Refer to the Refs

Why does the sports industry do this to us?  After February 3rd and the Superbowl, we will enter what is known in our home as the Sports Void. There is no Splenda alternative, no understudy competition capable of covering the time span from February 4th to March Madness.  It's not that I'm a sports junkie, it's that I love the strategies and banter of my family as we debate calls, plays and coaching decisions.  It gives all my kids a way to use their desire to micro-manage someone other than themselves in an appropriate manner.   Absent sporting events, they turn to the easiest source of arm-chair quarterbacking in any household, their siblings, which leaves me in the unfortunate role of game official.

In the interest of helping to maintain a spirit of sportsmanship throughout the off season, I'm listing here the predesignated consequences for any and all infractions.

7) Off Sides:  the space within the car is limited. Failure to respect the personal space of each individual passenger shall be punishable by allowing the affected individual unrestricted access the music and atmospheric controls for the duration of the errand. 

6) Offsetting penalties:  In the event there are multiple flags, all entertainment shall be cancelled, all personal errands rescheduled, and offending members given the additional community service of folding fifteen pairs of socks each. 

5) Unintentional grounding:  I've learned, people don't get that they're not in charge even when I say, "You're not in charge."  Ergo, if someone declares themselves to be in charge, I'm handing over all the dishes for the evening, and I'm going to use extra pots and pans.

4) Holding: Everyone knows when someone extends their hand above their head clutching an item, it isn't because they're doing it to preserve peace.  They're proving they have the power to keep someone else from getting said item.   I'm of two minds on this issue.  If instant replay indicates the item was in fact involved in creating a problem for others, I will take the item. I will also put those helpful hands to use, thinking that person must volunteering for something.  Since I've already delegated laundry and dishes, I'm going to make this one an outside task, landscaping 101. 
They'll get to trim all the branches overhead.

3) False Start:  Every parent knows this tactic.  The younger kid baits the older one into attacking, the older one gets called for bad behavior, and the younger one enjoys schadenfreude.  This works until you learn the younger kid tell.   The best consequence for such behavior is servitude.  Making the younger kid bring ice cream to the older at the dinner table, acting as a waiter is oddly satisfying for all involved. (Particularly if you afterwards have everyone share the ice cream). 

2) Throwing the ball away: The opposite of baiting, is the death before dishonor tactic of destroying an item or a good to prevent another child from sharing or acquiring the good.  Replacement and remorse are the only acceptable consequences.  The nice reality is, you usually only have to enforce this penalty once. 

1) 12 Men on the field: My son sits in a chair. His older brother wants the chair as well.  A third sibling walks by and thinks, you know what this seat war needs? More people.  There are two couches and three other chairs.  This is the only one that matters.   Everyone is benched, I get the chair. 

If you're curious, when we get to March Madness, the kids resort to winner-take-all mentalities when it comes to turf battles.  Baseball season is much easier...it's a fight when I say it's a fight. 

Let the Games Begin

It's mid summer. There are five weeks left of freedom for me.  I stand before the computer prepared to sign away my money and my weekends. 

That's right.  I'm signing up kiddos for fall sports.

It's not easy. There are the insane practice three times a week in the evening hours travel teams, the slack jawed you may wind up coaching if you show up close to on time and speak with even a smidgen of enthusiasm teams and the this would be perfect except can you tell that as much as I want them to do sports and know they need them, I really really really am not looking forward to this heavy duty scheduling? 

And then there is the second challenge, what sports.  Baseball --one practice, one game, no clock so no end in sight.  Plus I know my kid will spend a lot of time being bored when he's not at bat.  Soccer...plus, one to two hours tops. That's it. That's all. Minus.  I have been at soccer games where it snowed.   Football.  What is my objective?  Is it to wear out my child with hard labor and bone crunching athletics? Is it to visit the emergency room weekly? 

Then I looked at the prices.  90$, 115$, 250$, all for the privilege of living in none of the special places, I'm not a resident of any of the places that provide these sports programs, so I get to pay extra.

Plus I have to do this for 3 of my children minimum.  They each want a different sport, so I'll get all three, guaranteeing all weekends booked and three nights a week destroyed.  

