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All I know about gymnastics I learned at WOGA

January 17, 2012 by

update: We attended a different gym yesterday where Tia was evaluated by a new coach. It was a wonderful experience for me and for her. This coach was extremely encouraging and kind. He actually smiled and praised Tia. Thank you for your encouragement and prayers. Now I have to have the unpleasant conversation with her current gym about why we will be leaving.

Good times…

“You want a job?” he asked in his thick accent and I blinked in surprise. I had only stopped by to meet some local Russians so I could have contacts that would help me practice my language skills. I hadn’t even been thinking of asking for a job, but as I looked around the building I could see something special there so without missing a beat, I answered.

“Da.”

It was August of 2000 and I had been married all of one month. Neither Lee nor I had jobs when we got married. It was very exciting then. Or stressful.

Depends on who you ask.

We moved to Dallas after marriage because we thought Lee had a job lined up there, but it fell through on our honeymoon. I had just graduated from Baylor with a degree in English Professional Writing so it only seemed natural that I should work as a gymnastics coach.

The plan was for me to work at the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy for a little while until I found a full time job, but unexpectedly, coaching at WOGA wound up being the best job I’ve ever had. I loved it so much, in fact, that I continued to work there for two years. While I interviewed for some real, big girl office jobs, I just couldn’t leave the gym.

The environment was so electric that many days I went into work early just to watch the girls train. I watched Carly Patterson learn her famous Arabian dismount and and marveled at a teeny tiny Nastia Liukin flipping up and over the vault.

You never knew who else would be at WOGA, either. Some days you might walk in to see the cast of the Cirque Du Soleil warming up and practicing. Other times I came face to face with five time Olympian Oksana Chusivitania. It was always a surprise coming to work and I loved it.

One of the saddest things about moving away from Dallas was having to leave WOGA. It wasn’t just my work place. The coaches all became dear friends. Because I spoke Russian, Lee and I spent a lot of time with Evgeny Marchenko, Valeryi Liukin and the many, many other wonderful Russian coaches. For me, working there was like a dream. I was paid well and I got to speak Russian every single day.

Having grown up around gymnastics and working in that environment, I have a pretty good understanding of what good coaching is. I watched two All Round Gold Medalists train in their early years and I was mentored and guided as a coach myself. I know what good coaching looks like.

Unfortunately, for the last few months I have had my daughter in a bad coaching environment.

Tia is very good at gymnastics, but I’m a realist. Her daddy is six foot two and I’m five six so math tells me that she is probably going to outgrow gymnastics pretty quickly. I’m not looking to create a champion, but I do want to give her the chance to succeed in a sport she loves for as long as she loves it.

Sadly, the coaches at the gym we’ve had her at have almost killed her love of gymnastics.

Never in my life have I witnessed coaching like this, particularly from a head coach in charge of running the team program. I should have pulled Tia out of this program months ago, but I kept talking to other parents who would assure me this woman wasn’t that bad and she really was good with the kids and everyone who gives her a chance ends up loving her.

I gave her a chance for three months. It’s not working. Every time we need to leave for gymnastics, Tia develops a stomach ache and gets very weepy. She is terrified of this coach – and this woman doesn’t even coach Tia’s team. But she’s in close proximity screaming and shouting at other girls. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it and I worried it was just me.

Maybe I’m too judgemental? Maybe my experience at WOGA turned me into a coaching snob. Nobody else seemed as offended by this coach’s cruelty, so what is my problem?

Saturday I volunteered at a meet at the girl’s gym where I watched the little ones, levels two and three, compete. They didn’t do great, but it was their first meet and good grief they were cute in their little leotards and sparkly hair. As this coach walked by, I remarked, “The girls are doing great.” She cut her eyes at me and shrugged. “Your job is to be encouraging and tell them they’re great,” she said. “My job is to tell them they are never good enough. Unless they make it to State. Then I can tell them they’re good.”

And then I scraped my jaw off the floor, picked up my things and began researching new programs.

Yesterday I called another gym to talk to them about their team program. I wanted to be sensitive to the situation. While I find the coach’s methods at our current gym just short of abusive, I am not going to bad mouth her around town. So I delicately asked, “Do you all make gymnastics fun? Because my daughter is five and I just want her to enjoy it, not spend an hour and a half doing sit ups and pull ups and being barked at to suck in her stomach.”

