally, the little scrappy kid – that’s the Cubs – think Squints from the movie “The Sandlot” or Tanner from “Bad News Bears”. He needs a LOT of help from better players to help them win. In my opinion, Cardinals fans HATE being the really good player who never seemingly gets his due. They want to be the alpha dog who can preen and pose while everyone ooh’s and ah’s at their greatness. That’s not going to happen – ever.

We can classify this as the Scottie Pippen complex, if I may. He is one of the 50 greatest NBA players of all time. But he will never be Mike. When Michael went to play baseball and Scottie was left to be “the man”, what happened? Nothing. Once Scottie left Chicago did he ever win anything? Nope.

For me, the classic example was Wilber Marshall. LOVED this guy when he was with the Bears; he was my second favorite player after Walter. He was a beast. But when he became a FA he bolted to be the man in Washington and…..he was never the same. Yes, he won a ring there but he was never the main cog of the defense.

This is the problem with Cardinals fans. They want the adulation for being a Jordan when they are a Pippen. Let me clarify – there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a Pippen. But you can’t expect to be looked at as a Jordan when you aren’t Jordan. That’s the Yankees. So to make themselves feel better – they pick on the Penny Hardaway of the group, the Cubs. Yes, we’ve had a few great years but could never put it all together to win the title. The more Cardinals fans feel disrespected, the more Penny gets derided.

Yogi Berra had a famous line as he was talking to Bernie Williams during the 1999 ALCS. He said, “"Relax. We've been playing these guys for 80 years. They're never gonna beat us." What a dig! There aren’t many things more derisive than indifference. The Yankees (until 2004) were indifferent towards the Red Sox because they knew they would always beat them. Why aren’t Cardinals fans like that towards Cubs fans? Can we help it that the media is fascinated with the “lovable loser” tag (I HATE that moniker)? That we have an historic ballpark with ambiance in a great neighborhood that sells out every game? It is not our fault, as Cubs fans, that the media has made the club and their fans darlings because of on the field failures; billy goats, called HR shots, Leon’s glove, Bartman….it’s all a fascinating story. But if I was a Cardinals fan (and I shudder at the thought) I would have indifference towards the Cubs until they actually won something. 

Give it a try Cardinals fans, ignore us. Enjoy being Scottie Pippen. Maybe someday we will get a chance to be Jason Terry.

By the way....

Even though I sent them in late, the uniforms below made it to the contest at http://www.uni-watch.com/. If you'd like to vote for my entry, go to the site starting this weeked and vote for my Barons design.

Thanks!
Crull

New Uniform Design

Our friends over at Uni Watch recently had a contest to redesign the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins uniforms so that the mascots would be less offensive. I chose to take on the Indians. One of the stipulations was choosing a name that had significance to the city and/or team. They gave some suggestions and I decided on one that they suggested - Barons. Here are my designs for the Cleveland Barons:

Home Uniform



Away Uniform

Alternate Uniform

Hat

Let me know what you think....

BTW, Paul Lukas has also issued a challenge on ESPN.com to rename and redesign the New Orleans Hornets logo and uniforms. Details here. I think that's my next uniform.

Meyers Leonard Gets a Surprise...

This is the best...

Meyers Leonard's brother, Bailey, returned from Afghanistan...Meyers did not know he was retruning and Bailey surprised him by showing up at the shootaround before the Michigan game on March 1.

Thank you Bailey for your service.

Full MiLB Sports Marketing Project

If you read my last post, and from the looks of it, no one did - I recently assigned my sports marketing classes a project where they needed to come up with the name of a Class A Chicago Cubs affiliate that was coming to our area. They needed to procure a sponsor for the stadium, name the team, create a logo and promote a press conference where they would reveal the aforementioned tasks.

Now that we are at the end of our unit they are building upon that base with the rest of their project. At this point, they have to:
1. Design home and away uniforms, as well as a cap
2. Create an Opening Day promotion for both adults and children. They need corporate sponsors for both promotions.
3. Create a local 30 second television commercial, design a billboard and choose four locations to put them around the city, and create a social media campaign as well.
4. Finally, thanks to Benjamin Hill at Ben's Biz Blog, they are creating a unique food item to sell at the stadium. It must be indigenous to the area, not already created/sold at another establishment, and be unique enough to draw fans on it's own accord. It can be a contest or just a grandiose item. The students will then build these food items in the FACS kitchen next week.

