Sports

I'm in DC for a few days, as I am currently homeless. Not homeless in a sad, hobo way. Just in a transition.

Yesterday, my dreams came true, as I was able to see three youth sports games in one night. That sentence contained facts and sarcasm. I'll let you sort them out.

I have two brothers in the 6th grade. One plays for his school's soccer team, the other plays football. My 9th grade brother plays JV football.

First was the soccer game. Nothing really interesting happened at the game itself. I felt slightly uncomfortable when I was there until my step-dad arrived. Reason: I was at a middle-school soccer game by myself. I'm clearly too young to have a child in the game. And I look too old to have a brother in middle-school. So, I just looked like a creepy guy.

When I was leaving, I crossed paths with someone I went to high school with. We made eye-contact. I pretended not to recognize her. Social butterfly. I plan on going to my 10-year high school reunion next year to see if I can have an awkward exchange with every single person. After justifying this girl's decision not to befriend me in high school, I walked toward my car. A group of middle-schoolers walked up to me, in a Clockwork Orange kind of way. They asked, "Hey, can we have a dollar?" No, you can't have a dollar. Then there was a pause. "How about five dollars?" Umm... no. They thought the issue with the dollar was the denomination, not the fact that they are in middle school and begging for money.

Next was the middle school football game. My brother on this team is actually a good soccer goalkeeper. However, he's decided to take a year off of soccer to play football and basketball, I think because he sees those sports as being cooler. I prefer soccer, but he is correct.

As I said, my brother is a goalkeeper, but not what you'd picture as a goalkeeper. He doesn't look athletic at all. He loves cake and you can tell by looking at him. Still, as a soccer player, you'd think he couldn't play on the line in football, especially as a 6th grader, playing on an undefeated team. However, he plays center. Center is supposed to be the biggest, strongest guy on the team. He's one of the smallest and he cries. Often. Somehow he's good at center though. No one got by him. Then on what ended up being the last play of the game, the coach put him at defensive tackle. It was his first defensive play ever. There was probably about five minutes left in the game. Last play of the game, with 5 minutes left? How? Continue reading. The other team ran a sweep to the right. Three defenders were ready for him. One was my brother, who slid off the line and was running at the ball carrier at full-speed, which isn't very fast. Then I started watching like it was an NFL game, thinking, "Oh, this guy is about to get lit up," not thinking that they are kids. My brother flattened the kid. Then the kid lay on the field motionless, then started twitching. On my brother's first defensive play, he gave someone a concussion. The ref called the game right there. No whistle or anything. We were watching in the stands. All of a sudden, the teams quietly lined up to shake hands. Everyone except the kid who had been knocked out. I rejoiced in the fact that I never played football as a kid. Some things are best for watching.

Then I went to my brother's JV game. He's a running back on an undefeated team. As a freshman on a team of all sophomores and juniors, he gets few carries. So, I spent the game watching him pace the sidelines and yell during every play. He was loud enough that the entire stadium could hear him.

The only noteworthy thing at this game was an addition to my first-100-hours agenda, if I'm ever president. First on this agenda would be banning cheap toilet paper. There's no need for it. Why is it okay to sell uncomfortable toilet paper? I don't understand why people accept this. Second on the list would be to ban cheerleaders. They can still exist. But they can't talk. My favorite cheers from yesterday were, "Come on defense. Get the ball back... for the offense." My mom responded, "Hmm, that's catchy." My personal favorite was when it was it was 4th and 24 from their own 9, and they were yelling, "Touchdown, touchdown. Let's get a touchdown. Touchdown, touchdown. What do we want? A touchdown."