“Aaahhh…” said the coach on the other end of the phone, “You must be coming from —. We have 2-3 new gymnasts enrolling in our gym every week who are coming from that gym and I can promise you, we do things differently here.”

So it turns out I’m NOT the only one appalled by bad coaching.

If you feel so led, please say a prayer for my sweet daughter’s heart as we try out this new gym. At this point, I think she may be slightly traumatized and we’ve already decided that if we need to pull her out of gymnastics for awhile (or forever) we will. While good coaching can take little girls to the gold medal platform, bad coaching has the power to kill their dreams altogether.

I’m kicking myself for waiting this long.

Filed Under: Kids, Motherhood, Sports, Tia Tagged With: , ,

The value of a man

December 8, 2011 by

Earlier today, Albert Pujols signed a massive deal that took him out of the Cardinals uniform and put him into an Angels uniform….and all hell broke loose.  I heard the wailing all the way down here.  Mournful weeping.

Gnashing of teeth.

As I heard the details, I was struck by only one thing: how has the value of one man become so displaced?

This is not a question of Albert Pujol’s character.  While I do not know him personally, I know several people who do and I know that he is the real deal.  He gives more than he takes, he isn’t looking for attention and he constantly deflects praise.  If I had to pick someone who I felt could handle the responsibility of $250 million dollars, I would choose Albert Pujols.

“He’s greedy!”

“So I guess it is all about the money!”

“Backstabber!”

“Don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya!”

All of these sentiments popped up online as everyone lashed out at the surprise last minute deal.  And I get it…sort of.  Pujols is a hometown hero.  Not only is the he face of baseball, but he’s an amazing person and who wouldn’t want to keep him around?  I understand the disappointment, but let’s keep perspective.

He is just one man.

The truth is, none of us know everything that went into Albert’s decision to move his family across country.  Was it the money?  Well, probably to a degree it was.  How many of us would have turned down $34 million for loyalty’s sake?  At the end of the day I don’t believe this was greed so much as business.  Can it be argued that there comes a point where enough is enough?  Sure.  But it can also be argued that a lot of good could be done with $34 million and to simply walk away out of principle is kind of foolish.

In other words, Pujols was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t.

To claim that it was solely the money that brought him to this decision simplifies things far too much.  As my super smart (and freakishly handsome) husband explained to me, Albert Pujols is thinking about his career as a whole.  Where can he establish himself that gives him the best opportunity to finish out his years as a baseball player?

St. Louis wasn’t the place.  And that is okay.

So I do not begrudge Albert Pujols.  And I fully trust that he will give away more money than most of us will ever know or comprehend.  This bigger deal gives him the opportunity to give above and beyond what he is already doing.  If I’m being totally honest, I’d tell you that I’d rather see $250 million in the hands of Albert Pujols than in the hands of the US Government.

Ouch.

Honestly, my initial and gut reation to the news today was not anger toward Pujols but rather toward our society as a whole.  I felt a heap of righteous indignation at the thought that we as a nation have placed such an enormous value upon a man who swings a stick and hits a ball.  I do not say that disrespectfully by any means.  I hope I’ve established that I have nothing but respect for Albert Pujols.  But the fact remains, he’s just a guy with a bat.

Why is the value of a baseball player so high, yet the value of a teacher so low?  Is it a wonder our school system is failing, our economy tanking?  Does it not seem that the value we as a society have placed upon man is only slightly off kilter?

This is not Albert’s fault.  This has nothing to do with him and everything to do with a society that has drastically lost perspective on the value of influence.  Or does it?

Is one man worth $250 million dollars? Well, though my first response is a resounding HECK NO, the truth is that’s not really for me to judge or decide.  I really believe that God Himself ordains some to be stewards of much and for others to be stewards of little (Matthew 25).  It’s not for me to decide how much a man is worth, but rather to be responsible with that which I’ve been given.  This is where my criticism for the amount Pujols has been promised gets shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and my writing starts to sounds schizophrenic so I find myself simply needing to wrap things up.

I’m happy for Albert Pujols.  Truly and completely, I am happy that a man of his character has found favor in such a way.  And for my part, I will continue to cheer him on, not because I value what he does on the field, but rather what he does off of it.

I am, however, still a bit shocked at the priorities of our nation and the value we place on those who entertain.  I am afraid I feel both emotions equally, though they are a bit conflicting.

Your thoughts?