I'm pretty excited to see what I get. There were a couple of groups where I had to strongly suggest they go back and reconsider their team names and logos (I have a lot of comedians as students). Once the project is finished I will post results here.

Sports Marketing Project

Today I assigned the first part of a project for my sports marketing classes. The scenario at hand goes like this:

"Fishers, IN (city of our school) has approved a deal to build a baseball stadium near Hamilton Town Center (a shopping center two miled from our school) that will house the new Class A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. Your team has been hired on as marketing consultants with the city and the Cubs to name the team, create the logo and to find sponsorship for the stadium."

The end game of this section of the project is for the students to have a press conference revealing the name of the team, the logo, and the stadium sponsor. They also need to create a newspaper ad promoting the press conference and a flyer to hang at Hamilton Town Center. The press conference needs to take place (figuratively) at a place near Hamilton Town Center.

I'm very interested to see what my students create in this project. So far, some of the names are pretty creative. I wish I could reveal the rest of the project...but I can't just in case I have some students check this blog. But it's pretty cool. :)

Liam Duddy

One of my former students, Liam Duddy, saw this blog and thought it was pretty cool. He also thought I should have a post about him. This is his post.

This is a picture of him playing football. He's alright. It's better if I put a picture of him on here with his helmet on, because without it....not to mean, but yikes.


The End.

Baseball TIme

Here is a uniform I designed for an assignment in Sports Marketing. I love baseball and found Ben Hill on Twitter. He is a blogger for MLB and reports on the minor leagues. He has a great job (yes, I'm jealous). One day I ran across this post on Pensacola getting a AA team and voting on a name. I took that and made it an assignment in Sports Marketing. My students drew one of the names and had to create uniforms, a mascot, and an Opening Night promotion. I was so humbled when Ben created an entire post about my assignment. You can see it here. Anyway, I gave the uniforms a shot too - I chose the Aviators. Here are my unis.

Home uni

Away Uni

Alternate Uni

Change is good...

Made some changes today. Decided to make the focus of this blog sports marketing, which is one of my passions. You will probably see a lot of uniform creations here because that is my current obsession. And without further adieu...

This is my first shot at a uniform set from my Sports Marketing class last year. I called the team Fire Ants and borrowed the logo from USC-Sumter.

Here are the uniforms. My students said I "stole" too much. So I created another set...

This is the Black Knights. Created logo all by my lonesome. The uniforms lean towards Oregon's football uni's. The helmet is supposed to be like the helmet Oregon used in the National Championship. The shoulders are supposed to look like diamond plate. Oregon had a faux-diamondplate look a few years ago. I kept the actual color of silver to make it look cooler.

Home uniforms. Created three sets: home with white pants, away with black pants and alternate with green pants.

A Change is Needed....

There has been some movement in the AQ Qualifying Conferences (Utah, TCU, etc..) I thought I would share my thoughts on a possible alternative to the BCS.

It can be viewed here:

Alternative to the BCS

View more presentations from illini3sc.

The Challenge

Last week I was in Cleveland, TN with the youth group from my church for a conference called CIY Move. It was an excellent conference with some amazing speakers. The main speaker was Jeff Walling and he was incredible. His message and delivery knocked me to my knees and I was moved (no pun intended). Many of the kids had some great spiritual challenges presented to them that week as well. I had a blast hanging out with the teenagers, in spite of the lack of sleep, :)

Anyway, the last day we were all handed what was called a Kingdom Worker card. It was a challenge to help us activate our faith after what we experienced at the conference. You could hand the card back and not take the challenge, but if you opened it you committed to accepting the challenge. In my zeal, not only to be a leader, but to help push me to show my faith, I instantly opened the card. Wow. If anyone doesn't think God has a sense of humor - well, you're not in my shoes, because I know he was laughing as I read my challenge card.

It said this (paraphrase) - You must drink only water (not bottled water) for the next year. Pray for the millions who do not have easy access to clean water. Use Active Water as a tool in your challenge."

Talk about hitting me where it hurts. I LOVE my sodas and G2. I hardly ever drink water. But I accepted the challenge and am going to do it. I am currently on Day 5 and so far it hasn't been too bad. Last night, I had a serious Coke jones. But I got through it and today is another day.