Hey kids...what do you think about band?

45 Love

Yesterday, my son was deep into the Summer has just started and if I don't get to have a Phineas and Ferb like experience every day then it must be because you are incredibly boring and don't want me to have a Carpe Diem type life.   This sort of attitude is highly contagious and before I could reign it in, it had infected six of my ten children.  Can we go to the pool? Can I sign up for sports? When is the Wedding? Can I go to my friend's house? Can we get McDonald's?  Can I ride to the 7-11? What movies are showing?

As the adult in charge I had three options: 1) hide.  Not very adult I admit, but I'm fairly certain if I holed up in the laundry room, they might never find me.   2) Answer their requests in order with Not today, yes but they don't start for a month, in two weeks, no, he's on vacation. Your bike needs fixing, and I don't know.  Then watch as they promptly come up with new requests such that eventually my will is eroded and they get to do something that is either cost prohibitive, messy, or that requires more time than the day has hours such that I wind up looking like a meanie when I have to stop said project before it fully gets off the ground. or 3) come up with a viable alternative that didn't cost a lot and was sufficiently cool enough and summery to be a win for them.   I prayed for the patience to make it work and the diligence to pull it off because frankly, given the squirrelly squabblely way the morning had gone, I wasn't feeling the love of parenting.  I was feeling the duty of it.

The obnoxious phrase my Granddaddy would say, "Shouldn't hire out if you didn't want to go to work." wafted into my head to banish my feeble "I don't feel like it whine." and with a brief prayer to the Blessed Mother, I took them to the park. 

For logistical reasons, the oldest stayed home to babysit the youngest two who were napping.   But I did insist that everyone else come, including the teenager who likes to hide out in the basement drawing.   She came.  Within minutes of exiting the car, she sat and started drawing...but I got her outside...a victory of sorts.  Sunlight.  It's a start.  The next oldest pushed the youngest two on the swings. 

My 12 year old had wanted to go to the pool.  He'd brought along tennis rackets and balls in hopes of getting his sister to play.  She wasn't interested. I asked her. She said, "I don't think we're evenly matched." He was frustrated.  I picked up the racket.

"I'll be your Huckleberry." I said.
He was surprised.  "I don't know Mom.  I exercise." he explained.

I took the court.  Now you should know, I am a lousy athlete.  I managed to not make the B-team back when there were B-teams.  I can't run.  I barely move, and I am a gangly mess when a ball comes my way.  The worst was basketball, because I was a kid back when they played "Girl's basketball." Even with the stupid concessions and limitations on movement involved in Girl's Basketball, I didn't make the second string of the B-team.  But the Blessed Mother heard my prayers...and once upon a time, I took tennis, so I do know...how to serve and how the game is played. 

He let me serve first.  Big mistake.  60-Love.  He served but lo, I volleyed and won the serve.  Ha! 60 Love.   He decided to go for a walk.  I never win sports.  This was not in the world of his understanding.  Truthfully, it wasn't in mine either.  There's the phrase, act like you've been there before...I never had.   So I think I was just stunned into silence which translated to those who didn't know this wasn't the norm, as gracious winning. 

My daughter who had refused to play came over.  She wanted in on the action.  Perhaps I was worthy.
It happened again.  60-love.  She won the second game, 60-45.   60-love.  She also walked off amazed.   I almost swaggered with the tennis racket when I started to try and hit it against the practice wall.  I was reminded of my own inability to play by my inability to hit back against myself. 

"We play tennis at school. I'm considered pretty good."  She said, shaking her head while watching me chase after one yellow sphere after another. I'd gone back to being hopeless.
I tried to coax either back onto the court.  No bites. Not even nibbles.  I think they thought I was faking my bad athletic display. 

When it was time to pack up everyone from the swings and the slides and the tunnel and the court, maybe I was imagining it but the older ones seemed checked, like horses that were in the process of being broken, who at least today, had come a bit closer to being domesticated.   It's not Game Set and Match yet, but I fully credit the Blessed Mother on this one...when we'd finished packing up, my son asked, "Can we go to the other park next time, where there's a basketball court?"
I may need a complete Novena before I can show up at that playground.    

