Our School’s Tradition
I remember when I was a kid, my school used to host an annual intramural baseball game. It was a huge event, which we the students all called the “Annual Baseball Game,” or simply, the Game. Every year, the best players from the year before picked the teams, and of course, the team captains always went on to pick the next best kids in line, because they wanted to win.
It was always a killer game. Like clockwork, every year the entire student body would make their way out past the black top to the baseball diamond, lunch boxes and Capri Suns in hand, anxious parents trailing a few yards behind.
Even kids from the other school across town, who were our rivals, used to sneak over the school’s fence to watch, and you could see the look of trepidation on their faces, since those kids on the field slamming homers and working like a precise, well-oiled machine to get out after out after out were exactly the ones they’d be playing in the upcoming city-wide All Star Game later in the year.
Even though I was never good enough to get picked for the team, I felt a tremendous sense of pride just watching the other kids play. It made me happy. That was my school. Every kid playing on that field, whether offense or defense, deserved to be there because they were the best.
We were the best.
The New Rules
Then one day, a few of the students who never got picked to play in the Annual Baseball Game complained that they felt left out. Their feelings were hurt, they said; they wanted to play, too; it wasn’t fair, why should only the athletic kids get to play?
So the yard narcs made a new rule that any student who wanted to play was guaranteed a spot on the team. Suddenly, the overwhelming flood of new players made picking teams impossible. The team captains threatened to quit.
The principal herself was called to settle the issue. The principal’s solution was to institute a lottery system, drawing the names of any student who wanted to play in the game from a hat to make sure the choosing was random, and therefore, fair. The choosing process was taken completely out of the team captains’ hands.
The game that year was a mess. Balls were dropped. Balls flew down centerfield without being caught by the right mitt. It didn’t look anything remotely like what a baseball game should. The team captains spent the whole hour screaming their heads off for their teams to get it right, but the new players—the ones who had demanded so vociferously that they be allowed to play—simply didn’t know what to do.
Where I had always felt a great sense of pride watching my school’s best and brightest kick ass, or get their asses kicked honorably in the name of Us, I suddenly felt something else. I felt ashamed. And I knew the rest of the audience did, too, because by the halfway point, most of the crowd had sauntered away from the bleachers, back to the other parts of the playground or indoors to play POGs or Magic cards. The only people left watching to the very end were the parents of the kids playing.
Meanwhile, our rivals from across town smirked and whispered amongst themselves, where they watched far away smoking cigarettes and leaning against the back fence of the school, their gleeful faces bright and confident that they would have this year’s All Star Game in the bag.
And they did. We got crushed that year. And the parents of the athletic kids, only a handful of whom had actually gotten to play in the intramural game thanks to the new lottery system, were livid. Our school spirit had suffered a critical blow, and the resulting defeat at the hands of our rivals was absolutely brutal, made even worse by the fact that it was our first loss since my parents had been students at the school, breaking a twenty-four year winning streak.
So, when the next year’s intramural game was being planned, the athletic kids’ parents got together and put out a flier urging the school authorities to return the Annual Baseball Game to its original rule set, letting the team captains choose their own teams without interference from above, and also that the lottery system be abolished.
But the non-athletic kids who weren’t good at playing ball were not about to give up their hard-won time in that glorious once-per-year spotlight in front of our entire community. Their parents, too, buckled down for a fight.
The Parent/Teacher Meeting
There was an emergency parent/teacher meeting called to determine the fate of the annual intramural ball game. The principal herself presided. Things got ugly. The room was divided into two sides: the athletic kids and their parents on one side, and the non-athletic kids and their parents on the other.
There was a lot of yelling. Any rational argument presented by either side was instantly drowned out by shout-downs of “That’s bullshit!” or “You just want YOUR kid to play!”
Eventually, one parent stood up and proposed the whole room take a vote. The audience sat down and those in favor of the new rules raised their hands, then everyone in favor of the old.
The majority of the room, by a fair margin, actually wanted to keep the old rules and let the team captains pick their teams. The principal wasn’t happy about this, but she respected the democratic decision of the parent/teacher meeting and made the call: the team captains could again pick their teams, and the lottery system was to be officially abolished.
Well, that would’ve been nice, but it didn’t last long.