I'll keep you updated on my challenge and also keep you abreast of any fundraising I might do for ActiveWater during the year.

Here We Go Again....

Once again, in my sporadic nature, I am trying to get this blog going consistently. While I love Twitter (@illini3sc), it tends to abbreviate topics I'd like to elaborate on a little more. Hopefully I can find some consistency in this.....

For today, it's my annual MLB Predictions Post. Today is Opening Day (probably the greatest day of the year) and I need to put my picks down in print so that I can see how bad they turn out once the season is over. So, without further adieu:

American League
East - Boston Red Sox: offseason moves and better health this year is too much to deny
Central - Chicago White Sox: adding to Dunn to potent lineup with good staff wins it
West - Texas Rangers: A's are sexy pick, but don't trust their offense. Rangers can mash.
Wild Card - Tampa Bay Rays: Yes, I am not picking the Yankees. Rays have great pitching and added Damon and ManRam to lineup.
AL Champ - Chicago White Sox: Lefties will shut down AGon & Papi in playoffs.
C y Young - Justin Verlander
MVP - Josh Hamilton: lots of candidates, but I can't pick against my boy!

National League
East - Philadelphia Phillies: even with their injuries that rotation is too stacked to lose
Central - Milwaukee Brewers: Not buying Reds pitching and think Cards will be hurt by Wainright loss enough for Brewers to sneak up an win it. Greinke HUGE get by them.
West - San Francisco Giants: again, pitching. Oh yeah, that Posey kid is good too.
Wild Card - Colorado Rockies: the consensus is the Braves, but I'm holding off on them for another year.
NL Champ - Phillies: Who else? Great pitching beats great hitting in postseason.
Cy Young - Roy Halladay
MVP - Troy Tulowitzki

World Series Champs - Philles: read above about pitching. So, there you have it. Picks destined to go horribly wrong because I picked them. Let the brow beating begin!!

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Thoughts on Bears Offseason

Hello tweeps! Hopefully you made the trek to my blog to check out my thoughts on the Bears off-season to this point.....and it's definitely been newsworthy.

So where do we start.....? Let's work our way backwards. The Bears yesterday hired Mike martz to be their new Offensive Coordinator. Honestly, I am not sure how I feel yet on the hire. Yes, he can get pass happy. But he did also mold Kurt Warner into an MVP and Super Bowl champ. It goes both ways with opinions on him. My brother, who is a HUGE Rams fans tells me that Martz isn't very good at adapting once the game starts. Well then, I guess that makes him Ron Turner 2.0. Scary.

But why did it take that long to find an OC? Both JA and Lovie assured us that coaches would be lining up to coach here. It is very irritating when people say stupid crap just to make themselves sound and look better. We all knew the truth - Lovie is a lame duck. If the Bears stink up this year he is gone. And that makes sense as to why some coaches wouldn't want to come here. But one thing I haven't heard mentioned is the schedule. Have you looked at it closely? It's brutal. We have the AFC East and the NFC East next year. So a coach on a short leash + hard schedule = very little job security. It makes sense why coaches would rather take jobs in Seattle and Oakland.

And I've never understood the whole concept of firing everyone except the head guys. Doesn't accountability start at the top? Yes I know he is owed a ton of money, but in this business that $11 million can be made up REAL fast with a winning team. And yes, I know it's a business. But when you lose site of the sports side of it - the side the people buying the tickets and merchandise see - then it becomes a problem. Winning doesn't mean as much as making money. And how can you have that attitude as an owner? I guess it you didn't build it then it wouldn't matter. But I would much rather have an owner like Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder than the penny pinching McCaskey's.

As you can see, IMHO, the REAL problem is ownership. I have been a Bears fans since they drafted my hero, Walter Payton, so I have seen a lot of ups and downs. But the one thing that never changed was the family ownership of the Bears. Shoot, I've read Halas' biography twice. And I guarantee you if he came back to life today he would be tearing through the backsides of those running the ship. Virginia gave the reigns of the ship to her neophyte son Michael (who George begged them not to let run the team) it was gonna be a bumpy ride. Yes, they did win Super Bowl XX (thank God!!), but who hired Ditka? Papa Bear, that's who. I don't get it with my teams...why do the most incompetent about sports end up running the team (PK Wrigley, Mike McCaskey)?!?!?

