#football players = our future politicians | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hannahssimblr · 3 months

Text

Chapter Six

I have Deja-vu when I return to the Tullamore stadium where I spent countless Sunday afternoons as a teenager, forced to sit at pitch side as Kelly roared her support for the players with a ferocity that always kind of pissed me off. She wasn’t into sports, not really, she just pretended that she was because she had this fantasy of one of the players spotting her by the barriers and coming over to ask for her number. Of course, none ever did, but eventually, when she was sixteen she talked her way into one of their after parties at the club house and kissed six of them one after the other with the same efficiency as a local politician handing out fliers at a shopping centre. She didn’t get any phone numbers either, just a crusty cold sore that hung around on her lip for two weeks.

Today, for the first time there is no Kelly by my side, and I realise upon entry that it’s been almost four years since I’ve set foot in this place. I don’t know why I thought it’d look different, but everything is the same, from the sun bleached plastic seats to the mud, grass, and leather smell in the air. I’ve changed but all these old places, they stay exactly the same. Claire links her arm with mine and we head down the steps towards our seats near the front. She’s wearing a Tullamore jersey. Most people on our side are too, painting one whole side of the stadium in blue and white. I’m just wearing a grey jumper. I had a matching jersey years ago, in fact I even went to the trouble of digging it out of the bottom drawer of the chest in my childhood bedroom earlier, but it’s girls size 13-14. It won’t even go over my chest anymore.

“Are you excited?” I say to Claire, who I expect to be beaming, but isn’t.

“Yeah I suppose.” She says.

“It’s a bit mad to be here together, isn’t it? Like, how many of these matches would you say you go to?”

“Oh God, like, probably all of them, I’m always stuck in these seats watching him.”

“You’re very supportive.”

“I’m a saint.”

My smile falters a bit, she doesn’t seem excited in the least. When I imagined her coming to these games I always had a picture in my mind of her cheering him on with voracious enthusiasm, hanging over the railings, chanting his name, but by the rather stoic expression on her face today I’m starting to doubt my own assumptions. “Not pushed about the match, no?”

She sighs. “No, it’s fine, I just… this has been a touchy subject between us lately.”

“Football?”

“It’s how much he wants to play it.”

I frown. “But he’s made it onto the senior team, surely it’s normal that it’ll take up a lot of his time.”

“Yeah it’s just like, he’s in fourth year in UCD now, I wish he’d just study or something, focus on his degree.”

“Oh.”

“There’s no future in football, like, he’ll never get paid for it and I just don’t want him to throw away his science degree because he’s too caught up with an amateur sport. There’s good money in pharmaceuticals if he works hard enough, and then we could start saving for a mortgage or a wedding, or I don’t know, kids or something.”

I nod, though it’s incredibly weird to hear her talk about such things now, at twenty one years old, when they seem lightyears away for me. A mortgage? I don’t even know how that works, never mind how I’d go about saving for one, but Claire has always been eager to settle.

“Is he struggling to balance both things?”

“Well, he isn’t really trying to. He’s just not doing his college work.”

“At all?”

She shakes her head. Her mouth becomes a thin line as she stares out over the pitch where the players have begun to filter out, shaking the hands of the other team, and I spot Shane for the first time, dressed in a blue jersey with stripes across his shoulders. He is powerful looking, even amongst all of the others. Two men in Helly Hansen fleeces and caps walk straight through my line of vision and settle into the seats directly in front of us, blocking out the view momentarily. By the time I regain my view of the pitch the players have all settled into their starting positions.

“I assume you’ve talked about this with him.” I say to Claire.

“Yeah of course, but I might as well be speaking to a brick wall. You know how he is with talking about things. At all. Ever.”

I hesitate. “He can be a bit withholding, for sure.”

“Never go out with an Irish man.” She declares. “They’ll only wreck your head.” I want to tell her that men from other countries haven’t been much more straightforward in my experience, but then the whistle blows and the match begins.

It’s true what they say in the newspapers about Shane Healy. He’s like a bolt of lightning on that pitch. He’s big, he’s quick and he’s aggressive, and yet there is something about his style of play that I didn’t expect to see. He’s like a child out there. The way that he practically skips along with the ball, lobbing it up into his hands and kicking it up the pitch makes it seem like he’s mocking the players around him, the ones who can’t catch him, can’t stop him.

I watch him possess the ball once again, drop it onto his right foot and neatly slot it through the goalposts for a perfect point. The crowd erupts into euphoric cheers, including me and Claire, who both laugh ourselves onto our feet and start yelling out for him. I’m not close enough to see him smiling, but I know he is, jogging around in a wide circle, clenching his fists in celebration.

The two men in front of us are muttering about something when we sit back down, and the only reason I tune in is because I hear them say his name. “Healy. Number fifteen. ” I nudge Claire and mutter “They’re talking about your boyfriend there.”

“What are they saying?”

We try to listen in, but the stadium is too loud to catch anything but the odd word. “I can’t hear.” I admit. “Are they Australian? Hardly.” The idea of a person coming all the way from the continent of Oceania to find themselves in a shabby Tullamore stadium, of all places, would be markedly strange.

“Oh, foreign men?” Claire drawls. “Maybe I should give one of them my number.” She slams her sunglasses onto her face, shielding her eyes from the sharp October sun, and we both put our focus back onto the pitch.

Beginning // Prev // Next

#lucky girl part 3 #funnily enough this was one of my favourite chapters #it feels like a real bottle episode or something idk #even though it isn't #but i liked that it took place in just two distinct places and very little happened and yet so much was moving in the background #people who have finished the story already might notice things on a reread that they didn't the first time

17 notes · View notes

cant-get-no-worse · 5 months

Note

helllooo

what are your thoughts on scaloni having doubts about his future in the national team ? what do you think is going on ?

love your takes they’re always so well put together

Hii Ro 🫶In the 7 hours it took me to answer, a plethora of information more or less clearing up what happened appeared on twitter sooo... but since I had 2 or 3 other asks about it I'll take the opportnity to round things up briefly for people unaware of the general situation! I'm in no way an expert btw, this is just what I understood/lived as an expat arg and got from my arg side of the family.

