Student athletes learn nothing from forfeiting a championship game…

I’m not sure what irks me more when I heard about this, the near-archaic thinking of one school or the missed opportunity for a handful of student athletes.

Last spring, Arizona’s Class 1A high school baseball state championship game came down to Mesa Preparatory Academy, which came to the finals with a 9-0 record, and Our Lady of Sorrows at 6-3. Mesa Prep had beaten Our Lady of Sorrows twice during the regular season.

However, the two never had a chance to play for the 1A title, because Our Lady of Sorrows decided to forfeit the game. Why? Because Mesa Prep had a girl playing second base, and Our Lady of Sorrows refused to play a girl.

My wife emailed me a link to that story. The girl’s name is Paige Sultzbach, and she was allowed to baseball for her school because, one, she was talented enough to play the infield, and two, the school didn’t have a softball program available to her.

This is a perfect example of how Title IX law works. It forces gender equality in all government-aided educational program, especially sports.

Now Our Lady of Sorrows released a statement when the media caught wind of the baseball team bailing on the championship game. Apparently, the school has a policy in place disallowing any of its teams to participate in co-ed sports. The statement, according to ESPN’s coverage of the situation, said the school teaches its young men respect by not placing girls in athletic competition.

Isn’t high school sport supposed to be used to teach kids respect in the first place?

What upset and confused me the most about this situation wasn’t necessarily Our Lady of Sorrows refusing to play against Sultzbach. That aspect certainly made me shake my head at the fundamentalist Catholic school’s policy. It was what those kids playing for its baseball team missed out on.

Last winter sports season in Des Moines, Iowa, a sophomore wrestler from Lin-Mar High School refused to wrestle a female competitor from Cedar Falls at the state’s championship tournament. Again, this kid said he didn’t believe boys and girls should compete in sport.

Again, although I think the notion is archaic, I would have to respect any young man who isn’t comfortable wrestling a girl in a singlet, which is basically oversized underwear, in front of a large crowd deciding to bow out. I can respect that regardless of the kid’s reason.

However, in the instance of Sultzbach and the Arizona 1A state title, I think using that as a reason to forfeit is ridiculous. It’s not like baseball is a full contact sport. Forfeiting the championship game to avoid playing one female player out of 11 doesn’t teach respect. It’s not even admirable in my book.

High school sports are supposed to help kids learn to overcome adversity, and Our Lady of Sorrows denied that from their athletes. They’ve earned a spot in the state championship, even if they weren’t the favored team. They deserved to be there. But they weren’t allowed. I’m dying to know what those players thought and felt about the decision, about having such an anticlimactic end to their baseball season.

Or maybe the school is breeding the next crop of talented young chauvinists who still believe they won’t have to compete with a woman when applying for about 99-percent of all jobs in America. That forfeit failed those kids, period.

Ultimately, seeing the statistic for both Mesa Prep and Our Lady of Sorrow, I guess I’m not that upset hearing about the forfeit. And given Mesa Prep beat the school twice before–only because Sultzbach didn’t play in those games, it appears the best team won in the end.

Enjoy your second-place trophy, Our Lady of Sorrows. I sure hope you have fond memories when you look back on that accomplishment.

Beckham’s bend coming to an end?…

LONDON – The phrase “Bend it like Beckham” may not pack as much punch now as it once did.

Not that his fanship or popularity has diminished at all, but some media outlets, USA Today in particular, are suggesting English international soccer phenom David Beckham may be on the downslope of his highly spotlighted career.

The largest indication of his was Beckham not being selected to Team Great Britain’s soccer team for the 2012 Olympics in London.

That has to sting. Not only does he miss a spot on the team, but he missed it for the one Olympics staged in his own back yard. Not only that, he was apparently instrumental in helping get the 2012 games to London during the 2005 vote.

Naturally, most people in that circle figured Beckham’s place with the 2012 Great Britain team was a lock, but apparently not. Ouch.

