Are You Ready For Some Football?

I had an idea this morning. I wasn't fully awake yet, so I guess technically it was a dream, but I was aware enough that I could sort of watch over everything and tell myself that I needed to remember as many details as I could, as this was going to be the million dollar idea I had been waiting on.

In this dream, two guys decided to start a football league. Not like the XFL or anything, more like an adult intramural league, only with a Super Bowl involved. Actually, the more this dream unwound, it appeared that they were more trying to hijack an existing kid's league, like Pop Warner or something, but since their team was made up of adults (which somehow wasn't against the rules), they could crush the competition with no problem, and win all the money, fame, and accolades the Pop Warner Super Bowl awards.

As this dream was unspooling, part of me was watching, waiting to see what happened so that I could use it as a screenplay in my real, non-sleeping life.

The guys build a team full of grown-ups, including a huge fat guy who was originally going to be on the offensive line, but then they discovered he had an amazing arm, so the fat guy got promoted to quarterback.

There were some parts that didn't really make sense, like this guy who would pop up now and then wearing a white button-down shirt. He had a quarter-sized bloodstain on his shirt that would grow until his white shirt turned red. Nobody seemed to be alarmed by this. Maybe he was the coach.

Throughout the dream, another part of my subconscious was poking me, saying, "Did you get all that? Did you see that fat guy quarterback? Make sure you remember that. Fat guy quarterback is your ticket to a money-making screenplay."

When I finally woke up, I realized that my dream was a mish-mash of a bunch of different movies that pop up on cable on rainy Saturday afternoons, and I was much too lazy to write a bunch of scenes and characters or whatever it is you have to do with a screenplay anyway.

So I did the next best thing. By documenting the idea here on the internet, I have now registered a copyright, which I believe is how those things work. So when Fourth and Long starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson appears in 2015, I should get a sizeable paycheck.

Runnin' with the Devil

Ran that race I was talking about. My only goal was to not walk, stop or pass out. I did way better than I expected, a new experience for me.

The thing was packed - over 18,000 people. Like everyone said, I spent the first mile or so dodging crowds and pretty much power walking while getting more and more frustrated. I didn't bring my ipod, so I had no idea how far or how fast I was going until I'd make it to a station, and even then I was lost since I would frequently lose track of how many miles I had run.

There were old people, little kids, people dressed up like Darth Vader, and some dude that would stop and do pushups every mile. Showoff.

I hadn't run a race since high school, and those were only 3 miles. Plus, high school was a long time ago. Here's a photo of our track team:


I didn't think I had trained enough. I only started a few months ago, and only made it up to 7 miles once, and this was 2.3 miles more than that. Plus, when I'd pass the stations, the digital readouts said my pace was much slower than what I should be doing to qualify for next year.

Through the race, Husker Du's "What's Going On" kept repeating in my head, along with the intro "Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?" from some Beastie Boys song. I have no idea why that was in there, or why my mind wouldn't actually play the rest of the song. Other than that I worried if I could find my group after the race, since I didn't bring my phone. Was I going to have to walk home after this? Also, I was concentrating on not dying.

The bridge killed me, as I expected, and while technically I didn't walk it, I came pretty close. I also noticed my chest was stinging a little. No big deal, just sweat. After that it was pretty much done. I even had enough juice in me to sprint to the finish line, at least for a little while.

My time crossing the line was one hour and 32 minutes, two minutes away from qualifying, so I was kind of bummed. Plus, when I found my neighbor/coach he pointed out that I was bleeding.


He was right. I thought that red was just a design on the shirt. But no, that was from my nipples. Nobody warned me about that.

Later that day when the official results were posted, I found I actually finished in 84 minutes, which is pretty good, and I got a medal, which I can use to reenact the end of "Star Wars."

I've been pretty psyched since, even though it feels like someone transplanted the legs of a 90 year old man on me overnight. I actually set a goal, accomplished it, and did better than expected. This sensation of actually feeling good about myself is very strange and will take some getting used to. Do normal people feel like this every day? How do they get things done without constant self-doubt and low self esteem spurning them on to accomplish stuff?

I'm going to keep running, especially since the scales tell me I've lost about 15 pounds, even if I can't really tell, except my shirts don't feel as tight. Which is helpful, since my nipples still really hurt.

The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner

I'm not sure how I stumbled into joining the track team. I think some friends from middle school joined freshman football and were already reaping the rewards in female attention. I would soon discover that there was a big difference between track and football when it came to the ladies.

It was determined that I was too uncoordinated for the hurdles, too wimpy for discus or shotput, and too slow for the sprints. So I was shuffled off to the distance events.

While some might see this as the deep right field of track (my position throughout middle school PE), it suited me just fine. I have a strong stubborn streak, so this was probably the best place for me. I could just keep on keepin' on, and try not to come in last.

Distance running was fun, giving me the same feeling long-distance bike rides give me now. You're completely alone, you don't have to talk to anyone, and you can use the time as a sort of meditation, to work out humorous blog posts or life-changing plans or what have you. Plus, at the end, you feel physically and mentally wrung out, a nice ...afterglow of a feeling.

But for all the character building and sportsmanship and whatnot I suppose I learned, one of the things a former high school distance runner will never forget is the boredom.

