The Rigors and Cure for Base-ketball Season
To most of the folks in the real world (that blurry place that exists off campus), Baseketball was just one of many goofy, easily forgettable movies. To those of us who breathe in the air on planet SID, it’s a real season, and we’re in the midst of it.
Some of us call it swretlaxtennis season, at other institutions it’s known as basketindoorsoftballgolf season. It’s kind of like that indefinable last few seconds between the last waking moment and first minute of sleep. It’s a punch drunk wooziness resulting from a football and basketball season that has raced by leaving the inevitable hangover that is spring in its wake. There is no amount of 4 a.m. Denny’s grease it seems, to sop up the metaphorical booze.
The tank is running low, the tires are running bald, but the finish line is in sight. The energy to post anything more eludes me.
The only cure for this hangover bordering on coma I can think of is found in a bag of clubs on a warm spring day, sans cell phone, email or any means of impersonal interpersonal communication. No mass communicating either. No communicating anything that doesn’t involve me lying about how many shots (golf or Jameson) proceeded my current, or isn’t otherwise related to the current journey around the circuit of silent relief.
Yup, that's really all I've got. I'm beat tired my SID bretheren and sistern. Beat tired.
posted by SID Vicious @ 11:00 PM
6 Comments:
As Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
So too does this apply to the basketindoorsoftballgolf season. Being pulled in eight different directions, with coaches wanting to know if you have their All-Region players nominated, media guide off to the printer, game programs done and then there is always that one coach who has some obscure camp brochure that they need done yesterday for a camp that takes place in July!
And all of this takes place when the tank is empty. All the energy you had was spent making the transition from fall to winter. Spring is ariving and about the only think you can focus on is hitting the course.
Spring break is upon you, and while athletes are getting ready for their trips to Cancun and Daytona Beach, you are stuck writing bio's for the website. Some of us are lucky enough to go on a spring baseball/softball trip to a warm climate. Others, stay behind to sit in the snowbank and chill.
Such is the life of an SID. I wouldn't trade this for anything.
I don't play golf and mock those who do. Give me softball or basketball.
The only thing hocbaseketsoftball season does for me is make me far more aware of the little things I do when my winter sports teams win. Baseball just brings out the superstitious man out in me.
The problem with those windmill and castle courses:
1. They always make you walk, but dont provide a caddy.
2. They get all uppity when you hurl your club and drill a six year old on the noggin, then they hang your mug shot up with the people who passed bad checks under a big sign that says "Banned for Life" like your the same kind of jerk who writes bad checks.
3. That damn windmill.
4. No drinking? I can't hit a neon green golf ball without a buzz. I have a feeling they would be cool with it if I dropped acid. There are giant multi-colored dinosaurs, man-sized windmills (I hate that freaking windmill), hip-high mountains with PVC tunnels, the mad hatter, and that stupid laughing clown that taunts you and makes you scream, "You think you are better than me?!" And that damn windmill.
I hate that freaking windmill. How the hell does the blde always speed down when I hit?
5. The dishonesty of children. There I am, waiting for my chance at a free round up the chicken wire covered ramp to that loudmouthed uppity clown, and this three year old tees up. He uses the middle hole in the mat (stupid three-year old doesn't know you've gotta use the hole on the left). He winds up, takes a swing, it goes like halfway up, rolls right back down, and what does he do?
That's right, the cheating bastard tees it up again, and on the MIDDLE DIVOT.
This goes on like ten more times before he finally gets it up the ramp, into the open mouth of that stupid clown for a free round which he is perfectly willing to accept.
Meanwhile, 49 of the 50 people on the cartless cart path also looking for a free round of the devil's game are getting behind this kid like he's Michelle Kwan and we're in Nagano or Torino.
So I say to he and his extended family clearly violating the course's policy on foursomes, "Hey, cheating the game of golf is only cheating your child, I know, I am a sports information professional."
So dad and uncle Jim start pummelling me with fists and putters, while little Johnny mercilessly taps me on the head with the flat end of that eraserless pencil which requires perfection in scoring like I did something wrong.
That's when some other jerk notices that the guy getting throttled by the raisers of the little cheater is the same guy on the banned for life picture becuase he ACCIDENTIALLY drilled a six year old (who clearly hadn't thought about the inherent assumption of the risk of putt-putt) with a green-gripped putter.
Worse yet, when he notices the picture, he says, "Hey, that guy can't play here, he passes bad checks." Like I am that kind of Jerk.
That's when the midget owner's son cranking the blades of the windmill hops out of faux dutch tower and starts tap dancing on my already bruised and cracked ribs, and this goes on until I am once again taken off the course, bloodied and beaten and in handcuffs.
6. They make you pay for the resulting court ordered therapy. I am not the one who cheated on the mini-golf course.
7. The girl you took there on the date in the first place doesn't return any of your ten a day phone calls. Worse yet, she no longer wants to date you (probably because of the bad checks), and files for something called a restraining order with the same judge who is overseeing your trial for getting beaten down by the family of a three-year old who will one day become a CEO and make everyone's 401k disappear. Then she testifies against you.
Yeah, a round of mini golf looks like fun and games...
And, as if all of this wasn't enough, the bagger at the local grocery store has a better idea of his schedule for the week than you do because your baseball and softball coaches call other baseball and softball coaches and say, "Yeah, I know it's midseason, but what are you doing on Sunday? Nothing? Great. Let's play two...no, it's okay. Come to my place. No really, it's no big deal." And then CoSIDA wonders why so many young professionals are leaving for office jobs. Yes, they love baseball and softball, but they also love being able to plan as far as a week in advance.
I don't know if I could watch. It's all too painful.
Didn't Will Farrell study sports information at USC? I think I read that once.
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