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Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , , ,

Penn State: The Shame of it All

November 16, 2011 by

Post edit: There seems to be some confusion by some to my statement that I won’t allow my children to be alone with anyone outside of family members or friends who have earned the highest level of trust.  The operative word in that statement is alone. My kids will, and do, go to homes to play with people that I don’t know well.  But there is still a level of trust that I’ve developed even with those families and I know that my kids are in a group and are safe.  There are also a number of wise, godly men that have no relation to us that have earned such a level of respect with me that I want and desire them to have an influence on my boy’s lives.  But even those men would agree that taking my kid on a weekend trip alone would be unwise and outright foolish.  When my boys are teenagers, a little more freedom will be given to them to meet with godly men who have earned my trust.  But, in my mind, no matter how trust worthy a man (and yes, I have singled out men in this case because I am specifically talking about male leadership and its effect on my boys) there is never any reason for my boys to be meeting with him in private some place.  Not only does it open the door to speculation, but it leaves them vulnerable.  I won’t do that to them.  I don’t distrust men.  In fact, most people I meet earn my immediate respect and trust after just a few minutes.  That doesn’t change the fact, however, that I don’t want my boys alone with them.

Did I explain that more clearly?  Carry on…

I read the Grand Jury report against Jerry Sandusky the other day.  I wish I hadn’t.  I’m not linking to it here on purpose, but if you want to read it for yourself it’s a short Google search away.  But I’ll warn you that it is both graphic and disturbing.  So disturbing, in fact, that I was sick to my stomach for most of the day after reading it.

I am not a big college football follower so to be really honest, I had no idea that Joe Paterno was a college football coach.  I knew his name by the mere fact that I live with Lee Stuart who is pretty much an expert on all things sport.  I just figured Paterno was some famous Pro-team coach.  That’s how deep my level of college football expertise runs.

Today, however, I know more about Mr. Paterno and the things that I know, I do not like.  Great football coach?  I guess.  But he’s also a man that put football before a child.  He put a game and a program before a little boy.  He and several others chose silence and somehow they were able to sleep at night.

I don’t have a lot of repect for Joe Paterno.

The devastating details of abuse at Penn State go beyond football obsession.  It is more than just money and prestige that kept numerous people from doing the right thing and going to authorities and making sure Sandusky never had access to small children again.  The problem is deeper than that.

Lack of love.

The root of the issue is a selfishness so dark and wicked and ugly that it allows a man to remain silent after witnessing an act so heinous.  Love of a game?  Nah.  Love of life?  Nope.  Love of self?  I do believe so.  The very idea that Sandusky was caught more than once makes me so deeply angry I find it hard to see straight.  What stops someone from going to the authorities after seeing such evil?  What resides in our hearts that allows us to choose right over such wrong?

Where was the respect for human life?  Where was the simple act of putting the interests of someone else – a child, no less – above your own?  It’s baffling to me and yet somehow I know that I possess the same ability to cover up wrong to protect…me.  Perhaps not to this horrific of a degree, but that type of self preservation resides in all of us.  And I hate it.  With every fiber of my being, I hate it.

Reading the report only confirmed to me the thing which I had already determined in my heart the second I found out I would birth a boy.  My sons will never, under any circumstances, be alone with another man other than their father or close family members in whom I have placed my fullest trust.  No youth worker, no teacher, no pastor or leader – no one at all will do anything alone with my boys.

I’ve long since held this position, but reading the report confirms it and then some.  Jerry Sandusky gave every appearance of being trustworthy and good.  Heck, he seemed downright admirable.  Look at all the work he did for underprivilieged and at risk kids!

Yes, look at all the work he did for underprivileged and at risk kids.

There are kids who will never be the same because of Jerry Sandusky and the network of men who silently supported his sick addiction.  How can we sit silently through this madness? At what point does our silence add to the problem?

How did those boys feel, knowing someone saw but nobody came?  Silence can be deafening, you know.

I can understand why those young boys were allowed to spend time with Jerry Sandusky.  Most of them were in need of a male figure and why not let your child spend the night in the home of a seemingly upright man with a heart of gold?  I don’t really blame the parents, though I wonder why they missed the signs.  One mother tried.  She noticed, she knew and she reacted but to what end?

Where was the justice?!

For my part, I won’t ever leave my child in the care of a man alone.  My children won’t sleepover at anyone’s house unless I know the people extremely well, I know what goes on in that household and I have the topmost amount of respect for the people in whose care I’m placing my child.