The Protest
The non-athletic kids’ parents were so disgruntled that a few of them stormed out of the conference room, and the next day there was a protest in the staff parking lot of our school. A bunch of the non-athletic kids’ parents stood in the parking lot blocking the teachers’ parking spaces and holding signs with slogans like “No discrimination in our schools!” And “ALL children are special!” And “My child can play ball, too!” Some of the signs even had pictures of the principal with her face crossed out.
The story made the local news. I got interviewed and was on TV for all of ten seconds, saying I thought the whole thing was pretty dumb, and I just wanted to watch a good game. I was disappointed when the clip aired, because I got cut off, and when the segment shifted back to the anchors, they seemed to laugh at my opinion, going so far as to call the protesting parents “heroic” and the non-athletic kids “brave”.
To be honest, a lot of those kids looked like their parents were embarrassing them and they just wanted to go home. But, long story short, the principal caved. We all received a school email the following day after the news program aired, informing us that the old rules were being thrown out again, and the lottery was being reinstated. Also, there was one additional rule: no more team captains would be grandfathered in from the previous year’s games, and instead from now on the yard narcs would be the team captains.
The note ended with a somber mention that the Annual Baseball Game, our school’s great tradition, should include everyone of every ability, and that we all had different strengths and personalities that made us unique.
I remember thinking to myself: okay, but what the hell does that have to do with baseball?
A Game In Free Fall
We got crushed again at the All-Star Game that year, and the year after. By my second to last year, I stopped going to the annual intramural game all together, and only showed up at the city’s All-Star Game to see the girl I liked and to hang out with my friends.
I sure as hell didn’t care about our team. The really athletic kids who were good at baseball had all long since joined the county’s private youth league, since the Annual Baseball Game was a joke, and none of them had time to practice for or play in the All-Star Game, so only the mediocre kids played. Against our cross-town rivals, who practiced day-in and day-out to beat us, we were nothing. Hell, little old non-athletic, can’t-catch-a-fly-ball-for-nothin me could have made the team at that point with flying colors, but I didn’t want to. Our school was an embarrassment.
That night some of the kids from across town picked a fight with my friends and me. I didn’t know if it was because we were outnumbered, or because we just didn’t have enough school pride to really fight them with heart, but I distinctly remember it was the first time I ever got my ass handed to me in a fistfight. I went home with two black eyes, a fat lip, a chipped front tooth, and two broken ribs.
I wanted to kill those motherfuckers, but part of me also knew that if I had been them, I would have kicked our asses, too. The crushing defeat our school had suffered on the baseball diamond was their way of telling us this was their town. The beating was simply the boilerplate on the message.
Getting my ass kicked wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. In fact, it may have been one of the best, because it forced me to confront my weaknesses in ways I hadn’t had a reason to before. It’s hard to ignore that your heart’s not in the fight when a bigger guy’s boot is kicking in your cheeks and teeth and ribs and you’re feeling every crunch like it’s a steel bat, just like you can’t ignore that your All-Star team is untrained and unprepared for the big game, shouldn’t even be a team at all, when you finally have to watch them getting hopelessly demolished from the bleachers.
Victory may be the greatest thing there is, but defeat isn’t the worst. The worst is a victory you’re given, but that you haven’t earned.
The New New Rules
I was in my last year of grade school when they stopped using hard bats and balls at the intramural Game. The principal had decided it was better to use wiffle balls instead, after some parents complained their kids were getting hurt at practice. Some girl didn’t catch the ball, and it hit her in the face. Her parents threatened to sue the school, then a bunch of other parents jumped on the bandwagon to say their child had been hurt too, and how could the principal let this happen, and didn’t she know this was an outrage, and that her job was at stake, and by God if she didn’t do something about this soon they would, and so on.
In all of one day, our school’s Annual Baseball Game turned into the Annual Wiffle Ball Game.
I didn’t really give a shit about any of it at that point. I remembered loving the Annual Baseball Game when I was a little kid, but that feeling was long gone. Me and a few of my friends showed up just to see what a joke it was, and what we thought would be a ridiculous spectacle turned out to be a completely depressing one instead.
The field was full of non-athletic kids. And I mean, really non-athletic. It was bad. I didn’t know who most of them were. I remember thinking: did they all come out of the Magic card room? Was this the first time they’d been outside all year? Not one of the pale, flabby bodies on that field looked like they could run a lap without stopping to catch their breath. I was embarrassed I had ever felt pride over such a farce.