That’s the same as—in a very fictional world—Knowshon Moreno of the Denver Broncos being instrumental in getting the Super Bowl hosted at Denver and then finding out not only will he be second string for the big game, he won’t even be on the roster and has to watch the championship from the stands.

I’m not going to pretend to know a ton about international soccer. But I think anyone could argue David Beckham is the most notable name and face to come from it, probably since Pele was in his prime. Even I could recognize him if I ran into him at 7-11, and I hadn’t even heard of the guy until he married one of the Spice Girls.

Now, having been shown countless photos, sports updates and guest appearances on several TV talk shows, I know well of Beckham’s presence in the international sports world. I even get the humor out of that Burger King commercial where all the gals want him to take his shirt off.

What I don’t understand is how he didn’t show enough ability playing with the L.A. Galaxy to warrant one of the three over-23 spots on Great Britain’s Olympic team. Seriously, could his skills be that diminished? Among a field of 40 candidates to make the team, he wasn’t at least among the top 18? That’s what this all means to me, anyways.

Obviously, I’m in disbelief.

Hearing about all this got me thinking about what was next for Mr. Beckham. The cliché would be for him to coach. Even moreso, become a color commentator. If he played American football, he’d be sitting at a desk with a bunch of other ex-jocks and Chris Berman.

I’m certain the legs of his advertising value will continue to let him run for a while. He’d still be prime for Gatorade ads for a while, maybe a new line of Reebok shoe. If Burger King would have him, I’m sure Jack in the Box would make an offer.

However, after a few years of not playing, you may see him do regional ads around London for the likes of North Hampton Auto Sports. That’s pretty much one foot in the grave for a professional athlete’s value.

Sad to know an international star like David Beckham can get old. There should be some sort of cosmic plan to keep athletes like him—and by that I mean talent, demeanor and personality—from aging once he or she has captured the hearts of so many.

People still need to believe in sports heroes even if they don’t make the Olympics.

Screenwriter’s story about his grandfather gets a ‘curveball’…

Not many of you may know this, but through college I actually harbored aspirations of becoming a filmmaker when I grew up.

Well, both those things have yet to happen. I never became a professional filmmaker, and as for growing up, that also seems long in the future. Just ask my wife.

But as for my shallow career as a movie producer, I did manage to create a few titles to my credit, mostly shorts and a couple full-length features. You can find the preview for one of them on YouTube.com by searching “DockRat Entertainment, In the Darkness.”

Don’t be too impressed. I later wrote a couple projects for the stage which were way better, but my ventures in filmmaking only left me about seven piles of poop sitting on the shelf collecting dusk. They make a nice conversation piece when people come over, but I refuse to show them to my wife though. I don’t want her to leave me when she sees how horrible they are.

The best part of spending those years learning what I could about writing and producing visual entertainment was the myriad of other creative people I met along the road. One person in particular I may never forget. I can’t even remember his name.

However, I won’t forget the name of his grandfather, Fred Goldsmith.

The man I met was elderly, old enough to be my own grandfather, and had a hearing aide. He was aspiring to write a screenplay as an assignment for a playwrighting class which I not only took myself but was asked to come back every year to guest lecture students on screenplay format and structure. He was one of the students.

After this particular class was over, he approached me and told me about his script idea. It was a sports movie, of sorts, but also historical non-fiction—his description, not mine. He told me the story about his grandfather Fred Goldsmith. The name rang a bell, but it wasn’t entirely clicking.

The man rolled through his storyline, which basically was about a man trying to prove it was possible for a baseball pitcher to throw a curveball. The story was set in the early 1870’s, and that’s when Goldsmith’s name rang out in my head. I had read about him being one of the inventor’s of the curveball. But I also remember there being a debate about who actually proved it was possible.

I mentioned that to this elderly aspiring screenwriter. He said that was his purpose for wanting to write the movie and get it produced. He said Goldsmith’s descendants have argued for the validity of his grandfather’s claim for years.

The other day I was watching the motion picture Major League. All men into sports and possibly all men in general know this movie well. I watched the character of Pedro Cerrano, played by Dennis Haysbert, struggling with his No. 1 fault of being unable to hit a curveball. It reminded me of this guy’s script about Goldsmith.

