Loyal readers, our tenure as the Rec League Legends is coming to an end. I know, you are sad. We are sad. The only people who probably aren’t sad are the competitors who look good at our expense and the editors who put up with our shenanigans. We have left you with a lot of questions, but the one that we would truly like to address in this column is probably the most important: what’s next in the careers of the Rec League Legends?
It came as a shock to us to find out that there is no major syndicate draft of blossoming young sports writers. Honestly, we put a lot of eggs in that basket. The news was kind of devastating (Freddie was projected as a late first rounder to the New York Times, though I was probably looking at free agency). So, as it turns out, we will have to make the shift to the real world soon, like so many of our senior competitors.
In the real world we can’t be Legends day in and day out. We’ll only have the chance to shine during pick-up games at family barbecues and all kinds of other real-world things that we won’t pretend to know about or understand.
This served as the inspiration for this week’s challenge, which will be our final challenge as the unofficial Rec League Legends: cornhole. We figured this would help smooth our transition and would fit in nicely with Block Party and the rest of Green Key weekend.
The game is simple and social. It incorporates a few finessed aspects of strategy but none that we really knew or cared about. Preparation was, like most weeks, non-existent. We decided that in the real world, we obviously would not have time to practice these things, so how could we logically prepare for this challenge? We couldn’t. And you better believe that we didn’t. We take this very seriously.
So we set out on our quest during Block Party, when the idea suddenly struck me and Cab Morris ’14 that we could be next on the Beta cornhole board and have time to wait out the barbecue being served right next to it at the same time.
So we stepped in line, stuffed our faces with some of the most delicious barbecue I have ever had, hydrated ourselves and went to work. Our first match was hard-fought against James Carlson ’14 and his partner. James and I go way back to the day we went all the way to Harvard in the middle of the week for possibly the coldest two baseball games in history at the end of April for the Rolfe Division title.
So, though Cab and I eventually won out, we will still consider him an honorary Legend, which in the NARP world is probably the third highest honor you can receive (after IM Softball Captain and IM Golf Champion, which is how you get the sweet IM Championship hats). Freddie was next in line. We went to work.
Freddie played with Chris Pullerits ’15 and special guest Mary DiGeronimo ’14, who would alternate shots with Freddie. Things got heated pretty fast — Mary and Chris are actually all-star cornhole players. Cab and I were a bit out-matched, but we pressed on, even gaining an early lead despite our opponents’ best efforts. We hoped they would make mistakes that were obvious enough for us to capitalize on.
Well, loyal readers, I am sad to report that those mistakes never came. They regained the lead after a DiGeronimo double sink (there were a few of those) and never looked back. I am not going to recount the final score. It is not flattering, and I am writing the story and am therefore entitled to say whatever I want.
I would like to point out, however, that the official score sheet did show that Mary and Chris pretty much carried Freddie’s team. So what if Cab scored 75 percent of our points? I am putting a huge asterisk next to Freddie’s name in the record books for this one.
So that was it, our last challenge. Hard to believe. Tune in next week as we get Metallica to perform “Enter Sandman” à la Mariano Rivera as we take the column for the last time. Legends should always go out in style.