In Case Anyone isn't Clear on the Matter

File under it doesn't matter what you're doing, it should cease immediately.
Overheard while making the bed in the next room...
"You just can't hit the babies." 

(For purposes of clarification, they thought it would be fun to play catch with three stuffed animals and a ball in the living room with the two toddlers wandering in the firefight as movable obstacles to be avoided).

I live with a colony of future lawyers, who understand the spirit of the law, but also understand that nuance is everything.  "But Mom...we were getting along...playing together. Don't you want a happy home?" one who knew exactly how arch he was sounding.  

"I want a happy family in an intact home." 

Somehow, my precognitive powers of prediction always go unmarked.  Five seconds later, the ball sailed in an unfortunate angle and bonk!  Down went the baby. Down went the baby.

"SEE! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO NOT HIT THE BABIES. YOU LOSE!" the older brother gloated and did a victory dance that would get him penalized in the NFL. 

"YOU WERE NOT SUPPOSED TO CONTINUE THIS GAME YOU LOSE!"  and I'm now the proud owner of three plushie animals and a primo bouncy ball for the next 24 hours.

My victory dance over the stunned three of them did not win any love here either.

Spahn, Sain and Pray for Rain*

I know why weather forecasters are almost always wrong.

It isn't the doppler radar.  It isn't because they aren't able to analyze patterns of high and low pressure.  It isn't global warming and it isn't because everyone talks about such things but no one can do anything about it. 

Predicting the weather is the simple correlation between the sport schedule of the plurality of children in a given geographic area, and the level of devotion of the parents overtaxed by their kids extra curricular activities. In short, Prayer.  

Back in the fall, my daughters played softball and I overheard many a folk sigh as they glanced at the blocked up weekends.  "What can we do?" one of them said.  "Pray for rain." I joked.  That weekend, it poured.   The next week, things looked worse.  "Should we pray again?" one of the moms asked.
"Yes!" was the emphatic response. A deluge ensued.

Things got out of hand when people began hoping to get out of practices.  It became one of the wettest autumns on record.  Games got cancelled on account of hail, lightning and cold misty black skies that seemed conjure themselves at the crack of a bat.  Practice was called once when a rainstorm literally had parked itself right over all the fields for play.  Everywhere else was cloudy but no precipitation. 

I bring all this up because today was supposed to be two basketball games and a dance.  We were expecting a light dusting and got 4-6 inches.  Not my fault.  I didn't ask but given the number of things on my schedule for next week, expect blizzard conditions. 

*Slogan for the Boston Braves in 1948 given the strength of their pitching line up.  If facing a double header, the best hope for the opposition was "Spahn, Sain and pray for rain."  Tip of the hat to my husband for the title and the trivia.  

Marathon Lessons

Back in 8th grade, I wanted a letter to prove I'd made an "A" team more than anything. So desperate was I to achieve this, I even tried out for the one sport my common sense had always told me...you can't do. That's right, Track. But I'm not fast. I'm not tall. I don't jump. So what could a b-team bench warmer do on a track team?

Cross Country.

Now I did make the team and run a 1320 (3/4 of a mile), and I even got a ribbon. I was fifth. The fact that there were five people running doesn't really matter. Before the race, there were more but several quit. On the third lap in, everyone else that had not dropped out had finished. That track felt lonely and quiet and tedious.

I was hot.
I was unhappy.
I lay down.
Deliberately.
I thought about just staying there. (At 13, melodrama is a way of life).

Then, I got up and started moving again and the why fell way as I just kept going.
It wasn't that I signed up that got me a letter from the "A" team. It was that I didn't let myself quit.

So I apologize to all of you that read my "Full Plate" essay. Every word of it was true. (I felt overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated and all those self absorbed things one feels at 43 that supposedly aren't melodrama because they aren't adolescent). What I needed, was to stop and reassert priorities. But when you feel all those things, it's hard to think, let alone assess.

Three weeks of observing the world dripping with stories that I wasn't writing drove me crazy. Some of those mental photos and turns of phrase would be lost forever. I don't know if such things are agony for anyone else but they haunt me.

