Ways that good old Dad helped build me into a better athlete as a child

The following is a list of some of my fondest memories growing up as a little athlete.

Goal – Not being afraid of the ball when in the batters box in Little League
Action – He put me up against the back of the house and pitched to me… throwing 1 out of every 3 at me, so I’d learn to get out of the way and show me that it doesn’t hurt that bad to get hit! I was literally a human dart board, but instead of darts there were baseballs being thrown at me from close range!

Goal – To make me not afraid of physical confrontations
Action – He decided to play fight with me at my aunt’s house throwing a series of fake punches and kicks at close range… until one knee got through, hit me in the junk and dropped me like a sack of bricks. Apparently he was ahead of his time. Ultimate fighting didn't become popular for another 10-15 years. Although, even in the UFC groin strikes are illegal!

Goal – To make me a better shooter in basketball
Action – He put me in the driveway in 100+ degree heat until I could make 20 consecutive free throws. At one point it even got to the point that once I could do that easily, him and his buddy Chuckie would taunt and yell things at me as I shot the ball! And we wonder why I graduated from high school and weighed all of 120lbs!

Goal – To make me better at dribbling with my left hand
Action – In a game in the driveway he undercut my legs as I went up for a rebound, so I came down sideways and broke my right elbow on the asphalt. I had to do everything, including wiping my ass, with my left hand for 6 weeks. Ok, maybe my dad didn’t do that… it may have been some jerk in Linwood. I do think my dad was a little upset he didn't think of that first : )

And my little sister thought she had it tough growing up in my parent's house... LOL

In all seriousness, my dad is a really nice guy and has been very helpful to me growing up in this crazy world we live in... although his tactics are sometimes a little outside the box!

Some Boston sports fans just need to settle down

I have been a Boston sports fan since I was roughly 8 years old. My first real memories of watching sports were somewhere around 1985-86. Back at that time we had the Celtics atop the NBA on an annual basis. I even remember watching parts of the 1986 Finals where the Boston Celtics won their 16th NBA title. At that time we also had the Patriots miracle run to the Super Bowl. Unfortunately they ran into a bulldozer and got hammered by one of the 5 best teams in NFL history by my accounts. The Chicago Bears put a beating on us worse than those awful racist cops did to Rodney King. On a side note, Rodney has appeared in VH1's Celebrity Rehab and is getting his life back together. All in all, it seems like he is staying clean and when he isn’t using… he’s a reasonably nice guy. Anyways, back to the early years in my sports viewing history. Finally, we had the heart and soul of Boston, our one and only Boston Red Sox. I remember watching pieces of that wild World Series with the New York Mets. I even remember being woken up in game 6 late in the game (8th inning I believe) to watch the Sox win their first title in 68 years…oops! That didn’t happen the way I had hoped. Instead I had my little, fragile heart ripped right out with a comedy of errors ultimately leading to the Sox choking and the Mets winning the World Series. And a quick thanks Dad for waking me up to watch Stanley throw wild pitches and Buckner miss grounders that I surely could have fielded when I was in little league. Little did I know that this era in Boston sports history was as good as it was going to get for some time.

Years passed by and I started playing sports myself, which only made my dedication to our local teams that much stronger. Yes, I was a fan during some pretty terrible seasons from all of our teams. My allegiance to my teams never waivered, although my impatience with them certainly was tested on many occasion. The losing seasons, the disappointments, the heartbreaks mounted year after year. We were so close at times and ultimately every season ended with a good ole, “we will get ‘em next season”. And I’m certainly not alone in this. Boston itself and the surrounding areas are very into sports. Boston is one of the great sports towns in this country. I personally feel it is the best sports town in America, but I’m sure others have differing opinions so I will gently say that Boston is clearly one of the top five sports towns in the US… and that’s not up for debate. You may ask how I can comment on other cities around our country. Well, I travel quite a bit for my job and I’ve even lived in New York City for 2 years. My travels have taken me to Chicago, Denver, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Miami, Seattle, Dallas, and many more. Boston is truly a place where there is an overwhelming amount of diehard sports fans. I will admit some are knowledgeable and others are the type of person that you see on the side of the road, watch them, and wonder how they get out of bed in the morning without severely injuring themselves. At the end of the day, the support here is overwhelming and if you ever want to experience baseball in its truest form you have to come to a game at Fenway Park (preferably when we are playing the hated Yankees). The electricity in the air on a nightly basis is something to marvel at.