The risks simply don’t outweigh the benefits.

My sons won’t go to lunch alone with another man.  They won’t participate in Bible studies where they are alone or secluded with another man.  A public place?  A group?  Yes, provided I know and trust the person they’re with.  But alone?  Never.  It just won’t happen.  You see, these boys?  They’re mine.  And I’ll protect them at all costs.

So here I remain, a woman who knows little about college football but too much about a “legendary coach.”  I pity Joe Paterno, but I do not feel sorry for him.  My heart breaks instead for the young men who were violated by his silence.  Young men who were shown as boys no more than a blind eye and a blank stare.

What are your thoughts?  What rules and guidelines do you have for your children regarding who they spend their time with and how they protect themselves from predators?

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Filed Under: Kids, Motherhood, Sickness, Sports Tagged With: , , , ,

Where we were then

October 30, 2011 by

We are the World Series Champions!

Alternately titled: I didn’t know I could love baseball this much.

The St. Louis Cardinals are the World Series Champions.  You probably already knew that, but unless you’re from Missouri or Texas it likely didn’t mean much to you.  Truthfully, not that long ago it wouldn’t have mattered much to me either.  While I’ve always enjoyed sports, I have never been much of a fanatic.  I could take ’em or leave ’em.

Until this World Series.  I don’t know what came over me, honestly.  Maybe it’s the fact that we just moved away from St. Louis and I was feeling nostalgic, maybe it’s the fact that my son is finally at an age where sports are a huge deal, maybe it’s the fact that I was smack dab in the middle of a strict diet and I was delirious from hunger…

Whatever the case, I was a nut job over this World Series.  I wanted to see every game and I nervously paced and sighed and yelled and fussed over all of them.  I told you – I’m a terribly nervous sports fan.

It could be that this is the first time baseball has been really exciting.  Watching Sloan dissect each pitch and interact with Lee like a grown up made my heart turned ten shades of happy. Hearing Tia yell, “Texas, you awre goin’ down like China town,” cracked me up.

Hearing Landon declare that he was going to stay up “til the Wowrld Serious ends” and then watching him fall asleep before the first pitch was thrown made smile.

There was just something about this Championship series that was magical.  Had it been any other combination of teams, I probably wouldn’t have cared quite as much, though I would have still been excited to watch the game with my first born’s commentary running in the background.

“Oooohhh…that pitch was nasty. Did you see that nasty pitch?”

“Okay, John Jay…time to be a hitter.  Aw, man!  Jay don’t swing at the first pitch!”

“Okay guys, time to play smart.  We need smart baseball here.”

Thursday night found the kids and I at my parents condo so we could watch Game 6.  Lee was at a dinner and wouldn’t be home until late so we decided to make it a baseball night sans daddy.

It was a make or break game.  The Cardinals had to win it or I would be teaching my fiery first born the finer points of losing gracefully.  And after the sixth inning, when it appeared that all hope was lost and the game was over for the Cardinals, I prepared myself to give him the “someone’s got to win and someone’s got to lose” speech.

“That’s it,” Sloan huffed as yet another foolish error was made in the outfield.  “Texas is going to win.  I’m done watching this stupid game.” And with that, he stomped to his bed.

I, however, decided to stay up and see if maybe, just maybe, the Cards could pull off yet another miracle. And they did not disappoint. Lee and I texted back and forth until just after midnight when my phone died and the Cardinals and Rangers entered into the 11th inning tied…again.

And then…well, honestly?  I fell asleep.

Okay, so I’m not a total die hard sports fan yet.  I closed my eyes when the commercials came on with the intention of opening them again when the game started back up.  Instead, I opened them to find an elated Lance Berkman being interviewed with clips of David Freese hitting the game winning walk off home run.  (He’s an alumni from my high school, you know).

(Name dropper)

(Naw…if I was a name dropper I’d tell you about the time that Lee played basketball with Albert Pujols).

Stellar Parenting 101: Take your exhausted 3 year old to a sports bar at 10:00 at night and tell him you're sorry he's tired but you're not leaving so he better curl up on the chair. At least he slept, right?

So Friday night found us all piled up together at Buffalo Wild Wings for Game 7.  Landon fell asleep on my lap within minutes and we stayed until the beautiful, glorious end when the Cardinals defied the odds and won.

It was thrilling because it was our home team.

It was thrilling because they fought hard and beat a really good, tough team.

