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Columbus Blue Jackets' Elvis Merzlikins tries to move on after death of Matiss Kivlenieks
WHEN ELVIS MERZLIKINS HEARD the Columbus Blue Jackets had another Latvian goalie in the organization, he was excited -- but also confused.
"My first question was: Who the hell is this guy?" Merzlikins says. "I had never heard about him, never knew about his existence."
That goalie was Matiss Kivlenieks, who came to America when he was 16 with dreams of making it in the NHL. He worked his way up through junior hockey, bouncing from Minnesota to Wisconsin to Iowa before signing with the Blue Jackets in 2017.
Merzlikins, married and three years older than Kivlenieks, established himself by playing professionally in Switzerland. He was NHL-ready by the time he joined the Blue Jackets in 2019.
Latvia is a country of fewer than 2 million bordering the Baltic Sea; it houses 19 indoor ice rinks and has roughly 7,500 registered hockey players. Only 25 Latvians have ever skated in the NHL. That the paths of Kivlenieks and Merzlikins converged, in Ohio of all places, to form the NHL's first all-Latvian goalie tandem, felt karmic.
"For them, being in the US and being able to speak Latvian with one another, they just felt like family from the immediate moment where they met," Merzlikins' wife, Aleksandra, says. "And I think that's why they became so close. Like, there was no other way."
When it became apparent Kivlenieks would be sticking around, Merzlikins invited the rookie to live with him and Aleksandra. Kivlenieks was on a minor league salary and Merzlikins had an extra room anyway. Kivlenieks helped around the house; he walked Koby, the family dog (a cavapoo), without being asked, and never let dirty dishes go unattended.
Emily Kaplan will have more on the story of Elvis Merzlikins and Matiss Kivlenieks on The Point on Friday (3 p.m. ET, ESPN).
• Upcoming NHL programming on ESPN
But what did Kivlenieks care for the most? His beloved BMW. "I'm not joking, he was cleaning that car every three days," Merzlikins says. "He was vacuuming. He was cleaning out inside. He was cleaning the outside. He was going to the tank. There was nothing to clean."
Kivlenieks was an ideal roommate. After years of begging her husband to watch horror movies, Aleksandra finally had someone to enjoy them with. "He's a psychopath like my wife," says Elvis, who, afraid, would hide in his office when Matiss and Aleksandra watched.
"We didn't just become best friends," Merzlikins says. "He was really my little brother."
Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins, his wife, Aleksandra, and Matiss Kivlenieks Courtesy Aleksandra Merzlikins
Kivlenieks' first Blue Jackets start came on Jan. 20, 2020, at Madison Square Garden. He was 23, and making his NHL debut at the world's most famous arena. At the first commercial break, Kivlenieks was clearly nervous. He skated over to Merzlikins on the bench, as he was playing backup that night. "You're good," Merzlikins told his teammate. "Everything you're doing is great. Just relax, and have fun."
"And then that's what happened," Merzlikins says.
Kivlenieks made 31 saves to lead Columbus to a 2-1 win over the New York Rangers. On the plane ride home, Kivlenieks was thanking everyone: the players who blocked shots for him, the defensemen who clogged lanes.
"I'm not saying it was like winning a Stanley Cup, but he was really, really happy," Merzlikins says. "That was awesome to see even how the team reacted. He was in really good hands. We were taking care of him. It was really beautiful to see that happiness in him."
Kivlenieks' career was on the ascent. In May, he played for the Latvian national team at the world championships, which Latvia was hosting. On the opening day of the tournament, he stunned Canada, making 38 saves for Latvia's first win against the world hockey power. Management in Columbus began talking about how Kivlenieks could be incorporated into the 2021-22 plans.
"His future in the NHL," Merzlikins says, "it was just starting right now."
Merzlikins is sitting in his living room in the suburbs of Columbus as he's talking. It's the first week of September, one month before the 2021-22 season is set to begin. Merzlikins is here to tell a story, one that he's still having a hard time coming to terms with.
"This is the story of my summer," Merzlikins says. "I'm sorry, but I would call it the story of my f---ed up summer."
AFTER THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, Kivlenieks stayed in Latvia to spend time with friends and family. He planned to return to the United States for the summer, and Merzlikins was pestering his friend for details. Kivlenieks was welcome back at the house in Ohio, but with Aleksandra pregnant and due in August, they needed time to prepare the guest room.
"I don't know," Kivlenieks told Merzlikins over the phone. "But for sure, I'm going to be here for the Fourth of July because that's Manny's party. We have to go. It's going to be sick."
Emily Kaplan joins ESPN Daily to share the story of the friendship of Matiss Kivlenieks and Elvis Merzlikins, the tragedy that took one far too young, and how the Blue Jackets plan to honor their fallen teammate. Listen
Kivlenieks had been talking about this party for months. "I brought him to Pilates once," Merzlikins said. "And he was just talking about the Fourth of July to my Pilates teacher. So yeah, all the time he was talking about the Fourth of July."
The party was hosted by Manny Legace, the Blue Jackets' goaltending coach. But Legace was more than that to his players. Elvis and Aleksandra have had countless meals with Legace and his wife, Giana.
"I see him as like my father figure," Aleksandra said of Legace. "And I feel like that brought us all together as one big family."
Manny and Giana took to Kivlenieks, too; ever since he joined the organization, Kivlenieks spent summers living with the Legace family in Novi, Michigan.
But neither Latvian goalie had ever experienced July Fourth in the United States. And this celebration was going to have something extra. During the day, Legace's daughter, Sabrina, was getting married at the house. Then the party of a few dozen people would extend into the night.
July 4 was a hot, sunny day. Kivlenieks was so happy. He would go off and socialize, then always come back to check in with Merzlikins. Each time, he'd come with a gift: a beer, a shot or a cigar.
In the evening, they all organized a basketball game in the pool. Then came a staple of Legace summer parties for the past 17 years: backyard fireworks. Everyone got out of the pool when the fireworks began, and Merzlikins realized he lost track of Aleksandra. He found her standing by the grill. Merzlikins stood behind his wife and hugged her pregnant belly as they watched the fireworks together.
"He's stupid," Aleksandra said.
"Why?" her husband asked. "What's wrong?"
She pointed to Kivlenieks, who was sitting in front of them, alongside four others on the edge of the hot tub. Aleksandra had told Kivlenieks she didn't like how close he was sitting to the fireworks.
"Don't worry, Ali," Kivlenieks told her. "Everything is going to be all right."
THE LAST IMAGE MERZLIKINS remembers seeing is Kivlenieks pointing up to the sky, looking at the fireworks.
"And the next moment I took down my head to give a kiss to my wife on the neck," Merzlikins said. "Then I see all is green color, coming on us."
There was a moment of panic. Partygoers ran into the house. Merzlikins realized Koby, their dog, was missing, so he ran back outside to find him. He saw somebody lying on the ground. He could tell it was Kivlenieks by his tattoo.
"The first thing I see, he was still totally fine," Merzlikins said. "Nothing. He had a little broken lip because he fell onto the ground, but that's it. No broken leg, fingers, nose, whatever. Everything was fine."
But it quickly became clear Kivlenieks was in shock. He was struggling to breathe. Sabrina Legace, a nurse, rushed over to help. Somebody else called 911.
Sabrina Legace helped Merzlikins stabilize Kivlenieks' neck by resting it under some towels. Merzlikins tried to stay calm. He was holding Kivlenieks' head, scratching him, kissing him. Since English was their second language, Merzlikins thought it was best to talk to his friend in Latvian.
"You're totally fine," Merzlikins told him in Latvian, knowing his friend's biggest fear would be whether he could play hockey again. "You might have a concussion, maybe because you fell from the hot tub, but you have nothing else."
"I keep talking to him, keep talking to him," Merzlikins said. "I see he's trying to breathe in each time."
The ambulance arrived 4 minutes, 38 seconds after the 911 call. Merzlikins tried to jump into the ambulance with Kivlenieks. The paramedics kicked him out.
"I had a feeling that he's going to talk in Latvian because he is under shock," Merzlikins told the paramedics. "Do you understand Latvian? No. So I'm your only help right now."
His pleas didn't work, so Merzlikins followed the ambulance to the hospital in his own car. In the waiting room, he was joined by Manny and Sabrina Legace and Legace's son.
The doctor came out to meet them and began asking questions. And then the doctor delivered the news: "He passed away right in the ambulance before we took off," he said.
Merzlikins stood in shock. "I couldn't breathe, I wanted to throw up," he said. "In my hands, I had his wallet and I dropped it."
Hosts Linda Cohn and Emily Kaplan bring their hockey expertise and passion for the sport, discussing the latest news around the league as well as interviewing the biggest names both on and off the ice. Listen here »
And then another wave of nausea: They had to tell Kivlenieks' mom. It was early morning in Latvia when Merzlikins reached Kivlenieks' mother, Astrida Meldere, who was on her way to work. He could tell that she was driving, so he asked her to pull over. "Do you speak any English?" he asked.