So, I did a little digging, mostly to see if the guy ever got a movie deal. I went to all my movie information Web sites and did searches for any keywords related to Goldsmith’s story. Nothing. I felt bad. I was extremely interested to see his script idea come to light. But only if it included the debate over who “invented” the curveball. That is the movie in my opinion.

My search for the would-be motion picture on Goldsmith, however, led me to a twist equally as interesting. I learned Goldsmith actually organized a public demonstration of throwing a “skewball”—what he called a curveball at the time—at the Capitoline Grounds, a former baseball park in Brooklyn, in 1870. I think I see the setting for the third act of the movie.

However, many years later, baseball historians discovered a sports writer’s article published in 1869 which described an “extremely hard pitcher to hit for the ball never comes in a straight line, but in a tantalizing curve.” This may actually be evidence of someone having invented the curveball prior to Goldsmith’s public demonstration.

Now the movie has a downer-yet-realistic ending. Kind of like E.T. gets caught, probed and dissected instead of Elliot and E.T. reaching the alien’s getaway spaceship just in time to make us all cry with their farewell. Maybe Steven Spielberg should direct this curveball movie too.

I just wonder if Goldsmith and this mentioned pitcher ever crossed paths, and Goldsmith told him about how to make his pitches “skew.” In a big-budget Hollywood-made movie, this pitcher could “steal” the concept of the curveball as his own, leaving Goldsmith to prove himself the rest of his life and the lives of his family lineage.

Now, that’s something I’d pay $15 for a ticket and a bucket of popcorn to see. And maybe with the research I did, I can get a co-writing credit.

Lack of gear won’t stop kids from playing sport of choice…

MONUMENT – Sports equipment is so expensive. Youth sports gear is even more so unless you can find a good deal at a store which stocks second-hand items.

If you remember Walt Disney Pictures’ The Mighty Ducks, there’s a scene where Emilio Estevez’ character as the coach of the Ducks was trying to pitch his lawyer boss on sponsoring his team. He described how his players were forced to tape copies of magazines to their shins to serve as shin guards because they came from under-privileged families.

That description stuck out in my head. I’ve known kids like that. I’ve even had to rig a few things in my youth to account for not having or being able to afford the proper sports gear.

Once, during the years when I started playing youth baseball, I remember wanting to learn to play catcher but not having the gear to sit behind the plate. I used this New England Patriots football helmet as a mask during practice at home. It was an older helmet, prior to the Pats’ present logo with Pat the Patriot in a three-point stance on the side. It didn’t even have the proper padding to be considered a viable helmet for football.

Regardless, I wanted to learn to be a catcher, and that was the best I could muster. The other day, I saw a couple kids in my neighborhood living that will-not-be-stopped mentality of youth sports.

It was a pair of boys playing baseball on the sidewalk in front of their house. One was noticeably older than the other, but I wouldn’t put either of them over six years old. The older one seemed to be a little more schooled in the sport of baseball. He was the pitcher, standing next to a bucket of balls.

The younger one was serving as catcher and taking instruction from the older one about how to stand and where to hold his glove, which wasn’t an actual catcher’s glove. In fact, I think it was one of those toddler baseball gloves which are made of plastic.

But that wasn’t even the half of it. What was most hilarious was the rest of the catcher’s gear the younger kid was wearing. He had chest protection, mask and shin guards, but all of them were cut and laced to fit out of corrugated boxes. The kid looked more like a Transformer than a catcher. It was possibly the most adorable thing I’ve seen in the neighborhood ever. I had to snap off a photo of it.

A young boy does what he can to come up with catcher’s gear while he and a friend practice baseball outside their home in Monument.

The remaining box material which didn’t end up tied across the kid’s torso or head was folded up and used as a backstop. I’m guessing that was the older kid’s idea. It wasn’t working well for them either. Every pitch from the older boy was a wild one and not only missed the boxed-up catcher and their makeshift backstop, but it pretty much missed the entire block.