A single cheering voice echoed from the bleachers. It was the mom of the kid currently batting. The other parents looked overheated, and bored. As her fat, red-faced Huffington rounded first base, Wiffle Ball Mom cupped both hands to her mouth and shouted: “Go on, honey! You can do it! Just do your best!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the kid playing left field scoop up the ball on his fourth try, and cock his arm to throw it at second base. Then he paused and stayed there, not doing anything. I remembered a new rule the principal had instated, that any kid who hit the ball was to be allowed three bases before the opposing team could try to get them out.
The next year, after I graduated, the principal banned the concept of “outs” from the game entirely.
A few years later, my school pulled out of the All-Star Game too, the reason cited being a lack of financial support from the parents of the student body. But I think poor performance and lack of interest were bigger reasons. We hadn’t won the city’s All-Star Game in years. Forget that we’d been the champions for two decades. What point was there in showing up if no one cared?
Why Nothing Gold Can Stay
By the time my kids were enrolled at the school, the city’s school board had decided not to have an All-Star Game at all, claiming it bred the wrong kind of competition between the town’s two biggest elementary schools, and this rivalry could possibly lead to violence. I sure as hell never ratted out those guys who beat me up back in the day, and I’m sure me and my friends weren’t the only ones. But the school board pushed hard for friendly competition between the two districts on the opposite sides of our town, rather than rivalry. They even dumped a lot of money in advertising dollars, a large portion of their total yearly budget, into raising awareness for the campaign.
Instead of a citywide All-Star Baseball Game, we now have a citywide Wiffle Ball Game. Any kid from the age of 6-18 is allowed to join, regardless of ability and with no prerequisites, physical, mental, or otherwise. I checked it out one year not too long ago out of morbid curiosity, but I was the only person on the diamond other than the umpire, who the taxpayers were compensating either way, regardless of whether or not anyone else showed.
No one did.
Read more: What’s An Athlete To Do When It Comes To Rings Vs. Money?
Super Gay. Fawking potatoes……………..
Depressing.
Damn, that sucks. In this society, everyone gets a trophy, regardless if they earned it or not.
It’s “regardless whether they earned it or not,” but, I gave you an upclick for making the effort.
But he tried. That’s what counts.
The only problem is that now I have to go find someone typing with their forehead and give them an upclick as well, or I’m going to burn in egalitarian Hell.
The word you’re looking for is ‘communism’
I’m awarding you a medal for making this statement. Well done son!
And thats exactly the problem. Everyone gets a trophy for just showing up. Now they have to go to work and they are lost -no trophies at work -lol
Could be a similar article about the NFL someday….
Fake.
You mentioned POGs and school wide emails in the same story. Schools didn’t send out emails to parents in the mid nineties, and not enough people had the internet in their homes for email to be a practical way to communicate.
i was thinking while reading that this could be fiction. Lesson is still relevant, though
Sadly, it’s non-fiction.
While
the lesson is still valid, the author should either include citations to prove
his story is true, or preface the story by claiming it as a work of fiction. Either
way, this is far too ambiguous, and no better than the fat slob on the subway
who claims on her FB status that people were rude to her due to her weight. It
may be a small oversight, but those are the things that radical neo-feminists
use to undermine men all the time. We have to be better than that.
Sour grapes.
United we stand, divided we fall.
To work today is to eat tomorrow.
Fake, the lot of them.
Yeah I was wondering about that. I remember being in school in the mid 90s and it was a complete mind fuck that with the class and the librarian all together we got on some dial up internet in the library and sent an “e-mail” to my dad at his work e-mail address. It was the first time anyone involved had ever dealt with this newfangled e-mail, and this was approximately 1994 IIRC. I don’t think there was an assumption that parents would have default access to e-mail until the early 2000s.
Agreed. Fiction.
Fiction or not, the point stands.
Some communities might have been more internet enabled than others. But I think the story is true.
Uh no. I grew up in silicon valley, and even here, Most people didnt know about the internet until al gore invented it.
My old octal based compuserve emAil address didnt count for much then.
Yes but if you’ve been around for some time then you know that the message is very true. Pick anything in our society, today, that does not have this stench of fairness attached to it.
This reminded me of that father who tried to sue the Boy Scouts for not letting his daughter join. Apparently she felt left out that her 2 older brother got to go on outings.
