You Know What to Do. Do it.

So I'm watching the training scene from Rocky IV on the eve of the first kickball game of the year.  I've seen it, without exaggeration, at least 45 times.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher than that because I think my brothers and I watched the last half of that movie once or twice a day everyday during the summer of 1990.  It would end and we would rewind it and start it over from the middle, as we rocked out from one great Survivor song to another.  No matter how many times I see it I just get sucked in.  In case you haven't seen it, Ivan Drago is training in a gym so advanced it could only exist on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain in Communist Russia, while Rocky is training in what appears to be an insulated barn in the middle of a frozen wasteland.  The classic "advanced" Russian war machine against good old fashioned American blood, sweat, and tears.  

My favorite part is when Rocky decides that he's tired of the KGB following him everywhere and he just kicks it into another gear, then proceeds to not only run away from a car, put then run straight up a mountain as if he were wearing anti-gravity boots.  What always gets me, is that the whole time he is training Adrian is watching him with this "I disapprove, but I'm hear to support you." look, which is just total B.S..  I was so happy that they killed her off in Rocky Balboa.  How could she just flat out yell down the stairs "You Can't Win!!"?  Then 2 seconds before Rocky knocks him out she yells "You're Going to Do It!!".  Way to jump on the bandwagon you heartless witch.

But right before they start training, his trainer, Duke looks at Rocky and says "You're going to have to go through hell, worse than any nightmare you've ever dreamed.  But when it's over, I know you'll be the one standing.  You know what you have to do.  Do it."  You see Rocky was a veteran fighter.  Duke didn't have to give him the big long pep talk.  "You know what you have to do.  Do it."  We are a veteran kickball team.  As the suns morning light kisses the dew of the 2009 season tomorrow, remember that.  We've been there.  We know what to do.  Now lets go out there and do it.

Good luck tomorrow and lets not get hurt.

Begin with the Beginning

Stephen Covey teaches to "Begin with the end in Mind", what an idiot.  Everyone knows things should always begin at the beginning.  Today was the "unofficial" beginning of the 2009 Kickball season.  Just hours ago I was in the "Kickball Meeting" going over all the rules and picking up my kickball with all of the other team captains.  The smell of competition coming out of that room was so thick I could literally taste it while I was driving down Oak Park Blvd.

When it comes right down to it, going to the Kickball Meeting is really uneventful.  I walk in pick up the rules and my new set of balls, and that's about it.  But I have to tell you, my heart was racing looking everyone in the eye, knowing the next time we see each other it will be under much different circumstances.  It's kind of like going into a slaughter house and looking the milk fed veil calves in their big brown Obama inspired hope-filled eyes right before they are shoved through the meat grinder of life.

So as the opening credits of the 2009 season roll and Episode 1 of Season 1 of the Bayside Tigers Kickball Team approaches the May 29th opening day, I become more an more filled with breathless anticipation of the season to come.  We are not much different than those kids at the top of this page.  Just look at them.  Max thinks he will be on the show forever, Screech and Richard Belding have no idea they will be on the show for another 15 years with no other chance of working again.  Zack has no idea that Kelly will rip out his heart and throw it on the floor time and time again.  Jessy would have never guess that her big move from Farmington Hills to an NBC Saturday Morning show would someday get her the lead roll in the biggest Cinemax Late Night movie ever Showgirls.  Slater has no idea that when he gets to College he will learn that he is Mexican.  Lisa... Oh lets face it, Lisa will continue being "Daddy's Little" girl and spending money without consequence for the rest of her life, she was the least developed character on the show.  And finally Kelly.  I had Kelly built up so high in my youth, to witness the shenanigans she pulls on the show through the eyes of an "adult" turns my stomach. 

The Team T-Shirts are in and they look great.  I hope everyones off season training was up to snuff, so we don't get 4 pulled hamstrings on the 29th.