So as per Gastón & other news outlet, Scaloni (perhaps some other members of the technical staff of the Argentine NT as well) has had a problem with the AFA for some time now. If we had to resume state of affairs :

The AFA (Argentine Football Association) show

Governing institution of football in the country which would deserve a fourth star of its own for its spectacular dedication to worsen itself by the years. A true marvel of corruption and incompetence display. Its first chairman had presidency from 1979 to 2014, and after he died things went a bit avok (not to say he hadn't already himself some corrupt payments scandals to his name). But essentially, before there was one mogul-in-chief who ran things, whereas after people started to mess it up even more.

For a quick and famous example of how things were (are) run there, the 2015 presidency election opposing Luis Segura to Marcelo Tinelli saw them tie at 38 votes each. There were 75 voting members in the comity.

Anyways what does it matter eh, Segura (elected) lasted two years before he was forced out for "aggravated administrative fraud" (fancy terms they have).

Evidence of discontentment from the players can be found in press comments and some Messi's instagram posts circa 2016 where he highlighted AFA's "disastrous" way of running things. It was also made public by a security agent that they had to come to Messi amidst an internal dispute with AFA to ask him to do something about their 6-months due salaries — quite maddening if you think about it. Regular informations of coaches and staffs not being paid for the competition they'd worked in would come out.

Precedents beefs

Amidst all those organisational/financial/political corruption issues, it's no surprise then for there to be precedents of players, employees and coaching staff beefing with AFA. Tata Martino and his entire team resigned in July 2016 following disagreements.

Tapia

AFA current chairman Chiqui Tapia (in place since 2017) is quite a controversial figure, drawing wide support & affection one day and outrage the other. A few time ago he was praised for having relocated a U-I-Forgot world cup in Argentina, allowing our evicted team to come back to the competition (only to lose again lmfao). Recently tho, it was more outrage that prevaled for how AFA passed a regulation stipulating that the Argentine first championship wouldn't have a three-places relegation anymore. Many pointed it as the death of an otherwise already wobbly championship. He's also branded with various nicknames such as Chiqui Mafioso, pointing at his meddling with politicians (including former Economy Minister and 2023 presidential elections runner-up, Massa) and other shady stuff.

So what's up with Scaloni ?

So now here are a list of stuff people/journalists have come up with over the day regarding the potential reasons for Scaloni's declarations + some own thoughts :

6 days ago - still in the middle of Argentine's presidential elections - a journalist asked Scaloni in a press conference about the clubs' privatisation - a tumultuous topic that has been thrusted on the hands of politicians for more than a decade now. Some think the journalist was mended by Tapia or others to get Scaloni - coach of the National Selection, fresh out of a treble and thus getting lots of media attention and support from the people - to publically stand against the privatisation of the clubs and thus directly or indirectly to give support to presidential candidate Massa, supported by, as I was saying earlier, Chiqui Tapia.

Still on the political, journalists report that last week Massa asked, via Tapia, for a photo with the national team's players who refused : Tapia thus tried to pressure Scaloni in persuading them to do so.

General weariness of the way things are ran at AFA - who apparently have not taken their three peat as a hint to professionalize a bit and have still not paid the coaching staff or players for the WC win in Qatar. They also have been running up and about the globe to face really lower-ranked selections in order to bring cash in which not only tires everyone due to travel but is not to the taste of Scaloni as he'd want to keep playing against levelled opponents in the perspective of the 2024 Copa América and to find an actual usefulness to the games instead of pure exhibition for money.

So all of this = could be a way for Scaloni to publically put pressure on AFA during the break before the next international break in March, to see how they are going to react and let him time to decide if the issues have been fixed or not for him to continue as head coach.

It's worth noting apart from the political turmoil that Scaloni has also been head coach of a national team for about three years now, experimenting immense pressure which is of course at its culminating point now that they've won everything and are expected to continue to do so. A lack of motivation, a feeling of being overwhelmed by the pression can be factors for his statement. In this, I'm dabing a bit into personal experience as I'm recalled of Pep Guardiola's similar situation with FC Barcelona. Once you're on top of the world, with world-class/heavy names players filling the locker room, in a place that puts football above much things, you're bound to take a pause and look around to figure out what the sweet fuck you're going to do now. As they say it's not the destination that counts, it's the journey : the motivation can drag you for one, two, three years to every culminating point you see shining, but once you've conquered all those peaks, you can be left quite empty-handed and disoriented cause you have to find a new hunger to hit a new road again.

So here's a resume + my take of whatever's happening at the moment! I think that it could go either way, although I would be surprised to see him go before the Copa América. Whatever he does, honestly, and even though I'd be truly fucking sad and bitter to see him go, I wouldn't say a bad word about his decision, whatever it may be. How could we say anything about the guy who ended several decades long drought of trophies, put a team as close as a family together and led them to win us three trophies in the span of two years? I love him very much and whatever he does, I'll just be thankful. but yeah aimar do your job omg keep him until june for gods sake

#friends ask <3 #anon ask

7 notes · View notes

madwomansapologist · 1 year

Note

thank you for the genuine reply! <3 I’m curious to learn more about his charity work / how he uses his voice? Is this something typical for football players?

omg you are really sweet 💕

Its not anormal for players to do charity, actually here on Brasil most of them we're poor and become rich because of their work as players and then use their money and voice to help others, but what is important here is the moment.

As everyone knows, we being through a pandemic. And as probably most people know, it was a horrible time here in Brasil. Im not talking only about covid, but about facism. Our government actually had a plan to infect as many people as possible. Instead of buying the vaccine, they encourage people to keep going out and not wear masks. Not all of our politicians we're like that, but our future ex president was.