The kids spent more time chasing down balls than anything else.

It was a treat to watch. It reminded me of how I had thick winter gloves instead of the proper padding when I first started learning to play hockey. I strapped on a used set of soccer shin-guards, but I also taped on regulation knee socks, equally used, so other players wouldn’t make fun of my lack of gear underneath.

More so, I didn’t want anyone targeting my shins, knowing I was incorrectly protected.

Even as an adult, playing recreation inline hockey, I had to cut corners. The cost of gear is terribly expensive. I can’t even imagine how much parents of preps athletes dedicated to multiple sports shell out for the proper gear and attire.

I would think the best you could hope for is your younger kids take an interest in the same sports as your older kids. At least there could be a hand-me-down system in place. The younger kids may not appreciate it, but it’s better than nothing.

And it’s better than not making the mortgage payment that month.

Sports writing can be a full-contact sport itself…

Over my past 11 years covering preps sports, there has always been an element of danger either shooting or reporting a game.

I once had an editor, who also shot sports for us, tell me a good sports writer has to dodge either a ball or a player every time they’re at an assignment. That’s always stuck with me, and it’s been very true.

In these 11 years, I’ve run out of the path of football receivers heading my direction. Include me having to jump from the path of hoops players trying to keep a ball inbounds to that example as well.

I’ve been pounded in the head by a stray volleyball during warm ups. I’ve had a basketball land on the keyboard of my laptop, delivering a permanent impression about five inches in diameter, between the G, L, 8 and M keys.

I once had a lens mount on my Nikon camera, at the time, broken by a soccer ball kicked my direction. I turned to run when I saw the ball drilled my way, and I tripped and fell on the camera. Crunch.

However, many years ago, I learned to park my car at the furthest point in the parking lot when covering a baseball game. I was once that poor unwitting guy who parked too close to the backstop only to have a batter foul back and the ball make a noticeable dent in the roof of my Chevy Beretta. And I only had liability insurance at the time. Who would get full coverage on a Beretta? Apparently, I should have.

Despite all these moments where my resolve to continue writing high school sports had been challenged by physical danger and lack of insurance, I recently read the crème de la crème of bad luck in this arena.

Jameson Painter had one moment during a baseball game which pales all my little moments of inconvenience. Painter is a ball player for Chuckey-Doak High School in North Carolina. After I stopped laughing at the fact a high school somewhere is named Chuckey-Doak, I read about how this kid hit a home run during a game against University High which gave his team, the Black Knights, the go-ahead run in what became a 7-3 “W.”

Well, you would think the kid could be overjoyed by this hit over the fence, or any home run for that matter, but on this occasion, some weird twist of karma had its say on his moment of glory. Painter’s visit to the parking lot over the fence at right field landed exactly where he parked his own car.

Not only did his homer “thunk” his vehicle, it crashed through the car’s windshield shattering it. What’s more, Painter’s coach Dustin Morrow, mentioned to the kid prior to the game he’d be better off parking somewhere else, because the hitter was likely to send a home run there. That’s what Morrow told the Greenville Sun anyways.

So not only was the kid warned not to park where he did for fear of hitting it with a home run, the kid actually hit a home run, hit the car and smashed its windshield.

That may be the first high school baseball player in history to exclaim, “Ah, crap!” after hitting a home run. That would be the equivalent of me writing a Pulitzer Prize winning essay, and the pen I used accidentally stabs me in the throat.

So speaking in comparison to Painter, I don’t feel so bad for what I’ve endured covering high school sports. I now feel it’s just the same as sitting along the baseline at a pro baseball game, or moving through life for that matter.

You always have to watch out for foul balls.

’Rivalry’ reaches an all-time high…or low

Imagine what would go through a kid’s mind to make him actually douse an opponent’s bench with urine.