It was thrilling because we were together, just the five of us, making a memory with our kids to last a lifetime.

When the kids are grown and are taking their own children to baseball games, I pray they remember the night we closed down a sports bar.  I hope they remember what they were doing when the St. Louis Cardinals won their 11th World Series title.  I hope they tell their kids where they were when…

I will have the memory of that night treasured up and stored inside the most sacred sanctuary of my heart.  And every day, as I walk outside and watch Sloan reenact the moment the Cards won the game in our backyard (and reenact he does, he mimics every player’s reaction from Yadi to Pujols to Purcal to LaRussa) I’m reminded that raising kids is a series of moments pieced into the tapestry that makes up a life.

It is flashes of time, memories and laughter all strung together, that I pray leaves them with a sense of love that will be unmatched until they one day repeat the cycle with their own children.

Thank you, St. Louis Cardinals for giving our family a memory to last a lifetime.

Filed Under: Family, Heritage, Kids, Life, Motherhood, Sports Tagged With: , , , , ,

The Field

October 17, 2011 by

He runs out the door, all red-faced and sweaty and dashes into my arms, crumbling into a heap of bitter sobs.  He who is almost to my neck still needs to be held and I realize that his size belies the fact that he is still no more than a little boy.

Our new neighborhood is teeming with boys, a posse of sweaty necked masculinity races down the street all afternoon.  My Tia, a rose among thorns, keeps up with little complaint, though I know she longs for a companion to sit on the rug in her purple room and play dolls with.

On any given afternoon, they gather in our backyard.  It is a football field, you know.  In fact, I believe my husband has promised Sloan a football birthday party, complete with striping the yard. 

Oy…

At one point, there were ten boys altogether, joined to tackle one another with max force and ample glee.  Sloan is sandwiched.  Most of the boys are 10-12 years old.  A couple are five and six.  Sloan stands the odd man out, eight years old and as tall as the bigger boys in stature, but lacking their experience and maturity.  It starts well, but then he misses the ball.

“Oh come on, dude!” they scream.  “You gotta catch those!”  He tosses the ball to them indignantly and presses on.  Then he’s tackled, he fumbles and second by second he loses control of the game that’s happening in his very own yard.  Finally the moment comes when he gets the ball and doesn’t drop it.  He makes a mad dash toward the goal line only to be clobbered by an eleven year old screaming like a starved goblin.

It’s at this moment that Sloan begins to reveal his age.

The tears and the anger are hard to suppress.  He swears off football forever, he declares his utter disdain for those boys and he sobs gut wrenching cries that break his Mama’s heart.  I’m ready to go out and full on tackle the boys myself, my mom hackles fully bared.

But Lee just sits quietly and calmly as Sloan rants on and on.  Finally, when he’s paused long enough to take a breath, Lee looks straight in his eyes.

“Are you ready to listen to me now?” he asks.

Sloan nods, his eyes shooting daggers and his cheeks flushed red.

“If you want to play with the big boys, son, you’re gonna have to toughen up.  If you can’t do that, then you just don’t need to play ball with them.”

And that’s that.  Such simple wisdom from father to son.  It’s much better than what I planned to say.  My monologue about everyone needing to respect one another and use kind words and not tackle too rough quickly escaped me and we all sat in silence for a few minutes.  Sloan’s eyes filled with giant alligator tears and his chin quivered.

“But I don’t like it when they’re mean to me,” he whimpered.

“I know,” Lee answered.  “But you can’t take it personally.  You have to get up, brush it off and get back in the game.  That’s the only way you’re going to get better.”

We left for dinner with Sloan still holding firm that he would never again play football but a seed had been planted inside the heart of my stubborn boy.

Watching my child grow and face disappointment is painful.  But it’s entirely inevitable and it’s only going to get worse as he grows older.  There is always going to be someone who is better, someone who is bigger, someone faster and stronger and smarter and…

Teaching our young ones to handle disappointment with grace is a beautiful challenge.  Letting them spread their wings and fall to the ground is extra hard on Mama Birds.  If I had my way, I’d be cradling him still, singing Disney songs and stroking his hair.

Lovely.

But with each day, he pulls away from me just a little bit more.  He challenges me harder, cuddles less and fits on my lap like a Great Dane, all spindly knees and elbows spilling this way and that.  My job now is to step back a bit and push him toward his dad more and more.  I take the back burner as the training toward manhood takes place.

