SOM 4&5 Dia de Futbol: Part 1

"First in the competition, last to be picked for a game."

The Pistol, commenting on Sean's football win

Trash talk. From concrete courts in the Bronx to fantasy football message boards in suburbia. It can be found everywhere a game is being played by hyper competitive people.

Watching ESPN's latest (and absolutely fantastic) 30 for 30 documentary about the legendary Michigan freshmen entitled The Fab Five, I learned an interesting fact. According to the film, along with baggy shorts and black socks, the unique and inventive gifted freshmen also introduced college basketball to the practice of trash talk. Now can this statement be validated? I tend to disregard the age old adage "Don't believe everything you hear on TV," so when I hear Jalen Rose tell me that trash talking didn't exist in college basketball before the Fab 5 came along, I blindly believe him. If this is true, then trash talk has come a long way since 1992.

All sorts of games these days are dominated by trash talk. I participate in a fantasy football league who's main priorities are:

1. Be good at trash talking on message boards

and,

2. Be fairly familiar with how to play fantasy football.

It's what makes me like Ray Lewis more and most people like Philip Rivers less. Mike Tyson rebuilt his career on it and made millions talking it after his prison stint. It's the one reason I talk to my brother during baseball season. But Jalen Rose is probably wrong. The first caveman who clubbed the hottest chick and drug her back to his cave probably talked shit about it the entire way. We're men. It's what we do.

Which is why on Saturday when Sean, a high school hero, bested a bunch of other high school heroes during the football challenge it was only natural that trash was talked. Sean backed up his lofty talk though (word was he boasted he could go 10 for 10 hitting one of the uprights with a football) by winning SOM 4/Football challenge. Sean came in second in the accuracy throw, had the fifth longest punt, the third longest throw and was in the top three for field goal kicking. It was by some accounts completely expected (Sean's account) and by other's (pretty much everyone else's) out of the blue. Sean's resume stacks up though. If we're to believe him, he started QB for his high school team all four years, kicked every single field goal for them and also was the team's punter. Either it was a small school or he was awesome with an exclamation mark.

The irony is though this post centers around the concept of trash talk, I have no grounds to do it. Sean was consistently better than everyone else in the challenges we competed in. That may not sit well with some of the competitors, but the writing is on the wall none the less. I guess when it comes down to it all we have left is trash talk. We can call his mom fat or his sister ugly or his girlfriend a whore, but in the end he will be able to do what every winner in the history of winners have earned the right to do and that is to point and say the one thing losers hate to hear..."Look at the scoreboard"

Football Standings:

If you're reading this and you are unfamiliar with SOM I'll describe the challenge for you (and also ask you who are you and why are you reading this?)

The football challenge is broken down into four events: The Accuracy Throw, the Long Toss, Field Goal and Punt.

The Accuracy Throw is five throws at each upright and the crossbar, 15 total. Each competitor was throwing from the 10 yard line. The Long Toss was an elimination game where each competitor threw from 25 yards out through the uprights, stepping back 10 yards after every successful throw. If you missed at a distance twice in a row, you were out. Field Goal was set up the exact same way. The Punt competition experienced a little bit of turmoil this year when the Men disagreed over what the punt consisted of: where it hits or where it rolled to. Since the rule in the beginning included the roll and was not challenged until the competition began, the punt distance included the roll. Next year we may cut the roll and just calculate where the punt hits. Same as last year; winner gets 8, second gets 7 and so on down the line.

ACCURACY:

Johnson 7 of 15

Sean 7 of 15 (tie breaker went to Johnson)

Jeff 4 of 15

Couls 4 of 15

Pete 3 of 15

Bing 3 of 15

Jantz 2 of 15

Zach 2 of 15

PUNT:

Pete...probably a 60 yarder (at least 20 on the roll)

Couls...longest out of the air but lack the bounce, 5 yards short of Pete's

Zach....good bounce, around 10 to 15 yards short of the winner

Jantz...barely a yard or so behind zVirus

Sean...some roll to it, but not enough

Johnson...good distance in the air but all his kicks suffered the backward bounce

Bing.....short of the winning kick by 25 yards or so

Jeff.....three worst kicks of the day all sitting short of the 25 yard line (sadly for him he bombed a 70 yarder off by himself when it didn't count)

LONG TOSS:

Jeff: far and away the winner; ended up throwing a spiral almost 65 yards through the uprights

Pete: part of the top three that beat everyone else by at least 20 yards

Sean: his arm tired in the end quicker than Pete's; neither were competition for Jeff

Bing: a huge improvement from last year throwing around 20 yards further in '11

Johnson: his last throw looked like a dying animal falling to the ground

Couls: did his best to keep pace, but didn't have the arm to last long

Jantz: got beat by Couls in a tie breaker

Zach: weakest arm of the bunch; basically the looks of Tom Brady but the arm of Gisele