She responded no. Merzlikins didn't know what to say. He had asked the police officer if he could deliver the news instead, but Meldere wouldn't understand the officer. It had to be Merzlikins.
At this point Meldere was panicking. "What is it, Elvis?" she asked. "What is going on?"
"Then it hit me again. I told her your son passed away," he said. "And then inside of my head, I'm realizing like, holy crap, 45 minutes ago, I was drinking wine. Then I held him, he was dying in my hands. So I was kissing an already dead body and now I have to call his mom and tell her her son was dead, and how would she like the body, and when is the funeral."
When he hung up with Meldere, he FaceTimed Aleksandra, who was back at the house with Giana Legace. Still crying, he told them Kivlenieks had died.
"It's weird to see the people that don't cry," Merzlikins said, "because they can't believe that it's possible."
THE BLUE JACKETS HOSTED a memorial service for Kivlenieks on July 15 in Ohio. Nearly the entire team showed up -- including Pierre Luc-Dubois, who had requested a trade earlier in the season, and John Tortorella, who had mutually agreed to part ways with the team in May.
"You guys don't know Kivi. He wouldn't want this," Manny Legace told the congregation. "He'd want everyone to just have a beer and go on their way. But you guys in the Blue Jackets organization have gone overboard, so thank you."
Fans created a memorial for Matiss Kivlenieks at Nationwide Arena following his death on July 4. AP Photo/Jay LaPrete
Merzlikins spoke next. He told everyone that Kivlenieks died a hero; who knows how many people he shielded. "He saved not just many lives, but when it happened, I was standing 20, 30 feet back of him and I was hugging my wife. He saved my son, he saved my wife, and he saved me."
The Merzlikins planned to ask Kivlenieks to be the godfather to their son that day. But Kivlenieks was so excited for the Fourth, they decided to let him have his fun and instead ask him later.
Aleksandra gave birth to a baby on Aug. 20. His name: Knox Matiss Merzlikins. It's a beautiful new chapter for their family, but it doesn't erase anything that happened.
"We're not even close to getting over this," Legace told Bally Sports Detroit last week.
The autopsy revealed that Kivlenieks died of blunt force trauma to the chest. In the days following Kivlenieks' death, Novi police officials have said they believed it to be a tragic accident, and the case of a mortar style firework tilting slightly and misfiring toward the spectators. However, three months after the accident, an official police report has still not been released. The police turned the investigation over to the Oakland County prosecutors office, who told ESPN this week that the case remains under review.
It's one of the motivations Merzlikins has about sharing his story. He knows the tragedy has brought more questions than answers; Merzlikins is still looking for answers himself, but he'd like to tell his truth of the events before "people invent stuff."
He also wanted to talk about grief. The last thing he wants is to be treated like a victim. He also doesn't want people to assume how he should feel.
"I asked Manny, 'Am I going to be all right for the season?'" Merzlikins said. "Like, this is a lot to take in, holding your little brother that is dying in your hands. And then 10 minutes later, you have to call his mom and ask her how she wants the body of her son. That's a lot. And so I was worried."
Elvis Merzlikins admits he doesn't always know how he should be acting in the wake of his friend's death. "This season is just a season for him," he said. Jason Mowry/Icon Sportswire
Grieving hasn't been linear, and Merzlikins admits he doesn't always know how he should be acting.
"Sometimes you don't control it, it just hits you," he said. "I'm totally fine, then I'm sitting outside in patio and drinking my scotch and looking at the sky, and you start thinking about him, and miss him ..."
One night this summer, Merzlikins began listening to the saved voicemails he had from Kivlenieks.
"It was like having him right there with me," he said. "And that was the nice, but hard part."
The most important part for Merzlikins is not ignoring what happened. Life is about experiencing emotions -- all of them, even the ones that are uncomfortable. Merzlikins likes to feel. He likes to cry. Sometimes he even likes to talk to himself. He also likes laughing about the good times -- like how funny it was to him and Aleksandra to have Kivlenieks FaceTime them from the world championships, only to ask to see his beloved BMW.
"He asked me, did you turn it on?" Merzlikins recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, four days ago,' 'Oh no, you have to turn it on now.' I said, 'No, I'm not going to do it.' What did he do? He went on his phone app and he turned on the car from Latvia here in my house."
In September, Merzlikins signed a five-year, $27 million contract extension. He is grateful for the opportunity to plant roots in Ohio, to start his family there, and to continue his career.
"I'm going to try to do my best just for him and that's my hope," Merzlikins said. "This season is just a season for him. ... Not having him anymore here with us, this is the minimum of what I can do. ... His spirit [is] with me, I hope, he's going to be always sitting behind me here and helping me out."
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Let's Talk King Cake and Other Fat Tuesday Traditions
It has become incredibly trendy throughout the South to celebrate Mardi Gras. And today, on Fat Tuesday, there will be parades a'plenty, king cakes consumed by the thousands, and truckloads of green, purple, and gold beads thrown. While much of this will be done simply in the name of "this is what you do on Mardi Gras," there really is so much more to it than just that. The roots of Mardi Gras are ancient, spring from sincere religious tradition, and run deep in the hearts of the people of the Crescent City. Below is a quick guide to all you will need to know to navigate this Fat Tuesday as expertly as a Big Easy native.
Mardi Gras- First of all, Mardi Gras is a season, not a day. It is actually the same celebration as Carnival. The Mardi Gras season links the Christmas and Lent/Easter seasons in the Catholic calendar. It begins on January 6, or Epiphany, and ends abruptly at midnight as Ash Wednesday begins the Lenten season. During the Mardi Gras season, revelers enjoy parties, balls, gatherings, and a host of wonderful foods all in preparation for the abstinence of Lent. With that said, the largest celebration of the Mardi Gras season falls on Fat Tues (Mardi Gras literally means fat Tuesday.), the last Tuesday of the season. The state of Louisiana is the only state that names Mardi Gras (just the day, not the season) as an official holiday.
King Cake- Over 750,000 king cakes are said to be consumed every year during the Mardi Gras Season. King cake is a
braided French brioche sweet bread/pastry which can include all sorts of fillings. The first king cake of the season is usually served on Epiphany and continues to be served throughout the season. It is aptly named after the 3 wise men (also called the 3 kings) who visited Jesus 12 days after his birth. A tiny plastic baby, a bean, or a coin is placed inside or underneath the cake as a symbol of the wise men's visit. The baby obviously represents the infant Christ, while the bean or the coin represent the gifts the kings' presented the Christ child. The person who finds the baby, et al in his piece of cake is named king for the day and is obligated to host the next gathering and serve the next king cake.
Beads- Anything thrown by krewes (parade and party organizing societies) is meant to bring good luck. Inexpensive beads have become the most popular "throw," but they are not the only throw. The beads' colors, purple, green, and gold, are the official colors of Mardi Gras and were chosen to honor Duke Alexis Romanov Alexandrovitch of Russia when he visited New Orleans in 1872. The colors have come to symbolize justice, faith, and power and are said to bring luck in those particular areas when the beads are received. The rowdy and unbecoming behavior that has become associated with throws is not common and is isolated to the French Quarter and not a part of the Mardi Gras celebration that most people in New Orleans enjoy.
Masks- Masks were originally worn so that party goers would not be confined by social class demands and could mingle in anonymity with whom they pleased.
Ash Wednesday- The first day of Lent and the end of the Mardi Gras season. This is a day of fasting and a day on which observers wear a smudge or a cross smudged from ashes on their foreheads as a symbol of a humility and sacrifice, but also as a reminder of God's mercy to those who call on Him.
Lent- A 40 day period of abstinence and reflection beginning on Ash Wednesday and lasting to Easter to prepare for the celebration of Christ's resurrection on Easter Sunday. (Lenten- anything pertaining to or appropriate for Lent)
*Some call Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday. Shrove Tuesday is the same observance as Mardi Gras in that observers eat richer, fattier foods as a last indulgence before Lent begins. For those who observe Shrove Tuesday instead of an entire Mardi Gras season, that richer, fattier food is pancakes. Shrove Tuesday, Latin American in origin, is also known as Pancake Day.
Looking for some classic Louisiana Recipes to tickle your taste buds? These top 7 easy Crescent City dishes capture what the spirit of Louisiana is all about!
History of King Cake- Randazzo King Cake
All Hail the King Cake- Epicurious.com
Catholic Roots of Mardi Gras- Americancatholic.org
Mardi Gras- History.com
Mardi Gras History and Facts- International Business Times
King's Cake for Mardi Gras- Christian Science Monitor
Ash Wednesday- Catholic.org
Lent & Easter- ewtn.com
Everything You Need to Know About Mardi Gras- Mardigrasneworleans.com
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Melody Johnson
I am so glad that you put this information out today. Very informative!