That’s exactly what happened in Palm Beach, Fla., prior to a preps baseball game between rivals Palm Beach Gardens and Dwyer high schools, a Dwyer player doused Gardens’ dugout ”with an amount of urine large enough to create a smell noticeable to visiting fans at the game.” That’s according to a blog from Palm Beach Post reporter Matt Porter.

I just came back from my honeymoon, in Las Vegas—the fun one, not the one in New Mexico, and having come back to reality, I started combing preps sports headlines from around the country. I tend to do that from time to time to see what other high school sports writers are writing about.

That’s when I found this poor guy’s blog and his report on how this Dwyer baseball kid gets suspended two games for distributing urine over the rival’s dugout. It was also reported the kid was suspended from school, but the details of how the urine was distributed were not divulged by the school administration. Dwyer athletic director Tom Pagely didn’t defend the baseball athlete’s actions either. Why would he?

The coaches of the two teams, Frank Torre (Dwyer) and Joe Russo (Palm Beach Gardens) are apparently longtime friends who played youth ball together, and Porter reported Russo didn’t hold the action against the other coach or the other team.

In fact, the two coaches noticed the smell and dicussed the situation prior to the game. The pair decided to play the game anyways. It wasn’t reported if the host team sprayed down the dugout or not. That’s pretty gross regardless. If I was a Gardens player, I would have refused to stay in the dugout.

Dwyer won the game, clinching them a Class 8A district playoffs spot, and Russo said he didn’t think the urine-attack had a result on the outcome of the game.

I’ve seen a few cross-town rivalries get out of hand. Chaparral and Ponderosa had some doozies when their wrestling teams faced each other a few years ago, but I haven’t heard of anything like this.

However, the lack of details of this incident make me wonder. If there was such a large amount of urine, causing the opposing fans to smell it, I’m curious about how the offending kid doused the dugout.

When I first read the blog, I assumed the kid urinated on the dugout himself. But having read about the massive amount, unless the kid loaded up on compeous amounts of Yoo-hoo or has a 75-ounce bladder, I don’t see how that would be at all possible.

Another possibility is, the Dwyer kid collected everything he expelled over quite some time and then hit the dugout on game day with a Super Soaker. Also, he may have done the deed the day before, and after an afternoon of sitting in the sun, that would explain the intensity of the smell. That, or the kid ate a bunch of asparagus for lunch.

It also wasn’t made clear if the kid was caught in the act of what I can only describe as ”vandalurine.” If he was, I would think coach Torre would have suggest postponing the game an hour to spray down the dugout, saying, ”Hey, one of my kids is disgusting and obviously mentally unfit to play high school sports.”

I know kids will be kids, and teen boys will be notoriously weird to begin with, but for the sake of public health, I hope this Dwyer kid just sticks to stealing the rival’s mascot like in my day.

I can only imagine how that kid handles competition later in life, especially in the workplace. At the office, he and some guy in the cubicle next to him are both up for the same promotion.

One day, his co-worker sits down at his desk and suddenly says to himself, ”What’s that smell?”

Skiing as a couple can be tense if not handled properly…

Who doesn’t want to ski with their sweetheart?

Being one of the most popular outdoor activities in Colorado, second to maybe hiking or camping, couples who enjoy doing things together will obviously want to add the ”slopes” to their list of coupled activities.

However, that’s not always the easiest when different skill levels are involved.

I recently had a conversation with my future mother-in-law, Cindy. Her and her husband, Pete—my fiancee’s stepdad, go skiing pretty regularly during the season.

From what I’ve heard, they have different skill levels, and I’ve always wondered if that created tension for them when they hit the slopes together.

I’ve never gone skiing myself. I’ve gone to ski towns before and sat in hot tubs and drank a ton, but actually skiing is still kind of foreign to me. Among the reasons I’ve never gone: fear, laziness and a traditional lack of coordination. Yet, I can dance, so it’s not for a lack of rhythm.

However, I do imagine skiing as a couple is much like skating as a couple. With years of recreational and city-league level adult hockey behind me, I’ve become a decent inline skater.