Getting out of school at 1:30 was awesome! Then you'd ride a bus for about an hour, which was cool, since I'd pass the time by blaring punk rock, throwing food out the window, and being obnoxious. Then you get to the school hosting the track meet.

Then you waited.

And waited.

And waited.

You'd watch everyone else compete in their events, at least for a while. You couldn't eat or drink anything. Well, maybe some people could. I couldn't. Distance events were the last things scheduled, so by the time your event rolled around, everyone else was sitting on the bus, ready to go home, while you had spent 7 hours alternately nervous and bored before your 15 minutes of running (or more. I once ran an extra lap since nobody was there to tell me how many I completed).

Cross country was a little better, if only because you ran through actual trails, with nature and stuff around you, and you were usually finished by 11 in the morning.

Secretly, we all realized running was boring, but still got all indignant that we weren't generating the same excitement as other sports. Once we were practicing while a TV crew set up to film that night's football game. With all the righteous anger a group of teenagers can gather, we peppered the poor cameraman with comments about how he should be filming the real athletes, us. Those football players didn't even have any lower body strength! There's no way those guys could last more than an 880!

Those were all great arguments, but you know why they didn't film us? Because we were boring! Who the hell would want to watch a bunch of teenagers huffing and puffing through the woods for 20 minutes? Hell, we didn't want to watch each other and we were on the team together.

I actively discouraged my parents from attending meets because I liked to act the fool without my parents around to assess the damage I was doing to the family name, but I'd also like to think I'd spare them the boredom of sitting on some unpleasant bleachers for hours on a Saturday morning after working all week. Mom and Dad, you're welcome.

Body Blow, Body Blow

When watching boxing or a Muhammad Ali documentary almost every guy will think, "You know, I could do that." You realize you couldn't land a punch or anything, but you could probably last a round or two. Hell, who hasn't been punched before? And they use gloves in boxing, right? That ring's pretty big, with some fancy footwork you should be able to run out the clock for a while, take a punch or two, collect your huge paycheck and go home.

I'm a doughy, out of shape 40 year old, and I still secretly think I could box professionaly. I don't have these delusions about other sports. I know I could never complete a pass in the NFL. I would have no chance of making a layup in the NBA. Hell, I probably couldn't even sink a free throw, what with everyone shouting and waving crap at me.

But boxing? I could totally do that. Worst case scenario, I get knocked out within seconds, and I have a story for the rest of my life. I could be watching Mike Tyson in The Hangover on my wall-sized TV and legitimately say, "I fought that guy once."

"Really?"

"That's what they tell me. How else do you think I could afford this gold-plated house?"

I'd like to think that when my opponent and I tapped our gloves in the beginning, I'd do that "fake hand shake to the hair adjustment" move. I figure I'm getting knocked out soon, may as well give the people their money's worth. And how awesome would it be to dramatically rise off the floor while the ref is counting me out and my crusty trainer is shouting at me to stay down?

'80s movies are to blame for my delusional belief in my boxing skills. As everyone knows, to be a great boxer, all you need is heart, someone to believe in you, and a training montage set to an inspiring '80s ballad. I don't really have the first two, but I could totally do a montage. Run on the beach for a while, do some sit-ups, hit that big ...punching bag thing, no problem. "Eye of the Tiger" is a bit too obvious, let's go with ...hmmmm. Def Leppard? Not enough synthesizer. Journey? Too played out. Hey, this montage might be harder than I thought.

Of course, this fantasy only applies to old school boxing. MMA is too dude-touching for me. Hey, you know, boxing is probably losing tons of revenue to MMA. They should be looking for a new underdog story to teach America how to dream again. And with my "everyman" physique and "Joe Six-pack" avoidance of training, hard work and sense of entitlement, I could be just the underdog they're looking for. Where do I sign up?



*When I say "almost every guy" I really mean, "Me and a guy at work I talked to about boxing once." With that sort of rigorous sourcing, I could totally be a lifestyles feature editor, if I only lived in New York.

Uninformed and Uneducated Thoughts on the World Cup

I have friends who actually know stuff about the World Cup and can tell you all sorts of statistics on what country is going to beat what country and who plays what position and how this is going to be the year that soccer finally takes root in America.

If you care about that sort of stuff, you should read their blogs.

There are also a gazillion sites that deride soccer as a pansy European sport that no American should care about.

If you care about that sort of stuff, you should have someone read their site to you.

Amazingly, the one thing both these camps have in common is that they tend to absolutely hate the one thing that is awesome about World Cup soccer.

They both seem to really, really hate when a player (generally an Italian) will get nudged in the shoulder or something, then fall to the ground as if they were stabbed trying to pull a foul on the other team. Then the ref leaves and the player gets up.

This is the one thing that I absolutely think is awesome about soccer. In fact, it might be the coolest move in professional sports. To me, it recalls Ric Flair, master of ring psychology, when he'd fall to his knees and pantomime begging for the mercy of an opponent. Then, he'd punch him in the balls when the ref wasn't looking.

Dunks from the foul line, Hail Mary passes, fake kicks on fourth down; all of these are awesome moves, but to see a guy fall down screaming in obvious fake pain only to pop right back up and continue playing - this move should be in every professional athlete's bag of tricks.