“Never let your child suffer any disappointments” is a philosophy for shithead parents.
Sounds awfully similar to how every traditionally male profession got destroyed.
Anything remotely masculine like healthy sport competition is seen as a threat by today’s feminist society. This reminds me of the sarcastaball southpark episode
http://basementrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/south-park-season-16-8-sarcastaballs-peyton-manning-lamar-woodley-steelers-broncos-scarstaball-game.jpg
Haha butters sports drink if happiness was semen.ahh too funny. that was an apt metaphor.
Sadly, even if this story may have fictional elements, I see this going on today. I play intramural soccer and volleyball at a military base down here in Texas. For the past three years, my teams have won both the soccer and volleyball championships. Why? Because every week, I hold two to three pick up games depending on what’s in season. Now I don’t give those little facts to brag, but to make the follow point: Recently, more and more players have been showing up to play in the pick up games. Players that don’t really know how to play. Players that show up to soccer in tennis shoes, don’t have the basic coordination to make a pass, or try to hit the ball back over the net in one hit instead of a pass, set, kill. That’s fine and all because when it comes time to play, I’m the captain and I still get to pick the players I want to play with. Except for this year, with a new squadron commander, I have been ordered to make the teams fair (enough complaining of my exclusivity in participation reached the right ears), and include players of all abilities and experience. You can bet that I don’t have much confidence in winning a fourth trophy.
Now I may be making a bit of an exaggerate extrapolation here, but I have to ask the question, how long before these “fair play rules” bleed over into other aspects of the military (as if they already haven’t), but with much more dire consequences? There is no fair play in war. In this case, defeat is the worst possible thing.
Also as a side note, when I was a cadet in college, we called them NARPs. Non-Athletic Regular People. Make of that what you will
Where have you been the last 14 years?!?
The military has long since succumbed to this B.S.
I am embarrassed to serve and associate with the joke that passes for the modern US Military.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve only been in for 3 years, and am just now seeing the dilapidated state of affairs that is the inner workings of our Air Force. It’s a sad day when it only takes one disgruntled airman to ruin the career of an NCO or an officer. By no means am I trying to point fingers or blame the younger enlisted core, but with the over hypersensitivity (yes, the redundancy is necessary in this case) of our military, an 18 year old who cries wolf has far too much power over his or her superiors who have served without incident for 10 years plus
As a fellow Airman, I co-sign your sentiments 100%. I have 5 years to go. My only regret is not following my instincts and leaving after my first enlistment.
Gents, it’s a “woman’s world”, think on that. Because fiction or not, I have heard of schools canceling honors nights. So there is truth to this. Note how pathetic it is. Do you need anymore proof that we’re right?
I too have heard those sad reports Towgunner…pathetic.
WTF is this? Why not just tell a truthful story without the fake bs.
“The field was full of non-athletic kids. And I mean, really non-athletic. It was bad. I didn’t know who most of them were. I remember thinking: did they all come out of the Magic card room? Was this the first time they’d been outside all year?”
Hahahaha, great line!
I thought this allegory was excellent. Our society IS in a race toward the lowest common denominator, and is crumbling. Heroes are castigated and the botched are praised. It’s all very sad.
Just saw this after making a comment of my own. Yours was better with calling it an allegory.
As a boy in the late 60’s baseball was a beautiful thing. One father the head coach, another father an assistant coach, only boys not a girl or a mom in sight even once in the span of 6 years or so. It was all about teamwork, thinking ahead, batting stance, swing, how to throw. No fancy uniforms, no baseball cards with out pictures, nary a single photograph from those years.
When my son was a boy it was Sissy League, with loudmouth mom’s all over the place threatening to sue if her little special GIRL didn’t get to pitch.
Women. Ruin. Everything.
Good point. This why its important to control your women. They don’t mean to ruin things (usually) but they can’t help themselves. This is why they are attracted to firm, confident men who will keep their fears and desires in check and maintain security.
How many times have I heard “I love a man who tells me ‘no’”. Its because they are relieved that you won’t let them ruin everything.
“How many times have I heard “I love a man who tells me no…”
I too am getting the impression that today’s contemporary enabled “mother” and “female” would rather not have such responsibilities imposed on them. But no woman dare say this because today’s feminists are becoming violent now against other women.
