Biomechanical Robotic Android Intended for Nocturnal Sabotage, Troubleshooting and Efficient Repair  

 
Politics and other Pastimes
 
 
 
Favorite Blogs: Right Wing News

Conservative Grapevine

Lucianne

Allman's Stove

Ankle-Biting Pundits

Kitty Litter

Radio Patriots

Pam Meister aka Blogmeister USA

Third Wave Dave

Lucky Dawg News (Hiatus)

And You Thought You Were Cranky?

Songbird

Dodo David

On Wings of Eagles

Alive and Kickin' Oldies

A Rose By Any Other Name

Airborne Combat Engineer

American Protest

Anonymous Opinion

Astute Blogger

The American Scratchpad

La Shawn Barber

BlackFive

Blue Crab Boulevard

Lorie Byrd

Captain's Quarters

Carol Platt Liebau

Rudy Carrera

CentCom

Chicago Ray

Chief Brief

Christian Conservative

Combs Spouts Off

Conservative Comet

Constitutional Public Radio

Crazy Politico

CrosSwords

Church & State

Danegerus

Decision '08

Richard Delevan

Dynamo Buzz

Eating Arizona

EckerNet

Educated Shoprat

Fear & Loathing

Flopping Aces

Gawfer

GeosciBlog

GOP and the City

Granddaddy Longlegs

Hell's Freezing Over

Here There and Back Again

Hillary Needs a Vacation

Hot Air

Hugh Hewitt

Illumination Inc.

In My Taxi (Liberal)

In the Right Place

Irish Pennants

Jackson's Junction

Jihadophobic

JREFForum Conspiracy Theories

Leather Penguin

Graham Lester

Let's Play King's Bounty

Liberty or Death

Little Bit Tired, Little Bit Worn

Lone Star Pundit

Marathon Pundit

Mark In Mexico

Twin Cities Chess

Memeorandum

Michelle Malkin

MilTracker

Molten Thought

Moonbattery

Mr Media Matters

Mrs Media Matters

Neander News

New Hampshire Insider

Neo-neocon

NoonzWire (Alex Nunez)

No Pundit Intended

The Nose on Your Face

Punch

Slugger O'Toole

Pajamas Media

Pajama Pack (AKA L-Dotters Blog)

Partisan Pundit

Passionate America

Pink Flamingo

Please Make It Clear

Polipundit

Politburo Diktat

Poor and Stupid

Radio Equalizer

Reaching for Lucidity

Real Ugly American

Regime Change Iran

Right-Wing & Right Minded

Right Wing Nuthouse(AKA Superhawk)

Satire & Theology

Fred Schoeneman

Sister Toldjah

Small Town Veteran

Roger L. Simon

David B. Smith

Shock And Blog

Some Soldier's Mom

Stolen Thunder

Stop the ACLU

The Strata-Sphere

Tel-Chai Nation

Texas Rainmaker

The Kingpin 68

Time Cannon

Tinkerty Tonk

Valley Greaser

Viking Pundit

Weapons of Mass Discussion

Wilkesboro Square

Wizbang

Tim Worstall

WuzzaDem

Ya Libnan (Cedar Revolution)

Add to Technorati Favorites
 
 
Thursday, October 01, 2015
 
My Greatest Sports Moment

This has been misinterpreted by enough people that I will start by saying that the intent of the story is not about me.  It is about the basic misconception that most people have about sports; that it is all about athletic ability.

In fact, sports is all about the intersection between athletic talent and intelligence. Most of the time the former will reign supreme, but every athlete should work hard on developing the other side of the game.

To set the stage, I was on an abroad program in college in London in 1976.  We stayed in a residence hotel, and in the basement of the hotel was a foosball table. Over the course of our semester there, lots of games were played.

Gary, a particularly enterprising sort, set up a league. Foosball is a two-person game, and Gary selected Ho, the best defenseman on the program to be his partner.  Gary was not the worst offensive player (he was probably about the third or fourth best), but with Ho behind him the team was unstoppable.  They won all fourteen games in the eight team series and went into the semi-finals of the playoffs against my team with a huge advantage.

I was probably the second best defenseman in the league.  My partner, Wayne, was about average--probably worse than Gary but not by much.  So we had a double negative against the team of Gary and Ho; I was worse than Ho, and Wayne was worse than Gary.

But with time to prepare, I thought about Ho's devastating defense.  It was not so much that he blocked shots more than average; it was that he could score with his players, seemingly at ease.  It seemed obvious that he could not be doing that with straight shots; there were too many players in our league who could block those.

So the afternoon before our match with Gary and Ho, Wayne and I tried to figure out how Ho did it.  It was obvious that he sent his shots off at a slight angle, and with a little practice I managed to do it. And that was the key.  We figured out an alignment of our players that would make sure that Ho's angled shots did not get through our defense.

We won the first two games.  Ho was no one-trick pony, he managed to change his shot and they won the next two.  We split the fifth and sixth games and were tied up 4-4 going to the "meatball" as it was referred to.

By this point everybody in the London program was in the basement cheering both sides on.  I feel that Wayne and I had more than our share of supporters, but that may just be the natural inclination to support the underdogs.

Wayne's hand shook as he put the final ball into play.  It went back and forth a few times until Ho finally teed it up with his defenseman.  He sent a wicked shot my way but it hit the goalie flush and then, with lots of english, it tried to wiggle around.  I jerked the goalie my way and the ball went safely into the corner.  Now it was my turn to tee the ball up.

I passed it back and forth a few times between my fullbacks and sent a shot home.  Clunk!  The game was over.  Although I had not been as nervous as Wayne, I was completely numb.  He jumped into my arms and we both fell to the floor, as the crowd went crazy.

The denouement?  We got crushed in the finals by the best offensive player. We did not win the championship. It was wonderful beating the team everybody expected to win, but there is a limit.
0 comments

 

 
  Endorsements: "11 Most Underrated Blogs"--Right Wing News

"Brainster is the Best"--Allman in the Morning FM 97.1 Talk (St. Louis)

"This is blogging like it oughta be"--Tom Maguire (Just One Minute)

"Quite young and quite nasty"--Civil Discourse Bustard (One out of two ain't bad)

Contact Me: pcurley (at) cdwebs (dot) com

Brainster in the Media

Howard Kurtz's Media Notes: May 27, 2005

Slate Today's Blogs:

March 16, 2005

May 9, 2005

June 3, 2005

Cited for Breaking the Christmas in Cambodia story (at Kerry Haters):

Hugh Hewitt: KerryHaters was on this story a long time ago. How could the elite media not have asked these questions before now?

Ankle-Biting Pundits: Our friends Pat and Kitty at Kerry Haters deserve the blog equivalent of a Pulitzer for their coverage of Kerry's intricate web of lies regarding Vietnam.

The Weekly Standard

Les Kinsolving

Greatest Hits

What If the Rest of the Fantastic Four Were Peaceniks?

Lefty Bloggers on Gay Witchhunt (linked by 16 blogs including Instapundit)

Kitty Myers Breaks Christmas in Cambodia

Brainster Shows Brinkley Says No Christmas in Cambodia

Explanation of the Blog's Name

Power Ratings Explained



blog radio

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


Archives


 
  This page is powered by Blogger, the easy way to update your web site.  

Phoenix Commercial Properties

Window Cleaning Phoenix

Leather Goods, Leather Craft

Home  |  Archives