At that time, with the illness and facism, a lot of people that worked with futebol supported that facist. And I am not talking only about players, I am talking about corporations. And when Richarlison participated in awareness projects, became an ambassador for the largest federal college in Latin America and was one of the protagonists in the vaccine movement, he was going against a system that could have ended him in a snap.

Richarlison supported Lula. He was our president and you may know that he was wrongly arrested. They literally arrested him without any proof Not a single one. It was a political prision, similar as what Mandela suffered. Meanwhile Neymar supported Bolsonaro, a man that during one of the worst moments of the pandemic said that he didn't care because he wasn't a gravedigger, that mocked people dying breathless, that said that he wouldn't rape a congresswoman because she didn't deserve it.

Futebol here is a form of protests. If I started talking about how important it was when we where in a dictatorship I wouldn't stop.

And thats more.

Richarlison did a lot of thing in secret. Because of the World Cup a lot of people are revealing that he got in touch with people going through difficult situations and made donations. A girl talked about how when her father became sick and she posted about him loving futebol, Richarlison send her a message asking where she lived so he could send a lot of signed tshirts so she could sell. And he did all of that years ago without posting anything. And thats not the only case, thats a lot more.

He is a truly amazing man. He adopted a jaguar. Trust me.

#madwomansapologist #ask box #world cup #copa do mundo #copa2022 #brasil #brazil #richarlison você fez história e sabe disso #richarlison

18 notes · View notes

dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

Text

Senate hopeful Herschel Walker dared Barack Obama to compare resumes after the former President questioned Mr. Walker’s credentials for leadership, calling him more of a "celebrity" than a politician.

Mr. Obama campaigned for Mr. Walker’s opponent, incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock, on Friday night in Georgia.

During the speech, he called Mr. Walker "a celebrity that wants to be a politician," and noted that being a good football player does not qualify someone to help run the nation.

“In college, [Mr. Walker] was amazing. One of the best running backs of all time," Mr. Obama said. "But here is the question: Does that make him the best person to represent you in the US Senate? Does that make him equipped to weigh in on the critical decisions about our economy and our foreign policy and our future?”

Mr. Obama claimed the candidate had showed little interest actually developing a civics-minded set of skills to prepare for a potential political future.

“There is very little evidence that he has taken any interest, bothered to learn anything about or displayed any kind of inclination towards public service or volunteer work or helping people in anyway,” Mr. Obama said.

The former President also addressed what he called Mr. Walker’s "issues of character" and "habit of not telling the truth." He also referenced a recent gaffe made by Mr. Walker during a recent debate, calling the candidate "someone who carries around a phony badge and says he is in law enforcement like a kid playing cops and robbers."

Mr. Walker responded to the former President’s comments during an appearance on Fox News. Presenter Brian Kilmeade asked Mr. Walker if he had ever met Mr. Obama, and how he felt about the former President’s criticism.

"I never met [Mr. Obama] before, and if I’m a celebrity I would have met him because all he did was hang out with celebrities. He forgot to tell people I created one of the largest minority-owned food service companies in the US, so I do sign the front of a check, which he’s probably never done except when he was in the White House and that Senator [Raphael] Warnock has never done either," Mr. Walker responded.

That’s when he suggested his resume was more impressive than the former President’s.

"So I created businesses, I sit on a publicly traded board, so those are things I’ve done outside of football," Mr. Walker said. "But my resume against his resume I’d put it up any time of the day, and I think I’ve done well. Once of the things I’d say to the people is that [Mr. Obama] is not in Georgia voting."

#us politics #news #president barack obama #2022 #the independent #herschel walker #Sen. Raphael Warnock #georgia #2022 elections #2022 midterms #aaron rupar #twitter #tweet #fox news #brian kilmeade

10 notes · View notes

alexbkrieger13 · 8 months

Note

Nooshi Dadgostar is the leader of the most left wing party. Known as the left party the communists until about 30 years ago actually. I like her, she makes some good points, she stands up for her her opinions unlike a lot of other politicians and she doesn’t fake anything, she has integrity. But I don’t think she understands this very well.

At most Sweden can agree to move the game if that is requested and possible. We can make it clear that we support Spain and Hermoso and that we want to play the world champions. But at the end of the day, which lineup Spain brings to the game is their business, not ours. If they arrive with a team ready to play and we refuse, we get an automatic 3-0 loss, potentially a fine from Uefa, give up our chances of losing the Olympics, AND have to refund 18,000 tickets already sold. That would be puré stupidity.

Dadgostar like a lot of other politicians, greatly overestimates the impact Sweden can have on the world stage in a number of issues. Half the world’s population most likely don’t even know we exist. It is not for Sweden to decide the future of the Spanish federation. That’s for Spain, Uefa and Fifa to decide. Sweden can only focus on our own games and development in women’s football, and respect the Spanish players, whoever they may be, by being ready to play and starting the best team we can against them.

And further, I really think teams need to remember that we can’t grow women’s football by everybody refusing to play. We can only grow the game by playing. If you remove the product that is the foundation for your entire platform, then you lose your platform to speak for change as well essentially. You can’t be boycotting games because of what goes on in other federations. Or, should we have refused to play against all of Italy, Argentina and South Africa in the world cup? None of their federations treat their players like they deserve. All that would have led to is Sweden being eliminated and possibly missing out on the participation bonus.

yea I don't think she realizes Sweden have been in this position before when Denmark was striking against their fa in 2018. They asked for the game To Be Moved multiple times and they stood in solidarity with those players when Denmark boycotted the game.

1 note · View note

financialsmatter · 1 year

Text

Do You Know Financial CPR?

