Mister VA's Mortgage News

The Last Game

My last game of the season before heading south was in the far northeastern corner of Vermont at Canaan High School.  It was a season-ending game for both schools.  The Cabot Huskies were the visitors that evening.  I always have enjoyed working games in Canaan.  I have done a lot of mortgage business over the years and as I surveyed the crowd, I could see some of my past clients in the stands and even on the coaches bench.  So, to call one more game in that gym to end my last full season of basketball officiating in Vermont was fitting.

My partner for the evening was Don Taylor who had helped me as a new official several years ago, but I had not worked with him since I moved up to a varsity schedule.  It was also fitting that a final snowstorm hit for the ride home as I was leaving the next morning.  The game was a fun game.  The girls on both teams hustled and played good defense.  As the clock wound down, Cabot held a 28-22 lead.  Cabot held the ball and worked it around and then a final shot was taken just prior to the game ending horn.  It went in and as the trail official, my last call was to signal the basket 'good'.  And my 6 year experience in calling games in Northern Vermont WAS good.

Following the Rules

A few years ago, I picked up where I left off many years earlier, and I started officiating basketball games again.  Although my playing days are long since past, I do enjoy getting out on the floor again.  I often joke that "Officiating doesn't necessarily keep me in shape, but it keeps me in the same shape."  Each spring, the rules committee votes on proposed rule changes for the upcoming season.  And this season, there were very few changes.  Going over existing rules as well as new ones in the form of a refresher test helps to prepare us for the new season.  And doing several scrimmages before the season starts, helps us to put those new rules into practice.

I think a secondary interest for me is the rules themselves.  The rules of basketball are simple, yet complex.  A fan might THINK they know the rules, but they really only know a few basic concepts.  An official must take classes and pass a rigorous written test in order to qualify for a floor test, which gives a prospective official a chance to employ what was learned in the classroom.  The same holds true for other observers of the sport which would include many sportswriters and sportscasters.  Slide a written test of the rules in front of them.  Very few would come close to a passing grade of 86.

In the mortgage business, we have faced changing laws, changing underwriting rules, and in some states, the need to test our knowledge.  It is not the consumer's job to know all of the rules.  It is ours.  And we should be well versed in changes.  And we must be sure we do not cross into gray areas as we originate loans.  Just like in basketball, we should be following the rules.

Finally, It Happened!

I have had a couple of rounds of golf with combination scores [2 9 hole rounds combined] that have been under 100.  But I never have had an 18 hole round under 100.  Until today.  I went with a friend of mine this morning and it was still in the 40s.  Gray.  Windy.  And the first hole was challenging.  I hope to get 6 or under on the par 4 390 yarder.  It is a new green that is hard as a rock and faster than a slide after 50 kids have gone down with wax paper.  I scored an 8.

But, even though I did not think specifically about the book "Extraordinary Golf", it must have sunk in.  The next hole is a long par 3 and I putted from shy of the green and missed a birdie by 3 inches.  I made par and my friend bogied.  We joked about playing that hole 16 more times so we could get really good scores.  Then 3 tap ins for bogey, followed by a par, another tap in for bogey, another par and another tap in for bogey and I finished the front 9 with a 45--my best nine holes ever.  This may not seem impressive to anyone else, but to me this was a milestone.  I had been under 50 3 times in a row on the front nine, which is uncharted territory.

The back 9 started out with a short putt for bogey and then a tough hole followed by another bogey & par.  The next two holes were not great, but still no snowmen since the opener of the round.  Hole 16 is up a steep hill and can be a very tough hole, but I sank a long par putt, my fifth par on the day.  I had a rough time on the par 3 hole 17.  I managed a double on the last hole and when I added things up, I had a 53 on the back, which was good enough for a 98 and worthy of celebration.  It is probably the last round of the season thereand it was a good way to finish.

One Last Chance

You never know when you will have another chance to do something.  So, today, after taking some things to my daughter, who lives near my old hometown of St Albans, Vermont, I decided to have a rematch with the Champlain Country Club.  Those who have followed the blog know that I am a new golfer in my 4th season.  The only time I set foot on the golf course growing up was in the role of caddy for one of my good friends, the late Terry Baker.  The course was only 9 holes in those days.  I do not remember much about it other than he let me take a tee shot on one of the holes.  It was lousy.

Last year, on a hot summer afternoon, I golfed there for the first time.  Not knowing the course, even from my caddying some 35 years earlier, I failed miserably.  I did not want that to be my only memory of the course.  My handicap [other than not being a very good golfer] is around a 32.  I had hoped to get under 30 this season, but that will have to wait.  One of the things I have learned is to not try to make up for a bad tee shot.  And today, that strategy paid off.