Thanks, Melody! I love a good celebration. 🙂
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[…] Let's Talk King Cake and Other Fat Tuesday Traditions […]


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Tag Archives: The Great Gatsby
Domestic bliss, Literature, Mind
Boxes, tape and a dread responsibility
Towering classics
This isn't an easy post to write. Every aspect of it goes against my better nature – and my worst nature too.
It concerns an action that I'm not proud of, one that I will never repeat, a deed which has left me sick to the stomach, questioning my core values and reassessing my life's direction.
I've purged my library.
It was my own decision, taken in a sober frame of mind and without coercion. And it was cold-blooded.
Over the years family and the odd (very odd – who suggest someone throw out books?) friend had advised me to do this. I ignored them of course. And the books continued to pile up.
Shelves had long since overflowed. Piles of paperbacks filled the bottoms of wardrobes and sprouted from the corners of bedrooms. When tripping over them became too much a simple solution presented itself: stuff the lot into empty suitcases. Which was fine, until it came time for a trip.
No part of me wishes I lived in a large mansion. In fact I've never lived in a house big enough to accommodate a library or even a small study. But sometimes it's occurred to me that the only upshot of Jay Gatsby's quiet desperation was the spare room at the West Egg mansion where he could ditch his unread books.
Empty shelves. 'Man Reading at Lamplight', George Friedrich Kersting (1814)
After years of procrastinating, dodging requests from my better half, and generally burying my head in the sand (or in a newly acquired Penguin Classic) circumstances conspired to force me to face the inevitable.
And so, armed with a pile of cardboard boxes, tape and a sense of dread responsibility I started into the task – onerous but now unavoidable – of separating the 'must keeps' from the 'must keep but this is cold reality'.
The keeper books needed no attention, they were going nowhere. But the others, each one assessed and re-assessed, maybe'd and if only'd, now stand in a series of small paper towers on the living room floor.
I can barely bring myself to look at them, including – as they do – books bought 30 years and a lifetime ago. Some were read and forgotten, some half read. others just held once every couple of years.
Adieu then to Don DeLillo's magnum opus Underworld, the second copy I've owned and lost, with the plaintive image of the Twin Towers on the cover.
Farewell to Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, half-read, the product of a brief dalliance with existentialism.
Goodbye to William Gibson's The Difference Engine, read as I dipped a toe into the world of steampunk.
These, and dozens more, are about to go. A friend's offered to re-home some but most will be donated. At least someone else will, hopefully, read them – after our poignant parting I'm not sure I ever will.
And if this wasn't heartbreaking enough worse lies around the corner – the opposite corner of the same room to be exact, where hundreds of CDs sit taking up space, unused, awaiting the purge.
Adieu DeLillo
Tagged Books, CD, Cormac Looney, Don DeLillo, Friedrich Nietzsche, Home, Literature, Penguin Classic, The Great Gatsby, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, William Gibson
Current affairs, Literature, Mind, Travel
Round the Cape with Ishmael, in a one man tent
In the end Chuck D had the last word.
For the past decade we've read of the decline of print and the rise of the e-book. Bookshops would close, paper was dead, the Kindle was king.
It turns out that was wrong. Or, as Public Enemy had it, 'don't believe the hype'.
Sales of physical books are back on the rise. According to Waterstones, demand for the e-reader has disappeared.
It seems we've entered a brave new world of the post-book book. All those over excited tech predictions appear to have been just that.
After being gifted a Kindle three years ago I assumed I'd grow to love it. I bought e-books, read them, used the clunky notetaking system, even synced it with my iPad so I could wistfully view the covers in colour.
But I never felt it a replacement for a book, piles of which continuing to grow – mysteriously – around our apartment.
It wasn't just a lifelong habit of reading on the printed page, or of scribbling notes in the margins. Nor was it the feeling of satisfaction in re-reading sections of a book to catch up, or dip back in.
It wasn't even the physical book itself.
What kept me returning to print was the feeling of a book as an artefact, an item with a history outside of its pages, an object linked to a time or a place or a state of mind.
The two paperbacks above are each an artefact – my reading, marking, spine-breaking and scratching of both linked to a certain time and place.
My old IR£1 copy of The Great Gatsby has margin notes for an all-but-forgotten American literature course, taken at university almost 20 years ago.
Each time I re-read it (and it's the book I return to more often than almost any other) I wonder exactly why 18-year-old me bothered to notate that specific passage…
But I refuse to replace it.
My Moby Dick contains marks of a different order, elemental ones that Melville may have favoured more than dry academic scribblings.
Many of the pages are curled and stained by water, after the book somehow spent a wet night outdoors during a camping trip I took to the Adirondacks.
I rounded the Cape of Good Hope with Ishmael as rain and wind blew, in a one-man tent.
My memories of Midnight's Children are drier, dating back to a beach on the shores of Lake Tahoe, where I spent afternoons of a 90s' summer recovering from working 12 hour standing shifts at a casino the previous night.
My sun-baked copy may still have sand between the pages. Blame the heat or the slots but, alas, I never finished it. (As with books, no reader is perfect.)
Rushdie's novel, like my Fitzgerald and Melville, lies fading on a bookshelf. It will be picked up, but rarely. Instead it will remain with the others, shelved, untouched and gathering dust.
Not read, but not replaced by an e-version either. After all, how could they be?
Tagged Adirondacks, Books, Chuck D, E-books, F Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville, Kindle, Lake Tahoe, Literature, Midnight's Children, Moby Dick, notes, Print, Public Enemy, Salman Rushdie, The Great Gatsby, Waterstones
Literature, Travel
Here Is New York – in five fragments
Central Park, October 2010.
It's long been a habit of mine to read my way to a destination before I actually travel there.
Not using guide books, but novels or poems. And so, over the years I've come to associate certain places, cities in particular, with certain writings.
When I think of London it's the city of Great Expectations, and Pip's coming of age in the streets and rooms of Newgate, or the eerie East End gothic of Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor.
Likewise Haruki Murakami, whose The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle took me to a surreal, paranoid version of Tokyo in fiction, accompanied me on a visit to Japan earlier this year.
On occasion I haven't, nor am I every likely to, be in the place I'm reading about. While I've visited and revisited the remote Gilf Kebir plateau in the Libyan desert, where Michael Ondaatje set part of The English Patient, I doubt I'll ever see it in person.
But the literary place that's mapped clearest in my mind is one I have visited – the city of New York.
Hence my interest the recent Reading American Cities series on the Guardian's Books blog, specifically the entry on Manhattan.
I agreed with one of the titles recommended as a "literary companion" to the city – The Great Gatsby. But the others, DeLillo's Underworld and Auster's The New York Trilogy, while certainly books of the city, weren't books of my New York.
And so I chose my own – here's New York in five fragments, from five works.
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Walt Whitman (1855)
Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Over the great bridge, with the sunlight through the girders making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.
Catcher In The Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951)
I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go? I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something. Or if they just flew away.
Netherland, Joseph O'Neill (2008)
We were sailing on the Staten Island Ferry on a September day's end…Everybody looked at the Statue of Liberty and at Ellis Island and at the Brooklyn Bridge, but finally, inevitably, everybody looked to Manhattan. The structures clustered at its tip made a warm, familiar crowd, and as their surfaces brightened ever more fiercely with sunlight it was possible to imagine that vertical accumulations of humanity were gathering to greet our arrival.
Finally, and despite my misgivings above about guide books, it's impossible to avoid E.B. White's classic love letter to his home city.
Here Is New York, E.B. White (1949)
The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive.
Tagged America, Books, Charles Dickens, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, Don DeLillo, E.B. White, F Scott Fitzgerald, Great Expectations, Haruki Murakami, Hawksmoor, Here Is New York, J.D. Salinger, Joseph O'Neill, Literature, London, Manhattan, Michael Ondaatje, Netherland, new york, Paul Auster, Peter Ackroyd, The Catcher In The Rye, The English Patient, The Great Gatsby, The Guardian, The New York Trilogy, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Tokyo, Travel, Underword, Walt Whitman
Film, Literature, Travel
'You're worth the whole damn bunch'
Scott Fitzgerald the screenwriter, 1937.
Pic: Carl Van Vechten
In December 1940 a hack screenwriter died in the sitting room of his girlfriend's home in Hollywood.
Alcoholic, in poor health, receiving little credit for his work and dropped from a contact by MGM a year earlier, he would spend his last days working on a draft of an uncompleted novel.
When his body was later taken to Maryland for burial just 20 or so people showed up to his funeral.
The screenwriter, Scott Fitzgerald, had described himself as a 'hack' – in his final years at least.
