For those of you that have never had a chance to walk the sidelines during a high school football game, I highly recommend it.
Whether that means becomming a stringer for a newspaper, becomming a statistician, a member of the chain gang or even an assistant coach, I encourage everybody to walk the sidelines at least once. It’s quite the experience.
Friday was the first week of the high school football season and I covered the Reed-Custer/Wilmington game in Braidwood.
If the game is between two local teams, I usually spend one half of each game on each sideline. The first half I’ll spend on the sideline of the team expected to lose; the second half with the team expected to win.
I do this because there’s nothing more depressing that walking the sidelines with a team that is beaten, down-trodden and broken. At the beginning of the game, however, they are excited.
So if you see me on your sideline in the first half, it’s probably not a good thing.
This philosophy backfired Friday, when I expected Wilmington to defeat Reed-Custer. Of course they didn’t (they lost 31-6, in fact), proving once again that I’m stupid.
Early in the game, Reed-Custer completed a long pass play and seemed ready to score the game’s first touchdown. A player on the bench then said to a teammate, “We’re going to win this game. I’m telling you. We’re going to win.” Maybe I should’ve paid closer attention to that kid.
At another point in the game, a Wilmington player cramped up, but an ambulance was called over to the north endzone, leading me to believe the injury was more severe. After the game, though, an old college friend of mine who now works at Reed-Custer told me that a Wilmington fan had suffered a heart attack. I believe he’s OK now. Scary situation, though. One more reason why those ambulances are necessary at high school football games.
All in all, it was an entertaining first game.
Little League parents are insane. Not all, but some.
We can all agree on this, can’t we?
You know who these people are. They wear the T-shirt of their family member on the team (as if he or she would ever claim them), shouting red-faced rants at coaches, umpires as if it were Game 7 of the World Series. They don’t know the rules, but they’re sure their team is getting hosed. Yes, we know who they are. The sad thing is, they don’t know who they are. Therefore, here’s a test.
The thoughts of the insane one can be summarized like this:
1.) “Our kids are perfect; they can do no wrong.”
2.) “The other team’s kids, though I’d never call them brats (out loud), are certainly not perfect.”
3.) “The other team’s coaches are pure, pure, pure evil.”
4.) “Don’t get me started on the other team’s fans. How dare they cheer against our precious team.”
6.) “I’m not embarassing myself or my kids at all. I’m awesome.”
5.) “Umpires are worse than child molesters.”
OK, that last one was a stretch. But not by much.
The point is, the behavior of parents/relatives at youth sporting events is getting worse and worse with no end in sight. I’m not sure why this is, but I know it’s happening.
I had a nice elderly woman call me one night and ask how a local Little League team fared in a recent all-star game. She said she has a grandchild on the team, but has stopped attending games because she can’t stand the way the fans act. Wow. Grandma is staying away from games. This is where we are now.
That does it. I’m making a list of rules to obey at games. I encourage all youth sporting organizations to adopt and enforce these rules, for the good of all humanity. And so Grandma can go back to see little Timmy play t-ball without reservation.
1.) You may never address/yell at/curse/put a voodoo hex on an umpire on an opposing coach.
2.) It’s Little League, for cripe’s sake.
3.) If, at any time, you become angry, you must leave and not return until you settle down.
4.) It’s friggin’ Little League, darn it.
5.) No more noisemakers. Please, no more noisemakers.
6.) These kids are what? Eleven? Set an example.
7.) You may not wear a T-shirt featuring the team’s name, especially one that features a player’s name on the back, unless you behave yourself. Why? If you’re calling the umpire “a blind jerk,” your child probably isn’t going to be too fond of the fact that, because of the T-shirt, everyone is going to know whose parent you are.
8.) It’s Little League. It’s Little League. It’s Little League.
9.) Violators of these rules will be forced to play a baseball/softball game with other violating parents while their kids are encouraged to hollar and scream like crazy people at the umpires and opposing coaches.
I’m sure there are other rules we can enact. I’d like to hear them.
But this is a start.
My boss and current sports editor Tim Ahrens has maintained for quite some time that the NFL preseason needs to be cut to no more than three games. I’m all for it.
Really, who would be against this?