With that, if I were to bring a gal to a roller rink, and she isn’t at my skill level, we wouldn’t have the best of times. We would spend most of my night lifting her off the floor instead of having my fun, speeding around the rink to the music knocking down small kids who are just learning.

Skiing could be the same. If one party is a stronger skier than the other, there could be that riff between them.

That’s the situation with Pete and Cindy. Pete is a stronger skiier than she. She likes skiing the ”blue” runs, and Pete is more into the ”black.” So, really, how much fun can a couple have if she wants to hit the bumps, and he is craving groomers. He is trying to help her, and she is trying to not be a bother. I imagine tension is abound at that point.

So, I looked on the Web to find any answers to how a couple at different skill levels can manage their ski weekend together. Sure enough, there were answers.

I located some tips from a ski pro and ride school director for SolVista Basin in Granby named Dan O’Connell. He said to remind each other this particular day is about both persons having fun, not to refine his or her skills. Make it about the mountain and not just the runs. Take the time to enjoy the scenery, the snow, fireplaces, hot drinks and in my case hot tubs.

One tip which struck a chord for me was setting aside an hour for each party to ski on their own and as he or she prefers, then meeting later in the day for coffee or a long relaxing lunch to goof off a bit, then shared run time together.

This reminded me of how my fiancee Heather and I work out at the gym. We both have certain things we like to do which the other isn’t really into. So for the first 30 minutes, we seperate and do our own preferrences. For the second 30 minutes, we join each other for exercises and weights training we mutually enjoy.

After talking to Cindy, that’s exactly what she and Pete do on their ski trips. Pete will hit the blacks, while she hits the blues for a couple hours. They meet for lunch, and then since Pete is already tired he’ll spend the rest of the afternoon skiing the blues with Cindy.

”I’ve decided I’m at an age where it’s not good to break something,” Cindy told me laughing. She said that’s how they’ve managed their ski trips from the very first one.

If Heather and I ever go skiing, I can see her hitting the blues and me hitting the hot tub. And maybe we’ll meet up for lunch. But only if room service will bring it to the hot tub.

To each his own, I guess. Or her own.

Freestyle really means ’Free’ style…

You learn something everyday. That couldn’t be true for anyone more than me.

Every single day, especially in journalism, I learn something new. As a sports writer, I learn even more at a faster pace. With so many sports to cover, every so often, I discover some new facet of a particular sport which I never knew before but makes total sense.

The latest installment of my education was in competitive swimming. I recently shot a boys swim meet in Castle Rock. It was between Parker’s co-op team of Ponderosa, Chaparral, Legend and Elizabeth high schools against Castle Rock’s co-op of Douglas County and Castle View.

When I shoot swimming, especially a boys’ meet, I find certain events I’m better at capturing than others. The backstroke is a tough one, only because the depth of field is so small for a decent vantage point of the center lanes. Same with the butterfly.

The 50-yard freestyle is another one. If I have more than one swimmer to shoot in that race, I usually fail and have to catch those kids in one of the relay events.

The easiest one, in my opinion, is the 500 free. It’s not a sprint, so the kids aren’t kicking up a ton of water and my shots aren’t filled with more splashing than athlete. It’s a distance race, so the kids are more focused on being a stroke machine.

In the 500 at this particular high school event, I saw something I’d never seen in the seven years of covering the sport in Douglas County. I’m shooting a couple of County-View swimmers in the second and fourth lanes. By the time I get those swimmers in the can, I look up from the viewfinder to see Ponderosa co-op’s Carter Griffin doing a backstroke in Lane 3 and leading the race by almost 25 yards.

Parker co-op's Carter Griffin won the 500-yard freestyle with his backstroke against Douglas County-Castle View in Castle Rock.

I didn’t even know you could do that. Griffin won the race. The notion of doing the backstroke in the 500 stuck with me the rest of the day after.

I began to make phone calls, knowing I’d look like the idiot who didn’t know why Griffin was backstroking the third lane of the 500. I called about seven boys and girls swim coaches for an explanation. I even called our babysitter, who has friends who swim for their high school.