Women fall to bits when you give them simple responsibilities like navigating with a map or choosing a movie to watch. It can be somewhat amusing making them do this from time to time…
My mother and my grandmother were the most happy, when they could make me a sandwich. This is how they showed love.
Marc R…do you mind if I save your quote? LOL….I was a sandwich freak when I was young…now I know why…thanks man.
There’s not many things worse than fat, angry, suburban, dependapotamous moms.
“Dependapotamous” Yes.
Lawyers, apparatchiks, regulations and laws ruin everything.
Note the ever present underlying big stick of a lawsuit. As well as the venue being a regulated public school. That’s always and everywhere the ruin of all that is worth saving. Take that away, and women are perfectly capable of behaving, and of making an important, positive contribution to their community.
And for those that don’t; just ignore them. Or stone them. Or kick them out. Or knock them out, whatever. The reason men don’t, is not because of women. But because of laws, regulations, administrators, lawyers and cops. The same coquetry of non productive, tax feeding, busybody leeches that always has and always will do nothing but Ruin. Everything.
We’ll never win a fight unless we focus on the correct enemy. And it’s not women. Pretending that is is, only serves to make us fight silly sandbox fights amongst ourselves, for no gain whatsoever.
One of my first red pill truths was that team sports are a political fuck up festival where influence buys spots and time. firther you really you were taking credit for other people’s work. Team sports are fun but in terms of true discipline training. Try an individual sport and join a good club. In the swim team everyone knows how fast they are: so much less politics. No one trying to take other people’s achievements as their own.
Behold, Slave Morality in practice.
Nietzsche and Rand’s philosophies may not be ideal, but they do a great job calling out the Egalitarian Marxist philosophies for what they are: a supremacist expression of their own deficiencies.
Unfortunately they “let them play”…
Wiffle Ball?
Fuck it, Dude, let’s go bowling.
Bowling balls are heavy, someone could get hurt
She kidnapped herself dude.
Great article! It’s making me all nostalgic for the good old days of baseball. Back when kids got their asses benched for sucking.
I loved the lessons baseball taught me; starting out, I wasn’t very good. But, I intensely hated riding pine and started practicing constantly. Eventually I became a great fielder, batter, and pitcher. However, none of those results were due to merit; they were due to getting put in my place by “unfairness,” and having a fire lit under my ass to win a starting position.
The basis of equality is envy.
And this is what you get— the pernicious, manipulative and parasitic motivations that disguise the envious in shouts for ‘equality’.
Ugly
The American psyche has become infested with envy these past few decades. Particularly the Democrat party…which is one of the main reasons I ALWAYS vote against their candidates. Envy is always destructive.
I remember being super proud of making my middle school basketball team. And being humiliated when the next year, we all got blue ribbons just for “participation”
The nanny-state crap is something kids used to see through but now I’m not so sure. One thing I believe, however, is that the evil of feminism will bring the backlash of men like us who understand its gone too far. Perhaps it’s overly optimistic, but I believe the pendulum will swing back when we get sick enough of the coddling.
“With folded hands,” a radio mini series from the 50s comes to mind when I read things like this. The point of the show was that hardship and challenge is what separates the wheat from the chaff. Taking away the chance of failure makes life not better, but grotesquely banal. We might as well be lobotomised.
Very well stated.
I remember the shame I felt at getting cut in the 9th grade from JV basketball.
Needless to say, I spent the rest of that year and the next summer hooping, running, and working out.
I made the team the next year.
I coached youth sports for 12 years. during that time I noted that for players under 5th grade, no official score was kept. Parents and kids kept score, but if the referee saw it, it would be an automatic technical foul. But why does that matter if we’re not keeping score? What the actual fuck?
Yep, once the fairness ninnies and NARPs invaded competitive team sports, those sports began to turn into feminizied kumbayah circles rather than contests of athleticism and determination.
Fuck.
That.
Shit.
I agree with the guy above who said to avoid team sports nowadays.
Sad.