How interesting it is to note that there’s been a sudden huge shift in the media to awareness of CPR. And that’s mostly because of the cardiac arrest and collapse of Damar Hamilton witnessed by millions on last Monday Night’s Football game. But thank God for the paramedics and first responders that brought him back to life. Ironically (or NOT) prior to that event, the NFL all but prohibited anyone from praying on the field. And now they’re selling lots of T-Shirts (Love to Damar) to commemorate the unity among players praying on the field. (But that’s another subject for another time.) As a result, it seems to have become a major focus that people need to know how to perform CPR. And this begs the question: “Why Now?” Maybe it’s because the number of “Sudden Deaths” in healthy people (athletes and children) is increasing at an alarming rate. Or Maybe people are finally starting to put 2+2 together regarding the number of “Sudden Deaths” and how they’re related to the number of people who took the clot shot. Or Maybe, JUST MAYBE, the Boyz responsible for this travesty (Cough!Big Pharma, Cough! WHO, CDC, NIH, Cough! Anthony Frauduci and Globalist Politicians, Hairball Cough!) know how this is going to get worse. And they’re trying to deflect the blame by acting as if they’re helping the serfs “Learn how to perform CPR” as a way to make you think they’re concerned. Do You Know Financial CPR? It’s definitively a good idea for people to know how to perform CPR…especially with the prospects of many more cases of cardiac arrests on tap for the future. And – not to sound morbid – at the same time it’s looking like a good time to learn how to perform financial CPR on many investors’ portfolios. Huh? For the most part 2022 was brutal on most investors’ portfolios…especially 401ks. Why 401ks? Because most of them restrict you to buying certain mutual funds and/or ETFs. And most mutual funds/ETFs performed worse than the major indexes. READ: Another Reason to Hate ETFs/Mutual Funds October 12, 2017 So, in the event that your portfolio needs to be quickly resuscitated from the market’s cardiac arrest, do you know how to perform Financial CPR? If not, then be sure to read our Short and Sweet Tips column in the January edition of “…In Plain English” (HERE). Share this with a friend…especially if they’re still suffering from a 2022 market hangover. They’ll thank YOU later. Remember: We’re Not Just About Finance But we use finance to give you hope. **************************************** Invest with confidence. Sincerely, James Vincent The Reverend of Finance Copyright © 2022 It's Not Just About Finance, LLC, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you opted in via our website. Read the full article

0 notes

bazmichaels · 2 years

Text

Junior High - Part One

I attended Pat Neff Junior High School in the 7th grade. Pat Morris Neff was an American politician, educator, and administrator, and the 28th Governor of Texas from 1921 to 1925, ninth President of Baylor University from 1932 to 1947, and twenty-fifth president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1944 to 1946. He served as Grand Master of Masons in Texas in 1946. I didn’t know or care about any of that, but Junior High is where school curricula started the heavy-duty Texas exceptionalism propaganda, so our history classes included Texas History, not just World and American History. So, I probably had to actually learn all that stuff about Pat Neff, at least long enough to take the test.

I was incredibly excited to start 7th grade. It was my chance to play sports for my school – in particular, football. (Sadly, there were no ping pong or kickball teams). I had played one season of Pop Warner youth football a couple of years before, but they divided up leagues by both age and weight. I happened to be at the top weight of one of the leagues, so I got there and got stuck playing offensive and defensive line. I didn’t take well to those positions and none of the coaches knew me, so I just sat the bench all season. I knew that in 7th grade I was one of the fast kids, even though I was stocky. I figured I’d have a good chance to play a skill position, or, if not, have a coach teach me how to play on the interior line. We even had a little training camp before classes started, and I bonded with the core members of the team. We hung out before school, at lunch time, and, of course, after school at practice. Heck, I never even saw my girlfriend Brenda starting with training camp until like a week or two after classes started… Uh oh… Yeah, I know, I’m in the future now, too*. So, I no longer had a girlfriend. It was all my fault. 100%. I was a jerk by not even realizing I was being a jerk. I felt terrible, but it was too late. Don’t worry, karma got back at me good in High School.

*credit to the hilarious comedian Mike Birbiglia

OK, well, let’s get back to 7th grade football – that was obviously what was the most important thing to me at the time. I did well in training camp. I was one of the strongest and fastest players on the team. My strength was in my legs and I had a low center of gravity – that’s good for football. We had a three-man backfield. There was a fullback who lined up behind the quarterback, a tailback who stood behind the fullback, and a halfback who lined up on one side or the other of the fullback. I practiced at all three positions and wound up as the starting halfback. As such, I would be a lead blocker for the tailback on running plays, I’d go out as a receiver on passing plays, and I even got a special play for me where I’d roll out and throw a pass – it wound up being a very successful play when we ran it. Most of that was just a waste of time, though, because Hutch was our quarterback. Our best play was when he took the snap and just ran around the outside of the line, turned up field and ran for a touchdown. He was a man among boys. I always wondered how he would compete when guys caught up to him in physical maturity. After Hutch scored, we had to play defense, which I also played. On D, I played cornerback. I don’t have the body type to play cornerback, but I guess the coach was more concerned with speed than build. I did fine in pass coverage, mostly because the other teams didn’t have very good passing games in 7th grade. The most important thing I needed to do was make open field tackles on running plays, so I was more of an outside-outside linebacker. I was also the punter that year. I had the strong lower half and the timing, form, and concentration from kickball to give it a good ride. I had a 63-yard punt that year – I kicked it over the receiver’s head, and it took a great bounce. See uncle Bob? All that kicking in the carport paid off. We were a very good team that year. I think we were undefeated. There were no playoffs or anything in junior high. We just had our last game one day and the season was over. Two more thoughts from football season that year. Every weekday, I had football practice, and I would have to wait for my mother to pick me up after she got off work. That gave me the opportunity to go to Jack in the Box, which was just off campus and get cheap greasy tacos. Delicious and nutritious. Then we’d go back to the school and wait for our parents. We had a diverse team. We had some guys from very traditional Mexican families, some from highly Americanized Hispanic families, middle class and poor guys from all races, and full-blown adolescent cowboys. These guys wore cowboy boots, Wrangler jeans with the Skoal can circle on the back pocket, and cowboy hats, but that was just cosmetic. These 7th graders rode bucking broncos and real friggin’ bulls in rodeos! We didn’t have any real inner-city guys because of where our school was located, but it was still interesting hanging out with all these guys after practice and hearing about the differences in our lives when we were all on the same team.