So I promise not to flounce.
I promise not to lie down on the track anymore.
I'll finish the race even if I'm stuck running around this track after everyone else has lapped me twice.

What does that mean?

It means I'll be pouring out words for as long as I have access to a computer, but only after I've read to my kids, made sure they've done their homework, bathed, and I've given a bit of time to my husband, the needs of the house and my extended family and friends. I promise to be present in words and deeds.

I'll get fifth for finishing last, and I'll be just as proud of that ribbon as I am of the yellow one that hangs in my office from 1980.

Thanks for coming back.

The Write Way to Disarm Bears

This week we saw a black bear in the wild while driving through Shenandoah National Park. It was a moment of wonder and something my husband had hoped to experience his whole life. For five minutes, we all stared at a beast from the safety of our car before it lumbered into the foliage. It was amazing how silently such a large creature could move and more stunning how quickly it could vanish from view.

The state I live in decided that up to 500 bears may be killed to curb overpopulation and prevent excessive encounters between bears and humans. This license to kill bruins only exists within Maryland, so the park where we saw our Smokey won't be affected. Given the amount of readily available food, including possibly awestruck tourists that stop to snap pictures on Skyline Drive, I'm betting that bear won't get too much wanderlust. If he's smart, he'll stay put such that anyone who takes a shot at him is committing a federal offense.

For the remaining wandering bears out there in Maryland, they still don't have too much to worry about if it's me. While any of the 350 million Americans could exercise their rights and try to bag one of these stray bears in the Free State, most of us should refrain. Shooting anything outside of a video game is much harder in real life. I remember shooting clay pigeons at a range with my Dad. It was the first and only time I've ever held/shot a gun. (I was 17). Given my score, I wouldn't trust me with a red rider or a water gun, much less an actual thing that could hurt someone.

For me, the pen shall always be mightier than the sword or whatever form of weaponry that requires hand/eye coordination one chooses. If it comes to self defense, I would probably be best served by a blunt instrument like a bat, but I wouldn't want to go toe to toe with a creature that has claws, teeth and at least 250 pounds on me if all I'm packing is a Louisville slugger.

Then again, remembering how I fare at the plate, perhaps I'll just eviscerate the bear in fiction. I'll write about the beast and it will wind up on the internet. Then, the piece will go viral. He'll be embarrassed permanently and thus unable to score with the lady bears in his vicinity. As a result, the bear population will be reduced without the need for unnecessary violence.

That'll learn him.

Now, I can concentrate on fixing the overpopulation of deer.

Lessons Learned from Riding the Bench

Whatever lessons you failed to master as a kid, come back to bite you as an adult.

When I was a kid, I absolutely rotted at sports. This was back in the Jurassic era, when kids were assigned to A and B teams, and you could even be a second stringer on the B team, or not make it at all. I doggedly tried out every year for every sport and consistently made the B second string or sat out the season. I drooled over the idea that some day, if I just worked hard enough, I'd make the A team and get a ribbon, a trophy or maybe even a letter. I was a victim of too many After School ABC specials. I even prayed for this daily. When I wouldn’t make it, I was often reminded, “Sometimes, God’s answer is “No.” but being a bullhead, I figured I’d keep asking.

Fast forward to adulthood, when the one letter I did manage to get remains locked in a memory box somewhere, the wisdom of 25 years sans trying out for A-teams has informed me that not having your name on the list is survivable. That lesson isn’t being taught today, at least not to kids.

In the enlightened 21st century, children now have endless options for participation in “non competitive” sports, meaning anyone can play. The term “non competitive” is hopelessly misleading, as I see antics on and off the fields of play that rival the steroid scandals in cycling and judge rigging in ice dancing. Competition may have been removed from the play, but it hasn’t been extracted from the parents. Parents who made the team when they were kids on merit, are determined to show that their kids would have made the cut in the old school. I know of one mom who played her four year old up with first graders. She lied on the application. No one had the temerity to ask, "What was the point?"