Growing up in Maine, by the time I was 17, I was already halfway through paying back the $60,000 loan my father took out in his name so I could buy I lobster boat. I fished until dark after school, and on Saturdays. When I’d occasionally get shit for not playing sports and not knowing much about football, my rationale was that I was making 50k a year working part time when everyone else was begging their parents to buy them a $1,000 POS car. Teachers in school gave those of us who were children of lobstermen a lot of shit for not caring about whether we graduated or not, but we would make triple their salary in our first year, so most of us quit at 16. My father wouldn’t let me, thank God, but as ridiculously idealistic as those 2nd generation hippies were, at least they didn’t pull that sort of shit that the author described here. I suppose they were circumspect because of the salary inequality, but even today there’s no way that sort of ‘everyone gets a trophy’ mentality could exist in rural Maine. People are far too brusque and pragmatic.
In Maine, “Everyone gets a trophy” tranlates to “Everyone who thinks that ‘everyone should get a trophy’ gets a punch in the mouth. Because they fucking deserve it.”
À bientôt,
Mistral
Same here with plumbers, most people get long and expensive degrees, this is the normal path. Then they get mad at plumbers for earning several times as much without following that path.
It’s almost as if they consider plumbers are “cheating”.
Maine went decidedly for Obama twice. In 2012 the only county in Maine that went against him was Piscataquis which is not on the ocean. Even New Hampshire the “live free or die” state is now blue. New England is a total lost cause. A beautiful part of the country and I love the accent but hopelessly left wing and statist.
Amen. I got out years ago, but it’s true. Probably related to the vast majority of the population who would have been fodder for a trailer park, except that trailers don’t do well in the winter.
I suffered an eye injury when I was in middle school that prevented me from ever playing sports during my academic years. Looking back at it now, I really wish I had cause I know now that the skills I would’ve gotten playing team sports would’ve aided a lot to my self esteem and confidence. Sitting back and watching all the cool soccer, football, and basketball players rack it up with the hottest girls in my class made me feel terrible about myself and affected my dating life for a long time.
Boo fucking Hoo.There are umpteen other skills that you could excel at (the intellectual variety,or the arts,music etc).Any accomplishment from these is enough to build self esteem plus confidence and in the process attract women.Julio Igelsias was a soccer enthusiast,broke his leg,turned to music and fucked more hot girls than every jock that went to all the schools in his city.Pick what you like to do,and work at being the very best at it.The women will follow.
GR8 B8 M8, You should call me M8, really! no H8, call me M8 so we can D8 this B8
In response to the debate about whether the story is fiction or not- It’s a type of long parable. Even though it is fictional it is supposed to convey a truth to us as the readers.
This article is a fantastic example of how democracy will ruin any organization. Imagine if the guy performing emergency surgery on you or even the guy fixing your car was selected based on a democratic process, regardless of ability. Disaster would soon follow. It also brings to mind the short-lived democracy of the Russian Empire during WW1.
The trouble with democracy is that you are encouraging the false view that everyone is “equal”. You also encourage the basest, most immature decision process in people. “That’s not fair I want one too”.
“Fairness” – the first resort of any child.
that’s a sd story
Talk about an example of the current doctrines of “snowflakism” and equality gone wrong. People forget that the best positive reason for sports is the display of human excellence, where the right genetics meet discipline and endurance to create an experience for everyone to marvel at.
I would propose a national lottery to pick the next team for the soccer world cup, so that guys like these have a chance.
While this guy’s gut is outrageous, he does look like he knows what he’s doing. Appears to me like an actual athlete who just let himself go and drank too much beer.
I agree. That guy would surpass most guys coming up in the national lottery since you can see he has the right movements. The average Joes would be way worse.
Our culture is just sick if it is becoming afraid of excellence or above-average achievement.
Who’s this guy ? ,,ak86 is a sensitive male feminist and self-professed expert on cool bands, craft beer, and waxed facial hair. When he is not online fighting the evils of patriarchy, rape culture, and mean-spirited YouTube comments, he is categorically deferring to the dominating, masculine women in his life whom he desperately hopes will one day have sex with him.”
Ever heard of the concept of irony?
I think it is sarcasm. His article is to red pill to be anything but someone who sees the BS going on in the real world.
The other week I was going through some of my old stuff and found my year six report card from primary school. In the physical education section not a single traditional sport was mentioned, but line dancing and rounders were prominently featured that year. On a side note I remember getting a new teacher that year who was just about every minority you could imagine including a Muslim. She dressed like a normal person until 9/11 occurred and then insisted on dressing “traditionally”. My point being this modern form of Democracy as mentioned in the article above is designed to intentionally provoke and cause strife in the lives of everyone.