The preseason is gawd-awful. We all watch it, but only because we’ve been craving football for over six months.
It’s sort of like how we watch any new programs on T.V. that we can find, even the crappiest of shows (paging you, Who Wants to be a Superhero and Flavor of Love) in the summer, simply because we don’t want to watch all the tired reruns and bad movies the networks are cramming down our throats during those months.
So even though preseason football stinks, we watch anyway. That means three more weeks of Flavor Flav, P.J. Pope and B.J. Symons.
So be it.
I had never been to Soldier Field (the new one or the old) before going to the practice up there on Wednesday. It’s certainly a nice place; my only complaint (and it’s not a big one) is that all the luxury boxes are on one side, directly facing the main seating section for the crowd. That means throughout the game, all the regular Joes, while freezing their butts off and paying $40 bucks to buy a beer and a hotdog for everyone in their group, have to stare at all the rich snobs eating shrimp and drinking catered wine in a heated suite. This is much like a CEO building his office, complete with a full picture window, directly in front of the working stiffs on the assembly line so they can watch him play putt-putt golf and order back massages. Just not good planning.
I thought it was an entertaining practice though, especially for a walk-thru. It was worth the $5 and I’ll tell you why. I almost felt bad for the fans having to pay $5 for a practice in which the players don’t have on pads, but then the fans started the wave.
I can’t have pity for fans doing the wave, for two reasons: 1.) You only do the wave if you’re happy and 2.) I hate the wave. It is stupid. Yeah, I said it. If you’re going to do the wave, then to me, you should be fined at least $5. So I’ll call it even. The wave should be retired. Same with the hi-five. The hi-five has been officially replaced by the fist-to-fist tap. Can we rubber stamp this please? Thanks.
Note: I’ve even taught my 2-year-old daughter the fist-to-fist tap. No hi-fives for her. She’s so cool.
The practice was good though. The players looked good. There was certainly no suggestion of the horror that would unfold against the 49ers two days later.
But who cares about that. It’s the preseason.
And Who Wants to be a Superhero starts in 15 minutes.
Note from my arrival blog: Reader Marvin pointed out that I misspelled T.J. Donlin’s. He is correct. That’s just a horrendous mistake on my part. How could I misspell the only bar in town (that I know of) which serves Leinenkugal’s Berryweis on tap? I have no idea. I apologize.
Also, thanks to Marv for being the first person who is not my boss or a spam to comment on my blog. I’d send you something as a booby prize but I have no money to purchase one or an address to which to send it.
The other points I’d make to Marvin is that 1.) of course I’m excited the Bears are in town. Who isn’t? and 2.) I defend my use of the word raid. I used it in the same way the word is used to say “I raided the fridge.”
Now, onto Bears’ camp.
ESPN’s John Clayton was at camp Wednesday, making his rounds to various sites. He said he’ll see 17 overall; Bourbonnais was his seventh. Next is Green Bay. He said Bourbonnais has among the best facilities of any camp.
He also mocked me for wanting the Bears to pull the trigger for Denver receiver Ashley Lelie. I won’t get into the details of our conversation, but let’s just say Clayton’s not a big fan of Lelie. At all. So now I feel better about the Bears not getting him.
In all, Clayton’s a helluva guy, even if he does look like Wayne the Brain from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Mr. Mackey from South Park. And if you get those references, I automatically like you.
The main running sub-plot in camp is that Thomas Jones isn’t very happy. He’s not happy he’s hurt. He’s not happy he’s not getting paid more. He’s not happy Cedric Benson is stealing his thunder as the team’s main back, especially considering all TJ’s done for the team the last two years. If I’m the Bears, I want TJ happy. You’re reaaaaally close to having to give P.J. Pope a full-time job at this point. You don’t want that.
His interview after the first practice was enlightening. In it, he said the main reason he held out of the OTAs was because he wanted to work out with his own personal trainer. He said nothing about being unhappy about his contract.
I wanted to ask him about that and to clarify if he indeed wanted more money, but with the roughly 35-40 (not an exaggeration) reporters surrounding him, I found asking a question extremely difficult. Incredibly, nobody asked him about his contract. Needless to say, I left discouraged.
