Sunday August 23

This Week in Bud's Boys Golf

Only a two-day week with weather and outings to deal with.

Let's start with the Match play tournament. As Leroy walked up the ramp to the clubhouse after Tuesday's round while puffing on a cigar, I suspected he had won his match with KZ. He did.

 

 This makes Leroy the winner of the East Bracket, putting him in the Final Match against the winner of the West Bracket. Wayne, Rick, and Jeff will try to sort that out this coming week.

Tuesday August 18

Glen breaks a 4-game losing streak by leading his team to a FBT sweep with his double jump +6.

The side games go to Dave for his CTP and Random Skin to Bill F with his birdie on #12.

Thursday August 20

When our last group finished on Thursday with their team score of -7, -9, -16, they were grateful that Westy had won the CTP for them figuring that was their only chance in Hades of winning anything at all. Oh, Ye of little faith, never give up.

Storms and over 2 inches of rain had made the course very soggy, and our players don't score as well without our extra roll out from tee to green. Today was just such a day. The 12 players participating combined for a total of -32, resulting in some embarrassingly bad scores actually winning. That -7 Front 9 won by half a point and Westy's +2 was enough to claim today's Thursday Medalist prize giving the team an unexpected 3 victories.

That -7 also won today's Total caps off an unusual payout.

This concludes the golf coverage of the week, and you are encouraged to close out today's reading.

However, if you are determined to kill some more time, you can read an old memory triggered by Casey Kasem.

Casey Kasem's Top 40 - August 17, 1970

That was the date displayed on my screen last Friday as I was listening to the 70's channel on Sirius XM, counting down tunes from August, 1970. The song was 'Ohio' by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, number 23 that week. As I often do when I see such dates, I wondered what I was doing on that date. In this case, I worked it out that it was my first day of Freshman football practice. A long-forgotten memory was uncovered.

Monday August 17, 7:00 A.M., found me quite nervous. My first experience at my new school was about to commence at 8:00 am and I found I had no desire to eat anything. So, I settled for a glass of milk. We will come back to that later. My Mom drove me to the school and dropped me off a little early.

My brother was a sophomore and they were not practicing until evening, leaving me on my own that morning. As I had followed his freshman campaign, I really thought I had a handle on what to expect. Oh, how naive. I was told practice was at the ballpark so I, knowing better, that my brother never practiced at the ballpark, told mom to take me to the school.

I found it odd that not another person was at the school and that nobody showed up the 10 minutes I waited. Finally, a vehicle pulled up the drive. It was the assistant coach. He pulled up and told me to get in, practice was actually at the baseball park, two miles across town. Strike one on me.

It seems my mom, after dropping me off, went to the Rainbow diner to have a cup of coffee and ran into the coach. He said he would get me to practice. We arrived to see the other twenty some players already there tossing the football around.

I did play basketball at St. Augustine, but it was a stretch to call it organized. We practiced once a week at most, and it resembled more of a recess pickup game than a real practice. Understandable as our 'Coach' new nothing about basketball but had graciously agreed to babysit us. My point being I had no clue to what a structured practice was all about. Back to the story.

 A whistle blew and we lined up in rows for some calisthenics. Everyone who was at that practice still remembers the futile attempt the other newcomer, his name was Dale, at doing a jumping jack. Coach even stopped us give him a chance to work it out. That only made it worse with all eyes now on him. It's hard to describe his movements, sort of like someone else controlling his legs while his arms flailed involuntarily. I felt some guilty relief when everyone was snickering about him while I just stayed in the background. We ran some more drills until Coach gathered us up to run some plays.

This was the first day and I couldn't believe the Coach expected us to already know the plays. The truth is, however, except for Dale and I, these other players had already run these plays for 2 years as 7th & 8th graders. So, when my turn came and 'T-45 cross' was called, I had no clue where to go and the Coach let me know I better figure it out quickly. Strike two on me.

We finished with something very new to me, wind sprints. Our new Coach made up for his lack of football knowledge by focusing on our fitness. I was really not feeling so good when practice thankfully ended. Being 14, the other boys all took off in packs walking to their next destination. I meekly asked the assistant to run me to the other end of town. He agreed. 

As we neared my house, my choice of breakfast was churning, my mind willing it to stay down. I was sure I could hold off until I got out of the car. To my horror, Coach turned down the wrong street. We had moved a couple of blocks earlier in the year and he was heading to my old house. The two extra turns he had to make was more than I could take. Just yards from my house and the car still moving, I opened the door to avoid an accident in his car. Too late! Despite my best efforts, aiming something spewing that violently is not that easy to do. The car was not spared though I can't really remember how much the actual damage was. Strike three, you're out. I vowed to never return and face the humiliation of my peers.

As it turns out, I did return the next day. I don't believe the coach told anyone, at least not the players. I also learned that you didn't memorize the plays, you just followed the simple numbers of holes and back position. I also learned to never have milk immediately before a practice.

The other newbie, Dale, had come from St. Denis in Benton and was in the same boat as I. Although it took about a week, he finally could confidently do a jumping jack. In fact, the two of us shared a duffle bag for the next four years (Two players would stuff our equipment in one bag for storage on away games). 

And despite all evidence of that first practice, the two of us did catch up with the others enough to have some success on the gridiron. In fact, our pictures sit side by side on the school wall.

  Oh, I still play cards with the kindly assistant coach whose car I defiled.