Feilding High School's shearing and woolhandling contest attracts top talent
By Penny Miles of RNZ
A bunch of Manawatū high school students have switched off their screens and turned on their shearing machines.
Feilding High School's hall became a woolshed this week as the school held its version of the national Golden Shears championships.
This year's interhouse shearing and woolhandling
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And like I said, no 'we got you' moments, but real conversations. And in those real conversations come shooting slumps, come a game or a play where you look back and wish you did something different, or maybe a relationship with a teammate you wish you handled differently. Those are just real conversations. Pickman: You've mentioned some of your conversations with players, but I'm also curious about your conversations with ownership. We know you have an ownership stake in the Seattle Storm, and obviously there's an ongoing CBA negotiation. What have you learned about being on that side of the business? Have you talked to Ginny Gilder, Lisa Brummel, and the other members of the Storm ownership group about the ongoing negotiation? And what do you bring to the mix in terms of those talks? Bird: Yeah, I definitely do stay in touch with them, and what I'm bringing is what I knew I was going to bring the minute I became an owner just over a year ago. Which is I'm on the ownership side of things, but I have a player's perspective and that's unique. At times, I'm able to learn from the ownership group because I don't know that side as well. But then I'm also able to provide a little bit of understanding and nuance on what a player might be thinking in certain situations or certain moments. It's just a really good balance. And at the end of the day, I actually don't feel that much different being on this side as opposed to the player side. We all just want a great deal, and we just want this league to succeed, period, point blank. Pickman: You're the all-time leader in assists, and we have some great passers in the league right now. Courtney Vandersloot unfortunately tore her ACL this past weekend, and she's one of the all-time great passers too. But Caitlin Clark is very much on pace it seems to chase down your record one day. Bird: These records have no chance because they play way more games now. I don't want to get too caught up in the games played because it is what it is. I don't feel any way about it because records are meant to be broken. But I played 34 games for the majority of my career. So the players today are on the clock with these records, they better break those things in like five years. Pickman: Very true, and they probably will. But I wanted to ask, what makes Caitlin Clark so special as a passer in your mind? And what separates her as a passer compared to all her peers? Bird: The important thing to recognize here with Caitlin, and this conversation is we're not even bringing her name up unless she has incredible court vision, and unless she has the type of vision where she's able to anticipate and read. What I would add to that and what I think separates her, on top of all the qualities that most great passers have, is that she has strength. Sometimes she's able to make passes not because she sees it or because she's reading the defense — yes, those things exist, but that's not why she's able to make the pass — she's able to make the pass because she can actually get it there. The easiest way to see it is with her full-court passes, but they also happen in the half-court. Sometimes she'll have picked her dribble up, somebody will cut, and she still has the zip to get a backdoor pass off the bounce to her teammate on time. I would add that strength as a differentiator to some of the other great passers we've seen. You can listen to full episodes of No Offseason for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and watch on YouTube. (Top Photo:for Fast Company)