Next up was basketball season. I played a little basketball when I was younger (had I played in a church league before then?), but it was just another sport in which I could compete. I was relatively tall compared to the other 7th grade athletes in my school (I had reached most of the height I would ever get by then). I had the basic shooting form down, but only an OK touch. I was pretty good at dribbling, but only with my left hand (suck it Northside Baptist teachers). I was best at playing defense. I had quick feet, and I could body up underneath the basket. Unfortunately, I had about a ½ inch vertical leap, so my future as an NBA star was limited right off the bat. I enjoyed running around and trying to improve. I sat the bench sometimes and started sometimes. It was fun, but clearly not my best sport.

Finally, track season came around. This time, the shortest sprint was the 75-yard dash. That was really stretching it out for me, but I eventually got used to it. Besides, I’d have to run the full 100 yards for the 4x100 relay. I once ran a leg in a 4x300 relay, and I thought I was going to crumple up into a little ball about halfway through. I believe I kept throwing the shot and discuss. I was still no good at anything involving jumping. My results were pretty much the same as in the 6th grade city meet – I’d finish just out of the top tier in sprints, and finish at sort of the low end of the top tier in the throwing events. The big difference though is that we had meets all over the greater San Antonio area, and they were much less crowded and hectic than the one giant meet in 6th grade. Meets were great. We’d hang out in the sun with our friends, and then you’d start to get ready for your event, and you’d slowly get your body and mind ready to compete. Then your event would start, and you’d use every ounce of energy you could muster. And then you’d cool off and you were back to hanging out with your friends. I remember music playing in the stadium the whole meet, except when the races were going on. The most memorable song I remember from the track meets was Joy to the World (Jeremiah was a Bullfrog) by Three Dog Night. I also remember getting my only sun burn while I was living in Texas during a track meet in New Braunfels, TX. It was crazy hot that day.

So, let’s see, 7th grade – anything else happen? Oh yeah, the school part. I don’t remember exactly what I learned, but I know I learned some things. I was able to take some advanced classes, and I finally felt challenged. I had to start doing homework, which I enjoyed at that point. It got difficult at times to manage homework with being tired from sports, naturally, so that was a skill I had to learn through trial and error. I took my athletic competitiveness with me to my grades, but I was able to handle a B as a temporary setback, not a life-destroying tragedy. A few kids took their grades too seriously. I had a friend named Frankie, whom I knew from sports. He was tall and fast and was quite good at basketball and football, but I had no idea he took his studies so seriously. He was in one of my AP classes (or should I say I was in one of his AP classes), and we were taking a test. He was always one of the first to finish a test and always got the best score. On this day, however, Frankie was the last one to finish – he was apoplectic trying to finish – pulling on his hair, smacking his head, I think crying. After class, I asked him why he had so much trouble with that test. He said he just couldn’t reliably recall one of the answers in the test. ONE of the answers. He’s another guy I wish I could have kept track of.

8th grade started off much like the 7th grade (without the girlfriend fiasco). The start of school meant the start of football. Our school put in a new playing surface in the football field, which seemed like a great idea, but the grass didn’t grow in like it was supposed to. Our field, it turned out, was a big sand box. It was kind of like playing beach football. There were little patches of grass here and there, but it was impossible to run fast in the sand. We went ahead and played the season, and we just had to handle it. The other big change was that we had enough talent at the school to form two teams that would both play for Neff Jr High. I played the same positions on offense and defense as before and had another good year. As a punter, I had my first punt blocked, and I still remember it today. It was on our home sandpit field. I took the snap, and a guy came busting up the middle, untouched. I didn’t look up and I just went through my normal punting motion. As soon as I kicked the football, he laid out and took the ball right in his stomach with a giant thud. He did not get up. Not for a long time. I kicked the wind right out of him. There is a right way to block a punt and a wrong way to block a punt. That guy learned the difference the hard way that day. I was fine. I just learned to peek up before the punt. There is a timing aspect there that lets you watch the ball through the catch, peek up during the first step and then focus back in to keep your eye on the ball during the kick. If you didn’t do it right, you could either botch receiving the ball from the center or you could shank the punt. I could give you even more pro tips for punting, but I shall leave it up to the reader to pursue the topic further, if so desired.

Next up was 8th grade basketball. I feel like I was significantly better than I was in 7th grade, but then again, so was everyone else. I could dribble a little better with my right hand, but it was still weak. The rest of my game was pretty good, and I was still relatively tall for the 8th grade, even though some other guys started hitting six feet. It was shaping up to be a good season, until… a double plot twist occurred. That’s right – two nearly simultaneous major plot twists in my life story. I don’t know about you, but I’m riveted right now. Now would be a good time to go make some microwave popcorn. That’s where I’m going right now. (I’ll probably have to pee once I stand up, so I’ll take care of that while I’m at it. BRB

