I Heard it Downtown

Jumping around from city to city so much has made a lot of things difficult for me, like finding enough guys for a friendly game of pick up football. So, when my roommate asked me to play on intramural football team, I jumped at the chance, without knowing any important details.

…like knowing the name of the team, for example. IM sport team names are a great opportunity for a good joke…and our squad squandered the chance. No joke, I am now a part of the “Columbus Clap” (Catch it!). I feel like this might have been kinda funny say, in middle school…but did I really just pay 12 bucks for a T-shirt that has an STD on the front, and my name on the back? Is that what I have to do to make friends in this town?

Oh well. Whats a little public humiliation between friends right? Thats what college is all about!

Anyways, after a few haphazard practices (which basically consisted of us throwing around a football for 40 min, and then getting slurpees at 7/11), we had our first game on Sunday. It was…an experience.

Before I begin the tragic tale of the Columbus Clap, let me tell you a little bit about my own personal athletic history. The Good Lord has blessed me with a few talents, but it does not appear that athletic ability was one of them….or “luck” in general, now that I think about it. I played baseball for several years on habitual losing teams (and ended with a career batting average somewhere south of .200), and because I was about 135 pounds when I graduated high school, football and basketball were completely out of the question. Instead, I was the king of the marching band, and proud of it.

But nothing sums up the totality of my life playing sports like my ill fated foray into competitive swimming.

At my mother’s urging, I joined a summer swim team in high school. Our community pool resembled a pond (or perhaps an open sewer) much more than a swimming pool…it didn’t have chlorine, it was a pale green color, and animals still lived in it. Never has a swim team enjoyed a greater “home pool advantage”, then when we faced some of the yuppie country club swim teams.

Me (to the guys in the other lanes) “Yeah, don’t worry. We’ve only seen 3 snakes today”

Anyways, I braved these harsh conditions, and over the course of the season, improved from “utter and biblical suckitude” to “marginally respectable” in the 100 backstroke. This was enough to get me into a “playoff” swim meet. All of my friends, teammates, and everybody else would be there, to watch me try to not get in last.

Now, because of my crappiness, I never bothered to do things that real, competitive swimmers do to get an edge…like shave all my body hair, or wear a speedo. Those extra 4 seconds never mattered enough to me, so why sacrifice my pride? This practice continued all the way until that fateful swim meet.

We can all see where this is going can’t we?

I was near the front of my heat, but right after I kicked out of that flip turn into the final 25, disaster struck. I was backstroking like a madman, but my swim trunks decided to chill out by the wall. I swam out of my trunks. In the playoffs. DOING THE BACKSTROKE. No matter what else happens to me in life…no matter how many heartbreaks, no matter how many disappointments, no matter how many times the Cleveland Indians effing blow it…(JOSE EFFING MESA!!!)…nothing that bad could ever happen to me again.

So yeah. I don’t have good luck with sports. Keep that in mind here as I tell the rest of the story.

Hardship struck our little band of ragtags early, when two of our players couldn’t play for mysterious reasons. That left us down to 6…and IM football is a 7 on 7 game. We were worried for a little while, but when we saw that our opponent was ‘The Evan’s Scholars”, we relaxed a little bit. We were going against a team of honor’s college kids. How bad could it be?

We had NO idea. First, the Evans team had at least 15 players on it…enough for a completely seperate offense and defense. They had their own uniforms, their own plays, and many looked like they actually played some serious football in high school. We had two kids on our team who played in HS…and along with a few Madden wizards, some marching band kids, and a high school football journalist. We were screwed.

Evans scored on their very first play from scrimmage…a simple 10 yard pass play over the middle, followed by 5 of us missing tackles. It didn’t get any easier from there. We threw more passes to the other team than our own. Only one of us had cleats, so we all slipped on our butts in the wet grass. We got tired after 20 min, and were run over up and down the field. With just a few min left in the first half, we were down 26-0, and had no prospects of changing that.

Our goal quickly changed from “win the game”, to “lets at least score a touchdown”, to “uh, lets get to that 20 yard line over there”. Our library of trick plays that I had  researched (from the “Statue of Liberity” to the “Annexation of Puerto Rico”), went completely out the window. We’d go back to the huddle, and have a conversation similar to this”

So, whats the play? HB pass? Trips right? Post?

….

Eff it. Lets throw it downfield.

Somehow, we got a little bit lucky, and found ourselves a mere 5 yards from scoring a touchdown, and restoring the game to quasi-respectability, with a min left. In those 4 plays, we somehow managed to do everything wrong that was possible…dropped passes, blown routes, falling our on butt trying to cut a corner, and committing penalties that we weren’t even sure were real (What the hell is illegal touching?? We’re the Columbus Clap, not the Columbus Larry Craigs). We couldn’t score, and went into halftime down 26-0.

The second half wasn’t any better. Being a sportswriter at heart, I tried to keep a few stats in my head, and they weren’t pretty. Evans scored on nearly every possession. We threw at least 7 interceptions, and I’m pretty sure we got most of our first downs on penalties. At least our stupid name would lead to good headlines, once we get our butt kicked again (Evans Scholar’s beat bad case of the Clap, Page 4).

We ended up losing 56-6. Our bodies hurt from flinging ourselves all over the field in vain. We had no chance at victory, and unless we bring in some ringers, Tuesday doesn’t look so good either.

But I still had fun. Thats what these are all about right? Playing football and making some friends?

But I’m warning you guys. If you don’t get your crap together by week 3, I’m demanding a trade. I hear team “Thats What She Said” is looking for a Running Back/Sportswriter….