Writing freelance movie scripts was some way from his previous work and promise, which included, in The Great Gatsby, one of the closest realisations of the Great American Novel.
Fast forward 70 years and the latest screen adaptation of the book earned $300m at the box office this year, with $200m more expected in re-runs and DVD sales.
Fitzgerald The Hack made it big in Hollywood after all.
'I shouted across the lawn.'
1443 North Hayworth Avenue, West Hollywood.
This week his ghost was all around.
En route to LA in recent days I watched – and greatly enjoyed – The Great Gatsby. Days later my wife and I found ourselves at a hotel in West Hollywood, minutes from Fitzgerald's last residence, at 1443 North Hayworth Avenue.
The street's settled, well-manicured homes are the very opposite of the glare and bustle of nearby Hollywood Boulevard.
Passing the property and aware of the last, ill and unhappy days of one of the greatest writers of the 20th century I couldn't help but think of Nick Carraway's lament for the doomed Jay Gatsby.
"They're a rotten crowd…you're worth the whole damn bunch put together."
Tagged Alcohol, Baz Luhrmann, Cormac Looney, F Scott Fitzgerald, Fiction, Film, Hollywood, The Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby
Current affairs, Music
Raw, lost and alone – Springsteen's other side
Bruce Springsteen, 1982, from the inner sleeve of Nebraska (Columbia Records).
Ireland loves Bruce Springsteen. The bigger, the louder, the better.
His shows here this week were preceded by the usual raft of gushing previews. The reviews weren't much different.
Three hours of surging, singalong, Born To Run down to The River rock, with your fist in the air and your heart on your sleeve. There's no show like a Bruce show.
Not for me.
The best of Springsteen is a long way from 25,000-fan sports stadiums or a neverending string of sold-out shows.
Instead it can be found in recordings made in a small room at the songwriter's home in Colt's Neck, New Jersey, on a winter day early in 1982.
On and around January 3 of that year Springsteen, weary of working in the studio, sat down his bedroom and recorded a number of songs on a Teco 4-track machine.
The result was the album Nebraska, a sparse, intimate recording which is the pinnacle of Springsteen's songwriting.
It's an album populated with characters working menial jobs, dining in Bob's Big Boy Fried Chicken, dreaming of a win at Atlantic City's slots, their lives running out to a backdrop of late-century New Jersey, oil refineries and radio towers.
The title song, which recounts the tale of spree killer Charlie Starkweather, is the exception. Its violence and drama is at odds with the rest of the album, where most of the events take place in private, in cars, or behind the closed, confined night-time doors of suburban Jersey.
As such Nebraska is an album of limitations, a contrast to the driving surge of the Springsteen behind The Promised Land or Born To Run.
Circumstances place a break on ambition for most of the songs' characters. Lack of money or opportunity, fear, resentment, anger – these are emotions and situations strung across the album.
The protagonist in the Open All Night is clockwatching on the night shift, driving past the "scrap metal hill", factories and fields, to get home to his girlfriend.
New Jersey turnpike at Linden.
Pic: USNARA
Salvation is listening to the radio, hoping that music will "deliver me from nowhere".
This could be the same man who appears in State Trooper, running from an unmentioned crime. Driving without a licence all he hopes for, tonight at least, is that the patrol car will pass him by.
There's an awareness of something better out there, but it's out of reach. The singer in Mansion On The Hill lives out her days in the shade of a big house in Linden, NJ, and her life is defined by it.
The mansion and the impossible dream it embodies are as permanent as the full moon which rises behind it. She's stared through its gates as a child and, now and adult, is still looking in.
The young man in My Father's House stands on the porch of his old family home, his dad long departed, whether to the State line or the grave, we're not told.
James Gatz in a different age, he's left staring at his departed family home, the beacon he can't ever reach.
Redemption, when it appears in Nebraska, is something rumored, hoped for. 'Maybe everything that dies someday comes back?' asks the departing singer who's left for Atlantic City, before he decides to do a favour for a criminal he's met on the boardwalk.
Three decades on who knows where these characters have ended up. Still running, still dreaming of lottery win or a new car, wondering what happened to their lives.
The stadium Springsteen may return to them, in various guises and at different stages as the years pass, but their voices are still heard best as they were recorded – raw, lost and alone.
Tagged Bruce Springsteen, Cormac Looney, Nebraska, New Jersey, Singer songwriter, Stadium rock, The Great Gatsby
Film, Flash fiction, Literature
The high-bouncing gold-hatted Gatsby?
The veranda of a villa on the island of Capri, October 1924. A man and woman sit side-on to one another, each holding a glass.
'Another gin?'
'I am quite drunk. Yes. How about Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires? It contains both.'
'No. It requires a title for the ages. No ash-heaps.'
'On The Road to West Egg?'
'The road that passes by the ash-heaps? You're fixated on dust.'
'I am fixated on the title. It must be good, rather than fair or bad.'
'I'm sick. I'm in pain. We are supposed to be celebrating. Decide. Please'.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (gin not pictured).
Pic: Kenneth Melvin Wright (Minnesota Historical Society)
'The High-Bouncing Lover.'
'This isn't one of your short stories. It must be magnificent, memorable. Yesterday it was gold hats. Today it's bouncing.'
'Something magnificent then. Under the Red, White and Blue. Remember the flag of light-bulbs in Harbor Hill last year?'
'I'd forgotten. It must be something memorable. Extravagant. Tremendous.'
'I had a line about the night when the lights fail at his mansion. His career as Trimalchio ends, I wrote. There's a title: Trimalchio.'
'You are drunk.'
'Too obscure, perhaps. Trimalchio in West Egg?'
'You can place him where you want. No one will be able to pronounce it. It must be something great.'
'I am quite drunk. Yes.'
Tagged Alcohol, Capri, F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby, Title, Zelda Fitzgerald


text:
Southern Gables Neighborhood Association
Southern Gables and Valley View, Lakewood CO
About SGNA
Brawling on "The Fax"
Home / Community / Brawling on "The Fax"
November 20, 2020 by Ken Fischer
This is one in an occasional series about local history and old-time Lakewood characters by our neighbor Ken Fischer. To see more of his stories, click on his name at the end of the article.
Colfax or U.S. Hwy 40 is a colorful and historic avenue. Wherever you look, it's got stories. Colfax is known as the "Main Street of America," the longest commercial street in the country. The ancestral origins of U.S. 40 include portions of the "National Road System" designed in 1806 and the national "Victory Highway" after World War I. Its passage through Denver and Lakewood was characterized by the new modern concept "motor hotels" for motorists. Restaurants, shops, and entertainment such as drive-in theaters sprung up near these early motels, catering to travelers. And there were bars.
Oldsters recall Lane's Tavern which was an actual "roadhouse" on Colfax staffed by Bunny and Benny Lane featuring two 7 oz. "scoops" of Falstaff for a quarter. Trays of this grog resembled an assembly line. Outdoor restrooms were a 1920s feature which endured 60 years of operation. When some enthusiastic historians forged a plan to move the old log building to Belmar, they were sadly disappointed to find that any attempt to transfer the structure would result in a collapse. Thus the final rest for the beer-soaked roaring 20s venue of fun times: Rooney Road landfill.
A Curious Link to Colfax… Boxing
When we think of Colfax in the old days, we have to admit that many amateur boxing or brawling events — mostly spontaneous — occurred at the rough and tumble bars on the strip. The following episodes have no relation to those time-honored Friday/Saturday night "one round, two hit" bouts in the alley. Two hits? Yes. "He hit me and I hit the pavement."
Eddie's Pig 'n Whistle
The motel, restaurant, and bar are gone, but the iconic sign is still there.
Going way back to 1924, Eddie Bohn purchased property from his father at Colfax and Wolff. A native of Denver's west side, Eddie was an adventurer who set out for California by motorcycle, became a successful professional boxer (64-0-2) and was a close friend and sparring partner for Jack Dempsey.
Fortunately for the gregarious Eddie, in 1924 the interstate roadway legislation had just been enacted and Colfax was to become arterial. On Jack Dempsey's birthday that year, he opened the Pig 'n Whistle bar/restaurant/motel. It became a training base for boxers and was frequented by a variety of sports and movie celebrities including Dempsey (room 39), Billy Martin, Roy Rogers, the Dorsey brothers, Sugar Ray Robinson, Clint Eastwood, and many more. Eastwood filmed part of his movie, "Every Which Way But Loose" at the famous site. Eddie was a philanthropist and fundraiser for many charities and used his celebrity connections to advantage. For one event he hosted, he had the Coors brothers come and work the taps.
In the 65-year run, Eddie himself was a main attraction of this original "sports bar." If you didn't meet Eddie, you missed a great storyteller referring often to the multiple pictures on the walls. According to his son, as Eddie sat and ate with his guests, he could hardly have cared less if you were the governor or a plumber. Eddie died in the 90s but left a legacy of charity and camaraderie tough to match.