Between Andrew Levine (Legend), Rob Nasser (Valor Christian) and Will Amos (County-View), it was explained to me a swimmer is allowed to perform any stroke he or she perfers in the freestyle, and that the word freestyle really did mean ”free” style, or ”any” style. As long as a kid doesn’t touch the bottom or the lane ropes, they can stroke any form they want, even a doggie paddle.

I was glad to hear that. If competitors are allowed a doggie paddle in the freestyle, then I could be an Olympian. I’m the king of the doggie paddle. That, and what ever stroke it’s called when you lay on your back and not do a darn thing. My personal record in that event is world class.

Now that I felt like a total dunce for not knowing ”freestyle” meant exactly that, I learned a little more about going outside the normal stroke for that event. I called Discovery Canyon boys coach Terre Christensen, and she said as a coach she would frown upon doing any unusual stroke in the 500 like the backstroke.

”It’s almost like a slap in the face,” she said.

Warren Ross, coach of Parker co-op, was unable to get back to me about why Griffin would do a backstroke for at least part of his 500 free. Maybe the kid was trying to record a state-qualifying time for the backstroke from his first 100-yards? I’m still not sure.

But I will say, it was fun to see. Given he won fairly handedly, I’d almost describe it as ”hardcore.” And now I’m inspired to work on my doggie paddle.

Peyton, Peyton everywhere and nothing else to think…

Even if they may not understand or even follow football, it seems to be on every one’s lips, minds and Twitter accounts.

I was holding my 1-year-old daughter yesterday in my living room. My dad had come over, and we were wrapping up conversation as he was ready to leave. He had a couple phrases of affection for my kid, hoping to elicit a verbal response.

Instead, the kiddo pointed to the front door and babbled something indiscriminate. I asked her to explain herself. “What’s out there?” I asked her. “Tell Grandpa B what’s out there.”

“Peyton,” my dad answered for her.

He was right. Everything outside my front door is Peytonland now.

I wasn’t going to write about Peyton Manning coming to Denver to play for the Denver Broncos for a crazy large sum of money for years I’m not convinced he has in him, but whatever. I didn’t want to feel left out since every sports writer in Colorado is writing about the acquisition and the subsequent loss of Boy Wonder, Tim Tebow.

What could I possibly say about swapping out Tebow for Manning that hasn’t already been said by every sports media and local news media outlets? Not much. I agree its a good move, and I’m excited to see what the Broncos can “really” do with the highly coachable talent Manning brings to the table, not the uncoachable “natural” talent Tebow takes with him. Coach John Fox can now run the system he wants to run with Manning as quarterback, not the system he’s had to run to accommodate Tebow’s shortfalls–unable to throw short passes, can’t read defenses, etc.

I’m not the first to say any of that, but what I’ve enjoyed the most about this change of Broncos leadership on the field is the numerous posts and threads popping up in my Facebook feed.
One is a photo shared a few times over of Tim Tebow doing is infamous “Tebowing” pose–actually he’s praying and popular culture slapped a name on it, and a bubble caption above, speaking something to the effect of, “Dear, Jesus. When I asked you to help the Broncos win a Superbowl, sending them Peyton Manning wasn’t what I had in mind.”

The only thing I posted on the subject was, “My fear is Peyton Manning will become the Allen Iverson of the NFL…super expensive and always out with an injury.” That started a thread of comments from my friends especially between a longtime friend Brian and a former thespian friend Jerry. Now that everyone is talking Superbowl possibilities for the Broncos with Manning, Jerry pointed out a bit of NFL trivia I didn’t know.

He mentioned Earl Morrell. Morrell got to the Superbowl subbing for an injured Johnny Unitas in 1969 with the then Baltimore Colts only to lose. In 1971, Morrell took over for Bob Griese in 1971 in Miami to lead the Dolphins to their undefeated season and was replaced in the Superbowl by Griese for the end of the perfect season. But Morrell didn’t win the first time he went, so no quarterback has ever won a Superbowl with two different teams.