Look at Jim Irsay. Living in Indianapolis since 1990 I have seen the Colts shape themselves into a perennial winner. Why? Jim understands that "if you build it they will come". As in fans. Yes, most of the Colts fans I know are bandwagon, but they have a new stadium and are going to their second Super Bowl in 4 years. He knew that it wasn't so much about dollars as it was building the right team - then the dollars would come. He hired a sound football guy in Bill Polian (love him or hate him he can spot talent) and let him run the show. Do we need to list how many of the current Colts were drafted players as compared to FA signings? It's sick. It infuriates me that doofus Mike and Ted are still in charge. The greatest thing that could happen to the Bears right now is for the McCaskey's to sell.

So now we have to pray that the OL can block for Jay's 5 and 7 step drops so that he doesn't get killed. We have to pray that Lovie's beloved Tampa 2 can actually work again. We have to pray that the teams on our schedule make a lot of bad off season moves that hurt their teams. And I have to pray that the Colts don't win on Sunday or again next year so I don't have to hear about it every day......looks like another long year for a Bears fan in Colts country. :(

OK, dissect away!!

Saynora!!!

As I have mentioned numerous times - I have such good intentions when trying to blog. However, the time invloved to actually create content for the blog seems to slip from my fingers. I have so many things that I want to say, but couldn't find a place where everything fell into place to get it done....until now.

From now on you can find me micro-blogging on Twitter. You can follow me at:
www.twitter.com/illini3sc

Shawn

Updates

Wow - I always get so ambitious when I try and start up the blog....and then life gets in the way. So to make up for lost time, here is a bulleted list of things that have happened since our last conversation.

• I got an iPhone. LOVE IT!!! For some reason, I couldn't talk my wife into letting me get one. But the salesman at the AT&T store could. Woo-hoo!! And I wasn't going to let her get one without me getting one. If you have a chance to get one - do it. You won't regret it.
• We finally got our back patio poured and it is awesome. It makes such a HUGE difference to have a place now in back where you can go and relax. We eat dinner out there alot too because it is so nice.
• School is starting soon....yuck. I have started to plan for the fall and it becomes tougher every year. Not because I don't enjoy school but because the summer goes so fast and I enjoy the time with my family
• My ankle is getting better. The physical therapy is helping...but it is just a slow process.
• Got to visit home over the weekend. So much fun!! I got to take the boys to all the places I frequented as a kid. I showed them the houses I grew up in, the schools I went to, the ball fields I played on all summer long, and we went to visit Dad's grave as well. Brannon kind of freaked out about dying and being away from us. But we worked it out.
• I love two things about going home (besides the fan) - Kitchen Cooked Potato Chips. They are the best chips on the planet. And Avanti's restaurant. Their food is amazing, especially the Gondola. It is the best sandwich in the entire world. My wife is hooked on them now and so is her parents. Once you have one, you will be too
• The Cubs - yikes. How up and down can they be? Sweep Washington, lost 2 straight to Philly. At least they are still only two games out....I guess.
• The All-Star Game just sucks now. I HATE the face that the winner gets home field in the World Series. It's not right. Plus, guys who get to go to the game don't get to play...just in case it goes extra innings. It is an EXHIBITION!!! Keep it at that.

OK, that's all for now. I will try and keep up in the near future.....so says the sporadic blogger. :)

More thoughts....

Happy July 4th to everyone!!! Please don't forget those who have served our country and those who are currently serving. It is the courage of those that allow us to have the freedoms that we enjoy every day.

A couple of thoughts from the weekend:

• It is so cool how things can work out. We had some friends need to go visit a sick relative and from that we ended up having a group from Springfield, MO conduct a backyard bible club at our house all week. They were the NEATEST people. It was like we had known them forever. Other than the fact that they were Cardinals fans and Missouri fans, they were great. I feel like we made some friends for life this week.
• I FINALLY went to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen this weekend with my wife. Wow! I loved it. I thought the story was well thought out and it played out at a very good pace. Nothing was rushed just to get into the CGI stuff. Definitely a movie I will own and watch countless times.
• I had a dream last night of Marian Hossa's first game as a Blackhawk. I know that sounds weird but that was a HUGE get for the Hawks. They are going to make even more noise next year in the NHL playoffs. Oh yeah baby!
• Maybe this is the homestand that turns the Cubs around. Taking the first two from the Brewers is a good start to making their move and taking control of the Central. Now if they could get ARam back and swinging the bat as well as get Soriano right - watch out!
• Even though I probably shouldn't have (with my bad ankle) I went and played golf yesterday. Had a blast. I even played pretty well with a bad ankle and not having played in a year. Shot a 49 and 52 at Stoney Creek. I will take that all day at this point. I ever parred the last hole, a par 5.

