A busy week for the clan. First up was The Boy's school winning the NCAA title. He's in his second year at UVA and last year they were ranked number 1, but lost in the first round to a #16 in the undisputed worst lost in tournament history. He was into it last year and went to a ton of games and while they were still a highly ranked team this season, enthusiasm was understandably muted and he didn't go to any.. That changed after they got through the first weekend and each subsequent victory was more thrilling than the last. Going to a school that had little in the way of athletic teams, the Boss and I were also hopping on the bandwagon and adopted the Hoos.
We were happy they won and know that it was one of those experiences for the Boy that will last a lifetime. We didn't hear from him much post game except for a drunken text at around 2:30am his time about how much he 'loves this place right now'. Talked to him briefly the next day and he told us about one of his frat buddies named Jack's interaction with the Dean. Texas Tech cancelled classes the day of and day after the game, but a message from the UVA Dean to the student body said in typically erudite professor speak that UVA classes were on both days regardless of outcome. Frat boy responded to that message, in reply all, with college kid language using many of the long words he learned in English class with an impassioned plea about how he understood the university's position, but lobbed in some Delta House vernacular at the end that if the school won and he still had to go to class on Tuesday, the Dean could 'respectfully lick my ass'. The Dean politely responded with, "We'll talk about this tomorrow Jack."
The other thing about the post game celebrations that the Boy related was that they were out running around town and campus until at least 4am. We have all our phones linked on the Life 360 app so can see where each of us are at any given moment, and we watched him go from the arena, where he watched the game with 20.000 other fans, to the downtown, frat and all over campus. One of UVA's most famous traditions that I have related in the past is for Freshman to streak the 108 yard lawn down and back in their first year, but it is not limited to that as the Boy said they streaked the lawn a 'few' times at 3ish that night/morning. What I wouldn't give to Freaky Friday with that kid for a weekend or two.
Mentioned that I was traveling for baseball last weekend, which meant that I missed Babydoll's year end arts performances. In the past, would be secretly happy to miss out on a couple hours of "art" I do not understand, but have become a bit of a fan of dance and while I am not to the point of paying to see it, hate to miss out on her stuff. I did catch their rehearsals earlier in the week as pollution canceled one of our baseball practices, but missing seeing it in full production mode made me sad. Her 5th grade teacher is an avid shutterbug and took some amazing snaps, a few of which will now share here. The last one is classic.
As for yours truly, I got to travel with the Boys baseball and Girls softball teams to Bangkok for their end of season IASAS tournament. IASAS stands for Interscholastic Association of Southeast Asian Schools and consist of Taipei American School (TAS), Jakarta International School (JIS), International School of Manila (ISM), International School of Kuala Lumpur (ISKL), Singapore American School (SAS), and the host International School of Bangkok (ISB). At the end of each season, all the schools meet at one of them to compete against each other. Simultaneous events were held in other cities for golf, badminton and track and field. These are not limited to sports as there are events for forensics and arts as well as others I probably am not aware.
This was my first trip to IASAS in any capacity. The Boy went on a couple that I could not make and we missed out on his senior year trip due to a school decision that still boils my blood and do not wish to rehash at this time. Each team consisted of 12 players and there were 7 coaches/administrators total in our group. The kids stay at host families places near campus while the coaches had rooms at the nearby Best Western. All of the coaches that go are full time faculty and this was the first time in their memory that a person in my position was allowed to travel. I took this to be an honor and vowed to be on my best behavior throughout.
There is no story to tell of being in Bangkok per se as we were taken to the hotel directly after arrival and spent the rest of the time at the hotel or the school. The AM bus would leave at 6:30am and we did not return from there until 9pm earliest. I guess a Bangkok story would be that our bus ride from the airport took 2.5 hours that normally would take 40 minutes without the all day long traffic but that is just typical Bangkok.
