55-0

55-0. That’s the score from a girls’ high school softball game in North Carolina last week. When West Charlotte visited Central Cabarrus, Central pounded West, putting 30 runs on the board in the first inning and 25 in the second, before the game was called.

The Central coach was suspended for two games, and the athletic director of West Charlotte said the game was the worst display of sportsmanship he’d ever seen. Apparently, this story is starting to make news because some parents of some of the kids on the West squad took great umbrage at the fact that their kids were blown out so badly in this contest. I can already envision the questions and statements that must be making the rounds: “How will this hurt our children?” “What kind of sportsmanship does that teach?” “Jill is going to be psychologically damaged by this devastating blow! We can’t have that!”

You know what’s worse than losing 55-0? Losing 55-0 and having your parents make such a stink about it that it becomes national news, making you and your friends fodder for every sports talk show and late night monologue around.

As a parent to one son who’s already gone through Little League, junior- and high school baseball, and to another who’s presently going through Pop Warner football, I’m very well acquainted with sporting events at this level. Do you know what a little kid says after 55-0 loss? “Bummer. I hate that we lost. Do we still get ice cream?” They don’t lose sleep over it. They don’t hold onto it. They don’t cry into their pillows at night. They get over it, as long as the can still stop at Scoopy Doos for cones after the game. Even as teenagers, they care about losing – but they get over it pretty easily. They go from the ball field to the locker room to the pizza joint without missing a beat. You know who doesn’t get over losses like this? Their parents.

But what those parents forget is that losses like 55-0 are a part of life, both in sports and in the real world. Most lopsided college game in history? 220-0. NFL: 77-0. It happens.

I hear that there’s talk of trying to legislate against such supposedly unsportsmanlike blowouts. What will that accomplish? What are you trying to teach kids with that? That you can legislate “fairness?” Guess what. Life isn’t fair. We see that life is unfair every single day, in so many ways. A boy in New York gets an infection in his tooth that spreads to his brain and winds up killing him. Another boy in New York, crossing the street to get money for the ice cream truck, is struck by a hit-and-run driver and dies the next morning. No, kids. Life isn’t fair at all -- not by a long shot.

But through sports, we can teach our children how to deal with the unfairness that life throws our way. My youngest was involved in a football game last season where they got blown out 36-6, and it wasn’t even as close as that score suggests. The coaches took it hard, and as a result, all the kids took it hard right after the game. But you know what I told my son? “It’s a tough loss. But it’s not the end of the world. You will get over it. Just remember how this feels, and do your best and play your hardest so you can avoid this feeling next week.” And you know what? By the time we got home, he was ready to get out of his football gear and go out and ride his bike. He dealt with the loss, processed it, and then let it go. That’s what we’re supposed to do in life, isn’t it?

Life, just like sports, deals you losses. Some are huge. Some are devastating. Some are inconsequential. But if our kids don’t learn how to deal with a loss on the baseball diamond or the football field, how will they cope with a loss that’s far more significant?

This spring, I joined a men’s basketball league with several of my friends and cronies. It’s our first year in the league, our first year playing together, and we’re going up against teams that have played together for over a decade. Not surprisingly, we’re getting blown out every single week because the teams we’re playing against are far more familiar with each other than we are and, quite frankly, are also more talented. We’ve yet to win a game this season and, in our best game so far, we lost by 32 points. But I’m happy that my youngest comes down to watch us play because he’s seeing the qualities that each one of the guys on our squad displays: we do not give up, we maintain good sportsmanship, we play hard from start to finish despite double-digit deficits though most of the game, and we shake hands at the end. We do that because that’s how each one of us learned to play the game when we were kids. Never give up. Keep trying. Play like you expect to win, and if you lose this one, come back and win the next one. And always play with your head up, even when you’re getting blown out.

We can -- and should -- teach our kids these qualities, attributes, and mind-sets through the vehicle of sports, because they will serve our children well down the road of the rest of their lives. If we teach our children that we should pass laws to make sure you get treated fairly by outlawing 55-0 blow-outs, aren’t our kids going to be looking for such laws in every area of their lives?

