And now for some humor
Most of the thoughts rattling around in my head recently have not be safe for posting here. So this time I'm going to 'borrow' some thoughts from one of my favorite writers, Dave Barry. Here is an article of his from his book "Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus". I selected this one because . . . well . .. I can totally see myself doing this.
There's an old saying in journalism: "Be careful of what you make fun of, because you could find yourself upside down attepting a Vertical Split while your lungs rapidly fill with water."
There's a lot of truth in this saying, as I found out when I took the Synchronized Swimming Media Challenge.
Here's what happened: Ever since Synchronized Swimming bacame an official Olympic sport, we journalists have ridiculed it. The thrust of our gist is: "Excatly what is so athletically impressive about people swimming around in circles while smiling like recently escaped lunatics? ANYBODY could do that!"
Eventually the Synchronized Swimming community got tired of hearing this, and responded as follows: "OH YEAH? Well how about if YOU try it, Expense Account Butt?"
And thus I found myself at Emory University, wearing nose clips and goggles, in a pool about the size of Lake Huron, only deeper, with a dozen young and extremely fit members of the U.S. Synchronized Swimming National Team One, who will basically be the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.
Also in the pool was my synchronized media partner and Herald colleague, sports columnist Dan Le Batard. Dan and I, knowing that the full masculine studliness of our bodies would be on display, had prepard for the challenge via a grueling fitness regimen of not having eaten a single Snickers bar for the entire previous hour. I estimate that our body fat content had plummeted to somewhere around 87 percent.
The spokesperson for U.S. Synchronized Swimming, Laura LaMarca, had told me earlier that we fit the basic profile of journalists who had taken the Challenge.
"Floating is definitely not a problem for the media," she said.
That may be true, but I was pleased to see that there were two lifeguards on hand.
"That's standard procedure," Lamarca said. "A one-to-one ratio of lifeguards to journalists."
With our safety assured, Dan and I started learning our synchronized maneuvers. The first one was called Eggbeatering, which is when you move your legs around like an eggbeater, so you can keep your head and shoulders above the pool surface while you raise your arms gracefully into the air.
At least that's how it worked for the members of the National Team One. When Dan and I gracefully raised OUR arms, our entire bodies, arms and all, immediately sank like anvils. So when we all tried the maneuver together, there was a circle of a dozen young women, smiling and raising their arms, and in the middle of the circle there was this bubbling, violently turbulent patch of water, underneath which were Dan and me, trying desperately to eggbeater our way back to the surface before our lungs exploded.
After we gave up on eggbeatering, we tried the Ballet Leg, which is when you lie on your back and raise your leg gracefully into the air. When the synchronized swimmers did this, their bodies remained absolutely steady and horizontal, they appeared to be lying on floats. When Dan and I attempted it, we hit the pool bottom so hard we left dents.
At this point I noticed that the lifeguards were standing much closer.
My favorite maneuver was the Vertical Split, which is when you get yourself upside down in the water, then do some kindof arm thing that causes you to shoot, Polaris-like, so that your legs and hips come all the way out of the water, at which point you execute a graceful split. We attmepted this as a group, with Dan and me again in the middle, and I will never forget the sight from the bottom of the pool, where I of course immediately found myself. All around me were the national team members, their bodies upside down and perfectly vertical, submerged only from head to waist, their legs high in the air; next to me, also on the bottom of the water, was Dan.
That's the only maneuver you'd see, if the media ever did get a team together: Synchronized Toes.
Anyway, after about 45 straight minutes of alternately eggbeatering and sinking, I came to the surface, and using what little air I had left in my lungs, shouted, "THIS IS THE HARDEST SPORT IN THE WORLD!"
Then, and only then, did they let us out of the pool.
There's an old saying in journalism: "Be careful of what you make fun of, because you could find yourself upside down attepting a Vertical Split while your lungs rapidly fill with water."
There's a lot of truth in this saying, as I found out when I took the Synchronized Swimming Media Challenge.
Here's what happened: Ever since Synchronized Swimming bacame an official Olympic sport, we journalists have ridiculed it. The thrust of our gist is: "Excatly what is so athletically impressive about people swimming around in circles while smiling like recently escaped lunatics? ANYBODY could do that!"
Eventually the Synchronized Swimming community got tired of hearing this, and responded as follows: "OH YEAH? Well how about if YOU try it, Expense Account Butt?"
And thus I found myself at Emory University, wearing nose clips and goggles, in a pool about the size of Lake Huron, only deeper, with a dozen young and extremely fit members of the U.S. Synchronized Swimming National Team One, who will basically be the U.S. Olympic Team for the 2000 Games in Sydney, Australia.
Also in the pool was my synchronized media partner and Herald colleague, sports columnist Dan Le Batard. Dan and I, knowing that the full masculine studliness of our bodies would be on display, had prepard for the challenge via a grueling fitness regimen of not having eaten a single Snickers bar for the entire previous hour. I estimate that our body fat content had plummeted to somewhere around 87 percent.
The spokesperson for U.S. Synchronized Swimming, Laura LaMarca, had told me earlier that we fit the basic profile of journalists who had taken the Challenge.
"Floating is definitely not a problem for the media," she said.
That may be true, but I was pleased to see that there were two lifeguards on hand.
"That's standard procedure," Lamarca said. "A one-to-one ratio of lifeguards to journalists."
The Kitchen Utensil Stroke
With our safety assured, Dan and I started learning our synchronized maneuvers. The first one was called Eggbeatering, which is when you move your legs around like an eggbeater, so you can keep your head and shoulders above the pool surface while you raise your arms gracefully into the air.
At least that's how it worked for the members of the National Team One. When Dan and I gracefully raised OUR arms, our entire bodies, arms and all, immediately sank like anvils. So when we all tried the maneuver together, there was a circle of a dozen young women, smiling and raising their arms, and in the middle of the circle there was this bubbling, violently turbulent patch of water, underneath which were Dan and me, trying desperately to eggbeater our way back to the surface before our lungs exploded.
After we gave up on eggbeatering, we tried the Ballet Leg, which is when you lie on your back and raise your leg gracefully into the air. When the synchronized swimmers did this, their bodies remained absolutely steady and horizontal, they appeared to be lying on floats. When Dan and I attempted it, we hit the pool bottom so hard we left dents.
At this point I noticed that the lifeguards were standing much closer.
My favorite maneuver was the Vertical Split, which is when you get yourself upside down in the water, then do some kindof arm thing that causes you to shoot, Polaris-like, so that your legs and hips come all the way out of the water, at which point you execute a graceful split. We attmepted this as a group, with Dan and me again in the middle, and I will never forget the sight from the bottom of the pool, where I of course immediately found myself. All around me were the national team members, their bodies upside down and perfectly vertical, submerged only from head to waist, their legs high in the air; next to me, also on the bottom of the water, was Dan.
That's the only maneuver you'd see, if the media ever did get a team together: Synchronized Toes.
Anyway, after about 45 straight minutes of alternately eggbeatering and sinking, I came to the surface, and using what little air I had left in my lungs, shouted, "THIS IS THE HARDEST SPORT IN THE WORLD!"
Then, and only then, did they let us out of the pool.
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