I have a favorite club.  It is my 8-iron.  I use it when I am feeling frustrated or about to go into a tailspin.  I can count on a good shot even if it only goes 125 yards or so.  But it is better than trying to overcompensate and making an even poorer 2nd shot.  A bad hole to me is a snowman or higher on the scorecard.  And today, I only had one hole like that. [I chose not to use my 8-iron & paid for it]   I did not lose a ball.  I lost 6 or 7 the first time I played there.  I played the front & back with equal scores and had the best away round I have ever played.  The leaves were past peak foliage, but the weather was great, and I enjoyed the round immensely.  Made bettter by taking that one last chance.

Long Overdue

One of the things that progress has left behind is the small school.  Small schools were community centers.  In the dead of winter, at least in the frozen north, high school basketball is king.  Some members of the community never miss a game--even if they have no relatives playing.  To a lesser degree, other sports such as baseball, soccer and football [I am talking small town here] also bring a following.

A friend of mine, who is not even from this area, thought that there was a big disconnect between past and present and thoguht that a piece of history was being lost and might be forever gone.  He embarked on a project to start a Hall of Fame for local athletes with a focus on the schools that no longer exist or are still open as small schools.  30 athletes, some living and some not, were honored at the Newport Country Club last night.  Packed to over capacity, some 175 people attended the event, which should be the first of many.

Our area has 2 regional high schools that absorbed many smaller ones.  And the Catholic High Schools of the past have long since closed. History came alive as Orleans High School, Barton Academy, Sacred Heart Academy, North Troy High School, Newport Center High School, Derby Academy, St Mary's, Newport High School, Hardwick Academy, Greensboro High School and Brighton Academy [and Island Pond HS, its predecessor--birthplace of Rudy Vallee] were recognized along with the 2 remaining small schools in our area--Craftsbury Academy [where my grandparents ran a small store in the early 1950s and where I have officiated several times] and Canaan Memorial High School, which is tucked away in the northeast corner of Vermont.

People I know were inducted.  Old friends got together as well as old sports rivals.  Sons & daughters of those who could not be there got to hear stories about their parents that they may never have heard had it not been for this event.  Kudos to Rick Bruce who played a year at Ohio State AFTER serving a hitch in the US Navy and who spent countless hours on this project.  He moved to the area about 12 years ago.  His impact here will be long lasting.

Extraordinary Golf

A friend of mine, Jeff Gwynne, picked up the hobby of golf about the same time I did.  We have both discovered that golf is not a hobby.  If you have never played golf then you will not understand that about the game.  If you have, then you know exactly what I am talking about.  We have golfed together a couple of times at his 'office' course in southern New Hampshire.  We actually met for the first time there after striking up a friendship through participating in numerous ESPN fantasy games over the years.  He went to Bowdoin.  I went to UMaine.  We play in the Maineiacs leagues of most all of the fantasy games possible.  Even fishing and car racing which don't really take up much of our time in real life.

After one recent exchange of emails on our golf experiences, Jeff sent me this book.  Extraordinary Golf is the name of the book.  I wasn't sure what it contained.  What it contains is a different way of looking at things.  And golf is one of them.  The author, Fred Shoemaker, teaches golf and he had some pretty amazing stories about how people look at golf in a usual way.  We make up excuses for poor performance before we start, setting ourselves up for poor expectations from others and from ourselves.  Can you imagine speaking to a client saying, "I really have had trouble lately in trying to put together a good mortgage application, but I've been trying a couple of new things and I think this one may be better than recent ones."?  Do you see how ridiculous that sounds? 

Shoemaker writes, "a golfer's experience consists of a triangle of performance, learning and enjoyment.  If these elements are in balance, they all work well.  But if they are out of balance, each one suffers."  What a great description of our profession!  If we are stagnant by not learning, our performance suffers and our enjoyment suffers.  If we do not enjoy or profession, we will not learn new things and our performance will suffer.  If our performance is sub-standard, customers will go elsewhere and we will not enjoy our profession and will not want to learn.

He later writes, "You start out playing your usual round, but there comes a point--maybe as you're walking downe the fairway, maybe in the pre-shot routine--where if you are lucky, you can 'enter' the game of golf.  That is the time, I believe, when golf truly exists for people.  You become totally immersed in the game, time seems to disappear as creativity begins, and what emerges is extraordinary golf."  Again, a great illustration of what can happen in our profession, not just on the golf course.  We never know in golf how the game will turn out.  I had a tough time on the first hole yesterday.  I then remembered a passage in the book about the possibility of golfing your best after a poor hole if you didn't dwell on it.  I parred the next hole with a putt from the fringe.  And I went on the have the 2nd best score all year, but I played the best round ever as far as the triangle is concerned.  It was extraordinary golf.

VMBA Golf Outing

Today was the annual Vermont Mortgage Bankers Association Golf Tournament.  This year it was at a new location.  Our foursome started out on the most difficult hole on the course and we quickly found out why.  Well,  maybe not quickly, as we ended up bogeying the hole.  After hunting for the best drive for a few minutes.  But, what had started as a rainy day in Newport as we left, gave way to a beautiful cloudy day with no rain by the time we got to Rocky Ridge, just south of Burlington--about a 2 hour drive.

