EppsNet

Originally uploaded by lippo

At hockey tournaments, especially travel tournaments, there’s a lot of down time between games. I usually bring a book to the rink so I have something to do. Nobody else does this. Nobody. In hockey circles, I’m known as the guy who brings books to the rink.

This weekend, we’re at a tournament in San Jose. One of the dads from our team — I think he’s a copier salesman — says to me, “I can’t understand why anyone reads fiction.”

He says it, not in a rude way, but not in a complimentary way either.

I say, “Oh. Well, I can’t understand why anyone lives his whole life inside his own head and never gets curious about what life looks like to other people.”

So I probably won’t have to talk to him the rest of the season.

Later the same day, this guy knocks back a couple of double Scotches at a team dinner and proceeds to make gay sex jokes — loudly — the rest of the evening.

Spring season just started for high school roller hockey. My son’s team has two goalies, one who’s really good and a backup who’s not ready yet to play at this level.

The coach started the backup goalie at this week’s game. He gave up eight goals and the team lost.

His mom was sitting next to my wife during the game. “I wish they’d take him out,” she said. She was almost crying.

I am so glad my son doesn’t play goalie.

Every kid makes mistakes and every kid has bad games but the highs and lows for goalies are too extreme.

Here’s the status update I did post:

Paul is shoehorning the limitlessness of life through the limitations of the present…

A woman whose son plays on a roller hockey team with my son posted the following comment:

Wow. That’s actually pretty profound & it took me a few seconds to process that!

And here’s the comment I didn’t write in response:

That’s why I bring a book to hockey tournaments, so I don’t have to spend the time between games trying to talk to people who’d always be 5 seconds behind me.

Another gem from the freshman football mailing list . . .

Of the four high schools here in Irvine, only one — Irvine High — has a stadium on campus. There’s a movement afoot, led by local attorney and parent Emmett Raitt, to build a second stadium.

Here’s an excerpt from Emmett’s email suggesting that parents write to the school board about this matter:

The reasons a second stadium are needed include the elimination of Thursday night games, which lowers student attendance at games; it will ease the overcrowding of the Irvine Stadium facility (and particularly the snack bar, a personal favorite of mine); and it will allow all schools to use District facilities for their graduations, which they do not now do.

Hmmm . . . I can’t see how increasing student attendance is going to ease overcrowding, nor do I think the fact that some local fatso thinks there are too many people ahead of him in the snack bar line justifies spending $10 million on a new stadium.

Now here’s the follow-up email that came out from Rick Curtis, the varsity football coach at my son’s school, Northwood High:

I just read where the Huntington Beach district is putting in 2 new stadiums at Huntington Beach HS (8.5 million) and at Westminster (7.5 million). All Capo Valley Unified high schools have stadiums and each have field turf and all weather tracks at their schools.

All Saddleback Valley high schools have stadiums, except El Toro High School. Each high school also has field turf and all weather tracks at their schools (including El Toro High School).

We need to get to the school board meetings and we need to get organized. . . . These are the people that we are competing against and we are way behind in providing state of the art facilities for our student athletes.

All the districts that he mentions in the email are good academically, but they’re not in the same class as the Irvine district, which is the crème de la crème.

So here’s a no-cost solution:

• If you want your kid to get a top-notch education, live in Irvine.
• If you want a quick hot dog while your kid runs around on field turf, move to Saddleback Valley.
• If you want a quick hot dog in a brand new stadium, move to Huntington Beach.
• If you want a quick hot dog and corrupt administrators (allegedly), move to Capo Valley.

Problem solved!

My son’s playing freshman football, pursuant to which I received the following email (names changed):

Fellow Freshman parents,

Zelda and I are disappointed with the poor quality of the duffle bags the boys purchased at the start of the season. Rocko’s bag is already ripping and the zippers are becoming non-functional. As a result, we intend to buy him a much higher quality, replacement bag made out of extra heavy duty material from a Montana vendor. My firm has purchased customized travel bags from this vendor before, and our clients/employees love them. We also intend to have the bag (which will be slightly larger to accommodate a football helmet) embroidered with the T-Wolf logo and his name. This is what the bag looks like, sans logo:

If ten or more families decide to buy such replacement bags, the cost will be $285 each plus tax and the cost of name embroidery (I don’t think the latter will amount to much, but I’m looking into it). If the order is for less than ten units, then there will be a modest charge for logo. Two families in addition to our has already asked to be included them in this order. You can visit the vendor’s website at http://www.redoxx.com/.

Please let me know as soon as conveniently possible (i.e., by the game this Saturday) if you would like to be included in the order. If so, kindly also respond back with the spelling of your son’s name to be embroidered on his bag.

Thanks.

Go Wolves, Beat University!

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

In short, if you are experiencing similar problems, this would be a high quality replacement that should last for some time.

Yeah sure, I’m definitely up for spending $300 for a bag my son can stuff his football uniform into, particularly if your “firm” has a track record with the company.

I sent the following response:

I’ve never seen a decent bag for only $285. I’ve been looking at this one from On the Fly:

It’s a little pricey (around $12,000) but it’s made of black alligator leather and if you’re concerned about durability, it will withstand a charging rhino.

Don’t ask me how I know that.

Best regards,

Captain Jeffrey T. Spaulding

I didn’t hear back from the original emailer, but I did get a response from a philanthropic but somewhat dim individual:

I hope that was a joke. If not I think you are getting carried away about a bag that the boys are going to drag around through the mud. If you have that much money to throw away maybe you should donate it to children who can’t afford equipment to even play sports.

Just a thought…

Oh dear, I guess I was a little too subtle . . .

I know some “hockey families” where the kids — boys or girls — can play any sport they want . . . as long as it’s hockey. They have email addresses like smiths4hockey@hotmail.com (assuming their name is Smith), and from the parents’ point of view, it simplifies things a lot. You don’t have kids getting into one sport, losing interest, moving on to something else. From the kids’ point of view? Maybe not so good. And I actually think it helps kids athletically to do more than one sport . . .

My kid plays Team Tennis here in Irvine . . . on Saturdays, they play other teams from around Orange County.

Tennis parents are obsessive, just like hockey parents. The difference is that hockey parents can scream at the kids, refs, coaches, other parents, passers-by, etc., during the games, whereas tennis etiquette requires parents to stay quiet during the matches and berate the kids afterwards.

My son’s team played the Balboa Bay Racquet Club team this past weekend. One of the smug tennis dads on our team showed up wearing a backpack with his own racket in it.

Now why would he do that?

He’s obviously not going to play tennis with it because it’s a kids’ event, so he just wanted everyone to know yeah, I’m a tennis player myself, my son is a tennis player because I’m a tennis player, blah blah blah . . .

My lifetime supply of patience with overly involved sports parents has already been exhausted, believe me, so when our team won a close match, 5-4, and he stood up and said “Tough win” with a satisfied smirk on his face like he’d won the match himself, I said, “Not for you it wasn’t. You just sat on your ass in the shade.”

That should keep him from talking to me any more the rest of the season.

To parents who wish to lead a quiet life I would say: Tell your children that they are very naughty — much naughtier than most children. Point to the young people of some acquaintances as models of perfection and impress your own children with a deep sense of their own inferiority . . . This is called moral influence . . .

— Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh

One of the moms from my son’s hockey team tells me that there’s too much “silliness” on the team, that the kids need to prepare for games with a little more seriousness.

Continue reading Sports Parents Are Ruining the World