Bronco Lyle Alzado's Short Boxing Career
Trading card showing Alzado in his Denver hero days
Just down the road and a few years later, the Broncos went to the Super Bowl for the first time. Their spirited, popular, and fan favorite all pro defensive end, Lyle Alzado embodied the spirit and gusto of the team and their ecstatic fans.
In the following summer, Lyle later admitted that he was "reading his own press clippings" and got "too big" for the Broncos. One ill-advised endeavor in the wake of the Super Bowl was an exhibition boxing match with Muhammad Ali at the old Mile High Stadium just off Colfax. Ali was aging, out of shape, and going broke. What was billed as an exhibition soon evolved into what Alzado determined was to be a test of boxing skill. Alzado had golden gloves experience and felt he was significantly above the novice level as a boxer. A chance to show well against "the greatest" was very alluring. Fans were divided about Alzado's venture. As it turned out there were probably better brawls in the bars and taverns along Colfax, over whether he should do it or not, than at the main event."
Alzado came out throwing haymakers and attempts at hard body punches. Ali danced and fended off any serious contact. Alzado became verbal and challenging which seemed to surprise Ali, who showed several quizzical looks. Alzado continued his "Rocky-like" posturing for several rounds with Ali blithely backing away, throwing "puff" punches, biding his time, just attempting to complete his contractual agreement. Alzado's frustration was evident and he appeared to feel he could match if not better the timeworn champ. He continued power punching but landed no significant blow.
After a forceful push away, Ali clinched Alzado and apparently outlined the potential result of trying to turn the event into a reality show. Subsequently, Ali "tapped" Alzado several times to demonstrate the difference between pro and golden gloves boxing.
The fight ended with a disappointing gate and a disgruntled Lyle Alzado. The angst persisted to a boiling point on the gridiron and Lyle soon left the Broncos, to the dismay and sadness of Orange Crush fans who had loved him. It may well be said that it was the boxing that took the fight out of him, and he became a Cleveland Brown. As if that wasn't enough ("Say it ain't so, Lyle") he finished his football career as an LA Raider.
Courage and Determination, Tough Times
Ron Lyle (Photo: Wikipedia, public domain)
Another Lyle, Ron Lyle, was a convict who rose to contender. He had a power punch which "could have disintegrated a cement block." A troubled young Denverite of humble means, he challenged Muhammed Ali at the peak of his career in 1975 for the world heavyweight championship. The fight was in Las Vegas and Howard Cosell did the play-by-play. Lyle was winning on points until the eleventh when Ali landed several hits, stunning the challenger and a TKO was called. Many felt that the referee prematurely ended the fight; Lyle was on his feet and vociferously protested the stoppage. Even though he lost, he "showed up" that night and was at his best. It was to be the pinnacle of his career.
In later years, Ron Lyle opened a gym on Colfax in Lakewood. He would train youngsters in the fight game. He was a well-known character with diverse business and recreational interests, some of which got him in trouble — and in debt. One sunny afternoon, Two west Denver brothers with a tough reputation showed up at the gym and awaited Lyle. Their patience had run out over a debt he allegedly owed them. These fellows had some "smoker" experience 1 around town and were by no means novices to the boxing game.
Witnesses' accounts differ minimally, but in short, Lyle was ambushed. He arrived and exited his Lincoln then was immediately accosted by the dynamic duo with a "power advance"… which evolved into a 4-hit "Laurel and Hardy" short. Final score; two thugs down. When police arrived some minutes later, the would-be "Rocky Balboa" brothers were still attempting to recall what was the number of the human locomotive that ran them over in 12 seconds. Colfax Avenue could be a tough place.
Ken Fischer holds a Master's Degree in Education from the University of Iowa and was involved in organizing Iowa's first Law Enforcement Training Academy. He was on the SWAT Team in the Lakewood Police Department, and retired as a Senior Sergeant. His experience includes refereeing altercations between contentious Colfax Gladiators. A longtime resident of Southern Gables, he is an experienced woodsman and now runs a firewood business.
Smoker, smoker fight, boxing smoker: an impromptu or unsanctioned fight in which local reputations are made or lost. Cigar smoke from onlookers is a traditional part of the atmosphere.
This entry was posted in Community, Did You Know..., Local Area History. Bookmark the permalink.
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3 thoughts on "Brawling on "The Fax""
Pingback: The Boxer | Southern Gables Neighborhood Association
Al Gilbert says:
Some great memories on the FAX. I'm sure you also remember the Denver Rocks boxing team.
Ken Fischer says:
Thanks for the comment. I didn't know about the Denver Rocks but I mentioned it to a buddy and found out Ron Lyle boxed for them before the Las Vegas fight with Ali.
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Index of Articles
Buy Local January 20, 2022
First Thursdays January 14, 2022
Helping One Another in Times of Crisis January 7, 2022
Well, That Was 2021 December 31, 2021
Lighting up the Neighborhood December 17, 2021
Pulling Together December 10, 2021
Thanks… and Giving November 26, 2021
America Recycles Day November 15, 2021
All Those Leaves! November 9, 2021
Newsletter Fall 2021 October 29, 2021
Autumn Leaves October 21, 2021
Leaf Day 2021 October 14, 2021
The Southern Gables Neighborhood Park October 6, 2021
About That Neighborhood Night Out October 1, 2021
Don't Forget! NNO Today September 20, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Lisa Huntington-Kinn September 14, 2021
The Orphanage September 9, 2021
A Flurry of Block Parties September 3, 2021
Neighborhood Night Out 2021 August 26, 2021
Better Together August 20, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Erwin Bunzli August 13, 2021
Dick Lamm August 6, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Helga Grunerud July 29, 2021
Crossroads July 23, 2021
Throw a Block Party? Who, Me? July 16, 2021
Meet Your Neighbors: Craig and Jeannette Turchi July 9, 2021
Host a Block Party! June 25, 2021
Meet Your Neighbors: The Wolfrums June 11, 2021
Animal Tales of Southern Gables May 28, 2021
2021 Annual Business Meeting May 27, 2021
The Day I Stood in for Ernest Hemingway May 14, 2021
Meet Your Neighbors: Glenn McCarthy & Justina Walls May 7, 2021
Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt! April 29, 2021
Doing Good April 23, 2021
Columbine April 16, 2021
Meet Your Neighbors: Stanton & Maria La Breche April 9, 2021
A Delicate Situation April 1, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Bruce Loftis March 19, 2021
The Peavy March 11, 2021
The Boxer February 23, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Jo Ann Greeb February 17, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Vic Moss February 12, 2021
Meet Your Neighbor: Marlys Duran February 5, 2021
The Great Backyard Bird Count January 27, 2021
Meet Your Neighbors: Harry and Judi Puncec January 22, 2021
Memories of Early Southern Gables January 15, 2021
The Padre January 8, 2021
Winter Wonderland December 24, 2020
A Christmas Story December 18, 2020
Helping the Community December 11, 2020
About Half Tough December 4, 2020
Meet Your Neighbors: Jim and Kathy Davis November 27, 2020
Brawling on "The Fax" November 20, 2020
Kindness to the Land November 18, 2020
Southern Gables Leaf Day November 8, 2020
Meet Your Neighbors: Frank & Leta Bontrager November 6, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Sam Sotiros October 30, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Christine Laursen October 23, 2020
Meet Your Neighbors: Paul & Chelsie Fleischer October 16, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Deb Martin October 8, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Kathy Stapleton October 2, 2020
Biking September 30, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Mary Vodneck September 24, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: David Van der Vieren September 19, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Carol Lally September 7, 2020
Meet Your Neighbor: Doug Whitten August 28, 2020
School Supplies for Green Gables Elementary August 27, 2020
Jeffco Schools in Challenging Times August 22, 2020
More Memorable Characters of Lakewood August 21, 2020
Memorable Characters of South Lakewood August 15, 2020
How to Attract Baby Butterflies August 12, 2020
A Time for Kindness August 7, 2020
CASA and the Coronavirus July 29, 2020
The Rock of Southern Gables July 24, 2020
Wood Bros. Homes July 16, 2020
Farming in Challenging Times July 10, 2020
Invasive Plant Species in the Neighborhood July 1, 2020
In the Footsteps of the Pioneers — 3 June 26, 2020
Neighborhood Survey Results June 1, 2020
Emergency Preparedness May 26, 2020
The Housing Market May 19, 2020
Remote Learning at Green Gables Elementary School May 16, 2020
Community Compassion Fund May 5, 2020
Newsletter Fall 2019 October 8, 2019
Neighborhood Night Out August 24, 2019
A Big Improvement August 11, 2019
Newsletter Spring 2019 April 29, 2019
The Best-Laid Plans April 27, 2019
What Do the Dues Do? April 19, 2019
Let's Do Lunch! January 4, 2019
Supporting CASA December 7, 2018
Supporting Our Schools November 9, 2018
50 Years! October 16, 2018
Winners! August 28, 2018
Success Story: Our Own Green Gables Elementary August 17, 2018
Volunteers Needed August 6, 2018
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To achieve the growth of RN-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs in the face of ongoing faculty shortages, many large online RN-to-BSN programs have embraced the use of academic coaches to assist with course delivery.
