(The name of this post is “Processed Meat” because I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and also because this post has about as much substance as processed meat. So… there’s that.)
It’s been a bizarre morning. I went online shopping in search of a Seattle SuperSonics jersey (one of the dopest around) a little after midnight. I ended up browsing other jerseys, and agonized over a decision between purchasing an Adam Morrison Bobcats jersey or an Emeka Okafor Bobcats jersey, even going so far as to text an ex-boyfriend about it (with whom no love is lost, by the by, but we can advise each other on wise jersey purchasing practices apparently). The Bobcats jersey is neither dope nor desirable and I’m not even a Bobcats fan, but I am a fan of UConn basketball and pro basketball busts with bad facial hair, so hopefully that clears some things up. Anyway, if you’re wondering what I ended up buying, I ended up going with a Caron Butler UConn jersey. So… problem solved.
Cut to me hearing the sounds of a distressed car outside my house around 2am. I look out the front window to see no one and no car, but footsteps in the snow leading to the back door. Listen, I’m not panicking, but I’m panicking a little. I roll my sleeves up and creep to the back door. Turns out it was my dad. The Loser Cruiser died and he had to take my car to work. Read: No vehicle coupled with single digit temperatures this morning. Which yields: No morning workout. Can’t head out to the gym until he returns with my car later this afternoon. Strange and unusual. My body mourned this by keeping me up until 5am, during which time I agonized over whether to buy a Charles Barkley Suns jersey, a Mike Bibby Kings jersey, or a Shawn Kemp Sonics jersey. Needless to say, I settled on Shawn Kemp, because he has at least ten kids. But then I passed out and “slept in” until 8:30. Topped off with a few mind-boggling e-mails and life references to Packers players, and my morning’s just been odd, y’know?
So here I sit. An alphabet of thoughts before I get into the “substance” of this post.
a. I’ve been doing pretty dang good with my New Years “resolutions”. They were:
1. Be more positive.
It takes hell of energy to be angry at someone or to be angry with something. It takes hell of energy to hate, to engage haters, to dwell on things that make you angry/make you hate, to argue with haters, etc. etc. I think I’m doing pretty good. No better example than this morning. Woke up to some weird e-mails, and although I was heated at first, I realized it’s nothing to get frazzled about and I went on with my glorious morning. *le shrug*, you feel me?
2. Swear less.
I’m actually not doing horribly with this one, as I originally imagined I would. If anything it’s preparing me for when someone calls and tells me it’s my time to replace Gus Johnson, because I’m coming up with some sweeeeeeet exclamations, and goodness knows I need them with the way the Illini are playing. However, I need to know, do words like “dick”, “slut”, “whore”, “douche”, etc. etc. count as swears? The swear jar and my conscience want to know.
3. Eat healthier.
My weight loss goal at the beginning of the summer was to slim down to the weight I was when I entered college. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten a physical since before my freshman year of college? so I don’t know how much muscle mass I put on in college since I started taking weight training more seriously (and let’s be honest, I put on muscle mass. Have you seen me?) (Sidenote: Sometimes I fear that people who don’t understand my sense of humor or don’t understand that I’m just playing think I’m a doucher when I make jokes like that. Well, that’s not far off, but probably more of a doucher than I really am). Anyway, I don’t know if my pre-college weight is accurate for my body anymore, but I want to get close. Since the start of summer I’ve lost 8 pounds, and I’d like to lose 5-7 more, if possible. Unfortunately, I’m reaching a plateau when it comes to exercise burning the fat off, the rest will have to be lost through diet. Which is rough. Cause big girls gotta eat, ya dig?
I’ve cut a lot of bad stuff out of my diet (college-level alcohol consumption — I hesitate to label my consumption “excessive”, sugary juices, salty/cheesy snack foods, and dessert-type stuff) and I’m already eating about tenfold better than I did when I was in college, but there are still some lingering poor eating habits. Namely processed meats and pop (ginger ale and bottled root beer *dreamy sigh*). Also, I don’t eat fast food very often, but when I do it’s always something terrible. For example, I had that jalapeno and cheddar cheese infused beef patty monstrosity at Burger King last week because my dad was picking up BK on the way home from work for lunch and I love everything with jalapenos in it. It turned out to be the worst idea in LIFE, as I waited a full five hours after consumption until I worked out, but I could still taste the horrible thing the whole time. Never again.
And like Kelly Foster’s cousin, I LOVE processed meats. Sausage. Hot Dogs. BACON.
So this one is proving to be a challenge. Efffff.
Oh, and in case it isn’t clear, I’m trying to lose weight because I’m tryna fit into youth medium size basketball jerseys. It would open up worlds to me, I’m not kidding. A world that includes a green/white Sonics Kevin Durant jersey…
b. Lay. Zers. One month. I’ve waited four years, and I’m trying to contain my excitement enough so that I can be patient for another month.
c. I’ve been feeling really dehydrated recently, and it’s the worst, because I take pride in really trying to take my hydration very seriously. It’s gotten to the point where my body has been waking me up at intervals throughout the night, like clockwork, to get a drink. So I sleep with a bottle of water and a bottle of Gatorade next to my bed every night, and both are usually gone or close to gone by morning. My life is a mess. (Maybe I should stop crying every time I watch ESPN. That might help.)
d. I just wanted to say congrats to all the real Packers fans. Like, 4srsly. And to everyone else who just wanted to jump on the bandwagon at the last minute and be all obnoxious talmbout “green and yellow green and yellow” (like Wiz and the Steelers didn’t come up with that first? *foghorn*) and “Pack attack” about it, HMD. I’m not a Packers fan, but I will admit that Greg Jennings brings me lols, and I like Long Hair Don’t Care Matthews.