Spotting high school talent scouts with note pads scoping out forth grade CYO games, I started to snicker. I was told very seriously by another mother, if your name gets circulated, you could get a free ride by the time you get to applying for private high schools. Looking at the field of boys, all of whom I had personally seen have long discussions about which pokemon was best and which character in Harry Potter they would be, I wondered why any adult would spend time projecting what a 9 year old might become as at 15?

I thought things would be better when some of my children showed promise in the sports of their choosing. One of my girls seemed a whiz at basketball. She was even invited to join a select team. The initial pride at having a “talented” player went out the window when the coach explained; we would have to pay a four hundred dollar registration fee, plus money for uniforms and three nights of practice a week. Maybe I would consider this if my daughter was in high school and it meant college scholarships, but this was third grade! Besides, at $400 per ten weeks, I figured I could save for college and maybe we wouldn't need a scholarship!

The parents in the league looked at me with pity for denying my daughter this shot at the “big leagues” for a reason as flimsy and petty as money. I saw a mother tsk at me and murmur, “What a shame, her daughter showed real promise.” This refusal to commit was a moral failing on my part and doomed my daughter to a lifetime of lackluster accomplishment in the world of sports. If so, well, at least I know what sin I committed to wreck her life. Given her other talents, I’ll take that chance.

Another of my sons is a natural athlete. If there is a ball in play, he’s on it. He’s good. He’s fast, he understands the game and he cares about sports. It must be a recessive gene. Anyway, I couldn’t wait to see him on the field. Finally, it would be my kid everyone cheered. I dreamed happily of watching him score a goal and say to the camera, “Hi Mom!”

Like most fantasies, reality was far uglier.

In his first practice, my son did a gloating dance as he scored on a kid half his size, from his own team! Then there was the fight he had with a girl because she stole the ball from him. I'm yelling "Red Card!" and the coach explained, they didn't do that at this level of play. Yes, he still moves like a gazelle but I dread showing up at the sidelines. I feel I need to carry a sign that simply says, “Yes, it’s my child. I’m sorry and I’m working on it.”

The problem is, he’s really good at sports. He’s just not a good sport. At one game, when my child was being particularly aggressive and had been warned by the referee, I shouted to the coach, “BENCH HIM!” Everyone else watching the game looked at me as if I were nuts until I explained. “I’m his mother.”

Given that he’d scored the only points our team had made this season, the coach shook his head. I’d be forced to teach the virtue of humility some other way…like maybe when he had kids.

The years have resulted in a treasure trove of ribbons and trophies in my house that signify having played a sport, having been a good sport, having been good at a sport and having simply showed up to watch a sport. As I picked up the feather duster to remove the recent cobwebs, I pined for the days when you might not make the team. The morals learned from not winning, from riding the bench were clear; Not everyone is good at the same thing; Life isn’t fair; Sometimes things happen; Practice and work hard and maybe; all these life lessons came from not making the cut.

Suddenly, making the B teams didn’t seem like it was such a bad thing. And I heard God lovingly laughing at and with me, “Now you’re finally getting it.” And my daughter came home, "Mom, can I try out for competitive softball this Summer?"

When Mom Was a Kid..

What it was like when I was a kid

On Sports and Games

Growing up, we strapped metal wheels to our shoes and fell on our knees on bumpy concrete until we learned to stop falling. Turns were tricky so you either held on, or in my brother's case, got down on your hands and knees and crawled through the turn, or you decided you knew what you were doing, tried to make the turn and fell at least 50 times before you got it.

When we played on swing sets, teeter totters and monkey bars, they were made of wood and steel and sometimes gave us splinters, particularly when we would ride with two or three at a time.

Tag and hide and seek, dodge ball and freeze tag had winners and losers. We played them often. In fact, we loved them. Even when we were mad about being picked last, it just meant we hoped next time, we’d be captains or picked first, or at least not last again.

Sports had b-teams and sometimes, you didn’t even make that one. You only got a trophy if you won, and sometimes, you got skunked. People kept score but the teams for grade school and the like, were not posted in the paper. It wasn’t important. These were kids’ games.

On School and Education…

There were three channels on television if you didn’t count the educational one, which we didn’t.