An associational analysis of data collected from academic coaches and their student and faculty evaluators was performed on a sample of academic coaches who were teaching students enrolled in a large online RN-to-BSN program.
The multilevel data consisted of 94 coaches who taught in 166 courses. Evaluation data from 12,004 students were captured and connected to each academic coach and course. Overall, the RN-to-BSN coaches received favorable ratings by both instructors and students alike.
In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM; now the National Academy of Medicine) published The Future of Nursing, which reported evidence-based recommendations for the nursing profession. Among those recommendations was that 80% of nurses in the United States should possess a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) by 2020 (IOM, 2010). Hospitals seeking to obtain or recertify Magnet® status must have a plan addressing how they will meet this goal of 80% BSNs in their organization by 2020 (American Nurses Credentialing Center, 2014). Several studies have demonstrated that patient outcomes are better when more BSN-prepared nurses are providing care for them during their hospital stay. Hospitals employing higher percentages of BSN-prepared nurses have shown an associated decrease in morbidity, mortality, and failure-to-rescue rates (Aiken et al., 2011; Kelly, McHugh, & Aiken, 2011; Tourangeau et al., 2007). Hospitals with a higher percentage of BSN nurses had shorter lengths of stay and lower instances of nurse-sensitive outcomes, such as congestive heart failure mortality, decubitus ulcers, failure to rescue, and postoperative deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism (Blegen, Goode, Park, Vaughn, & Spetz, 2013; Tschannen & Kalish, 2009). Units with a higher percentage of BSN nurses have lower rates of medication errors (Chang & Mark, 2009).
The IOM recommendations, hospital interest in pursuing Magnet status, and the growing body of research evidence that supports a highly educated nursing workforce create a heightened demand for BSN-prepared nurses. According to the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (Health Resources and Services Administration, 2010), 50% of working RNs hold a diploma or an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) as their highest educational degree. As a result, a need exists for RN-to-BSN programs to assist ADN-prepared nurses to complete their BSN.
In addition to the demand for increased enrollment in RN-to-BSN programs, it is estimated that more than 1.1 million additional RNs will be needed by the year 2022. To meet this enrollment demand, the number of nursing faculty will need to increase by 35%. This increase in demand exacerbates an already existing nursing faculty shortage (National League for Nursing, 2017). Wyte-Lake, Tran, Bowman, Needleman, and Dobalian (2013) described the faculty shortage as a complex problem with multiple etiologies, including low salaries, alternative career opportunities (e.g., practitioner positions in private sectors that offer greater compensation), and increasing faculty workload demands without a commensurate increase in salary. The average age of master's-prepared and doctoral-prepared nursing faculty at all ranks is 55.1 and 56.9 years, respectively. The average retirement age for nursing faculty is 62.5 years, and it is predicted that within the next decade, a large percentage of current faculty will retire (American Association of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2017b).
According to the AACN (2017a), in 2017, 747 RN-to-BSN programs were available nationwide in a variety of formats: face-to-face, hybrid, and online. RN-to-BSN programs vary in length depending on the school's requirements, the type of program chosen, the speed in which the student completes courses, and the academic work that has already been completed by the student. As further evidence of the continuing demand for RN-to-BSN programs, enrollment in RN-to-BSN programs nationwide has increased annually for the past 13 years (AACN, 2017a).
RN-to-BSN students have needs and issues that are different from a typical undergraduate student. Many RN-to-BSN students have families, work full time with extended and nontraditional hours, and have returned to school to further their education (DellAntonio, 2017). Specific barriers include the need for flexibility and the potential for prolonged time lines for program completion (Robertson, Canary, Orr, Herberg, & Rutledge, 2010), unsupportive employers and inflexible work arrangements (Perfetto, 2015), and financial difficulties (Sarver, Cichra, & Kline, 2015; Sportsman & Allen, 2011). Online RN-to-BSN programs provide these students with opportunities to pursue their education without the restrictions of time and space. RNs contemplating a return to school will be most receptive to programs that acknowledge them as working adults with commitments and responsibilities (Boylston & Jackson, 2008). However, online RN-to-BSN students also experience challenges to completing their education, including fear of online courses and technology (Lee & Choi, 2011) and time management difficulties (Hampton & Pearce, 2016; Sarver et al., 2015).
Although online nursing programs have expanded exponentially over the past decade, some express concern about the ability to provide high-quality educational experiences in this format. The concern has been expressed as a belief that students in traditional on-campus programs may have greater success in learning and outcomes than those in online programs (Allen & Seaman, 2006; Bowen, Chingos, Lack & Nygren, 2012; Ward, Peters, & Shelley, 2010). Faculty members have reported skepticism regarding whether online students can learn as much as on-campus students (Ward, Peters, & Shelley, 2010). Moreover, university administrators have reported that a "lack of acceptance of online instruction by faculty" was a significant barrier to the large-scale implementation of online courses (Allen & Seaman, 2006, p. 13). Despite these concerns, studies have demonstrated that when well-designed, online programs can achieve similar levels of student engagement and academic success as those in traditional campus-based programs in terms of student engagement, progression, and academic success (Colvin et al., 2014; Mancini, Ashwill, & Cipher, 2015; McGinley, Osgood, & Kenney, 2012; Rabe-Hemp, Woollen, & Humiston, 2009).
An often criticized element of online learning is the lack of interaction between instructors and other students (Stott & Mozer, 2016). Research into social presence, online communities, and learner engagement indicates that the promotion of a sense of belonging to a class or university and being connected to their educator and peers has a strong correlation with student success and intent to persist (Stott & Mozer, 2016). Frazer, Sullivan, Weatherspoon, and Hussey (2017) described effective online instructors as those who facilitate student learning, choose to feel connected with students, share experiences, are approachable, and are responsive to students' needs.
One solution to addressing the challenges and concerns related to online programs is the use of academic coaches. Many reasons exist for the addition of academic coaches to an online course, among which are to increase enrollment, reduce nursing faculty stress, and positively affect student outcomes such as academic progression and student satisfaction (Gazza & Matthias, 2016). The role of an academic coach is to serve as a liaison between the faculty of record and the students. Coaches monitor student engagement, manage discussion boards, assist with grading, provide online student support, and regularly collaborate with university faculty. Working under the direction of experienced nurse faculty, the academic coach assists students as they navigate the structure and content of online courses. Further, they help create positive learning relationships by supporting students with reminders and encouragement. Academic coaches have been used to maintain a small group experience for students in high-volume online courses (Cipher, Mancini, & Shrestha, 2017).
Identify the demographic composition of academic coaches in an accelerated online (AO) RN-to-BSN program.
Examine the associations between coaching experience, years of licensure, and level of education and evaluations by faculty and students.
In 2008, the University of Texas at Arlington College of Nursing and Health Innovation (UTA CONHI) and Academic Partnerships (i.e., a global higher education service provider) designed an online RN-to-BSN program (termed the Accelerated Online, or AO, program) that allows for maximum student flexibility, is highly scalable, and focuses on the particular needs of working RNs who are returning to academia. Full descriptions of the development and implementation of the program are provided by (Cipher et al., 2017).
The design of the UTA CONHI's AO RN-to-BSN program includes the use of academic coaches with a minimum of a master's degree in nursing. The educational and academic qualifications of the UTA CONHI's academic coaches are determined for each course based on the content area and course level. The coaches are recruited by an external company (Instructional Connections) who confirms their qualifications and presents the coach applicants to UTA CONHI for review and acceptance. Academic coaches are provided an orientation to the role and the course and mentored into the role by lead instructors. Coaches serve in the role of assistant to the faculty member and allow the program to provide students with a small group experience when engaging in student interactions.
Coaches are evaluated on a routine basis by faculty and students with remediation provided, if needed. In each course, students are sectioned into cohorts of approximately 30, with each cohort assigned a coach who answers questions and provides timely feedback on student work while facilitating the student experience so that small group interactions are maximized. An individual coach may oversee several groups of students in the same course.
Data pertaining to demographic variables (e.g., gender, age) and professional variables (e.g., highest degree, years licensed, months spent as an active coach, evaluations from faculty) were obtained from employer records. Student course evaluations were obtained from University records. Data were collected for courses taught between summer 2013 and summer 2015 (113 consecutive weeks). The final sample included data from a total of 94 coaches, 166 courses, and 12,004 students. This study was deemed exempt by the University's institutional review board.
