OT - your most impressive athletic achievements

[RobertWeathers]

Yeah, I still play chess some,usually online. When I was in my early 20's I used to work with ex-cons.( helped them get job training, GEDs,etc). Some of em were really good chess players. I guess lotta time on their hands some of these dudes read every chess book out there, knew tons of openings and defenses.

I'm by no means Bobby Fischer but I really enjoy it. I got my nephew into it. My grandfather taught me.

Great way for kids (and ex cons) to learn strategy, risk/reward, discipline and patience.

 

[jimnance]

The sad passing of ABA star and former Piston Marvin Barnes - Detroit Athletic Co. Blog
The late Mr. Barnes once robbed a bus (?) ...while wearing his letter jacket with his name embroidered on it..........

Yup, that's Marvin. Grew up in the projects in New Haven iirc. Never really escaped the hood,tho. Damn shame,because despite what you've read, he was a genuinely nice guy. Problem is, he was easily taken advantage of and easy to influence. And we're talking about arguably the most physically gifted pf in the history of the game. He was a sculpted 6'9", strong,super quick. He SHOULD have been Karl Malone. But he could never keep away from drugs.
The first time I met him in San Diego,was an outdoor pickup hoops game. Maybe cause I was a white guy with long hair then(1980?), maybe cause he was Conn. and me from Boston,after we got done playing a bunch of games he asked me where he could score some acid. Bear in mind at the time he was serving a drug suspension from his previous team,who released him. He was a workout maniac- got up early ran 5 miles every morning. Lifted weights midday and then played intense pickup BB in the evening. All this while trying to get picked up by the Clippers.
I'll give you one cool story,tho. After one evening of maybe 4or 5 intense full court pickup games, here we are all dripping with sweat in our shorts- Marvin invites ALL of us( probably 75% white guys), to join him at this local club-in our sweat-soaked hoops clothes. He had connections there so we pile into a few cars and walk into this place where everyone else is dressed up. We're sweaty,dirty,lol. We go past the line of people,pay no cover charge and Marvin buys all of us a round. It was pretty cool. All the ladies looking at us like we're celebrities and we're just a bunch of nobodies. He was a damn nice guy. I was probably around him 5 days a week for about a month. Guy worked his butt off-but then still got high on something nearly every night. Shame.

 

[SuperStang83]

this one is easy....having sex with my ex-wife. A combination of the triathlon and an eating glass competition.

At least you got to compete. My wife thinks it's an Olympic sport....comes around every four years.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

LOL, @fnordcircle - your story is eerily similar to mine, though I did not live in the boonies nor did I possess an 80 mph fastball.

Little League baseball. The best players got to play the whole game, the rest got substituted and only played 2-3 innings. I don't remember the details but our team needed a catcher. I jumped at the opportunity because that meant I would play the whole game.

Soon I became very good at the position, probably the best in the league. With more at bats I had became our team's best/2nd best hitter too. By then what I really wanted to do was pitch. I would throw the ball back to our pitcher as hard as I could in an attempt to impress my coach. My pitchers would complain; at times after catching my throw they would wince in pain, even going so far as to take off their glove and shake their hand it was so sore.

Eventually got my chance. First two batters both struck out on three pitches. Next guy kept fouling off pitches and eventually walked. Struck out the next batter to end the inning.

Coach had a big smile as we returned to the dugout. Whole team was jubilant. Life was grand.

Until the next inning.

Similarly, for whatever reason I could not get the ball over the plate. Our opponent - comprised entirely of friends and neighbors who went to the same elementary school as me - batted around. I took a little heat off the fastball, just trying to avoid more walks. Next thing I know there's a monstrous high fly ball over the left field fence, grand slam. Some dork in right field was yelling to take me out, and our opponent's dugout was going crazy. It was a Southwest Airlines "Want To Get Away" real life moment. I managed to finish the inning without further damage and the coach mercifully brought in somebody else to pitch the next inning.

Next game it was back to catcher - and I never got another chance to pitch again.

