The Whine thread.

[Elessar]

I have a sports disaster to report. My son's high school soccer team was doing so well. More wins than losses in really close games. A team with really talented individuals who are learning to play together. Everything was falling in place. Every year we go to the city championship and win or loose to our arch rivals in a really close game. I mean we COUNT on it. I was just today planning how to get my oldest son home from college for the championship game. Now today . . .

They declared that we were playing with 4 ineliglble players--they are from Africa and are supposedly 19! They sure don't look 19. ARRGGHH. Including one of our stars who we were also going to recruit for our club team. He said he was 17. So we went from being number one in our conference to last place in one day. Our record is now 16 losses and 1 win because we had to forfeit ALL the past games.

And no one really knows how old they are. It's just a wild guess. All their birthdays are January 1 according to my son. ARRRGGHHH!!!

We may not even make the playoffs.

wow THAT'S a buncha bullshit.

[justTripn]

If I ever invent time travel, I'm going back and running Charles Babbage and Whatever Bool through the eye with a rusty ice pick. And dropping a piano on whoever invented C++.

HEY! And then none of us would have ever met!

But sorry, Elessar I've been there.

[Linda]

Gosh, jusTrip'n, that is too bad about that team. Have the true ages of these players been absolutely established now? It seems a great shame that all those games where played before this came out.

[Asso]

Gosh, jusTrip'n, that is too bad about that team. Have the true ages of these players been absolutely established now? It seems a great shame that all those games where played before this came out.

Exactly!

[evcake]

Imagine not knowing when you were born. Having none of the documentation we all take for granted.

[justTripn]

I don't know the latest, but I called my son before practice and said, "If you can't make it to the postseason anyway, why not just continue to play with the ineligible players and accept that you will forfiet all your games." My son says, "That's exactly what we said as soon as we heard they couldn't play yesterday. We said, Lets play this game with them and then forfiet the game. But the coach said no, it would get him in trouble."

I thought that was a heartwarming story. That the team stands with their teammates.

[evcake]

That's the spirit that sports are supposed to teach and so seldom do. IMO.

[JadziaKathryn]

That is good to hear, justTripn. I mean, the whole situation stinks (and frankly seems like penalizing the team and the players in question for things beyond their control), but it's nice that the other players wanted these guys to keep playing. After all, isn't having fun the central idea of sports?

My own whine is that I'm miffed about the gender discrimination in Dining Services. Now, I'm not a feminist by any means, but this keeps happening repeatedly. The guys can get a little weighlifting in while carrying their trays and nobody thinks a thing of it. Today there was a guy in front of me who got his plate loaded with shrimp without asking for more. Then I went up and was given less than half what he had. Now, I happen to like shrimp, so I asked for a bit more. The server acted like this was abnormal. The same thing happened a couple weeks ago. I was given an itty-bitty piece of haddock. It was only around 2 1/2 x 3 inches. I love haddock, so I asked for more and it was like the world might end. (The meals cost enough for me to eat my fill, too.) But the guys are going around with three entrees and nobody seems to give it a second thought. Hmph. "All-you-care-to-eat" my foot. Besides, I eat one meal a day in the dining commons and that's my big meal. The others I eat cheaper stuff in my room. Seriously, though, I don't know what issue these people have with a woman who actually eats.

[justTripn]

Related gripe. Do you women ever ask for a Coke and get a Diet Coke?

Hey, the Schenley soccer team story is in the news: http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/new ... tail.html#

More heartwarming details: Players from the rival team, Alderdice, are asking to sign the petition to let our kids play. What great sportsmanship.

[TPoptarts]

Whine: I went to bed at like 4:30am last night and STILL woke up at 8am. I'm tired

[Asso]

Whine: I went to bed at like 4:30am last night and STILL woke up at 8am. I'm tired

How do I understand you!

[Bether6074]

Sometimes it seems like kids have better sense and more good will than adults do sometimes. Maybe we should try to learn from them. I mean, it's a high school sporting event, right? Shouldn't the adults be promoting sportsmanship? Sometimes it seems like aging promotes cynicism and that's too bad. At least the kids involved here seem to have the right idea.

[evcake]

[justTripn]

Another news story about the ineligible players.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 30606.html

Interestingly it there are no villains in this story. Nobody "turned them in." Seems the ages were discovered by our own coach as they were looking up records for the star player to see if he should play on a U14 (under-14) or U16 (under-15) team in the club league, since multiple teams were trying to recruit him (including me )

[TPoptarts]

Whine: society sucks. I just wanna be a misanthrope. Somebody please teach me how to be a good misanthrope because I really suck at that.