How often did the academic coach attend the preestablished course related conference calls? Response set: Likert scale ranging from 1 (attended less than 60% of the time) to 5 (attended 90% of the time or more).
How well did the academic coach uphold the plan in the syllabus? (answered on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = extremely poor, less than 60% of the time to 5 = great, over 90% of the time).
How well did the academic coach reflect your grading standards on open ended assignments? (answered on a Likert scale ranging from 1 = extremely poor, less than 60% of the time to 5 = great, over 90% of the time).
Would you like to work with this academic coach again? (answered as a binary yes or no).
Student Evaluation. All students in the university are provided with the opportunity to submit course evaluations at the end of each course. Sixteen items (Table) thought to be related to coaching were extracted from the university's standard student evaluation form, and all were answered with a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Items 14 and 15 include references to a graduate teaching assistant (GTA), although in this RN-to-BSN program, no GTAs are involved—only academic coaches.
Continuous parameters are reported as mean ± standard deviation, and discrete parameters are reported as n and percent (%). Tests of normality were performed with the Shapiro-Wilk test and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Generalized linear mixed models were computed to examine the association between faculty evaluations of coaches and student evaluations of courses. The generalized linear mixed models accounted for multiple occurrences of teaching from coaches. Analyses were performed with SPSS® version 22 for Windows and SAS® version 9.4 for Linux (with "PROC GLIMMIX" and "PROC MIXED" procedures).
The cohort consisted of 94 academic coaches. The majority of the sample was female (97.9%), and the mean age was 44.4 ± 10 years. Most coaches had a master's degree as their highest level of education (93.6%), and 6.4% had a PhD, Doctor of Nursing Practice, or Doctor of Education. The mean number of years licensed was 20.6 ± 10.4 years. On average, the study sample had over 3 years of experience working as a coach (37.5 months).
Generalized linear mixed models were computed to examine the association between coaching experience, years of licensure, level of education, and evaluations by faculty and students. More coaching experience was significantly associated with being more likely to uphold the plan in the syllabus, as judged by the faculty (p = .04). Coaching experience was not significantly associated with any other evaluation items by the faculty, nor with any of the student evaluation items.
The coach's level of education was significantly associated with the faculty evaluation of the coach regarding grading standards on open-ended assignments. Coaches with a doctoral degree were significantly less likely to uphold the plan in the syllabus (p = .003) and significantly less likely to use the prescribed grading standards with open-ended assignments (p = .032). Years of licensure were not significantly associated with any of the evaluation items by the faculty-of-record, nor with any of the student evaluation items.
The Table displays the means for each faculty evaluation and student evaluation item. The mean ratings for every evaluation item were higher than 4.0, indicating generally strong favorable evaluations. Generalized linear mixed models were computed to examine the association evaluations by faculty and students. Higher ratings on the faculty evaluation item addressing meeting and conference call attendance were significantly associated with higher students' ratings on the item "I would recommend this online course to other students" (p = .008). Higher ratings on the faculty evaluation item addressing the coach's use of the prescribed grading standards were significantly associated with higher students' ratings on the item "When I contacted the faculty member, the GTA, and/or the academic coach, I received a timely response" (p = .004). Faculty endorsements of working with the coach in the future were significantly associated with higher students' ratings on the item "When I contacted the faculty member, the GTA, and/or the academic coach, I received a timely response" (p = .04). No other significant associations emerged between the faculty evaluations of coaches and the student courses evaluations.
A retrospective associational analysis of 94 academic coaches teaching 12,004 students over the course of eight semesters was conducted. Results revealed that overall, the RN-to-BSN coaches received favorable ratings by both instructors (mean scores of 4.6 to 4.7 on a 5-point scale) and students alike (mean scores of 4.04 to 4.63 on a 5-point scale). Years of coaching experience were associated with positive faculty evaluations, whereas years of licensure were not significantly associated with either faculty nor student evaluations. Faculty ratings of coaches were favorable, as were students' ratings of satisfaction with their online courses.
The results indicate that the use of qualified academic coaches who support the faculty and provide students with a small-group experience is likely to yield high satisfaction. Coaches who answer questions and provide timely feedback to the students are likely to be successful in facilitating and enhancing the student experience. The study findings are consistent with our prior studies of academic success in these programs (Cipher et al., 2017; Mancini et al., 2015), as well as with previous studies that identified the impact of online presence and immediacy behaviors by instructors on RN-to-BSN student success, satisfaction, and retention (DellAntonio, 2017; Gazza and Matthias, 2016).
One question arising from this limited research is the extent to which years of coaching experience are associated with better student outcomes. These study results indicated a significant association between coaching experience and the ability to uphold the syllabus. However, years of coaching experience was not significantly associated with any other faculty evaluation item, nor with any of the student satisfaction responses. The educational profile of this coach sample was homogeneous; all coaches had a minimum of a master's degree. Although all coaches received favorable ratings, those with a doctoral degree scored slightly lower evaluations related to upholding the syllabus and following prescribed grading standards. It is not clear as to why this might be so and is an area for future research.
Limitations of the study included the single-site regional sample, as well as the retrospective study design. This study involved a limited-variable data set and a convenience sample of coaches. Moreover, student completion of satisfaction surveys was voluntary, and therefore only a subset of students was reflected in the analysis. The student evaluation items combined faculty and coaches, and no items individually addressed coaches alone. However, it is assumed that if the coach did a poor job, this would be reflected in a lower overall score. Student evaluations that focus specifically on academic coaches are an area for future development and research. The strengths of this study are the unique, multilevel data set including more than 12,000 student course evaluations specifically linked to a particular coach.
If the National Academy of Medicine's goal for educational preparation of registered nurses is to be achieved, colleges of nursing must develop increased capacity in RN-to-BSN programs. The use of academic coaches is one strategy to achieve this goal. Although some evidence exists indicating that high-volume programs can provide high-quality educational experiences and outcomes, little was known about the demographics of individuals who select to be in these roles or the perspectives of the students and faculty with whom they interacted. This study demonstrates that satisfaction with academic coaches serving online RN-to-BSN programs has the potential to be high, from both the student and the faculty perspective. Leveraging technology, qualified academic coaches, and best practices in online education can be transformative to higher education.
McGinley, V., Osgood, J. & Kenney, J. (2012). Exploring graduate students' perceptual differences of face-to-face and online learning. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 13, 177–182.
Rabe-Hemp, C., Woollen, S. & Humiston, G.S. (2009). A comparative analysis of student engagement, learning, and satisfaction in lecture hall and online learning settings. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 10, 207–218.
Dr. Cipher is Associate Professor, Dr. Urban is Clinical Assistant Professor, and Dr. Mancini is Professor, Associate Dean, and Chair of Undergraduate Nursing Programs, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas.
©2018 Cipher, Urban, Mancini; licensee SLACK Incorporated.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0). This license allows users to copy and distribute, to remix, transform, and build upon the article noncommercially, provided the author is attributed and the new work is noncommercial.
The study was funded by a grant from Academic Partnerships.
Address correspondence to Daisha Jane Cipher, PhD, Associate Professor, College of Nursing and Health Innovation, University of Texas at Arlington, 701 S. Nedderman Drive, Arlington, TX 76019-0407; e-mail: cipher@uta.edu.


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Your Chosen Genres	[ 01 Ade tastics ]	[ Film Noir ]	[ 01 Nigel's Choice ]	Can be Combined with Other Genres. Click here to Combine Genres!
Currently Selected: • 01 Ade tastics	• Film Noir	• 01 Nigel's Choice
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BREAKING AWAY (1979)
Peter Yates' Oscar-winner is a heart-warming coming-of-age story that has also taken its place as the greatest sports movie about cycling ever made. Four friends graduate from high-school and find themselves looking at an uncertain future in small-town America. Dave's passion is cycling and his dream is to be a world-class champion like the Italians he idolises. His passion for cycling takes on new meaning when he and his friends face a team from the local college in the town's annual bike ra	find out more...
Nothing more can be said about this classic melodrama from the peak of the Hollywood studio-film era. Hardened cynic Bogart softens when he meets old flame Bergman who is now a refugee in neutral wartime Casablanca. Together they outwit the Germans... and of course there's that famous song. Watch this classic or some day you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...	find out more...
DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944)
Phyllis Dietrichson is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who inspires in her nothing but contempt, but rather than leave him Phyllis decides to kill him and collect on the insurance policy she's had set up with the help of her lover, and naive partner in crime, insurance salesman Walter Neff. The only flaws in their plan are the company's reluctance to pay out so much, the diligence of Neff's increasingly suspicious colleague, (and his 'little man'), and the exemplary ruthlessness of Ph	find out more...