So, the Pats are in the Super Bowl right? And we're down like, 28-3 in the third quarter, okay? It's like worse than SB XX, but we come back, just making plays made no onside kicks or kick returns or anything and we tie it up in regulation and win the title in OT, first one in SB history, and we're like, the best QB in history, the best coach in history, and, like, we do it all wearing those old ridiculous flying elvis uniforms from the Drew Bledsoe era, you know, and we're like, the dynasty of the century, man...

Like the monkeys/typewriters/room scenario, one of us must've blurted this right before passing out at some point in the dazed, high haze of our wasted youth, right?

It's simple mathematics.

 

[LightSkinSmurf]

Head, shoulders, knees and toes knees and toes.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

At least you got to compete. My wife think's it's an Olympic sport....comes around every four years.

I always figured it was his wife that Chuck Connors is blowing away at the beginning of each episode in The Rifleman...

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Head, shoulders, knees and toes knees and toes.

Wake up, Jeff! The Pats won another Super Bowl!

 

[resdubwhite]

Did you ride about 200km before the climb?

About 10.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Ran the 440 in HS. Played Intramural & CYC Basketball too. No High School hockey, but played a lot of pond hockey and sometimes playing in rinks rented with friends at 1,2, 3 am. Played in rec volleyball leagues for 10 years or so. Resumed hockey in a large rec league at age 37. Worked up from C level to A level play before back injury put serious limits on my ability to compete. Just stopped playing last year due to back & age (61.)

My back (twice) really responded well to physical therapy, hope you've tried it

 

[jimnance]

What a great thread. Got some memories stirred up. Mostly good. But my brief hanging out with Marvin Barnes got me to google him. Funny all these years I never did any any research on him and didn't really follow him after when I knew him in the early 80's.
For some reason I always thought he was from New Haven, but he was really from Providence. But same thing,projects,pimps and dealers for role models.( Probably cause I'd known a few hoops players/junkies from New Haven).
I knew a lot of his stories- but I had forgotten he played briefly with the Celtics- and that he once snorted cocaine during a game on the bench. Lol

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

I'm by no means Bobby Fischer but I really enjoy it. I got my nephew into it. My grandfather taught me.

Great way for kids (and ex cons) to learn strategy, risk/reward, discipline and patience.

circa 1972

 

[Seacoast Fan]

Sucked at athletics. Didn't help that as a kid I was asthmatic, missing lots of school. Inhalers not invented. Asthma stopped so I came late to sports mid high school when most kids had been developing skills for years. Only thing I could do was play after school tackle football which I loved.

1. Moved into town as the new kid in HS. Sophomore schoolmates needed a 5th guy for their intramural team. I had never played basketball or been on an actual basketball court. I get the ball, I'm excited, and toss up an airball, at OUR OWN BASKET. We lost 82-10. Talk of the school!

2. Pushing 50 and by this time had played lots of pickup b-ball. Still sucked, "The Bricklayer" but was a actually a pretty good KC Jones style defender. Anyhow I'm interviewing with this CEO at his mansion for a VP of Engineering job. It was obvious I was not a fit. Walking me out, he took me over to this big barn like new building away from his house. We go inside and its a full court basketball court. I reach down, pick up a ball, say "Nothing but net!" and drain a long 3 pointer. Said, "Nice court!" shook hands & left.

3. Always the QB in various company football scrimmages. At DEC the manufacturing guys used to rag on the geeky engineers. I challenged them to a 11 on 11 flag football game. We'd work thru lunch but could see mfg outside at their official lunch break practicing. Guys were begging me to find someone else to play instead of them. So we start. Mfg guys really wanted a piece of me. I admit I run my mouth. Threw my 1st 2 passes into the ground. Tight, nervous. We killed them. I had a 5' 7" Edelman they simply could not cover. TD passes galore.
DEC outlawed football because several guys missed work with various injuries.

You run your mouth?

Do tell.