Of course, I’m always ready with a cookie and a fierce hug should life’s knocks come a little too hard and fast.  But once the tears are dried and the hurt subsides, it’s time to push him back on the field and let him try to stand on his own two feet.

All I can do is watch and pray that the seeds of wisdom that have been planted begin to take root and sprout a man of character.

Whether he can play football is utterly beside the point.

Filed Under: faith, Family, Kids, Lee, Motherhood, Sloan, Sports Tagged With: , , ,

How Baylor Football Changed Me Forever

October 16, 2011 by

It was 1999 and I was a senior walking beneath the cloud of new love.  I didn’t have a ring on it yet, but it was only a matter of time (weeks, to be exact).  We were headed to yet another Baylor Bears football game where we would talk and visit and only occasionally check the field to measure just how badly we were losing.

My time at Baylor will not be remembered for great football…

At some point during this particularly overcast and chilly day, the pace of the game changed.  Baylor was winning. It was a thrill almost entirely unknown to me since I had spent most of my four years at the school accepting defeat with grace.

The crowd was electric.  The score was 24-21 against UNLV and there were 20 seconds left in the game.  Baylor had the ball at the 8 yard line.  This was our time – the day to rejoice.  All they had to do was down the ball.  Just put down a knee.  So easy.  So very, very easy.

Until…

Wait.  What’s that?  Why are they? Wait…huh?

“A two point conversion!  What are they doing running a two point conversion!” My husband to be roared as the Rebels’ Kevin Thomas scooped up the fumbled ball and began making a dash down the field.

I had no idea what a two point conversion was or what on Earth had just gone down, but from the look on Lee’s face, I knew I needed to be horrified.  I wanted to shout at the field with him, make my protest known at this mysterious call.  But I could do no more than clutch my head in my hands, my mouth open in a horrified stare, no sound permitted to escape.

And as the clock ticked down to zero, the entire stadium watched in stunned silence as Thomas ran the ball into the end zone for a 99-yard touchdown to win the game.

I almost cried.  I don’t even care about football that much, but that day…I nearly cried.  And since then, I have never been the same.

I’m not a great sports fan to begin with.  Games make me a nervous wreck.  If I care about one of the teams in play, I find myself jumpy, fidgety and nervous.  But when my team does begin to win, I feel a sudden onslaught of sympathy for the opposing team and I want them to at least not lose badly.  But if my team starts to lose I get all jumpy and jittery and I start to talk loud and fast and…

Don’t get me started on how uptight I get when I don’t care about either one of the teams.  I alternate between total exhilaration for the winning team and utter sympathy for the losing team.  I’m like a sports crazed Sybil.

I’m not one of those cool girls who yells at the TV and high fives when the football dude runs the ball into the end zone.  Oh no.  I’m the chick in the corner nervously biting her nails and gorging herself on little hot dogs slathered in barbeque sauce straight from the crock pot.  I’m the girl pretending not to care because if she pays attention to the game too closely she might have a nervous breakdown.

The St. Louis Cardinals are currently playing Game 6 of the NLCS Championship against the Milwaukee Brewers.  I haven’t watched much of the series for two reasons:

1.) We don’t have cable so watching isn’t that easy.  Lee has taken the kids to Chili’s to watch several of the games.  I went with them once, but the rest of the time I declined because if given the option to be alone in my house for a couple of hours, I’m going to say yes.  Sorry Red Birds, I love ya, but…

2.) It makes me crazy.  C-to the-RAZY.  I want the Cardinals to win and I can’t stand the pressure.  I can’t stand it. As we speak, Lee has the game on the radio and we’re listening to the game on ESPN.  And this, friends, is next to torture.  TORTURE. Because the noise of the crowd is intensified over the radio and the announcer’s voices keep going up in decibels and sweet-mother-of-all-that’s-holy-I-NEED-A-DRINK.

So Cardinals, I hope you win.  I really do.  And if you make it to the Series, I will watch as often as I can mooch a TV screen.  But I will watch through my fingers, I will pace, I will likely chew off all my nails and I’ll probably leave the room now and again to take a deep breath.

By the end of the Series, I will probably have an ulcer.  Don’t worry, though, I won’t blame you.

I blame the Baylor Bears.

*Disclaimer: I love Baylor University.  My four years there were by far the best of my life and I would do them all again in a heartbeat.  Except that one game.  I would skip that game if I got a do-over…

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Filed Under: Family, Random, Sports Tagged With: , , ,
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