Plot twist #1 would suddenly end my basketball season when it was just getting started. Do you remember when I rhetorically and snarkily asked what was the worst thing that could happen by recklessly riding a bicycle at breakneck speeds without a helmet? Well, the worst thing that could happen is worse than what happened to me on my bike, but what happened to me was both really bad and really lucky. I’m not sure why, but I was flying down the road in my 10-speed bicycle, not holding on to my handlebars. I saw a bump in the road coming up, so I reached down to grab the handlebars and I didn’t grab it cleanly, which caused the front wheel to wobble and the bike to go out of control. I was about to wipe out and have a long nasty tumble down the street, when I came to a much more sudden stop, as I slammed full force into the back of a parked flatbed pickup truck. I’m not going to lie. It was embarrassing. Have you heard people talking about everything happening in slow motion when they’re in an accident? Well, that happened to me. I was stunned for a minute after the collision, and then I looked around, saw that the truck family was out in their front yard at the time, made eye contact and sort of nodded, and decided I should get up and get out of there. Nope. Turns out I had run into the back of the truck with my left arm and snapped my humerus clean through. That was definitely not humorous. My body was in shock, and I didn’t feel any pain – until I had to move my arm and then holy mother of God it hurt like nobody’s business. I decided to stay down on the ground for a while. It was nice. The pavement was warm and smooth. Eventually, someone from the truck family came over to check on me. That was the least they could do, and they certainly took their sweet time. I gave them my home phone number, and they called my mother. She came driving down in her Toyota Corolla (no more Mustang, sadly), saw me and almost passed out. I was also bleeding out of my mouth. Somehow some number of people got me into the back seat of the Corolla as I tried not to scream in agony. As I was getting in the car, I finally saw the mangled pile of twisted metal that used to be my bike – yikes!

My mother drove me to the hospital. Potholes are not generally a problem in San Antonio, but the streets on the way to the hospital were spontaneously sprouting potholes in front of our car. Every one of them was unbelievably painful. My mom was trying to drive as carefully and yet quickly as possible. Fun fact about 1970s era Toyota Corollas: they had effectively zero shock absorption!

Once I got to the hospital, they put a hanging cast on my arm and stitched up my lower lip, which I had bitten through. So, yeah, my basketball season came to a sudden and painful end. My bike was destroyed, and I ruined my favorite Crystal Gayle t-shirt*. But I also said I was lucky, and boy was I. I was not wearing a helmet. None of us did. If I had run into the back of that truck with my head instead of my arm, I would be dead. If I hadn’t run into the truck and did a quarter-mile tumble down the street I could have easily hit my head and died in the crash. So, painful lesson learned about bicycle safety, but it turned out ok in the long run.

*Ricky Bobby, Talladega Nights

Stunning plot twist #2 would be the one that dramatically altered the course of my life. At some point in the Fall semester of my 8th grade year, my mother asked me “How would you like to play football at Ohio State?” (No, they weren’t “The” Ohio State University back then.) At the time, they were at the top of the college football world, so I casually said “Sure”, knowing I had as much chance of playing for them as I had of playing for the University of Texas (slim to none). Then she told my sister and me that she had gotten a promotion at work and had accepted a position at the US Air Force Headquarters at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. I quickly came to the realization that we were moving to Ohio, we were moving soon, and we needed to deal with it. I didn’t know anything about Ohio, other than OSU football and the Bengals, Reds, and Browns, but I figured I’d go wherever my mom went. She was in charge and was doing what she thought was best for us. Anyway, how’s that for a plot twist, huh? Fun fact: The ‘Wright’ part of Wright-Patterson is from the Wright Brothers, whose bicycle shop was in Dayton. You may have thought they were from North Carolina, since the first flight was in Kittyhawk, NC, but they lived and worked in Dayton.

The move happened very quickly. The military is very efficient at moving families from one place to another, and we were in our car, ready for the long trek before I knew it. I had the honor of being the official navigator of the trip, by virtue of me cruising to an A in my 7th grade geography class, which was innovative in that it had a whole section on map reading and navigation. That was a great idea back in the day. So, I got to sit in the front passenger seat and Lieutenant Sulu to my mom’s Captain Kirk. I was armed with a targeted cache of maps, and something called a TripTik, courtesy of AAA.

I’m sure that didn’t sit well with my big sister, who sat in the back with our Beagle, whose name was Dude. I got to name him, and in my school at the time, all the guys called each other ‘dude’. I will stipulate that it was kind of dumb, but I was probably in the 3rd or 4th grade when we got him, so I’m standing by Dude as a good name for that dog.

Once we got the go-ahead from Emgineering (when the car started), we were off and on to the next great adventure in our lives – if we could ever drive out of the state of Texas. It took us the entire first day of driving just to get to the northern border of Texas. After that, states started whizzing by. All the while, your nerdy navigator kept the ship on course, through calm seas and rough waves. Between cities was a piece of cake, as you’d imagine, but I needed to stay on my toes when we passed through a city to make sure we could navigate the peculiarities of each metro area and wind up on the right highway as we left the city. I discovered that I enjoyed working with maps and navigating routes (serious foreshadowing alert!). We were making good time heading up the heart of tornado country, when we stopped for gas in the great city of Memphis, Tennessee. Now I need to tell you about Beagles. According to the AKC, the Beagle is an excellent hunting dog and loyal companion. It is also happy-go-lucky, funny, and cute. A breed described as 'merry' by its fanciers, Beagles are loving and lovable, happy, and companionable, all qualities that make them excellent family dogs. Dude, in particular, was a runner.

