Armchair Idiots: Intramurals
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by user Debo
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Armchair Idiots. Today, I’m going to examine a special kind of idiot – the ones who take casual sports way too seriously. These kinds of idiots come in various forms.
- “Softball Guy” (the guy in the co-ed softball leagues who wears elbow guards, eye-black, steel tipped cleats, a No. 69 jersey, and other ridiculous attire, all the while claiming he would have made the majors if it wasn’t for his high school coach who “had it in for him.”)
- The guy who brags about his amazing whiffle-ball last inning comeback that he had in his backyard with all his drunken buddies, as if that was an amazing accomplishment and something that would impress other people
- The guy who calls pass interference every time he drops the ball in a casual touch football game
- The guy who will throw up skull and crossbones or something equivalently “sweet” after making a 12 foot jump shot during a pickup game at the YMCA
- The guy who wears a wrist guard when he goes bowling
A couple weeks ago, my intramural co-ed flag football team was knocked out of the university playoffs. We really didn’t care so much – I mean, we played for fun, like 99% of the other teams at our college, and basically every other college in the nation. But that game we happened to be playing one of the 1% of teams that takes their games so seriously that it’s comical. Let me explain. And I’m not making any of this stuff up.
The team we played had a camera guy on the sidelines. Okay… a little weird, but I suppose filming the game isn’t so bad. But wait. Not only was this guy filming our game, but he was also commentating on it. No joke. This guy was by himself on the sidelines, because let’s face it, no one cares enough about your intramural game to come watch it, and he was freaking commentating on the game.
Apparently, these guys will watch the film of every game they play right after the game is over, to see what they did wrong, what worked well, and so on. During the game we would run our receivers right toward the cameraman and “accidentally” overthrow it, the whole time trying to hit the camera, or the guy, or have one of the players knock him over. I know it sounds cruel, but they were basically begging us to harass them. You can’t just bring a cameraman and commentator to a game and expect the other team to act like it’s a normal thing.
In addition to the camera thing, these guys had their own flags. Every other team in the league wore the crappy generic yellow or red flags that the university supplied to us. But not these guys. They had their own flags that had their team name on it (which was a lame name to begin with: “D-Unit.” Very clever). I wouldn’t be surprised to see one of them on campus walking around with the flags around their waist sometime. I really wouldn’t. These things were in immaculate condition, as if they washed them after every game. They probably did actually.
They also scouted out our team before playing us. I mean, they knew everything about us. They knew who our good players were, who our fast guys were, who could throw the ball well, etc. They actually took the time to come to a couple of our games to scout us.
The quarterback, who wasn’t very good to begin with, but thought he was REAL sweet, had a freaking wristband on that had freaking plays on it, you know, like some quarterbacks will wear in ACTUAL college football games. Honest to God, this quarterback had the same thing. Most teams don’t have any structure to their plays. The receivers will run around randomly until they’re open, and if there ever are any play calls, it’s usually called “go deep.” D-Unit had plays. Each receiver would have a specific route. They really didn’t work any better than other teams who randomly run around, but I’m sure D-Unit felt sweet running their little routes.
These guys had hot routes and audibles as well. If the quarterback saw something he didn’t like in the defense, he would call for a hot route (which in all reality, he didn’t see crap. He just thought he’d yell out the “hot route” signal to look smart, and to make it look like he knew something about football. It was pretty pathetic, actually).
We ended up getting killed 37-0. They really weren’t that great, but I’ll give them some credit. They were a pretty good team. We asked them after the game why they took everything so seriously, and they told us that they were trying to make the national co-ed intramural flag-football championships. If the name of a championship contains more than five words, it probably isn’t the kind of championship you want to strive for. Going to the Co-Ed Intramural Flag-Football Championships isn’t something I would want to brag about to my friends, or tell my grandchildren about.
Look, I know I sound bitter, but I’m not. I really couldn’t care less that we got knocked out of the playoffs. No one really cares. But these guys took this more seriously than anything I’d ever seen before. It was just sad to think about how much time these poor saps spent on watching film, scouting our team, and preparing themselves for the “big time.”
