Breakfast

 

I always think of these great posts I want to write about food but then I forget to snap a picture or get caught up in the daily grind and never managed to make the meal I had planned. So here's a wrap up of what's recently been going into my mouth.

Last week the wife and I made the mistake of not filling up on breakfast before we headed out to the boys' first football games and we paid handsomely for it.

This week we were slightly more prepared: we made it to the stadium early enough that I was able to duck out and head down the street to Bagels On The Hill for some breakfast bagels.

It's hard to get real, fresh bagels in the area, not like the bagels my Jewish mother-in-law gets that's for sure.

But these bagels came close and my breakfast was cooked to order because this ain't a fast food chain folks.

This bugger was tasty although nothing at the moment can hold a flame to Blitz's Market morning eats down at the shore...

Parent Pride

Both my sons played their first games of football last weekend.

My 5-year-old played a game of flag football and it was as expected - like herding sheep. Kids ran in all directions and general confusion ensued for the first half of the game. By the second half most of the kids had started to grasp the "don't move until the ball is hiked" concept.

This game was followed by his older brother's, who just happens to be playing tackle football.

And he couldn't be more excited about the prospect of game days in full pads.

Much like the opening game, there was plenty of confusion at the start. They don't have enough players on their team to actually scrimmage each other. It appeared early on that the concept of facing opponents, some decidedly bigger than them, was daunting.

My son, who plays running back, got the ball a few times. He also made a few nice tackles. I was glad to see that he wasn't afraid to stick his nose in there and get dirty.

Then it happened: on a broken play up the middle, he scampered outside and made it to the sidelines, then turned and headed up field, a chase of about five players behind him.

He crossed midfield and the parents in the bleachers started to scream.

I'm sure my friends in California could have heard me yelling, "Run! Run! Run!"

One of the larger kids was on his tail and began to gain on him.

They crossed the 20 yard line and one of the opposing team's coaches yelled, "Dive!"

The team that was set to play next now had lined up on the sidelines and were cheering him on.

The kid dove...

And missed!

And a roar came up from the bleachers and the sidelines and pandemonium broke loose among his teammates as they ran to congratulate him in the end zone.

I don't think I've ever felt that kind of pure joy in my life.

My son had just scored his first touchdown in his first football game on a 60 yard, knuckle-biting broken play.

I wanted to cry.

Parents came up to me and asked me, "Is that your son?" with gleaming eyes.

"Yes, that's my boy," I said proudly pondering how they would view me next week if I just fell down and cried tears of joy.

Then he had to kick off.

And play safety on defense.

He got juked bad and the kid scored.

He came out for a rest and some water but while he was out their quarterback got the wind knocked out of him. So he went back in as quarterback. He later told me he was scared because their quarterback kept getting sacked. But after getting sacked twice himself because the textbook hand-offs he was attempting were left with confused running backs going in opposite directions, he just kept it on third down and bootlegged his way around the corner for a decent gain.

Then the first string kid came back in and he went back to running back.

They may have lost the game but boy howdy did seeing my son score a touchdown tickle my spine in a new and unfound way.

Rise & Shine

Tropical Storm Hannah arrived in the late afternoon on Friday. The hype was in full force yet my 8-year-old still managed to have football practice in the rain. The brunt of the storm wasn't due to hit the area until the middle of the night, so practice was held in what could be referred to as a Seattle sprinkle. Kudos for the coaches who stood out there for two hours and taught the game to fledging Mosses, Mannings and Manns'.

I got several WTF? phone calls from my wife during my two hour stint sitting under an oak tree watching practice. But honestly, at no point did the weather seem life threatening. There was no thunder and no lightening... just a steady, fine mist of a rain.

It wasn't until much later that the ass whoopin' came and still it was mild in comparison to other storms I have encounter here in North Carolina.

We didn't get the word that my boys' football games would be cancelled until about 7:30am on Saturday.

Once we got the news, my wife and I laid in our bed with the window open and just listened to the rain; about every twenty minutes it would surge hard then cut back to a trickle.

Seeing an opening in unscheduled time (a rare site these days with school, football and work), I convinced the boys to make us a pot of coffee which they did and then brought us our cups in bed (how sweet is that?). Feeling the need to satiate my inner gourmand, I headed to the kitchen and whipped up some huevos rancheros for the wife and I while some Cornell Campbell wafted through the house.

A Good Ol' Fashion Grub Kick

So I've caught a few games of the rugby World Cup in the past week and I've got to say that rugby is - by far - the best sport I ever played.

Don't get me wrong, I grew up on Redskins football in a family that had - and still has - season tickets. When I was a little kid, the youngest of four, my father helped start the Olney Boys Club with some other men he knew at the time and went on to become a high school football referee.

So I like to watch me some football.

Growing up it was football, basketball and track (my dad coached me in track in 8th grade). I stuck to that formula for a long time. Then bmx entered into my world. I rode my bike everywhere and anywhere. I raced a few times but found it too boring in its quickness. And as much as I love to ride my bike over jumps, bmx racing just didn't interest me to watch unlike football, basketball and track.

Bmx led me to skateboarding and the concept of sport as an individual. I have to say that I still enjoy watching a good skateboard competition but after a few rounds I'm done.

By the time I got to high school, I opted out of my traditional spring sport for lacrosse. I loved lacrosse. It was like a combination of basketball, soccer and hockey. But it was also a sport of privilege much like polo and that turned me off of it. Plus I got kicked off the team my senior year.

College introduced me to rugby.

And to this day i still have a fondness for it. I played my freshman year for a university on the Eastern Shore and it was like that movie Dogtown- all a bunch of characters. Naked beer slides were involved but that's a whole 'nother story.

I went on to transfer to a college north of Baltimore and played fall and spring seasons for the next three and a half years and when I graduated and moved to Los Angeles I ended up playing for the Pasadena/Crown City Rugby Football Club for a handful of seasons.

So when I found myself with the rare opportunity to watch top-notch rugby during this year's World Cup, I gladly welcomed it: it's like my Olympics, my Tour De France, my Winston Cup.

While watching a game the other day with my boys, I said, "Ah man, nothing like a good ol' fashion grub kick" after a play by the New Zealand All Blacks, who are like the Yankees, Bulls or Patriots of the rugby world, and smiled.

A couple of days later we caught another game and my 7-year-old randomly belted out, "nothing like a good old fashioned grub kick," after a guy kicked the ball.

I tried my best to explain it but this rugby site does it better:

"a grub kick is using your feet to get the ball rolling forward. Important in the grub is that it actually touches the ground. It should not be a low drop kick. A grub kick should be done on the run with either foot. The classic grub will bounce twice close to the ground and bounce to waist level on the third. I have seen it, but very rarely. Like a drop kick, timing is very important, as you want to contact the ball just as the point of the ball hits the ground. You want your foot to make contact with upper third of the ball, essentially kicking it into the ground. A grub kick should be used when an opposing player is committed to making contact with you and is no closer than five meters. Do not kick to him, but off to his side (that ability to kick with both feet is very important). Grubs are useful because the opposing player has forward momentum towards you, is unlikely to react quickly enough to a kick, and cannot hit you if you do not have the ball. You should be able to cover your own kick."

Another site compared it to a grounder past the short stop.

Damn.

I could have summed that up quicker.