Given the chance to go somewhere, he would take off like a rocket and just run for the pure exhilaration of running. He had managed to escape from our yard a few times, and he would always return, although one time it took him 3 days and he brought a friend home with him. But today we were at a gas station right off the highway in Memphis, Tennessee. As soon as my sister opened her car door, Dude shot out of the car like a cannonball and just started sprinting. Now, I was still sporting the hanging cast on my broken arm, and neither my mom nor my sister ever ran anywhere for any reason. I immediately took off running after him, with my hanging cast now a swinging cast. My mom, a chain-smoker, told Linda to stay with the car as she heroically joined the chase. Memphis, overall, is a beautiful and charming city of music and lights. The neighborhood we were in, however, was very low income. It had lots of fences that had holes in them or under them, and lots of large, scary junkyard-type dogs. He worked his way through this maze of fences and dusty yards for a long time, as my mom and I gave gasping chase. We had him cornered in a yard at one point, which he found to be great fun, as he put a move on us that would impress Barry Sanders and continued his journey. Finally, I think he’d seen enough and let us catch him, as he panted and wagged his tail. I picked him up somehow, with a cast on my arm, Dude licked my face and continued to wag his tail. My mom and I trekked back to the gas station. My sister was crying her eyes out – either feeling responsible for the fiasco or preparing to take the blame for it. My mom assured her it wasn’t her fault, but we all needed to be extremely cautious getting into and out of the car. Dude dropped right into a nap and soon we were off on the last leg to Dayton, Ohio. Dayton is about eight or nine hours from Memphis, so I’m guessing we grabbed a hotel room and got to Dayton the next day. As we drove further and further north, we noticed something – it was getting cold. I forgot to mention that we were travelling in the Winter, because in South Texas it hardly mattered. We timed the move so that Linda and I could finish out our first semester of school in Texas and start the second semester in Ohio. Great plan. I just don’t think any of us was ready for the ice and snow, especially Dude. When we got to the condo we rented when we first got there, the first time we let Dude out on the back patio, he lifted his leg to pee, slipped and fell over. Hilarious, am I right? I mean, poor guy, but falling is funny. You may recall, however, that I was still in a hanging cast. I will also add that I had never walked on snow and ice before. So, when I repeatedly fell on the icy sidewalks of our new town in Huber Heights, OH, I could see the humor in it, but damn it hurt.

Yes, we settled into the bustling metropolis of Huber Heights, Ohio. At the time, it wasn’t an incorporated city, it was “America’s Largest Community of Brick Homes” in Wayne Township, Ohio.

I remember a few different parts of the town. It had two Junior High Schools and one High School. I no longer went to Elementary School, so I never noticed where any of those were, although there seemed to be an Elementary School embedded within the Catholic Church down by the main intersection in town, where two major thoroughfares crossed. That intersection turned out to be four strip malls put together. There was at least one gas station, a Kodak film booth, a grocery store of some sort, maybe a Church’s Fried Chicken.

#memoir

0 notes

deepestbite · 3 years

Text

great news! my country is vaccinating rich football players so the football doesn't stop ❤️ meanwhile people with chronical illnesses are risking their lives everyday bc they have to go to work so they can put food on their tables. what a magnificent time to be a member of the elite class ❤️

#'bolsy is the best president we have ever had' said a random football player ❤️#dude earns 100k per month ❤️#football players = our future politicians #they always run for some political position when they get old #becky talks #politics

3 notes · View notes

michaelsheenpt · 3 years

Text

Michael Sheen: The pandemic has shown what is possible on homelessness

The actor now uses his Hollywood cash to fund his passion for activism. Sheen reveals why he revels in spending money on the things that matter and why he has hope for the post-Covid future.

Michael Sheen, activist and actor. It is in that order these days. And he’s doing rather well in both spheres. He has spent the last few years trying to find a way to balance his twin passions. And, he says, he is slowly getting there.

“A big part of it was shifting things in my head and knowing what the priorities were,” says the 51-year-old.

“I made the shift psychologically to go, right, the acting work and everything that comes with that is going to support the other stuff I’m doing.

“So even though to the outside world, maybe it wouldn’t seem like it – because I’ve been doing lots of acting work and things that have kept the profile up and all that – from my point of view, the priority has been different. Now the acting work fits in around the other stuff.”

That ‘other stuff’ involves supporting the Homeless World Cup and the fight to expand access to affordable credit, campaigning to get the right to a good home enshrined in law in Wales and combating loneliness with the Great Winter Get Together (an idea inspired by the late MP Jo Cox). Then there’s working with Social Enterprise UK, for whom he is a patron alongside The Big Issue’s Lord Bird, helping local journalism and communities get access to trustworthy information, publicising and supporting both foodbanks and theatres and fighting period poverty.

It’s a heady and righteous cocktail of vital causes. And it takes up a lot of Sheen’s time. With the Covid pandemic of 2020, and Brexit around the corner, he feels his activism is going to be more important than ever in 2021.

“Everything that was happening before Covid came along which has been exacerbated,” says Sheen. “So it’s not like issues I was focused on beforehand – around homelessness and high-cost credit – are going away.

“We’re bracing ourselves for it getting a lot harder and more people being involved. The work that was going on pre–pandemic is going to get even more pressured. Because when you look into anything around poverty and inequality before the pandemic, the fallout from the way Universal Credit was being rolled out was having a massive effect. Well, there’s going to be a lot more people on Universal Credit now.”

But Sheen also sees this as a moment to seize, a chance to rebuild society anew, a period that is packed with potential.

“We saw what was possible around homelessness during the pandemic, where people were able to get off the streets and were put into accommodation and given support that wasn’t there before,” he says.

“That has made a lot of people think. If that’s possible during a pandemic when people are really motivated, then why can’t it happen afterwards as well? Why does it take a pandemic to do it? We have seen that the fact there are still people living on the street is a political choice.

“So while we are bracing ourselves for really challenging times, that’s balanced out by a sense that there’s the chance to build up from the ground again. How do we reimagine who we are and how we live and how we work together? The status quo wasn’t working. So we have to innovate, we have to reimagine, we have to reinvent – there is a moment of possibility to build back better.”

He is on a roll. He sounds like a politician. A good politician. With that rich, sonorous voice rising as he advocates a new way of living, a new vision for society. He compares the imminent, we hope, post-Covid moment to the situation facing the post-war Attlee government. 

“When you go through a big, nation–changing event, which this has been, there’s the opportunity to reimagine a different relationship between the state and society and between us as a community,” he continues. “To see how communities have pulled together gives you a new awareness of who we are and what we can be. We can rebuild our nation in the light of that.

“There won’t always be that window of opportunity. We’ll go in a new direction and a new status quo will emerge. Let’s hope it can be a fairer one.”