The library was a place to check out books, a week in advance of the science project that was mandatory.

The science project was a big deal, complete with a hand written four page report and five references, none from the web. Everyone had to make a poster and a project. People would know if your parents did the art work, and you wouldn’t win.

We’d get pop quizzes at school and worksheets that had been freshly run from the ditto machine, and smelled like ink. We loved those, and I think sometimes, the ink made us dizzy.

You got grades. You got grades every day. Most of the time, it was a number or a letter. The grades included C’s, D’s, F’s and the less common, C-, D+ and D-. Your parents got called if you got these grades. Every time. Forging your parent’s signature got you in bigger trouble.

If you didn’t do an assignment, you got to do it during recess while everyone else was outside playing, which stunk.

They made us memorize Kipling’s “If,” our multiplication tables and say the pledge. We often had to read aloud or do problems on the board for everyone else to watch.

They showed us videos of “The Red Balloon,” and “Chicken Soup with Rice” as treats. We saw each every year at least once.

At noon, We’d get kicked outside to play, we had recess. It was after lunch and lasted a decent amount of time. It didn’t matter if it was hot or cold, muggy or raining, we were on our own after lunch for that half hour. Recess lasted long enough to form cliques, to organize a kick ball game, to braid hair or play a no prisoners game of speed solitaire.

On Grown Ups…

People disagreed on politics, as they always have, but it wasn’t acceptable to insult someone just because they held a different political affiliation. No one was considered heartless or brainless for being a Republican or a Democrat; these were party denominations, not the solutions to every problem under the sun requiring absolute religious fealty.

Being kids, we didn’t even know what politics really were until Mom caught us one day having uprooted all the political signs and repositioned them in our front yard because we thought they were cool. These Vote for…posts seemed like some form of mushroom that had sprung up overnight. We were busy dismantling them to make swords when Mom found us.

Television had a family hour which was boring and grown-ups watched the news, which was boring to us, but then the alternative was bed.

There were uber parents out there who made their kids compete in every sport and activity, but most of the grown-ups knew that these people were wrong and encouraged all of us to pick what we loved and do that first.

Grown-ups drank things like beer and wine, ice tea, diet soda and coffee, all of which tasted terrible. They also had weird clothing rules like no shorts after Labor Day and no white in the winter. They ordered foods with dressings and sauces on them and used “Sweet and Low.” They would make us eat the crust on breads, the stumpy parts of broccoli and occasionally, liver.

For Fun…

Swimming lessons and camp took care of maybe two weeks. The rest of the time, we were on our own.

We’d troll the neighborhood to amass as many at home minors as possible. It didn’t matter who, if you were a kid and you were home, we were knocking on the door asking, “Can you come play?”

Then, we’d ride our bikes until dark, no helmets. We’d pin cards to our spokes with clothes pins to sound like motor cycles. On a dead end street, we’d hold races all afternoon until someone announced they were thirsty. There would be a run on the hose, with each person jockeying to be later in line, so as not to get the first swig of heated by the sun water that came out of the end.
Then the beep beep beep of the mosquito spraying truck would be heard and everyone would clear out to their homes as fast as possible. We didn’t know DEET was poisonous, but it sure smelled bad.

When it was too hot, we’d play monopoly in doors until someone won or was called home. We sometimes made card castles, trying to use all 52 cards before the thing fell. We loved fresh boxes of crayons and coloring books. The coloring books were almost always of animals and never had stickers.

Come fall, we’d gather pecans from every yard, filling up two trash cans. Then we’d offer to rake leaves for a dollar all over the block and try to sell the pecans.

Every Christmas, we’d have a Christmas program. They never had plots, just grade after grade, alternating between secular and religious music, with the grand finale, always, Silent Night. Then most parents would reconvene across the street at the Carnation Dairy restaurant to praise our performances and buy ice cream.

Why am I telling you this?

So my darlings, you will understand some of the why I tell you often to turn off the television and the DDS and the DVD’s and the IPods and the cell phones and the computers.

