Sports, 1

I've mentioned University of Maryland basketball success the last couple of posts.   I'm a homie.  I went to college there.  When the Univ teams are good I watch.  Watching sports in general is not something I do.

I'd rather play than watch.  I was never good enough at any college-level sport.

But I was good enough in high school (oh so many decades ago).  😁

So I understand competing.  I was on the golf team.  I was the worst golfer on the team (6 of 6), but we went undefeated for 2 years and I helped sometimes.  We won one match because I sank a 30 foot putt on the last hole.  No one was more surprised than I was!  The thrill of success is lasting.

My junior year, we had a male foreign exchange student from Brazil.  We didn't play soccer in my county back then.  But to welcome him and give him something familiar, the school formed a soccer team (and neighboring schools did the same).

It was a hilarious start.  The entire Junior Varsity football team joined as well as some of us who weren't.  Soccer is a strange game.  You don't wear much padding even though there can be a lot of contact.  And you just keep playing constantly.  No football huddles or time-outs.  

The Junior Varsity guys quit after 2 weeks.  They were all beaten up and exhausted.  Big guys don't really play soccer well.  It's all agility and never-stopping.  But I was a small wiry 135 lb kid who had run with the cross-country team (not good enough to be on the team, but I ran with them).

I made the soccer team as a starter in the backfield.  I could run around all day.  Brian ( the Brazilian student) was amazingly skilled.  But he couldn't carry the whole team.  I think we went about 50-50 the 2 seasons I was there.

And that's where I learned that you don't always win.  Yeah, it hurts to lose.  But some team has to.  You congratulate the winners and try harder the next game.  And sometimes a team gets better and sometimes it doesn't.  You lose sometimes.  But you never give up.

So it is wonderful to see Univ of Maryland winning.

BTW, Cal Ripkin came from my high school a few years later...

Why The Washington Nationals Won The World Series

I caused it.  Yes really...  

Yoy know how some people think that if they root for the home team and wear all the team stuff, it helps the team win?  Even if you just watch the team on TV?

I'm the opposite.  If I wear team stuff, they lose.  If I watch the game, they lose.  If they are winning 4-1 went I'm not watching, they get to losing 5-4 if I watch.  The same thing happens with mens or womens Univ of MD basketball.  If I watch, they lose.  If I come back, they are winning.  If I keep watching, they get behind again.

I know that is all rubbish logically, but the pattern persists.

At the beginning of the last year season, I bought a team hat.

The Nationals went to 19-31.  I stopped wearing it, and they won the World Series.  Is that evidence or what?  OK, it isn't, but the hat sat off my head all after and they won...

And as the announcer says "and another curly W is in the books"!

I will continue to not wear the hat next year...