The boys team did not fare well losing all 5 of their games. This is just the third year of baseball at IASAS (it was softball for the previous 35 years) and our program is still in development. Our fellas were not embarrassed in any of the games and played sound throughout, it is simply that the other teams have established local programs and therefore have more experienced baseball players. I have to think our guys were disappointed but I personally felt they performed better than expected and have nothing to hang their heads over. I am the third coach so tried to develop a role for myself. The other two coaches have been with these kids since elementary school in various capacities so I just tried to blend in naturally. You can argue that all sports, or whatever activity you choose, offer life lessons but as a baseball lifer feel that baseball is unique in the metaphors for life it provides as there is simply more down time to shoot the shit. I have a million of them and they mostly lean towards the movies Major League and Bad News Bears variety. For example, our skipper is also a baseball junkie and he is quite well versed in all aspects of fundamentals and baseball lore, but as a teacher he keeps things rated PG at worst. He was telling kids about breathing in tense moments at the plate and a way to help focus your mind is to visualize where the ball is going to go...seeing in your mind the ball go off the bat on a line into the gap and such. That is effective for some, but not all players are created equal. In an off moment after the coaches words above, I had a chance to offer another way to relax at the plate that I learned a long time ago from an interview with Jeremy Giambi and always incorporated when I played. Jeremy said that he and his other bash brothers would make sure their pants were tight so that when they were walking up to bat, they knew the girls would be looking at their butts and that feeling sexy helped with their confidence and made them not think about failing or thinking about anything too much cause when you are performing, it has to be on instinct. Told the boys that I am fully aware that my physique is not typically considered one that is desirable, but I know that some/many chicks, perhaps even their moms, groove to my rap cause I feel sexy and exude that confidence. That might not be R rated, but pushing PG-13?
The organizers of the event had people there taking photos and there are literally hundreds of them and most are really cool. This was my favorite of our fellas team.
We are the blue team and looks like we made a great play, but if you notice, the ball is still coming in and the dude was safe. Still a great shot.
I was sent by the school not only to be a coach, cause that wasn't really needed, but to assist with the tournament as a scorekeeper for other games. I had one for the boys, but had several games scheduled for girls softball and was on that field almost all day other than when I was in the boys team dugout. That gave me the opportunity to watch our schools girls team up close and from their first game saw they were something special. They are only three years into fast pitch but are further along than the boys as the girls have two accomplished pitchers. By the rules, boys can only throw so many pitches per day/tournament so you need a bunch of them, and we didn't have any that were mechanically sound. For softball, there is no pitch count so if you have one great one, you can dominate. Our girls went 4-1 and lost in the gold medal game to Singapore, who had a flame thrower that was the definition of domination.
What made the girls special to me was not that they won, but how they did it. In most of their games, they were close or down early, but would have these great runs and comebacks. And some of the girls were as tough a player as I have ever seen in any sport. They were sliding and diving for stuff that made my body hurt just watching. The catcher is a long time friend of Babydoll and while I have always liked her joie de vie, I fell in love with her tenacity and focus on the field. I ended up scoring all of their games which put me at the communications table that was about 10-15 feet from home plate. I watched her all weekend strap on the gear and catch every pitch in heat that was debilitating to all of us. It was so hot that the locals were saying that this is as hot as it had ever been in town. In the championship game, she took a foul tip right off he face mask and she immediately got out of her crouch and was hurt. She had the look that she wanted to cry but after a couple minutes with the coach and medical staff, waved them off, grabbed the mask and went back to work. I've seen a lot of sports in my day and that girl was a bad ass in that moment. Her technique behind the plate could use some work as she left herself exposed to balls hitting her legs. This is a snap from day two where she is on the shoulders of one of her teammates..
It got worse as the weekend went on, but this girl is such a nut that not only didn't she complain that it hurt, but gave a name to each of her bruises. Like I said, bad ass. I'm standing there on the first day and she takes a foul ball to the gut. She bends over for a while and takes an ice bag, then gets back down and plays the rest of the game. I figure she got the wind knocked out of her. After the tournament is all over and the coaches are boozing in the hotel lounge recounting the weekends anecdotes, one of them brings up when this catcher took one in the hoo-haw. "What?" says I and realize it was this incident. This coach then describes how she didn't get hit in the belly but in her vagina. She has been asking for a lady cup all season says the coach and when she got hit today and they brought the ice, she stuffed it down her pants to soothe the pain. Were all laughing at this point and then she relates that when she was done with the ice bag, she took it out and handed it to the very big, very Thai and very male umpire. That team and especially that girl walk on water in my book (she is front row, second from the right).