I learn’t the lesson that you must be able to deliver as a sportsman and it’s not just enough to be in the ‘team’ or have the kit.
When I was younger I was always having the fun made out of me for being fat, they used to call me names which referred to my fatness. Even now, at work, all these years later work colleagues call me Samuel Tarley because of the GOT character.
Anyway, I decided I would learn to fight and looked to learn a martial art or self defence. I tried boxing but found the sparring too tiring and hard on me and I also have an allergy to do with the boxing gloves so after being made to leave I thought I would try Karate or Judo.
I read and read and read about the martial arts until I joined a Karate Club. I turned up on my first day and had to borrow a white fighting jacket but bought a belt – a white one. Anyway the club was crap. i was far ahead of them because of all the books and magazines I had read and they were too slow at letting me try and do some actual fighting so I quit after 2 sessions. When leaving I found a black belt in the changing rooms and thought ‘fuck it’ and took it home with me.
Anyway to save money and the fact it was summer I thought I would teach my self Karate and Judo from books and magazines and blend the two to create a new better style of fighting. I read and read and practiced and practiced in the garden against a tree on the grass that I had padded up by taping on cushions and pillows.
I wore my white towling bath gown and the black belt i had taken, believing myself worthy of such a token of skill – considering all the work i was doing, both practical and in theory.
Anyway near the end of the summer I was practicing in the garden and I heard someone laughing. I looked around and i saw it was the window cleaner washing next doors windows at the top of his ladder. He could see over the fence and see me doing my practice and was laughing.
I looked up at him and went to storm off into the house, but as I did he said he was sorry. He said he was just watching and wondered what I was doing.
I told him it was a blend of karate and judo. He said I must be pretty good to have earned a black belt – but by his smile i could tell he was still mocking me.
I said that I had earned it fair and square and that because of a code of honour was unable to talk about it.
He was looking cynical and still half laughing, and said “Well you’re better than I am. I have been learning Karate for a few weeks but am only a white belt still, but hoping to get my yellow.”
I said if he keeps focus and works hard he will do it.
Anyway he says that next time he is my way he’ll bring his karate stuff and I can show him some moves.
A few weeks pass and i am in the garden again and doing kicks and punches against the tree when the window cleaner comes into the garden wearing his karate outfit. i jump back as I didnt expect him but then he said he brought his stuff and as I was obviously such a grand master could I show him some of the stuff I was doing.
I get him to do meditation for 5 mins on the grass cross legged facing each other and explain that Karate/Judo is about controlling your mind as much as a physical process. He keeps on pushing for a quick spar so in the end to shut him up I agree.
We faced each other in the garden and I moved into the Tiger Stance and he burst out laughing. So angry as fuck I shouted ‘fuck you’ and ran towards him trying to hit him on the side of the head to push him down. He side steps and pushes me off balance but I try a quick back kick which clipped his thigh.
I hit the ground and then he was on top of me, pushing me to the ground and almost strangling me kept shouting “submit, submit.” I submitted.
“Not quite a fucking grand master now are you lard ass.” He said after he let me up.
“Fuck off.” I said “and get out my garden.”
He went to grab me again as this angered him, but I ran to the kitchen door and grabbed an old broom handled and started to twirl it round my head and sides martial arts style, and said “Get out my fucking garden.”
He ran towards me quickly so I couldnt use the broom handle and knocked me to the ground. He said, “You deserve a battering.” and then stormed off.
That was that.
And I learned that you have to have the skill to back up what you say you are. Just because I had a black belt it didn’t mean I was a black belt standard fighter. And like this story says, I looked for a shortcut and instead should have probably stuck with Judo club where they would have taught me proper fighting skills.
Whatever, Fat Machieo. Wax on, wax off, fattass
This cannot possibly be a true story.
Someone tell me this is not true.
You should see the shit they pull in elementary/middle schools these days. This doesn’t sound even remotely out of the realm of possibility, to be frank.
Really well written but this can’t actually be true is it? It sounds like Atlas Shrugged for God’s sake. Where the f*$k is John Galt?
What the f’ing lefties who have hijacked the country do not understand is that games teach kids about life. That is to say not everyone has the same talents or abilities. This is true I think of most high school sports especually football. Life is a fottball game, life is a baseball game. One learns about how to work as a team, using ones talents in the best capacity. You lose somwetimes, you strategize to get back up and win.