If we fast forward to the 21st century, the years of heartbreak were halted when the golden boy with the golden arm Tom Brady led our New England Patriots to a Super Bowl victory over the Rams in 2001. Since then, Tommy terrific and the rest of Belichik’s boys have amassed 4 trips to the Super Bowl in 8 years. The have won 3 of them cementing them as the team of this decade in the NFL. The Patriots winning ways seemed to rub off on our #1 team, the Boston Red Sox. After possibly the most devastating game 7 collapse in baseball history in 2003, the Sox rallied and put all of their demons to rest with the greatest comeback imaginable in sports history… erasing a 3-0 deficit to the rival Yankees and winning the ALCS in dramatic and unbelievable fashion. The Sox reeled off 4 straight wins against the Yankees propelling them into the World Series against a Cardinal team that just didn’t stand a chance. Not only did the Sox win a 2nd World series in 2007 by sending the Rockies packing faster than a Brad cast away Jennifer Aniston during the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but they also have become the model franchise this decade in MLB. Finally, the Celtics jumped on board the victory train, made some key off season acquisitions that led to a worst to first story in ’07-08. The Celtics cracked the whip on the Lakers in the NBA finals like a seasoned dominatrix. The took our hated rivals from the west coast and sent them home looking sillier than Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah’s couch! All in all we are talking about 6 titles from these 3 teams in the past 7 years. This coming after a 15 year span where we took a big bagel, zero!

So my question to the sports fans of Boston who are down on the Sox for losing the ALCS to the Rays is why? To those people disappointed the Patriots missed the playoffs… are you serious? To people ready to bury the Celtics after a recent losing streak… back off! I think Boston sports fans have become greedy. They are so used to the winning ways of our teams that they have somehow come down with a case of Jason Bourne’s disease. They have amnesia and miraculously forgot that we used to be the people that always came up just short. We were the town begging for just one title to break the curse of the Bambino. We were the people talking about Bird, McHale, and Parrish 10 years after they retired. Just ask Rick Pitino how irritating that can be, lol. I think we need to be more appreciative of the great stretch we are likely winding down on. I think we need to be proud of a Patriots team that went 11-5 with Matt Cassel at the helm. Pop quiz, who took more snaps from center in an actual game in the past 6 years…Matt Cassel or Tim Hasselbeck?? The answer is Tim. I like Tim, in fact we sat next to each other in marketing at Boston College and worked on projects together. But the fact remains he was a career backup in the NFL and is already retired at age 30 doing some nice work for ESPN. The Patriots had a super season. How about the Red Sox? They traded away the best right-handed hitter I’ve ever seen and they still made it to game 7 of the ALCS. They were literally a couple hits here or there from another World Series. The way they came together as a team and rallied to that point was fairly impressive. Lets face it we could live in a place like Seattle where they aren’t just losing, they are losing teams to other cities. We could live in Minnesota. When is the last time they did anything of note? Other than Kirby Puckett getting arrested on domestic violence charges?? I think the tough season or the seasons that come up just short help you appreciate the titles. Without one, you couldn’t truly enjoy the other. So keep on cheering for your teams Boston, but the next time you feel the need to bash our teams for not being the best all the time, try to relax and remember the immortal words of Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get”.

Score one for the home team!

