18
Wednesday, February 23, 2022 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
FENDALL:
Family will stay
at home in Sisters
My brain thrives on the
The Nugget Newspaper Crossword
problem-solving and
By Jacqueline E. Mathews, Tribune News Service
creativity of the game. I have
Continued from page 3
a massive addiction to the
<When I got out of col-
lege coaching I told people
I was doing it to spend more
time with my family, since
that sounded like the noble
reason to do it, but over the
years it9s actually been my
kids who have been positive
about the idea of me going
back to the college ranks,= he
said. <We9ve been tossing this
around for more than a couple
of years and now that the kids
are older it9s workable.=
In truth, Fendall explained,
he was spending very long
days at the high school level,
away from home.
<You9re up early to pre-
pare for teaching, have class
all day, then spend three hours
after school at practice, wrap
things up and get home well
past dinner time,= he said. <I
would be home for half an
hour, and it would be time for
bed.=
Fendall says the draw for
him of college coaching is the
focus he can have on the nitty-
gritty of the game without a
lot of non-coaching duties to
deal with.
Southern Oregon is in
the National Association
of Intercollegiate Athletics
(NAIA), which is a governing
body similar to the NCAA.
The football team competes
in the Frontier Conference,
which is made up of Eastern
Oregon, College of Idaho, and
four Montana schools.
For other sports, SOU
competes in the Cascade
Conference, which includes
more of the small colleges in
Oregon.
The players are doing win-
ter conditioning until spring
film and the diagramming.
— Neil Fendall
practices start in March,
according to Fendall.
<I am learning a lot about
the language the coaching
staff uses for the Xs and Os of
playmaking and strategy,= he
said. <The coaches are work-
ing together to label things in
a way that works for our new
group.=
According to Fendall,
SOU is on the rebound after
struggles in recent years fol-
lowing the death of their head
coach and the challenges of
the pandemic. But he thinks
they are moving into a good
place going forward.
<I am jumping in at the
right time and I think the team
will make up for the big gap
of the past two years when the
Montana and Idaho schools
were not as shut down as
things were here in Oregon, so
they operated almost as busi-
ness as usual,= he said.
Fendall is excited about his
return to the college level.
<My brain thrives on the
problem-solving and creativ-
ity of the game,= he said. <I
have a massive addiction to
the film and the diagramming,
and I don9t just learn some-
thing and keep doing that. I
am a tinkerer and like to try
new things. I love it.=
In taking on a job away
from home, Fendall points
back to the Sisters community
for all of its support of him
and his family.
<We will always have a
place here,= he said.
— Last Week’s Puzzle Solved —
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Commentary...
Page by Paige
By Paige Bentley-Flannery
Columnist
Are you curious about
the long list of books nomi-
nated for the 2022 Deschutes
Public Library <A Novel
Idea= community reading
program?
<Swimming Back to
Trout River= by Linda Rui
Feng
In the summer of 1986,
in a small Chinese village,
Junie receives a letter from
her parents who fled to
America years ago. They
want to reunite their fam-
ily with her father, Momo,
promising to bring her to
America before her 12th
birthday.
But Junie loves living
with her grandparents in
the countryside and isn9t
sure she wants to leave.
What Junie doesn9t know
is that her parents are no
longer living together. They
both endured tragedies in
their youth during China9s
Cultural Revolution and
harbor family secrets. Who
is the violinist Momo knew
years ago? And can Junie9s
mother, Cassia, overcome
a brutal act from her past?
Told in alternating chapters
from the past to the pres-
ent, family traditions are at
the center of this story about
love, immigration, culture,
and growing up.
Feng9s debut novel is
filled with grace and honesty.
It is a poetically written book
that talks about a family9s
struggles and connections,
yet leaves readers with hope.
Explore the full list of
2022 A Novel Idea nomi-
nated books at www.
deschuteslibrary.org.
Paige Bentley-Flannery
is Sisters Community
Librarian.
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