How we deal, and how we are taught to deal, with adversity, and unfairness, and losses, as children, sets the stage for how we will deal with those same things in the future. Maybe the folks in North Carolina, and all of the sporting parents in the country, should try to remember that.

Hollywood Kids

I just finished watching a 20/20 episode on, you guessed it, Hollywood kids and their parents. What a ridiculous bunch of over-indulged, spoiled, self-centered twits. And then there's the kids.

What horror stories. Hear about Nick and Aaron Carter? Nick is one of the former Backstreet Boys, the group that, for reasons that escape me, sold bunches of records in the nineties. (I'm sure the reasons escape me because I'm not a fifteen year old girl.) Then there's Aaron, his brother, who his manager/mother forced down the public's throat as another teen heartthrob. And guess what? The public bought it, and Aaron's selling records and making videos.

But, lo and behold, with Aaron making $40,000 to $50,000 per show, and money flowing in, problems develop in the family. Aaron wants his money; mom is spending it; dad's not getting enough, so the parents split, and then dad hooks up with a younger woman, mom has a fit, is arrested, and --- well, you get the picture.

Aaron's complaint is that he just wants his mom to be a mom. (Insert your favorite "hurt-puppy-dog-look" here.) But all she wanted to do was rip off his money, not let him smoke pot with his friends, stop him from drinking and partying when he wanted to (he's 17 years old, by the by), and overall, mom just was being a general stick in the mud. I dunno. Sounds kinda mom-like to me.

Oh, don't get me wrong. Mom's no angel. She's apparently got two tractor trailers full of her own clothes, she tried to buy her kids' affections with expensive gifts -- like Mercedes SUVs -- and, wonder of wonders, there's lots of money supposedly missing.

Of course, what no one addresses is that Aaron has a 5 million dollar trust fund that he gets his hands on when he turns 18. I don't know about you, but if he's got 5 mill in a trust fund, I'm thinking Mom couldn't have taken all that much, and must have been doing something right along the way.

The thing is, this kid is so going to be yesterday's news, and sooner, rather than later. The little girls aren't going to find him so cute for very much longer, and it's not like he can actually sing. He's a commodity that his mom did a great job packaging. It just aggravates me that spoiled brats like him can look the proverbial gift horse so squarely in the mouth.

The other one in this show that really ticked me off was Jamie Foxworthy. Yeah, I never heard of her before either, but it turns out that she was one of the kids on that old ABC show Family Matters. (Yeah, the Urckle one.) Child of a single mom, landed a couple commercials when she was five and then, lucky break of all lucky breaks, at 9, she lands the role of the youngest daughter on Family Matters. Now, we're talking network sitcom here. Obviously, she's not pulling down Friends money, but she's certainly making a decent amount every week for each episode. And this show actually stayed on the air for 9 seasons. Nice gig, right? 9 years of regular paychecks, and, with wise money management, you could be set for life.

Only --- that's not what happened to little Jamie. No, her mom gets the bright idea in Season Two that Family Matters should do some shows focusing on the youngest daughter. Yeah. That was going to happen -- when pigs fly. (And that's actually what the producers told her.) So, after two season, Jamie leaves the show. Brilliant.

After that, the money dried up for their lavish lifestyle (there words, not mine), and things got tough. Imagine that. They didn't invest, or save, or live within their means. They spent the money as soon as the got it, and when it stopped coming in, things got tight. Wow. You mean, when you voluntarily walk out on a steady pay check on a TV sitcom (that's bound to go into syndication), you don't automatically get another high paying gig?

What is wrong with these people? Someone lays the golden goose on your door step, and you get a craving for foie gras?

Wait, that's not the best part. When Jamie turns 18, she discovers that there's money to be made in porn. She did a few shots, and the handed her $6,000. Wow, says she, easy money. And she went out and started spending, like it was water (again, her words, no mine). And then she made another movie, and another.

