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Category: sports

Going for Gold

Going for Gold

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The Olympics end today. What a run it’s been! From the rainy opening with the torch carried across the rooftops of Paris to the final games and heats, there have been thrills for sports fan — and for couch potatoes, too. 

It’s enough to make me tackle my chores with Olympic ardor. I already do my own form of race-walking, though with significantly less hip swivel. But yesterday I found myself vacuuming, cleaning and doing yard work with medals in mind. 

A bronze in dusting, a silver in weeding, and a gold in baking. It’s not a 3:51-minute 1,500 … but it’s something.

Pee-Wee Olympics

Pee-Wee Olympics

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Into this week of lake and family come scenes from across the seas: Strong-shouldered swimmers who wiggle like dolphins. Graceful gymnasts who defeat gravity with nerve and style. 

The children imitate them, do somersaults and dance on coffee tables. It all starts here, the advertisements say. 

I think, yes, maybe it does … with renewed appreciation for the families of those who twirl and swim and dive. 

Random Paddle

Random Paddle

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Since we live less than a mile from the border of Camp Reston (my name for this suburb during the summer) and kayaks are available to rent on Lake Anne, a few miles beyond that, taking a random paddle some weekend has been on my list of summer things to do since May. 

Yesterday we were finally able to make good on it, with temps not yet 90 and rain not yet falling. 

What a revelation to kayak among vistas that I usually stroll through. There were the rose mallow, from the other side of the shoreline, the watery one. And there were the backyards and porches of houses I usually only see from the front. 

It was an exercise in perspective-shifting. And it was exercise, period. Both are necessary. Both are good.

Camp Reston

Camp Reston

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On a walk my first day back I marveled at the transformation. When I left for vacation, school was still in session and early heat was still battling spring chill. But now it is full-on summer. 

On the lake, fishermen wait patiently for a nibble. Children cavort on canoes and paddle boards. Sunbathers turn their towels toward the sun. Shade is deep and wide; the walker seeks it when she can. 

The place I live no longer feels like a suburb. It feels like a camp. 

Missing the Derby

Missing the Derby

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For the first time since 1945 there was no Kentucky Derby on the first Saturday in May. There were no thoroughbreds thundering down the back stretch at Churchill Downs. There were, I hear, some fans — many wearing fancy hats — who couldn’t stay away. They appeared, crowned and masked, to traipse around the track and take photos of vacant betting windows and empty paddocks.

We’ve lost many of our traditional markers this spring. No tournament basketball in March, no first day of baseball in April. And now … no Derby in May — to be followed by no Preakness or Belmont, either, at least for the time being.

Of all the pain, sadness and disruption brought on by this pandemic this is hardly the greatest. But for this transplanted Kentuckian, who has never missed a Derby either live (twice) or televised (every other time), it was a loss indeed.

World Series Champs!

World Series Champs!

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Washington, D.C., is waking up late today, pushing snooze at least twice and downing an extra cup of coffee. But as one of the bleary-eyed ones, I can say … it was totally worth it. It was worth it to see the Washington Nationals beat the Houston Astros to win the World Series, an improbable, come-from-behind victory like so many of the others the Nats have achieved this season.

But this victory holds no future trial.  The team has gone from a 19-31 record in May to World Series champs in October. They have nothing left to prove.  But as the oldest team in the league and the come-from-behind specialists, they have something to teach us about determination, drive and never saying never.

What they’ve achieved most of all, though, is to bring us a hometown pride that’s hard to come by in the Nation’s Capital. We’re no longer the “Swamp,” the seat of dysfunctional government. We’re the home of a team with loyal supporters (my neighbors have been season ticket holders since 2005) and a fan base that transcends partisan divides.

Events like this help people feel like they belong. And more than anything else, it’s the belonging I celebrate today. 

Joy in Mudville

Joy in Mudville

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I have to laugh at myself every time I write a sports post, which has been more recently than usual lately. But it’s certainly worth a shout-out that the Nationals have won the National League Championship and are going to the World Series!

It was only two weeks ago that I was gushing about the wildcard berth D.C. had won in the National League playoffs. Now they are the National League champs!

Of course, their next assignment is a difficult one. Even I’ve heard of the Astro’s prowess. But for this town, with its losing football team, impeachment proceedings and month-and-a-half-long rain drought, this is very good news indeed.

It looks like rain today … and there’s joy in Mudville, too.

(Nats Park photo: courtesy Wikipedia)

Sports Writing

Sports Writing

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After reading about the Washington National’s stirring comeback to win a wild card berth in the National League play-offs, I had a thought. It probably won’t last, but it’s how I’m feeling today. And that is that, in my next life, I’d like to be a sports writer. Of course, that would require me to play and understand sports. But this will be my next life, so I may be stronger and more coordinated.

I’d like to be a sportswriter because it’s the one place in the newspaper where you can let fly (pardon the pun) with a description or two. Lyricism is not frowned on, nor is sentimentality.  You can write long and you can even write purple and it will not necessarily be edited out.

Furthermore, there is the theory (which seems truer to me through the years), that sport mirrors life  to an uncanny degree, and that in writing about it one is actually chronicling human nature with all its warts and halos. An infinitely rich and varied topic, to be sure.

But since it is not yet my other life (I’m thankful to say), I will have to content myself with reading about sports — rather than writing about them.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

The Overdog

The Overdog

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Yesterday, I watched my first and last University of Kentucky basketball game of the season. Such is the hubris of this Kentucky fan that she missed the first two rounds of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, figuring she’d tune in only if her team made it to the Elite Eight.

There was a not-so-subtle assumption here, of course … which is that her team would make it to the Elite Eight. Not such a crazy assumption given that they’ve been there 34 times. Heck, UK has played in 17 Final Fours. Auburn, the team that beat us yesterday, has never been to the Final Four. Which means that, as usual, many people were pulling for our opponent to win.

I understand this emotion. In fact, I usually pull for the underdog, too — except when the underdog is playing UK. My rationale is that Kentucky is not the first in much else. US News ranks the Bluegrass State 34th in education (which is an improvement from when I was in school) and the Bureau of Economic Analysis lists us 42nd in per capita income.

The fact that we’re not the the underdog in basketball — that you might even call us the overdog (no fooling) — seems only fair to me. But that never stops me from pulling for the boys in blue. I want them to win every time.

(“Underdog” cartoon photo courtesy Wikipedia) 

Lucky Thirteen

Lucky Thirteen

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Just because we had a triple crown winner three years ago doesn’t make Justify’s victory in the Belmont on Saturday any less impressive. He was only the 13th horse to achieve such a feat in the last century. The first was  in 1919, there were three in the 1930s, four in the 1940s, three in the 1970s … then a 37 year drought till American Pharoah won in 2015.

Justify’s jockey, Mike Smith, says the colt has an “old soul.” Not sure about that, but the horse was subtle, sneaking up on us in the midst of other exciting spots news. The Stanley Cup finals, the NBA finals, the French Open, the World Cup. But he didn’t come from behind to win. He led all the way around the mile-and-a-half track, and he made it look easy, which is how all great champions do it.

Celia and I watched the race together in the basement, and we were both whooping and hollering. I like to think I schooled my girls in the important things of life: the thrill of horse racing, especially when a Triple Crown is at stake; the importance of hard work; and the need for enthusiasm.  Especially the latter.

(Photo: This low-res pic made possible by Wikipedia)