My Life as an Athlete
In a past life, I am pretty sure I was a sportswriter. My athletic career reached a high point at the age of eight as a coach-pitch softball slugger. I spent the summer spent making daisy chains in the outfield with my best friend. We aptly nicknamed ourselves The Strikeout Sisters based on our sky-high batting averages. I had stunning success on a girls soccer team, most likely because our uniforms were purple and emblazoned with our team name across the chest: the Unicorns. This is a fact: any eleven year old girl will play for a team named the Unicorns. It could be rugby or curling, I'd still suit up in two seconds.
At age thirteen, I joined the track team after a bet with my mother: if I didn't quit, she'd buy me the dress I'd had my eye on for months. After I inexplicably made it through the season, I wore the dress once and promptly realized I'd accidentally purchased it two sizes too big and naturally lost the receipt to return it. In high school, another bet landed me in a cheerleader's uniform for a year. The details of that are fuzzy at best and all I can say is that I really didn't mind the skirt.
Fed up with difficult contact sports like cheerleading, I returned to my childhood love of swimming. I was captain of the girls swim team throughout my senior year, voted in probably due to my ability to make everybody feel really fast while swimming next to me. Also, Fierce Pierce looks phenomenal on the back of a team sweatshirt.
Despite my obvious lack of talent in any particular field, I have always loved sports. I’ve subscribed to only two magazines in my life: The New Yorker and Sports Illustrated. I have a few favorite sports writers, people like Bill Simmons of ESPN, of whom I am incredibly envious. People who can’t play sports write about sports. People who can’t write about sports read about sports. Guess which category I fall into.
Today is arguably the biggest sports day of the year. I'm not sure if you knew this or not, but it's Super Bowl 40. If you are learning this for the first time today, you are either a) living under a rock or b) an English major.
Michael Rosenberg of the Detroit Free Press wrote a hilarious article for his fellow sportswriters on how to properly bash Detroit.
Enjoy this article, enjoy the Super Bowl, I've got my money on the Unicorns.
Detroit: Burning questions, easy answers
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Rosenberg, Michael. Detroit: Burning questions, easy answers. Detroit Free Press 28 Jan 2006.
posted by cair pierce @ 1:49 PM
4 Comments:
Nice piece.
And before I forget, great nickname, “Fierce Pierce”, that is so bad-ass.
Your fine description of your softball game reminded me of a Pizza Hut commercial that played at the beginning of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie. And the commercial goes…
(Keep in mind you have to sing the quotes)
“Off in the distance the game’s dragging on…some strikes on the batter… some runners are on…”
(Image of a red haired, freckled face kid kicking dandy lions in the tall grass of right field)
“…And suddenly everyone’s looking at me, my mind has been wondering what could it be…”
(Red haired kid looking out to the stands with a puzzled look on his face, as everyone is shouting for him to catch the ball)
“So I point to the sky and look up above…and a baseball falls into my glove.…I…play…right field….its important to know…you gotta know how to catch you gotta know how to throw…that’s why I play right field, way off where the dandy lions grow.” (Begin Pizza Hut voice over)
(Commercial ends with all the baseball team gathered around the red-headed kid as he brags about his catch).
So thanks for reminding me of that…its one of my favorite commercials. You are a very good writer. Have you ever thought of doing anything for THE LANTERN? I could hook you up.
See you in class in a few hours.
Adam “I have Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on VHS” Jackson
ciar,
i spelled "dandelions" wrong. But it should be spelled my way.
Adam
Very funny again! Here are some comments:
"I spent the summer spent making daisy chains..."
How about loosing the second "spent"?
Do you see the run-on here:
"The details of that are fuzzy at best and all I can say is that I really didn't mind the skirt. "
I'm not sure a comma after "writers" is strong enough punctuation here:
"I have a few favorite sports writers, people like Bill Simmons of ESPN, of whom I am incredibly envious. "
Comma issues again (but funny):
"Enjoy this article, enjoy the Super Bowl, I've got my money on the Unicorns."
In your cite, Detroit Free Press should be italicized?
This is an A- blog. I've had very few of those. Thanks.
Ms. Cair:
Because, sadly, people form assumptions about people's interests based on the three pidly things they know about them, I would never have pictured you as a sports lover!
I was always crappy at all things athletic. My dad claims that, after trying to get me on the Kindergarten soccer team, I was "afriad of the ball." :-)
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