But Sheen is not just about ideas for a brighter future for Wales, the UK, and beyond. He’s also at the top of the acting profession. And we’ve seen a lot of him in 2020.

There was his brilliant, uncanny, portrayal of Chris Tarrant in Quiz back in March – the memorable pop-cultural drama-doc which drew a massive lockdown audience to its exploration of the infamous, scandalous, did-they-didn’t-they ‘cheat’ storm on ITV’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – shedding light on the inventive, pre-internet ways WWTBAM fans across the country hooked up to game their way onto the show.

Sheen was – not for the first time in a career that has seen him portray with such skill a diverse crowd of famous names, including Brian Clough (The Damned United), Kenneth Williams (Fantabulosa), Tony Blair (The Deal, The Queen and The Special Relationship), and David Frost (in Frost/Nixon) – utterly, bewilderingly believable as Tarrant and the three-part series, aired over consecutive nights, was genuine event television.

Then, when it became clear this pandemic and these lockdowns weren’t going anywhere fast, Sheen joined forces with his Good Omens co-star David Tennant to make Staged – the first, and perhaps only show to capture the tedium, the disconnectedness, the discombobulation of lockdown life.

With the big–name actors playing heightened versions of themselves – Sheen pompous, cultured, guzzling wine, Tennant eager to please, upbeat, hapless – it was a roaring success on iPlayer.

“David is very different to what you see in the series in real life,” says Sheen. “But although I’d like to say I’m different to the version of me in Staged, that’s pretty much what I’m like.”

The surprise second series of Staged catches up with Sheen and Tennant (or should that be Tennant and Sheen?) a few months down the line.

“We knew the series was very easy to do, filming it at home on a laptop – or that even if we went back to a more normal life again and were working elsewhere, we could film it anywhere,” says Sheen.

“And by the time we came to the second series, it was different. Even though we were still spending a lot of time at home, the second series was during a period where everybody, including David and I, were trying to go back to do things. Then the rules kept changing.

“So you never quite knew whether what was going to happen from day to day. The second series reflects that. But obviously, going back to work and trying to go back to normal is very different from me and David than they are for a lot of people – so we were aware that had to be dealt with as well, because never wanted it to be about two poncey actors and their lives. We wanted to find a way to do it so that people could still identify with it.”

This year, Sheen, like most of us, has spent more time at home. He has, he says, enjoyed catching fewer planes, appreciated his friends and extended family more than ever, raced through five series of Line of Duty and been wowed by Normal People, starting his way down Schitt’s Creek but still found little time to read novels (“I’ve asked for a few from Father Christmas”).

Because if he does find time to read, it is usually research on housing, on fighting poverty, on rebuilding the broken or the out-of-control housing market, alongside the occasional script.

But if 2020 has been about anything for Sheen, is has been about spending time with his baby daughter Lyra.

“When we went into that first lockdown in March, she was only five months old,” he says.

“So our focus has been her this whole time. Really our experiences wouldn’t have been massively different. The main overwhelming part of our experience of the last year has been having a baby, as opposed to Covid. And I know I’m very fortunate to be able to say that. But anyone who’s had a baby knows that that just takes up all your bandwidth.

“They give you structure, don’t they? A reason to get up in the morning. A lot of people have said it is difficult getting motivated to do stuff – but that’s not an issue when you’ve got a little one, is it? So I have got very used to being in the house. I even got to do two seasons of a TV show from my kitchen, which is pretty nice…”

Staged returns to BBC One and iPlayer on January 4

Michael Sheen on the legacy of the Homeless World Cup in Wales

In the summer of 2019, Cardiff hosted the Homeless World Cup. As the football tournament, featuring players from around the world, all of whom were experiencing homelessness, kicked off, we knew Michael Sheen had played a huge role in bringing the event to Wales.

What didn’t emerge until later was that, when some promised funding failed to emerge, Sheen was faced with a choice between sinking more than £1m of his own money into making it happen or cancelling the event.

He paid. They played.

It was a triumph and will last long in the memory. So how does Sheen feel now about it?

“It is an extraordinary event that happens every year,” he says. “It was going to be in Finland this year, which I was really looking forward to – because Finland has been quite pioneering in the Housing First strategy and I was looking forward to being able to find out more about that. But I still feel the way I did before – and what motivated me to try and make it happen here in Wales is that it is life-changing for people and can be a transformative experience in all kinds of ways.

“For some people who take part in it, it has an immediate effect. And for others, it may be years later that the effects of it manifest in their life. But that was why I was so committed to being a part of making that happen.

“A lot of the motivation for us in Wales was about what it could act as a platform for afterwards. And that has been affected by the Covid crisis, because a lot of the legacy work we were doing was unable to move forward in the way we’d hoped because of all the restrictions. But what I learned and discovered during that period has made a massive difference to me and the work I’m doing around homelessness.

“The relationships we developed through that time with support service organisations, the people I met and the insights I got into what people are struggling with and what would help were invaluable. It’s been a huge thing for me. I’m still paying for it. So that still affects my life as well, obviously, and things that I’m doing.

“But my acting work is there to support the other stuff. I’m putting money into things constantly, even though I still owe money to do with the Homeless World Cup. So until the time comes when I’m not able to earn money in the same way, then I’ll keep on spending it on the things that matter to me.”

SOURCE

#michael sheen #homelessness #his commitment and passion and effort to help others is one of the things I admire most about him #he does care #the big issue #poverty #constantly researching and coming up with ideas to help stop homelessness #non acting stuff #activism #staged #good omens

59 notes · View notes

invisibleicewands · 3 years

Link

Michael Sheen: ‘There is a moment of possibility to build back better’

The actor now uses his Hollywood cash to fund his passion for activism. Sheen reveals why he revels in spending money on the things that matter and why he has hope for the post-Covid future