I will shrug sometimes when you are not 100% safe and even encourage you to jump off the high dive, draw until you run out of chalk and drink a soda outside while reading comics in a hammock.

I will not rush out to challenge other parents to a duel to the death because your feelings are hurt, though I will offer you a hug and say I love you.

Life is always unsafe and unfair but worth living. Sometimes, it is even unsafe and unfair in our favor.

Skinned knees and even bruised hearts heal. Memorization, pain from learning to learn is part of the process, and not what you will recall when you get to be nostalgic about childhood. Like giving birth, we don’t recall the labor pain itself, only that it hurt and then it was over, and we had this person, and everything was light and wonderful and still is.

Happy Thank You for Making me A Mother Day! And Happy Mother’s Day to everyone out there who has been so blessed.

Not Named Jeffy's Sports Page Picks

You know how that Family Circus guy lets his comic get taken over by his kids?

Well now it’s Not Named Jeffy’s turn on Mom’s blog!
unedited and unproofd. (obviously)

Being a guy, naturally, I gravitate towards writing about sports.
Specifically, football.
Why?

It’s the most male sport there is. Two hours of eating bad for you food and watching other guys hit each other at great speeds. A perfect world experience for any fourteen year old, or any guy who has ever been fourteen.

As the playoffs draw nearer to Super Bowl (Insert some weird Roman numeral here), Not Named Jeffy makes playoff picks.

Get ready to call your Vegas bookie.

First up: Seattle vs. Green Bay: The Seahawks are losing to The Packers with their quarterback from …what? The late 60’s maybe early 70’s? This is pathetic!
MEMO from Me: to Seattle guys, you are losing to a guy nearly twice your age! That’s just sad.

San Diego vs. Indianapolis: The Chargers and the Colts, who really cares?
We all know Manning is motivated by one of two things: Being a really good quarterback, making a lot of commercials. The question is, can he hock enough products to merit his own channel? The All Manning, All the Time Channel? AMATC for short. At least sponsorship wouldn’t be an issue. Not Named Jeffy’s Picks: Rooting for the Colts on the pseudo perception that they are a purer motivated football team en masse. Can’t name a one.

New York vs. Dallas: The Giants and the Cowboys, you know what I going to pick the Giants, so Eli can get his ring. It will also secure his retirement, as he can then go endorse hokey products that don’t work, following in his brother’s footsteps –like sprint phone, OXY cleaning 123, and other things that can be found easily at either the dollar store or QVC. Maybe Payton will let him do a guest spot on AMATC in the early morning hours.

Finally the New England Patriots and… does it really matter what I say? If Tom Brady broke his leg, the Patriots cover the spread and win. If Brady and Moss break legs they win. If Tom, Randy, and the Defensive line all break their legs, Bill Bellicheck will come in and we are back to square one. Patriots win big.

Now if Bellicheck, the defensive line, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and some obscure backup quarterback aching for some playing time all break their legs, everyone plays with broken limbs, but the Patriots find out (insert Running Back’s name here) can actually run. Jacksonville is left in full body casts, as Bill beats a healthy player to death for getting his cast wet with Gatorade.


Not Named Jeffy? This is not Bill Keane. Why can't you write like this for your English class?

Umm.....Tune in next time when Not Named Jeffy tries to find his way home on the metro. You can trace the detours and chuckle softly for no apparent reason!

Aren't we all on the B-team Most of the Time?

Growing up attending Catholic elementary school and high school (and college and grad school too, but that’s another matter), there was only one extracurricular activity available for social outlets in the seventies. Sports. This worked well if you were tall, athletic, coordinated, had stamina, strength, popularity or hustle. Nowhere in that list are the qualities, sense of humor or good with words. I dreamed of making the “A team.”

Then eighty’s television sort of hijacked that phrase to connote a black and red van with a Mr. T.

But the status of “B team” has remained unchallenged. Living in a county where birthing is considered a competitive sport, there have been systemic attempts to destroy the very essence of a “B-team.” These parents worry their kids self esteem will be irreparably damaged if they suffer the humiliation of knowing someone else is better at something than they. These attempts have failed even more impressively than the b-teams themselves.

