BITTER SPORTS TAKE VOLUME ONE: THE BAD BULLY

Today’s the day for ‘Bitter Sports Takes,’ a new feature here.

What’s it take to make the bitter sports take?

Look at Oregon, more specifically the Oregon Ducks of Oregon Duck football.

Who remembers Auburn from nine years ago, and why does it matter?

Sports history, my friends. Sports history.

The Oregon Ducks played Auburn in the last game of the year, not the first. They played a team led by a quarterback shopped around like a commodity and landed on Auburn for a year.

It’s important to remember Cam Newton’s father was cleared of any shopping at Auburn, though not so much as Mississippi State, so Cam was reinstated after Auburn did the right thing and suspended him before the biggest game in Oregon football history.

The sports bitterness comes with losing to a questionable character wearing Auburn colors. That won’t happen this time.

Bitter Sports 2

I talked to an old man with enough bitterness to fill a stadium, but it was indirect. His came from aging out of basketball. Aging out?

At some point in every sports life you have to change your approach. Instead of beating your head against the wall, find something more satisfying.

The problem is, there is little more satisfying than facing off against someone on a basketball court.

(Once I played for a trophy watch, a gold faced chronograph. The game went on forever, but I eventually won because of my unrelenting work in the paint. And we didn’t call fouls.)

The old man had the look of a sharpshooter, someone who finally figured out how to put the ball in the hoop. Then he got Parkinson’s. His bitterness was a fact of life, a fact he didn’t dispute, but I did.

“Anytime you feel like hoisting a few, find me and I’ll rebound,” I said.

I’ve never seen him since. If someone you know aged out of basketball, buy a nerf ball and rim.

Bitter Sports 3

Whether you call it rules of the game, sportsmanship, or how the ball bounces the same for everyone, a good bully in sports is the right kind of bully.

A good bully knocks people around and helps them back up. The good bully piles on the points, but still offers a handshake and a, “good game.”

That’s the good bully and you see them on every field of play, every stadium, arena, and court.

The bad bully is the one who didn’t make the cut, couldn’t follow the rules like everyone else, and harbors bitter sports thoughts the rest of their lives.

Sometimes the bitterness overflows. In a world of winners and losers defined by sports, the bad bully is a total loser, and to make it worse, they know it.

They are the kid who was bigger and faster in eighth grade before they stopped growing.

The kid who had an older brother they could never live up to, so why try.

Or they are the new kid in town who expected to star in every sport, but the new coaches didn’t see the obvious talent so apparent to his mother.

The Reject Bully finds reject friends and bullies them because he knows in his heart his better than all of them put together. He picks on them until they cry, which is all the proof he’s really looking for.

We’ve all met a bully and come away thinking, “She’s not that bad.”

Bullies come in all degrees of nasty and mean, but the good ones still show empathy while they roll over you.

Do you have a favorite Bitter Sports Take? Yes, yes you do.