This is one is for sports lovers... or BC grads. After the BC football team let us down in the Music City Bowl against a weaker Vanderbilt team, the basketball team has stepped up to make that loss a distant memory. The football team once again found itself in the ACC Championship game for the second year in a row. And they again lost to the Hokies of Virginia Tech. Don't even get me started on their mascot... what a joke?!? A hokie is a turkey. We lost to a group of thugs on the VTech Turkeys football team. You might ask why they are thugs?? Well, they always play dirty and trash talk endlessly. I need to only name one alumn of VTech for you to understand. Maybe you heard of Michael Vick! Is he out of jail already? Anyways, our loss to VTech landed us in the Music City Bowl against Vanderbilt. BC is a far superior team, but had one problem... and injured starting Quarterback which left us to start a freshman. Not just a freshman, but one that can't throw the ball. I mean this guy could've been standing on the deck of a half sunk Titanic and still missed the water!! Watching him play Quarterback is like watching a bunch of midgets try to hump a door knob... or better yet like watching Sarah Palin try to find Africa on a world map!! Not pretty folks! So with a disappointing loss to a terrible Vanderbilt team all BC alums could look forward to was the basketball team and hope they would be good enough to make the NIT this year. Well, watching Boston College go down to Chapel Hill and soundly slap around Tyler Hansbrough and the rest of the Tar Heels was amazing. This was the team people were talking about going undefeated this year. Not only was it an amazing BC victory again the #1 ranked team in college basketball, but we got to do it against a team in North Carolina that is generally overhyped, helped by the referees at every turn, and is led by a guy that just annoys the daylights out of me. He annoys me so much that I think I am going to start a rumor that he is the ringleader in a deadly cat fighting pit in honor of that disgusting loser Mr.Vick getting out of jail. So all in all the holidays were a victory for BC students and grads around the country. And current BC students please keep up the good work because despite the fact I may not even have gotten in if the standards were as high then as they are now... the more you do, the better my diploma looks!!

The Legend of Favre

You must be living under a rock if you don't understand that Brett Favre is going to the Hall of Fame as soon as he is on the ballot. The man holds the career records for wins by a QB, TDs by a QB, and owns a Super Bowl ring (against the Patriots of all people.. damn it Bledsoe!). Not to mention he is loved by the media for his style of play, as well as his candor when speaking about anything from football to his life. I get it. What I don't get is how people out there still see him as god's gift to the Quarterback position?? This gunslinger has been shooting blanks for years. Plaxico Burress has hit more targets with his gun than Favre recently!! His best days were in the 90s folks! Aside from the 2007 season where he put up good stats (still threw the game losing INT in the playoffs as expected though) what big games has he won in this decade? I mean, I'm sure its hard to judge his play without bias... especially with him showing off in recent Wrangler ads!! I like to think that Favre's most notable moment wasn't his Super Bowl win or his addiction to pain killers or even his bi-polar attitude towards retiring from football... no, I think its his cameo in "Something About Mary" when Ben Stiller has trouble pronouncing his name. Has anyone seen my weiner?? LOL Seriously though, take what Favre has done and apply it to other facets of life. Imagine if you were a pimp and one of your "girls" used to be a top earner, but in recent years she barely brings in any money... in fact she usually costs you money. Add to that the fact that every year she contemplates getting out of the business... how long would it take you to kick her to the curb? If her name was Favre you would apparently beg her to keep going and you might even give her a nice fat bonus for being a complete drain on your "establishment". Ok, I'm sure that lost a lot of the women reading this. In the event that I am correct, replace pimp with yourself and the hooker with your boyfriend. You had a good few years together, maybe even the best you can remember. However the past year or two he hasn't done anything nice for you, he doesn't compliment you, he cheats on you, etc... do you think you'd be inclined to give him praise, beg him to stay around because there were some amazing times a few years ago, and maybe buy him a nice new car while you are at it?? Yeah, I'm not an expert on women but even I know the answer to this one! So, please tell me why people have trouble letting go?? Few things last forever and thats ok... whats not ok is when you hold onto ideas or beliefs that deep down you know are no longer true because you are too stubborn or too afraid that acknowledging things are different now somehow discredits the memories of what used to be. I say that being honest with reality only enhances the good that used to be and no longer is... I just feel fortunate that I'm a Patriot fan and dont have to worry about that since Tom Brady will always be the greatest to ever put on a helmet and get under center!! : )