You should write a script for a movie using this as the plotline…. it would be fucking hilarious….I would love to see the fat kids running around bumping into each other…. you gotta do it!!!! Put it up online and we’ll all contribute…..
Oh and reminds me of a joke….. Quick get down to the bookies and bet on the Special Olympics……… they’re all winners!!!!!
This is what you get when you employ Diane Moon Glampers as your principal.
And most schools these days have Mr. Glampers installed across pretty much the entire hierarchy.
The young Mr. Bergeron need not apply any longer.
This is what equality looks like.
What a disaster
Didn’t George Carlin wax on this whole ‘every child is a winner’ mindset taking hold during one of his HBO specials?
Yes, he did.
So far, every skit online that I have seen from George Carlin about American Society has been right on the money.
It’s frightening just how right he is.
Yeah. Very consistently prescient & hits a nerve. I’m not American but I was lucky enough to stumble upon his book, ‘When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops’ some years back. Started checking out his material since.
Another one of my favorite quotes, paraphrased, ‘Unlike like a lot of people, i tend to this moron thing. It’s called Thinking!’
Should be one of the foundation pillars of a well rounded education.
I smelled bullshit the second he fantasized about the fight.
“Victory may be the greatest thing there is, but defeat isn’t the worst. The worst is a victory you’re given, but that you haven’t earned.”
I will remember that
I hate this. The “let everyone play and win attitude” is messing everything up. I have an anut like this. She tells her kid hes always a winner, even if he losses! If those kids who didnt get picked maybe they should get better and EARN THEIR SPOT ON THE TEAM. Feelings need to be hurt.
My kid’s youth football starts practicing this Friday. 3 conditioning practices, then full-contact next Wednesday,
There is usually some fat kid whose Mom signs him up to make friends. He doesn’t make it through the first tackling drill.
Egalitarianism; The most destructive myth ever promulgated by mankind. Inferior elements will always seek to drag down the superior. Thus, the strong are duty bound to crush the weaker elements, lest they lose their position and join the inferior rabble. The athletic kids should have made the point quite forcefully to the weaklings, that continued efforts to sabotage the success of the game by seeking to participate would be extremely bad for their health, emphasised by a cautionary ass kicking.
Read Ragnar Redbeard’s Might is Right.
I cannot believe this is a true story. I brought it right up until the whiffle ball part. I cannot buy that any entity would take that step. It’s too stupid even for a local government.
everyone gets an E for effort. No one is allowed to be better than someone else. We are breeding a society of emotional weaklings.
Political correctness…
http://www.ironicsurrealism.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Surrender_Dignity_Forward_Maksim.jpg
I like it.
I mean I hate it, but it pretty well sums up our political climate.
Sounds like something right out of “Atlas Shrugged”.
A school district in Portland Oregon tried to institute similar crap in their soccer league … if a team got five points ahead, they automatically lost.
The very next game for that league was a game by the district’s top team. They had been practicing kicking own-goals against opposition for two days. They deliberately ran the opposing team’s score up to 5-0 in about 15 minutes.
The school board quietly dropped their new rule the next day.
Was the top team trying to play games with their own goal differential? I can’t imagine a serious team rolling over so quickly.
Maybe that top team didn’t want to play the crappy team and simply let them win so that the top team could go home?
Lol…
My god this was hard to read.
I am sorry to hear about this man. Fuckery on top of more fuckery.
People are beyond delusional
I genuinely felt sad reading this article. This story would make a powerful, but depressing movie.
I played baseball as a kid and being Canadian the stereotype of us being too nice is true. We had to have girls on our team even tho they couldn’t throw or hit worth fuck all. I was one of the better players taking pride in my sport. It always bothered my parents and I that our team allowed players who weren’t qualified for our league. Of course our coaches couldn’t allow poor Jimmy and Sally to feel left out so we had to let them play. This ‘feel good’ attitude about being afraid to hurt people’s feelings does nothing but harm. Those kids never improved because they we’re told they were just as good as everyone else. I read ROK for self improvement, those parents are doing the exact opposite
I don’t like baseball, yet I feel for you. And this is what happens when adults get too involved in their children’s lives. Let the kids play already. They can figure it out.
Bravo, America. I salute you.