FIELD GOAL:

Sean/Jantz/Jeff: the top three

***after the top three, we ended up not finishing out the field goal kicks because halfway through the standings were cemented in and nothing would have changed***

Johnson: underperformed in an event that he felt he should have excelled in

Couls: his soccer skills couldn't help him here

Zach/Bing: a tie, though it should be noted that Bing conceded zVirus as the better field goal kicker

Pete: missed his only two field goal kicks

1st Sean............23-25 pts---(2nd, 5th, 3rd & 1/2/3)
2nd Jeff.............21-23 pts---(3rd, 8th, 1st & 1/2/3)
3rd Pete............20 pts------(5th, 1st, 2nd & 8th)
4th Johnson......20 pts------(1st, 6th, 5th & 4th)
5th Couls..........19 pts------(4th, 2nd, 6th & 5th)
6th Jantz...........15-17 pts---(7th, 4th, 7th & 1/2/3)
7th Bing............12-13 pts---(6th, 7th, 4th & 6/7)
8th Zach...........10-11 pts---(8th, 3rd, 8th & 6/7)

to be continued.....Part 2 of Dia de Futbol

Half Marathon Update

As of today 6 of the 8 Men have signed up for the Rock and Roll San Diego Half Marathon. Johnson and Jeff are both conceding defeat at this point.

The Half Marathon is scheduled for June 5th.

Sidenote: An interesting plotline is developing. Man Challenger Pistol Pete has recently signed up along with his GF Caster Troy, who by all accounts is quite the little runner. The big question is will the Pistol be bested by his lady friend? Right now she's a 5-1 favorite and we'll be accepting wagers at Club Grand up until race day.

Good luck Frosted Flake....you're gonna need it.

SOM 3 Bowling

"You mark that frame an 8 and you are entering a world of pain."

-Walter Sobchak

Don't look now but a new bowling world record may have been set late Tuesday night in the small neighborhood of Kearney Mesa. A man (I use this term loosely) bowled three of the shittiest games in the history of the sport (I also use this term loosely), a feat that will most likely never be matched again. At least not by someone over the age of 6. Early reports coming out of Kearney Mesa Bowling Lanes is that on average most middle school pizza party bowling groups bowl higher than one Jason Johnson of Pacific Beach California. Johnson averaged a raggedy andy 91. In basketball, golf or in a ridiculously awesome football game that would be a good score. In bowling it's the equivalent of watching a kid with down syndrome compete on Jeopardy.

According to the internet (and as we all know if it's on the internet it's 100% true) the average bowling score for men is 150 to 160 (Women are closer to 130). I give you now the average score tallied by the 8 men competing in SOM 2011 where we bowled three games, dropped the lowest score and averaged the remaining two. I'll let the numbers do the talking (and yes, I scored like an average woman, don't rub it in).

Couls 200.5

Bing 172

Taka 161

Sean 158.5

Pistol 157

Jantz 131.5

Klemo 128

Johnson 91

Bing and Pete were fairly consistent bowlers, each putting up exactly the same number in the first two games (172 and 157 respectively). They both fell off the pace in the last game though which most likely cost Pete two spots, falling to Sean by a mere pin and a half. Sean bowled out of his mind in the first game with a 181 and then followed that miracle by notching a 112 and a 138. Jantz ended up being the most consistent bowler (129, 125, 134). Unfortunately for him he was consistently shitty, garnering a sixth place finish. Jeff, the wild card, again showed why he was a strong addition to SOM 2011 by throwing bullets and finishing in the top three. With his game faltering (after starting out with a 178, he quickly put up a 144 and then a 106) he ended the second game with four straight strikes (and started the next game by throwing his fifth straight strike) which saved him from totally choking away a great start.

In the end, Couls won back the first place watch from Pete being the only bowler to touch the 200's. Johnson was never a factor and for his trouble he was rewarded with the last place supergay bracelet (which honestly needs to be supergayer...Lush would no doubt be stoked to wear the High School Musical piece of jewelry). I'm predicting right now that Johnson is the proud owner of the last place talisman for, at the very least, the next month.

Next up on the calender is a big 16 Point Dia de Futbol....SOM 4 &5: Football (Punt, Pass & Kick) and Soccer. Futbol and Futbol Americano if you will. We'll be at the OB Rec Fields at 9 AM on Saturday if anyone would like to come by a watch a bunch of high school heroes reliving the glory days.

The Numbers:

Couls.....200/165/201

Bing.......172/172/129

Jeff........178/144/106

Sean......181/112/138

Peter.....157/157/128

Jantz.....129/125/134

Zach......115/109/141

Johnson...77/82/100

It appears that Johnson was out of his element.

SEAN WINS AN EVENT

Oops. Meant to post that on April Fool's.

One day late. My bad.