OUT OF THE PAST (1947)
The film that catapulted Mitchum to stardom; after Kathie shoots her admirer and runs off with his 40 grand he, naturally, hires a private dick to find her. Although the dick finds Katie in Mexico, they decide to tell Sterling that he couldn't find her.	find out more...
THE BIG SLEEP (1946)
The original and best version of the detective thriller classic. Philip Marlowe is hired to investigate the gambling debts of a rich man's daughter, but is plunged into a twilight world of intrigue, blackmail and violence. Stylish and gripping.	find out more...
THE LETTER (1940)
CertificationU Our Rating
A superbly crafted melodrama, even if it never manages to top the moody montage with which it opens - moon scudding behind clouds, rubber dripping from a tree, coolies dozing in the compound, a startled cockatoo - as a shot rings out, a man staggers out onto the verandah, and Davis follows to empty her gun grimly into his body. The contrivance evident in Maugham's play during the investigation and trial that follow is kept firmly at bay by Wyler's technical expertise and terrific performances, n	find out more...
THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)
Film Noir from the Ealing funny man! Mackendrick's US debut is a rat-trap of a movie in which a vile NY gossip hustler (Tony Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Burt Lancaster). Lancaster plays JJ Hunsecker, a monstrous, amoral and incestuous news columnist obsessed with wrecking his kid sister's romance. The dark streets stink of corruption and fear. Amoral and awesome with a great jazz soundtrack.	find out more...


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Q: Updating totalItems in angular-ui-grid with external I am using external pagination in AngularJS's ui-grid as described here:
http://ui-grid.info/docs/#/tutorial/314_external_pagination
That updates a special field of totalItems when new page is arrived:
var getPage = function() {
// skipped some part
$http.get(url)
.success(function (data) {
  $scope.gridOptions.totalItems = 100;
  // updating grid object with data
});

};
My only difference to the standard example is that I have gridOptions inside an object that is passed to my directive, that has a grid inside it:
// Line is called right after I receive a page of data from server
$scope.gridObj.gridOptions.totalItems= response.TotalItems;

If I initialize this field before grid is shown on screen (together with configuration) then it remains at the value that I set back then (and obviously, it is not adequate to set of data I receive later, during runtime). But when I alter it later after I call my loading method (that returns current "page" as well as value for totalItems), the change is not picked up by ui-grid. If it is not initialized at startup, again, I could not set this to any value.
How am I to successfully modify the totalItems parameter for the ui-grid during runtime? Can I possibly re-trigger some grid update manually?

A: I've found that assigning totalItems within a $timeout works nicely for now. This was necessary because ui-grid was updating the value, just not to what I was expecting.
Update:
In my case I need to show all filtered items across all pages, which there is no API for. So for now I've implemented an angular filter, included below. GridRow objects have a visible flag set to true when filters have not filtered them out from the result set.
Example:
angular.filter('renderableRows', function() {
  return function(allRows) {
    var renderables = [];

    angular.forEach(allRows, function(row) {
      if(row.visible) {
        renderables.push(row);
      }
    });

    return renderables;
  };
});

$timeout(function() {
  $scope.gridOptions.totalItems = $filter('renderableRows')($scope.gridApi.grid.rows).length;
});

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I can't believe that a whole year has passed since I was last in action with this blog – it's not that I haven't wanted to 'stay in touch', it's just that life has overtaken things for a bit. Because the twist and turns on the slippery slope of life have meant a few complications, not least health-wise, a year on it now appears more important than ever to get to grips with our down-shift and it seems useful to try to record this in some way to share info with family and friends from afar!
So, there's no way I can really catch everyone up with the highs and lows of the last year apart from to say that we are all a little older but little farther on with any of the down-shift at all – The Quest still continues! I'll just have to jump in from here with keeping everything up to date with our on-going attempts at frugality = fun, downshift = more time, less hassles; simple = less stressful!


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All posts tagged "Charles Barkley"
Draymond Green was ready to fight Charles Barkley when joining him on set: 'I'm not saying a f—–g word to him'
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green isn't a fan of NBA legend Charles Barkley. Green and Barkley worked together as analysts for TNT, but...
Peter DeweyOctober 18, 2021
Charles Barkley is not allowed to mock San Antonio women on 'Inside the NBA' anymore
Charles Barkley is known to be a jokester and, for many years, he had constantly joked about the women in San Antonio to the...
David AkermanJune 15, 2021
Charles Barkley says he turned down Monday Night Football role
NBA legend Charles Barkley noted during a podcast rant that he was once offered the opportunity to be a part of ESPN's Monday Night...
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Charles Barkley throws massive shade at the Clippers: 'The Clippers have always sucked'
The Los Angeles Clippers are now 35-18 on the 2020-21 season after beating the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night. The Clippers are now the...
Peter DeweyApril 9, 2021
Charles Barkley argues why professional athletes should be able to cut the line and take the vaccine
During TNT's Thursday night broadcast, NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley offered the controversial idea that NBA players and other professional athletes should be...
Brad SullivanJanuary 15, 2021
Charles Barkley destroys Kyrie Irving: 'You dribble a basketball, stop acting like you're the smartest person in the world'
Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving is, without a doubt, one of the NBA's best and most entertaining players, as well as arguably the best...
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Charles Barkley: 'Kevin Durant was a bus rider not a bus driver' in Golden State
Although the Brooklyn Nets' Kevin Durant is one of the best players of this era with two NBA Finals MVPs to his name, he...
Robert MarviOctober 9, 2020
Charles Barkley gets crucified for defending cops in Breonna Taylor shooting
Throughout the NBA playoffs, the league's biggest stars have advocated for justice for Black men and women who have been impacted by police violence...
Robert MarviSeptember 25, 2020
Video: Shaquille O'Neal Bets Charles Barkley $100K He Can't Break Broom
When the Los Angeles Lakers began their first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers, Charles Barkley of TNT's "Inside the NBA" boldly proclaimed...
Robert MarviAugust 30, 2020


As you can see we have been hard at work upgrading and redesigning the Explore the Seafloor website. We think the new design makes finding things and looking through the website an even better experience than before.
With all this recent frosty weather we have had plenty of time in the office to create our exciting new secondary school lessons and games. The lessons focus on marine food webs, ancient landscapes and the amazing technology which helps us map the seafloor. The eLearning games are being built with the skill of web animator Chris Day from Little Creature. Each of our games are designed to test your knowledge of the seafloor AND your skill. The games will be going live in February so don't forget to check the website.
This October half-term holiday the Explore the Seafloor team was out and about.
The last 2010 roadshow ran at the National SEA LIFE centre in Birmingham, and it was one of our busiest. We had lots of fun and were particularly impressed with the Halloween costumes that some of our younger visitors wore. Katie and Sarah, Explore the Seafloor team members, also got very excited about seeing the cast of the BBC TV show "Hustle" filming at the end of their street, as well as a Jet Ski chase for a Bollywood movie along the Birmingham canals.
On the South coast ETS team member Rhonda put on a one day special event at the New Forest Centre, working alongside outreach officers from the New Forest National Park Authority. On a miserable autumn day it was a fun way to escape the weather although people still got a bit wet at our archaeology handling table!!
Explore the Seafloor is pleased to announce a new special event to keep the family occupied during the October half term school holidays. Join us at New Forest Centre on Wednesday the 27th of October for a day of fun and exploration. The centre is open from 10am to 4pm. Entry is free for under 16s and £3 for adults.
The New Forest National Park Authority will also be coming along to tell visitors about the exciting maritime archaeology project they are undertaking along the park's coastline.
August kicked off with Marine Week and Explore the Seafloor ran two special events at coastal Wildlife Trust centres to mark this annual celebration of the sea.
On Saturday the 7th of August Explore the Seafloor ran a hands-on workshop at the Kent Wildife Trust's Reculver Nature Park, near Herne Bay. The centre is an excellent venue for us as it already has great information about the archaeology and history of its surrounding area, from the Ice Age to World War II. Visitors enjoyed handling some artefacts that date to the information at the centre, including a mammoth's tooth and the remains of a World War II machine gun.
On Sunday the 8th of August we journeyed on to Colchester and Essex Wildilfe Trust's Fingringhoe Wick Nature Reserve. It was a beautiful sunny day and so we set up outside and had lots of families stopping off to play before they took a walk around the beautiful nature reserve. Visitor's particularly enjoyed the dressing up and we have some great photographs of the day – check out our photograph albums on our Facebook pages.
Overall the weekend was a great success and Explore the Seafloor would like to thank both centres for being so enthusiastic and welcoming.
This weekend Explore the Seafloor will be attending " From Caves to Cohorts" – English Heritage's Festival of British Archaeology event at Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth.
The event will be investigating the past, from prehistoric times to the Romans. Come along to enjoy lots of fun, hands-on family activities.
You can find Explore the Seafloor in the Maritime tent – so pop in and say hello!


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