Of course, on the broadcast, they show her the headline from the Star (or was it the Enquirer) that read "From Pigtails to Porn Star," and she breaks down in tears because the experience was so horrible. Yeah. I'm sure she was crying her eyes out as she pissed through thousands and thousands of dollars. Oh, don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against porn -- I've got lots against a person who takes money from porn and then cries about it, like someone held a gun to her head and made her take her clothes off, kiss a girl, and have sex on camera.

Oh, there are some horror stories, to be sure. Corey Feldman, Leanne Rimes. But for every sad story about a Hollywood child taken advantage of by a parent living vicariously through them, there are just as many stories of obnoxious, spoiled, ungrateful, and downright dopey kids with a sense of entitlement who believe that the world should cater to their every need. It just makes me so tired listening to them whine and complain.

Cleaning Out My Email Box

We all get these newsie, info-mercial type emails from time to time, from a friend who got it from a friend, who got it from a co-worker -- kinda like that old shampoo commercial (Was that Herbal Essence?)

Anyway, I liked this one enought to preserve it here. It makes me cringe a litte. How 'bout you?

Born Before 1986? Then You Are...

...OLD! And here's proof.

Every year Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin publishes what it calls "The Mindset List"--fun facts and figures about the incoming crop of freshmen so professors will be able to relate to their new students.

So to better understand how the class of 2008 thinks, read this and feel your age:

1. Most students entering college this fall were born in 1986.
2. Desi Arnaz, Orson Welles, Roy Orbison, Ted Bundy, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Cary Grant have always been dead.
3. "Heeeere's Johnny!" is a scary greeting from Jack Nicholson, not a warm welcome from Ed McMahon.
4. The Energizer bunny has always been going and going and going.
5. Large fine-print ads for prescription drugs have always appeared in magazines.
6. Photographs have always been processed in an hour or less.
7. They never got a chance to drink 7-Up Gold, Crystal Pepsi, or Apple Slice.
8. Baby Jessica could be a classmate.
9. Parents may have been reading "The Bourne Supremacy" or "It" as they rocked them in their cradles.
10. Alan Greenspan has always been setting the nation's financial direction.
11. The U.S. has always been a Prozac nation.
12. They have always enjoyed the comfort of pleather.
13. Harry has always known Sally.
14. They never saw Roseanne Roseannadanna live on "Saturday Night Live."
15. There has always been a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
16. They never ate a McSub at McD's.
17. There has always been a Comedy Channel.
18. Bill and Ted have always been on an excellent adventure.
19. They were never tempted by smokeless cigarettes.
20. Robert Downey, Jr. has always been in trouble.
21. Martha Stewart has always been cooking up something with someone.
22. They have always been comfortable with gay characters on television.
23. Mike Tyson has always been a contender.
24. The government has always been proposing we go to Mars, and it has always been deemed too expensive.
25. There have never been any Playboy Clubs.
26. There have always been night games at Wrigley Field.
27. Rogaine has always been available for the follicularly challenged.
28. They never saw USA Today or the Christian Science Monitor as a TV news program.
29. Computers have always suffered from viruses.
30. We have always been mapping the human genome.
31. Politicians have always used rock music for theme songs.
32. Network television has always struggled to keep up with cable.
33. O'Hare has always been the most delay-plagued airport in the U.S.
34. Ivan Boesky has never sold stock.
35. Toll-free 800 phone numbers have always spelled out catchy phrases.
36. Bethlehem has never been a place of peace at Christmas.
37. Episcopal women bishops have always threatened the foundation of the Anglican Church.
38. Svelte Oprah has always dominated afternoon television; who was Phil Donahue anyway?
39. They never flew on People Express.
40. AZT has always been used to treat AIDS.
41. The international community has always been installing or removing the leader of Haiti.
42. Oliver North has always been a talk show host and news commentator.
43. They have suffered through airport security systems since they were in strollers.
44. They have done most of their search for the right college online.
45. Aspirin has always been used to reduce the risk of a heart attack.
46. They were spared the TV ads for Zamfir and his panpipes.
47. Castro has always been an aging politician in a suit.
48. There have always been non-stop flights around the world without refueling.
49. Cher hasn't aged a day.
50. M.A.S.H. was a game: Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House.

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Makes you think, doesn't it?