Til next time!

Getting Old

Hello again. Sorry I have taken almost a week since getting back from being out of town to posting something. It is interesting how long it takes to get back adjusted after being with teenagers on a set schedule for a week.

Speaking of, let me tell you about my first 36 hours or so of camp. We left the high school parking lot at about 11pm for the overnight drive on a charter bus. Not so bad to begin with - until we realize that the air conditioning is not working on our bus. Luckily for me, I got a seat in the very back. Why? Well, the bus driver opened a ceiling window that allowed air in and I got a steady breeze. The bad part was that then all of the kids came rushing to the back to get some air. So I got NO sleep whatsoever until we stopped in Janesville, WI. We stopped to exchange buses and were there for about 45 minutes. Enough time to fully wake up. :)

Part 2 of the trip consisted of the trip from Janesville, WI to Detroit Lakes, MN (about an hour east of Fargo, ND). It was long and I still didn't get much sleep. I tried to lay on the floor a couple of times and ended getting around 3-4 hours of sleep. We arrived at Castaway around 1 PM and unloaded for our stay. We no more than got our stuff in our cabin when we were told we were to immediately go to the lake for tubing. As I went to put my contacts in I realized something was wrong with my left contact. When I went to check it, I couldn't find it. Yep, I lost it. The start of the day from hell.

Tubing was fun, but there was one thing. I love rides, like roller coasters and the like, but I don't do spinning rides very well. Of course, when you are tubing the driver moves in circles constantly to try and throw the tubers off the tubes. By the end of our session I was in a bad way. I nearly threw up in the lake at the end. We made it back to shore and I was woozy. My next bad decision was to go into the hot tub with all the other guys. Once in there my body started to overheat more than it already had from the bus ride and the spinning. I called it off and went back to our room so I could lay down for a bit. I laid down for a bit and ate a fruit bar. Didn't help.

After all of this we were supposed to go to a leaders meeting. I tried my best but I was sweating like a faucet was on in my head and I had to leave. I was done. I don't think I've ever felt so deflated and exhausted before. Another leader walked me to the infirmary where I laid down and tried to get back into shape. They brought me some dinner and I got some rest. After about 90 minutes I thought I could go to Club and get ready to watch my guys do the obstacle course. I made it through both and then we went back to our cabin....where my fateful decision of the night was yet to come.

The leaders always choose bunks by the door and so I did as I always do in that situation. But in this room the door opened right into my bed. So I thought maybe I should think about using the top bunk so the doorknob wouldn't crank me in the head. I got up on the top bunk and realized that there wasn't much room between the bed and the ceiling. Plus there was a huge ceiling beam that hung down right over the ladder. So I decided I would stay with the bottom bunk. I sat on the edge of the top bunk and went to get down like I always do. I slid off the bed and stepped on the bottom bunk with my right foot and then went land on my left foot. Somehow, something went wrong and when I landed my left foot got caught under me and all my weight proceeded to twist my ankle under me. Wow. The sound and feel of that moment made me think my ankle would be dangling from my leg. Luckily it wasn't , but it was bad.

The EMT trained camp staff came and looked at it and took me to the infirmary. They thought it was broken so a trip to the ER was in store for me. The x-rays were negative but I don't know how they could see anything through all the swelling. It looked like someone and stuffed an egg under my skin. They gave me a protective boot and crutches to get around and it was back to my room for the night.

The funny thing is - it totally turned around my week. When I was exhausted and nauseous, I did not want to be at camp. I wanted to go home and wondered why I was there. Once I cranked my ankle my mood totally changed for the better. I was smiling and joking and was ready for a great week. And a great week I had.....even though I couldn't do any of the water stuff. God does work in mysterious ways. :)

I just need to remember my age and be more careful....and not to get on top bunks anymore.