I saw all their games and scored a few more with teams that weren't from our school so saw a lot of softball and came away wildly impressed. The first day I scored games, everything was very organized and there was an announcer and person running the sound system. As I was stuck at the field until the end of the day as our boys had the late game each night, I offered to do the games of one of our girls coaches was assigned so she could go back to the hotel and relax as they were players in this tournament and thought they could use the down time more than me. By the second day, volunteers started to get bored and was asked/offered to do more games. Not only that, but the announcers and DJ's stopped showing up so got to grab the reins of the between game/inning music and feel that I turned it into a party atmosphere. There was a playlist in the iPad that was fine, but a bit on the nose if you catch my drift. All the crap you hear at every ballpark like AC/DC and Gary Glitter. I would ask for requests from each team or the parents and added a bunch of deep gut gems. Ladies Night by Kool and the Gang prior to a girls softball game for example is an inspired choice. By day three, I was there from 7am to 4p using my own newly created playlist and in addition to the requests, the fans got things like Molly Hatchet, INXS and a ton of funky disco. Watching baseball and playing music of my choice to a few hundred people is pretty much a perfect scenario and had I was in hog heaven.
The gold medal softball game was tense but our ladies went down as the opposing pitcher was a force of nature. Our school represented well as we had a ton of great parents along with us from both teams and they were loud and fun supporters. Our boys team shook off their losses and were amazing cheerleaders too. When our girls were up to bat, they spread our along the outfield wall and did dance steps in unison to help motivate the girls. Inspiring in their goofiness they were. I mentioned last week that it was Songkran this day. Songkran is Thai New Years and they celebrate by having water fights throughout the country. As we didn't get off campus once, did not experience any of the local traditions, but after the last girls game our two teams had an all out water war together. We had some squirt guns and the kids would take empty coolers and fill them up with icy water, then go and hold another player down and pour the water all over them. They got all of us coaches too and I gave it back a little myself. One casualty were my shoes. Don't think I am alone in having this experience, but have you ever had a pair of shoes for a long time, and they are holding up well and still don't smell, but you get caught in a downpour or in this case, doused during Songkran, and whatever stink is hiding in them activates and produces an unholy smell rendering them toxic waste? I didn't notice it until we got on the bus at the end of the night and just as I do, a mom walks by and says she smells beer and have to tell her that smell is similar to the bar floor after a frat party and it happens to be coming from me. Anyhoo, we were the only group that paid tribute to the local customs by having a water fight and while we might not have won the gold, or even a game in the boys case, we absolutely won the tournament.
After our water fight and the final of the boys baseball, it was time for the closing ceremonies. They thank all the people that put it together, give out the team and individual medals and then the Spirit of IASAS award. They emphasize this Spirit all over before you travel and at the event and as this is a school thing and these kids are our next leaders, highlighting all the schools values makes a ton of sense. As a person who has carefully crafted a curmudgeonly demeanor for years, making fun of this kind of rah-rah spirit is natural and most people feel cheated when I don't give it to them.
So we're sitting there and they are describing a winner and it becomes clear that I am getting this thing. Am probably not alone but don't think it is common, but am immensely uncomfortable with awards or any public show of appreciation. I love when people I know get things, but shudder when it is me. Is that weird? It goes as far as ignoring my birthday as any attention is loathed. The way this thing works is that one is nominated and based on those submissions, they pick three people to acknowledge. The girls softball coaches appreciated the stuff I did for them apparently and wrote up a thing that had the sentiment that I was a "cornucopia of positivity." You know that doesn't sound anything like me and cornucopia of positivity has become a running gag that is gonna be hard to live down. I really appreciated their appreciation of things that I loved doing anyway. All our crew had a good laugh cause I had to limp down a long series of steps and then hobble up some more to the stage. One of them took a video on their phone that they shared and laughed at my poor fat crippled body. I just saw the video and you can hear them laughing way too hard. A bit cruel but loved every minute of that ribbing. At first, thought they nominated me to make me uncomfortable, but it seems to be a big deal at the school as I've been getting congratulatory comments (and many of appropriate disbelief) from all quarters and need to shut up and just be honored. To be honest, I was honored that I was invited at all and to be charged in some way with working with a group of great coaches and really nice and fun kid, and truly hope I did a good enough job to be invited back next year cause baseball is so great.
One note on the ride home. All the teams and coaches flew back on the same plane but I was invited late and there were no more seats on their plane so had to take a later flight back, which was cool with me cause they had to roll out at 7am and wait at the airport for 4 hours while I could chill poolside and catch up on Aussie Rules games till noon. I arranged for a car to take me then and the taxi/go-cart driver was this insane dude that puts the nutty Taipei taxi drivers to shame. His English was limited and my Thai non-existent, but he was asking me questions and several were about how I found the Thai women to be. Not wanting to insult his country folk, I told them how lovely they were. I am probably wrong, but he pulled over at one point and am convinced he was offering to have me meet one of the local girls for some shenanigans. I politely declined.
Good times.
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