The next hole didn't seem to be much easier as it was a blind shot to the fairway.  But our eclectic group of golfers managed to par that one.  One thing that I noticed was that the possiblity of prizes tended to make for tense tee shots.  Especially the hole with a $10,000 prize.  Which none of us came close to claiming.  The best holes seemed to be the ones without a thing at stake.  And perhaps it is because our focus was on the tee shot and not what might come our way if we hit a tremendous tee shot.  It is often that way in the mortgage business, too.  Instead of focusing on what we do and what we do well, we can sometimes get distracted by other things and we tend to get off on a tangent such as worrying.

We ended up at minus 4.  We did not win anything.  But we all had a good time.  And that was the whole purpose of the VMBA Golf Outing.

Legend of the Octopus

It is Stanley Cup Final time.  I grew up when the NHL had only 6 teams.  Hockey Night In Canada was on CTV on Wednesdays and CBC on Saturdays.  Living only 70 miles from Montreal, it was pretty easy to follow the league goings on.  Nothing is more exciting than an overtime Stanley Cup playoff game.  And a game 7 in the final is the best of all.  A memorable one for me was in 1971 when the Montreal Canadiens defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2.  The Canadiens had dispatched the hated and heavily favored Boston Bruins in Round 1 with a rookie goalie who had played only 6 games heading into the playoffs.  Another great series was in 1974, when the expansion Philadelphia Flyers behind goalie Bernie Parent beat the favored Bruins in a 6 game series.

This year, the Detroit Red Wings hope to equal Toronto's trophy output of 11 by beating Pittsburgh's Penguins.  The octopus, a Detroit staple in playoff hockey, came about in 1952 when just 8 wins were needed to win the famed Stanley Cup.  The 8-legged creatures were tossed onto the ice as a symbol of victory.  Which brings us tonight, though the Wings trail 2-0 in the 1st period.  An octopus made it to the ice in the pre-game in what could be the final game tonight in Detroit.  The zamboni driver started twirling the creatures a few years ago to the delight of the crowd.  Thus increasing the legend of the octopus.

Men's League

Being self-conscious and apologetic about my beginner's golf game has meant I have passed up the opportunity to participate the past two years.  This year, I accepted an invitation.  My partner and I seem to be about level with one another skillwise.  And we have been pitted against better opponents as evidenced by our stroke benefit due to higher handicaps.  Tonight, I did something I have never done--I parred the first two holes.  It seemed that having better golfers in our foursome somehow brings better play out of us.  My best 2 scores this season have been the two nights I have played men's league. 

It is that way in the business world, too.  The more we are faced with challenges, the better we respond and perform.  If we have any competitiveness in our bones that is.  We want to get better at what we do, not matter what the 'what' happens to be.  Playing better competition makes us better.  Setting challenging goals challenges us.  If we do not challenge ourselves, we will not improve and may even regress.  I suspect I will improve my handicap as a result of playing  in the men's league this year.  And I suspect the changes and challenges in the mortgage industry will improve my performance as well.

Champions League

The Champions League is winding down in 2008 and the semifinals were just completed today.  Yesterday, Manchester United defeated Barcelona 1-0 to win the 2 game series on aggregate 1-0.  This ensured the first all-England final since the competition began some 15 seasons ago.  In today's match, Frank Lampard returned to the Chelsea lineup after a couple of weeks away.  Lampard was at his mother's bedside in hospital, though he did participate in a match against Liverpool--today's opponent.  Frank's mother passed away last week at age 58.

With the first game ending 1-1 at Liverpool on a last minute own goal giving Chelsea a leg up, the game at Stamford Bridge loomed large, with the Blues unbeaten in several years at home.  Didier Drogba opened the scoring with Fernando Torres equalizing for the Reds in the second half.  As the regulation 90 minutes was not enough to settle the semifinal, 30 minutes of added extra time was played.  At 98 minutes, Frank Lampard stepped up to the penalty spot as a reward for teammate Michael Ballack being taken down in the penalty area moments before.  He promptly sent Chelsea in front with Drogba adding insurance a few minutes later.  Liverpool got a late goal to make it close, but it is Chelsea who will face Manchester United in Moscow on May 21.

All of us have faced adversity in the past year as mortgage professionals.  We've been disparaged in the press and on television.  We've been vilified by Congress and in state capitals.  Our production has dropped along with all others in the housing industry.  But, as individuals, we do have the ability to look forward with determination.  Can you imagine the thoughts running through Lampard's mind as he pondered his penalty kick?  The emotions were set loose after he successfully buried the kick past a wrongly guessing Jose Reina who dove the other way.  And now for the first time Chelsea have a chance to win the Champions League.