Club youth sports teams: Why should anybody other than parents GAF?

$50k in student loans ago

 

If you approach a feature on shuffleboard -- or any other out-of-the-mainstream sport (activity...whatever) -- the right way, it can be an entertaining read. Most people won't give a crap about who wins or loses, so find something or someone interesting there and go with that. Most people don't play shuffleboard. Why do these players play? How did they get started?

I covered an arm-wrestling competition on a Sunday afternoon in Hillsboro, Texas, once. That's how I wrote it.

 

The "Sunflower seeds vs. Bubble Gum" debate can also be something fun if it's approached right.
It was part of the larger piece, but I once did a long feature story on what life is like in a high school dugout -- the different jobs each player has, some of the stupid games they play, why the senior who hasn't played a meaningful inning in three years sticks with it -- and the whole seeds vs. gum debate got worked in there. Some kids liked seeds because they were fun to spit, others liked gum or candy because it lasted longer or they were superstitious. Some kids liked the seeds because they were cheaper (a buck for a bag of seeds that'll last a couple of games, vs. a buck for a bag of Skittles that's gone in five minutes).
The bigger dugout story was one of my favorite stories I've ever written. I think the seeds vs. gum vs. candy thing could've stood on its own as a fun little feature.

As always, there's no such thing as a bad story idea. Only bad execution.
That goes double for a small town sports section during the summer.

 

I'm stealing seeds vs. gum for my yearbook next year. Though over half the kids on the team have probably figured out how to hide their dip.

 

"Cup or No Cup? A Look Inside the World of Jocks."

 

Exploiting? No.

Giving 10-year-olds and their parents an inflated sense of how much this matters? Yes.

And even that explanation doesn't completely explain what feels wrong about it. It's kids playing ... just let them play.

 

What it often comes down to, Dick, is what else do you have going on in June and July?
Everything has a season. For better or for worse, youth baseball's season is the summer months when there's not a lot of other reliable content on a day-to-day basis. Those special projects and Sunday features are great, but what about the other six days of the week? If there's a youth baseball tournament in town it's a couple of days of content you don't have to think too hard about.
If you're at a big enough paper, or you're in a town close enough to bank on MLB coverage every day, that's wonderful. Not all of us have that luxury. Most of us have to scrape the bottom of the barrel for a couple of months until the high school spigot gets turned back on. It sucks, but it's something I think all of us have accepted as part of the job.

 

That was the real missed opportunity in the Rocky franchise- a Drago standalone film, about "The Siberian Express" post-1985.
Kind of like how the next installment of the Karate Kid movies should have been about the Cobras.

 

A great fake 30 For 30 would be whatever happened to Rocky's beaten opponents. We never hear from Clubber Lang, Drago or Tommy Gunn ever again.
Gunn was still the champ when Rocky kicked his ass. Lang should've had a rematch and been a contender for a couple of years after Rocky III. Drago probably faded into obscurity for a variety of reasons -- political embarrassment, his status as international pariah for killing Creed, drug testing, and he was shown to be a one-trick pony in the ring -- but he should've been a factor in the heavyweight division for a bit longer.
If we could get a Spider Rico cameo in "Rocky Balboa," we should've gotten a mention of those guys.

And Fart, Karate Kid III did touch on what happened to the Cobra Kai dojo after the All-Valley Karate Tournament. It basically went bankrupt because its students revolted and fled, and John Kreese blamed Daniel LaRussa for it. It's pretty much the conflict that drove the plot of that movie. Hell, it gave us "Karate's Bad Boy" Mike Barnes. How could you forget "Karate's Bad Boy" Mike Barnes?

 

I don't believe Tommy Gunn is available for comment.

 

Oh, I remember Mike Barnes.
I'm old enough to have seen that turkey in the theater.
Still wondering what was the point of putting a female lead in the film who already has a boyfriend.
There is some awful scene-chewing in that movie, particularly by the villain (he runs a toxic waste business, if I recollect. Subtle!)
I'm going to have to find that for one of my Bad Beer Nights at the house.

 

The problem with Rocky's losers is that all the actors got delusions of grandeur or something and demanded hefty checks to appear (even in cameo / still shot roles) in the sequels -- even including Carl Weathers, whose demands for residual payments kiboshed him appearing, even in film clips, in "Balboa."

(Which is actually quite ironic because Stallone could have easily written Weathers out of the series completely after II, had he been so inclined, but he brought him back for essentially co-starring roles in III and IV. Hell, if Stallone had been a complete egomaniacal dick as he is often accused of being, he could have written Apollo Creed out completely after 'Rocky' -- just say that Apollo made good on his ring statement, 'ain't gonna be no rematch' and make 'Rocky II' all about the travails of Rocky having to fight his way back to a title shot after Apollo essentially chickens out and retires on top.)


In my hypothetical world, Clubber Lang would have been matched up with Apollo Creed shortly after the end of "Rocky III," with the winner taking on Rocky in a 'winner take all rubber match.'

After "Rocky IV," Drago would have returned to Olympic boxing (the Soviets would have strong-armed the IOC to rule his fights against Creed and Balboa as 'exhibitions' and thus his amateur standing intact) and rolled to the gold in 1988, but shortly after the Games, defected to the West.


Tommy Gunn would have gotten ass-kicked in a Las Vegas street fight by Drago, now working as a bouncer at a strip joint.