 

[borg]

1) I was forcibly retired from Around the World competition (math flashcard game) because I defeated 58 fellow second graders in a row

2) Living in a 43rd floor Lincoln Center high rise apartment with a balcony... and being over-served one evening....I was so inclined to heave a carved pumpkin over the Fordham Business school.... thereby setting the unofficial Pumpkin Toss record in NYC.

3) I beat a member of the Canadian National Sailing Team in a laser race because he went around the clock wise course counterclockwise. When I called him on it, he marched over to the course map, turned it upside down and said "This is how the course was supposed to be"...........uppity froggy

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

Yup, that's Marvin. Grew up in the projects in New Haven iirc. Never really escaped the hood,tho. Damn shame,because despite what you've read, he was a genuinely nice guy. .

The teammate he attacked with a tire iron might think differently........

 

[mosslost]

 

[Tony2046]

Didn't know you were at happy Fort Campbell. I had orders to go there and they were changed at the eleventh hour. Great story; I would like to have tried my hand at Air Assault school, so I have to tip my hat to you. As for your last line, it's interesting to meet soldiers from different MOSs, like 42A, that came out of Campbell with wings.

Probably the thing I'm most proud of as far as individual athletic accomplishments, I'd have to put an 8-mile ruck qualifier I did in July 2015 at the top. It was part of a selection process to deploy with a SOF unit; 8 miles, 50 pounds dry, ACH, FLC, rubber ducky (fake M4), in 86:32. And then went overseas and never wore a uniform, let alone a **** ton of combat gear.

On the sports side, I did hit a home run off of Michael Cuddyer when we were both 12 years old, so that's cool(?)

The school was at Fort Hood. I was part of a small Air Defense unit (166th ord) and 1st Cav was right across the field from us. My unit went to the field maybe one or two weeks a year and even then it was port johns etc... OTOH 1st Cav lived in the field 6 months out of the year and they were nuts when they got back but fun to party with. Anyways I was allowed to go because it was offered to pretty much anyone stationed at Fort Hood. If I had been stationed anywhere else they would not have allowed me to go because I wasn't in a combat unit. I was a 24K which later switched to 27K.

8 miles in July is no joke. That's salt stained pits weather.

 

[jimnance]

So they finally opened up the first golf course in Cambodia after 25 years or so of civil war and other badness. All the bigshots were getting into it, but they were starting from scratch. A bunch of us who were expatriates there doing development aid stuff used to go out regularly and play on Sundays, drink beer, good times.

One day, they decided to have the first official tournament, calling it the "Chea Sim Open" after the Acting Regent and one of the triumvirate of leaders at the time. We were friendly with everyone so they invited us to play. Had a good day, shot an 82, went in the clubhouse and one of my wife's uncles who worked security for the Prime Minister asks me "how'd you shoot?" Told him and he goes "I think you won". Sure enough look at the leader board and they'd all conspired to pretend to shoot 84 so that Chea Sim would win his own tournament with a pretend 83. Next thing you know, Chea Sim is handing me a trophy and a new set of counterfeit golf clubs in a bag on national TV and I'm the first national golf champion of Cambodia.

So I got that going for me. Which is nice.

That is a freaking awesome story.

 

[mosslost]

I peaked too young..

 

[jimnance]

Didn't know you were at happy Fort Campbell. I had orders to go there and they were changed at the eleventh hour. Great story; I would like to have tried my hand at Air Assault school, so I have to tip my hat to you. As for your last line, it's interesting to meet soldiers from different MOSs, like 42A, that came out of Campbell with wings.

Probably the thing I'm most proud of as far as individual athletic accomplishments, I'd have to put an 8-mile ruck qualifier I did in July 2015 at the top. It was part of a selection process to deploy with a SOF unit; 8 miles, 50 pounds dry, ACH, FLC, rubber ducky (fake M4), in 86:32. And then went overseas and never wore a uniform, let alone a **** ton of combat gear.

On the sports side, I did hit a home run off of Michael Cuddyer when we were both 12 years old, so that's cool(?)

Thanks for your service Nikolai

 

[RobertWeathers]

Wake up, Jeff! The Pats won another Super Bowl!

Jesus....The freaking Wiggles.