Method #1: Not keeping score. Like that worked. Anyone who has ever been at a pee-wee soccer game where the parents don’t keep score was not paying attention. Just go up to a parent of a kid who does well. “My kid scored six goals!” Just go to a parent of a kid who did poorly. “She tried really hard. That team was tough. “ “She let in six goals!” the dad will whisper with hints of despair while mentally planning on going to the nearest sporting goods store to buy a net and a new soccer ball and spend the rest of the day coaching his offspring on how to be a goalie. The parents can deny the reality on paper by not writing down a score, but they and the kid doing the end zone dance after snack and the one moping in her cupcakes know the truth.

Method #2: A Team by any other name. Team I and Team II, that didn’t work for obvious reasons. Apples and Oranges? Red and Blue? Naming the teams as equals never worked. Why? Because the instant a scrimmage starts up, Everyone knows who the athletic kids are. This is an American oddity, that we fear acknowledging excellence for fear of putting down everyone else. We don’t want a kid to be a ball hog. However, the kids on the team know “He can shoot, he can score.” Guess what they do, feed the ball to the hog.

Method #3: Revisionist Theory in Application. Twenty first century values demand that all heroes be fallen ones, and all lesser or supporting casts be simply as of yet undiscovered vastly underrated prospects. I've seen people on the sideline praise the slightest moment of competence by a poor player stumbling down the court as being "Michael Jordanesque" while the true ace player of the team hustles to capture the bad bounce pass from said teammate. The mental yoga that these adults engage in is amazing. It’s like parents doing a high five with a kid for bringing home a “C.”

Then, reality reasserts itself. With two minutes left in a tight game, the kids on the bench were shouting, “NO, pass it to Her! HER!” Ball sharing was for when you were up by ten or more with no time left.

Method #4: Marxism. Some people at my son’s school tried doing an even exchange, in basketball. Each coach got two prime players, two decent players, two coachable players , one headache and one hopeless. Both teams had losing seasons. Losing seasons are okay. The kids will live. The pizza at the end of the season party still tastes as good. In the adults, however, there is a note of desperation in that creeps into even the most zealous advocate of communism in the sporting world as they stare at the prospects of another 0-8 season.

The problem with "A teams" is they require a High Physical standard. It's intangible but identifable. Today in America, we are discouraged from even acknowledging anything but excellence. Some parents unfortunately swallow this Kool-Aid. Children and their accomplishments have become part of the adult resume. "Hello, my name is ....and my kids are currently learning German, Russian, Sanskrit, making mock replicas of the seven wonders of the world out of toothpicks and training for the Olympics. They performed tap dance at the State House last year for the Easter Egg Roll and are ranked amongst Who's Better than Who in American Parents' Magazine. Want to see my web site? It has a day by day documentary plus commentary on their struggles to write the next great American novel."

Parents, being obsessive in their love for their children, often fail to recognize that a C is not an A, no matter how much you love them. Someone who can't shoot, can't dribble and can't pass should not be on the A team any more than someone who spells "towards" twoard should be given full points on a spelling test. We can't helicopter/spell check our children out of all their faults and weaknesses. If we do, we'll fail them morally and academically, as surely as "The Dairy of Anne Frank" can slip by Microsoft Word's spell check in a book report.

Fortunately, reality has a way of correcting these issues, even if it takes a season to do so.

No one wanted another perfect losing season. After that year, the coaches reasserted themselves in the draft picks, calling them A and B teams and everyone was clear on the matter.

Some parents were fuming mad that their kids weren’t on the A teams.

Intervention Time Out

The head coach/director however was having none of it. Rather than talk to irrational people rationally about being reasonable, he tacked up a picture of “Mr. T” with the caption, “I pity the fool who argues with me. You’re on the team, be it A or B! Anyone who argues will take the blame. He or she will be banned from the game. “

Both teams had winning seasons. Eating pizza in celebration, I swore I heard the coach/cyo director say, “I love it when a plan comes together.”


EDITOR'S NOTE and LEGAL DISCLAIMER: Please remember this is a humor blog. Any resemblance to reality is unintentional except to the extent it makes you laugh.