Manning could be the first. On that alone, I’m glad he decided to come to Denver. It’ll be exciting to see the system they run this fall. But as my friend Brian said, it’ll be interesting to see how Broncos fans respond if the team has an 0-2 start, shaking off the cobwebs. The call to bring back Tebow will fill the air over Denver if that happens.

Synchronicity brings bad omen against my New England Patriots…

You ever have one of those moments when you realize something that’s been there the whole time?

And I don’t mean figuratively. I mean physically.

Let me give you an example: break-up songs. There are always break-up songs, record by both male and female music artists, to hit the airwaves and top charts. You buy them, play them and blast them in the car, singing along at the top of your lungs.

However, it isn’t until you go through an actual break-up, and you happen to hear said song in the aftermath, when suddenly every heart-ripping lyric hits you like a runaway train. I was once in a Home Depot, just a couple weeks out of a bad break-up, and this Mariah Carey tune played over the in-store music which I’d previously heard a thousand times. Of course, that time around, the song hit me hard. You can imagine how embarrassed I was trying to choke back tears while asking an employee to help me locate a quarter-inch drill bit.

Another example: buying a new car. Every time I’ve bought a new car, a make and model which seemed unique to me at the time, I’d always see the same model being driven by a hundred other drivers once my new wheels hit the pavement.

You just don’t notice these things until you have some sort of personal connection and context to them. I believe synchronicity is what this is called. It’s not just the title of The Police’s most popular album from the ‘80s.

With Superbowl XLVI on the horizon, the latest instance of “synching” recently happened to me. If you don’t already know, I’m a New England Patriots fan. I have been since the Pats got their collective butts handed to them by the Chicago Bears in the 1984 Superbowl. I’m also from Providence, the capital of that usually forgotten state in New England, so there’s an element of homeland pride with my fanship.

Anyways, I’m beyond excited for the Patriots to face the New York Giants for this year’s Superbowl. That’s mostly because I didn’t get to even see the Superbowl when they last met and the Giants stole the championship. That’s right. The Giants were not the better team that year. All numbers show that, except the final score of that one game. It just happened to be for the championship.

After New England beat the Denver Broncos in the second round of this year’s NFL playoffs, I immediately started routing for the Giants in hopes of a Superbowl rematch. I got my wish, obviously.

Here’s where the latest synchronicity comes in. The other morning, after conference championships had been decided, I wake up next to my fiancee Heather and go through my normal morning routine. I come back to bed for a few lingering moments with her before our kid wakes up, and I lay my head on her stomach.

A moment passes and I bolt upright, staring at her shirt. How did I miss the fact that she was wearing a New York Giants t-shirt? I can only imagine what my expression must have looked like for what seemed an eternity of frozen time.

“What?” Heather asked me.

“Is that a New York Giants’ logo?” I poked cautiously.

“Yep,” she replied semi-proud, knowing it was going to bug me.

The funny thing is, she’s worn that darn t-shirt to bed a hundred times since we’ve been together. I’ve seen it. I’ve taken notice of it as an NFL shirt. I never even asked if she was a Giants fan, since I knew she cheered for the Broncos. Never “synched.” Not until that morning.

But now that New England and the Giants were meeting for a replay I was not about to miss a second time, Heather’s t-shirt jumped up and slapped me.

Needless to say, since conference championship weekend, I’ve been uncomfortable knowing that shirt resides in our bedroom somewhere. What’s worse, I went into my storage boxes to find my old Patriots jersey featuring former secondary Ty Law’s name and number only to realize I threw it out the last time I moved. Most of its graphics identifying it as a Pats jersey had been worn off, because I wore it that much for about two years. So, I tossed it.

Oh, the number of bad omens for New England wafting through my house at this point is overwhelming.
The best thing in my favor is my kid, at 13 months, has learned to throw her arms in the air and yell “touchdown.” I better buy her Patriots’ attire quick to wear on Superbowl Sunday to combat this coup of bad vibes.

Take that, synchronicity. And, yes, Heather is routing for the Giants just to make things interesting.