If you survived that inanity to get to this point, congratulations! Paltry, vague ultimate content is your prize!
I have been watching lots of college hoops recently (obviously), and while I love almost everything about it, there are some things about that game that give me pause and make me thankful for ultimate.
For example, college ultimate is unique because you get to see the immediate impact of a transfer, unlike major Division I sports, where transfers have to sit out for a year. While I’m not entirely familiar with ultimate examples, the best general sports example I can come up with is Colleen Ward’s transfer from Florida to Illinois’ volleyball program. Transfers happen every year in every sport, but this one in particular was big because Colleen Ward is what I consider a momentum shifting transfer. Ward is a foundation player — a type of player that you can build a team around — that came into a program that already had a number of foundation players, a program that was already in a solid upswing. What she did was she shifted the momentum of the team even further. Put simply, Illinois was already a good team, a Sweet 16 level team. The addition of Ward made them a Final Four level team, a national contender.
These kinds of players bring in not just their talents, but they can also bring a new pace, a new mindset, or new ideas to a program. A lot of times they can add that missing factor that a team needs to push them to a new level.
In ultimate, I’d liken this kind of occurrence with players playing their fifth year at a different school. It’s always a huge get when a team can pick up an already experienced player with an already polished set of skills. As long as they can buy into your program and the chemistry is there, it’s really a winning situation for everyone. Another pretty cool thing is pickups at any time of the year at all (provided they’re eligible, registered, and good to go before the series starts). A close-to-home example is our pickup of Tracy, Shawn, Meg, T-Bag, and Murrles from the co-ed team in the winter of my freshman year. We already had a pretty decent squad, but adding them to our roster mid-season was a big boon, and we picked up some really talented and experienced players. More than that though, we picked up some really great people. It’s like adding to a family.
Another thing that makes college ultimate unique is the way we get to see development over the course of four or five years. When I say development, I mean the development of teams and the development of individual players as well. Of course, I’m drawing on my college hoops gripes here, mainly the one-and-done sensations. Obviously I like Derrick Rose, but I don’t know that I could have stomached walking away from college ball after coming that close to winning a national championship, especially not if I had so many years of eligibility left. When players leave college after a year or two, you’re left to wonder what kind of players they could have become and what their teams could have accomplished. Take Kentucky, for example. Last year, Kentucky had five players drafted in the first two rounds of the NBA draft. I *might* be wrong, but I think four of those players were freshmen. If all of those players had stayed, imagine what kind of team Kentucky would have right now. As much as I love Sully *sigh*, I think a different team would be on top of the national standings.
You don’t often see those kinds of “what if” situations in ultimate. It’s unbelievably cool for spectators and I’m sure unbelievably rewarding for players to watch teams develop over the years, to watch teams build and burst onto the national scene. The relatively lower roster turnover makes that kind of team building over time possible. The retention of players who have been through the system and know the program is huge, in my opinion. It’s big for bringing new players into the program, and it’s big for saving time on all the stuff you gotta go through in the beginning of the season (teaching rooks how to throw, teaching them the offense, etc. etc. By that I mean you don’t have to skip that teaching, I just mean that coaches don’t have to do all the teaching, vets can help too). Additionally, it’s a lot of fun to watch players evolve over time. You get to see players add to their repertoires and gain more experience. That’s actually probably my favorite part, is seeing what new skills or skill adjustments players have made to their game season by season.
One of my favorite examples is none other than Margaret and yours truly. During our junior years, Margaret did a lot of cutting and I did a lot of handling, even though we wanted our roles to be reversed. But those were the roles we played with our college team. When we played club in the summer, we started working on the other parts of our game. She found herself practicing at handler and I was practicing at cutter. We went back to our college team in the fall with new skills and more experience in our new positions, and during the ensuing college season we both were able to switch back and forth between positions as needed. We both understood the intricacies of the positions better, and we had both been working on the skills to play them. I like that more time in college gives you more time to marinate your skills, gives you more time to mature as a person and as a player (comparing sophomore year me to junior year me to senior year me is kind of crazy), and it gives you more time to become a more complete player.
So you know. Just some random thoughts I’ve had today about appreciating ultimate. So you know. Back to the all-time low that is my life. *foghorn*
P.S. I forgot which ultimate site (probably Skyd, I’m guessing?) linked NBA Playbook, but I got so giddy when I saw they linked it. I LOVE that site. NBA Playbook, all the basketball games I have on my DVR, and all the games I have on VHS are probably *the* reason why I don’t have a job yet. So much wasted time. But seriously, check it out.
