Category: Sports

Here She Comes Again

Visitor Analysis

Google Search String: Nike Cortez history

Date: 25th June 2007

Time: 12:02:45

Host Name: barrierc241.nike.com

Country: United States

Region: Oregon

City: Beaverton

ISP: Nike Incorporated

Visit Length: 2 mins 18 secs

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Our Lady of Perpetual Branding is back again and checking out my blog. Only this time, she stayed a full 2 minutes and 18 seconds! That means she actually lingered this time!

Now that I have her attention, what should I ask/tell her? I’m open to suggestions.… Read the rest

The Things We Say

With the mercury already rising on another sultry Sunday morning, the runner stopped for a much-needed drink of water. The mammoth megachurch had always been a good wayside for such purposes. Situated approximately halfway through the run, one of the side doors was usually open by 7:00am, and there was a water fountain just a few feet inside; real water, and who knows, on a good day, maybe a little “living water” too.

The runner was not exactly dressed for church, but he rarely encountered anyone inside, and he would only be there for a few moments, so he didn’t see any harm.… Read the rest

Father’s Day Postscript

If you’re a dad, I hope it went well. For me, everyone basically left me alone on the couch all afternoon to ice my right ankle which I rolled badly while running a trail yesterday morning and to rehydrate after crashing and burning in the rising morning heat somewhere around mile eight.

Man, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Consigned to the couch, I watched the US Open. I don’t play golf and rarely watch it, but I was trapped. But it became interesting and even mildly dramatic, going down to the final hole before a winner was decided.… Read the rest

Rx

Malady: 45-year-old Caucasian male who should know better running 6 miles, including over a mile of hills ranging in grade from 5-15%, finishing last mile in 7:30

Rx: A 20 oz. bottle of orange Gatorade, two, no, better make that three 200mg ibuprofen tablets, deep muscle massage with one of these and whatever you want to eat, including…

copious amounts of ice cream and apple cobbler.

… Read the rest

Real Men Wear Unisuits

unisuit.jpgI can’t remember if we were watching a college wrestling match or a ballet performance a few years back when Number Two Son looked at the form-fitting outfits that one of the participants was wearing and declared emphatically, “I’ll never wear one of those.”

Of course, those of us with a few more miles on our odometers and who’ve forced down our fill of crow over the years could have reminded him of the old adage: Never say never.

This past fall after club soccer season ended, Number Two was looking for a way to get into even better physical condition and for a sport to occupy his time during the spring since his school didn’t field a soccer team.… Read the rest

Forrest Knows Best

gumpbamacoach.jpgSome of us will be headed down to Tuscaloosa later today so that Number One can attend Bama Bound, the student orientation at the University of Alabama. Needless to say, he’ll be facing some very tough decisions.

Nah, I’m not talking about classes. I figure that there’ll be plenty of sections of “N’Yuck, N’Yuck, N’Yuk–The Three Stooges in the 21st Century” and “Careers in Guitar Hero–You Too Can Be Ronnie Van Zant” to choose from.

I’m talking about more important stuff like football.

You see, since the resurgence of interest in Crimson Tide football following the hiring of multimillion dollar messiah Nick Saban, the student government moved last spring to only allow entering freshman to attend part of the scheduled home games so that more tickets could be spread around and more students could attend.… Read the rest

My Three Sons

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Fred MacMurray never had it this good.

(H/t to running buddy Joe V. and his big, long lens for the shot of Number One receiving his diploma).

Grissom High mercifully moved 469 grads through the line with machine-like efficiency.

Chaos did start to descend on the affair, though, by the time they got to the “S’s.” As the shout-outs and air horns grew louder and more boisterous, the grads who had received their diplomas returned to their seats and began to blow up the large number of inflatable balls that they had smuggled in beneath their robes.

At first the faculty members tried to confiscate the balls, but after they saw them propagating like rabbits, they finally gave up.… Read the rest

Do NOT Press This Button

easy-buttion.jpgThe speaker at last night’s Grissom High Baccalaureate service was entertaining and spot on.

He basically said there were two types of buttons in life. First, there was the EASY button, and he held up just that, one of those from the Staples office supply store commercials. He told the grads that they could always take the path of least resistance, continue life in their high school mindset, and anytime they faced a difficult choice they could just reach down and hit the EASY button and hope for the best.

But, he warned, whatever you do, do NOT press this button!… Read the rest

Pretty Grads All in a Robe

Yesterday was Senior Sunday at our church. That’s “senior” as in high school, not the over-the-hill, AARP type. There were 26 seniors this year, which, as we say in the South, is a whole big mess of ’em.

They marched down the center aisle of the church, clad in their graduations robes–brown, burgundy, white, red, purple, power blue. This was the start of a new tradition this year. But just barely. It was announced last week that they would wear their robes, and as one might expect, there was a great hue and cry and a week’s worth of high drama.… Read the rest

Johnny Hu, That’s Who

Guess which Huntsville high school student was named to the First Team All-USA High School Academic Team?

Johnny Hu, that’s who.

Johnny, a friend of Number One Son at Grissom High who scored a perfect 2400 on his SAT and a perfect 36 on his ACT, was among 20 students named to the team. Of those, 15 were of Asian or Indian descent. I don’t know precisely how much genetics has to do with that (my guess is quite a bit), but I do know that many of those kids are second generation Americans whose immigrant parents have instilled in them a killer work ethic which makes me and my progeny look like absolute slouches.… Read the rest

Everyone Has a Role to Play

With Number One’s high school graduation drawing nigh, we’re going through a season of Last Things: last prom, last high school term paper due, last final exam and, most bittersweet, the last soccer match.

We had played the moment in our fast-forward minds many times. We would be gathered round the Lads in Orange on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 as they hoisted the Alabama 6A High School soccer trophy high above their sweaty heads, champions of the state on an expansive pitch of freshly-trimmed grass in front of an undulating sea of hometown orange and black.

But it did not end this way.… Read the rest