Tag Archives: sports

Career

Let’s Ask an LPGA Golfer

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I’m primarily a runner and the thing that impresses me most about running is all the adult athletes I see around me. Sure you have the kids who ran in college, but I’m always impressed by the people who discovered professional sports later in life. One such person is my friend Caiti Klassovity. When Caiti told me she was leaving the film industry behind to pursue a professional golf career, I had no idea what that meant. I was happy for her, but didn’t understand what obstacles she had to conquer to do that. So, we went to dinner on weeknight in Los Feliz, caught up, and I asked the hard-hitting questions about life as a nearly professional athlete.

Liz: How did you discover golf? Why did you decide this was something that could be your career?

Caiti: Golf was the furthest thing from my mind, but one weekend my now-ex was out of town and I thought, “Hey, there is that par 3 down the street.” So I went and I did it and was addicted. I literally woke up at 6 am every day from there on out, up to today, to go play and practice this sport. It hit me like… whatever hits you and wakes you up.

What’s a typical day? What do you do to train for golf from an athletic perspective? Because all I know is that it’s a lot of walking

Yeah, it takes four and a half hours to play eighteen holes (laughs). I give about an hour a day to working out, which consists of running, core work (where all your power comes from), arms, and I guess your thighs, really. Beyond that I’ll go to the course in the morning for three to six hours, averaging five hours. If I have a lesson, I’ll have my lesson and play afterwards. If I don’t, I’ll warm up for about an hour, then go play for four hours. And then I have to go nanny after all that.

Can’t forget about that day job. How do most people get involved with golf?

Most people are born and bred for it. I obviously started super late. My brother was the golfer, he went to college on a scholarship, and he is pro level now. He shoots under par regularly; he’s like 69, which is crazy good. We grew up on a course so I was around it, but I played basketball, tennis and softball. I think most people start around ten or eleven, and go on scholarship for college. If they excel, they will get their pro card.

For the LPGA, you do what’s called Q school, and it’s a series of two tournaments. You have to qualify and make the cut for the first tourney, then the second. Only then will you have pro status. On top of that, you have to maintain it for that season so you have to hit certain scores in the tournaments you are in. There are not very many people with pro cards, maybe 200 women.

It is, of course, insanely hard to maintain that level of competition—to keep playing tournaments like that. But there are also less women that do that, compared to the PGA. It’s insane. Every young guy you see at the course wants to be on the tour and it’s not very likely it’s going to happen.

I’m older, in general, but that’s the great thing about golf. There are women who have been on the tour for twenty years who are still in the top five and then you have Lydia Ko who is 16. It’s a huge range: you can get into it at any age.

Do you feel like golf is more prevalent in certain parts of the country?

The hubs for golf are Southern California, Florida and Arizona—those are the biggest spots. But also there is a lot of golf where I grew up in the Northeast. Even though we have strong prevalent seasons, it’s very huge into golf culturally. I guess that makes it a coastal thing. But year-round warm weather helps: anywhere where you don’t have to spend part of the year inside.

What do you think your biggest challenge is right now (as a golfer)?

The biggest thing I lack is experience—playing competitively or just playing a lot at all. I have a membership now so I can play every day, but you have to develop a different persona to turn on during competition time. Even swinging in front of people and playing with people is different than when you just go out there by yourself.

For me, it’s about finding a good base of my game, which I have a good grasp of now. I have been working with my coach now for almost a year, so that is coming together. It’s the skeleton of my game. But I think getting into competition mode and performing at that level consistently will be my biggest challenge.

Can you explain where you are going? Why you are leaving LA?

I am leaving LA to move to Savannah, Georgia, in July. In LA, I have a great core group here in the golf world, including my coach—who coaches me for free simply because of our shared passion. But I have an opportunity where I can have golf and housing paid for by a sponsor that I can’t recreate here. I would like to not worry about rent, not worry about a job. So I’m going to take the opportunity to just quiet down and focus on this.

I wish I could remember the exact quote, but it’s like “you have to spend a little time creating the life you want now so you don’t spend all of your time living a life you don’t want later.” That is exactly what I’m doing. I’m not giving up time—I’m working towards what I want my future to look like.

How did you form your community out here?

Alicia is one of my best golf girlfriends here, actually my only one. The scene is completely male-dominated. When I first decided I wanted to play, I literally searched all the pros around my area and emailed them what I wanted to do. Asking for advice and positions. My now-coach Ben Krug answered and said let’s meet. Eventually I became a member of the club there and it’s a community once you are a member of a club.

Age wise, walk-of-life-wise—golf is an old white man’s sport. Let’s face it—Ben is 35, Alicia is 33. We’re all there because we love the game. But everyone can see themselves in golf one way or another other, playing or working in it.

I remember back in the day when you first started this, you were talking to a friend about women’s golf apparel and how it drove you nuts that all you could find was pink.

That has not changed. I was just talking to my friend about that and she wants to do a whole line and stuff.

Are you going to help with that?

I would. I would do that side of things. First I’m going to see where I can get my game and where I can compete. I will compete first, but as another avenue, absolutely. We want different styles, patterns, fabrics, and not pink, but we also want something that’s not $80 for a shirt. It’s super expensive.

The women golfer numbers are lower than before just because it’s expensive. At my course. it costs $90 to play a round of golf.

Speaking of all those costs, what generally are the startup costs of golf: like if I want to go out and play, what do I need? How much do you spend a week on golf?

Membership at my club is about $4200 a year, and they worked with me to make a payment plan when I started.

Just starting with golf, you don’t need the best clubs. Look for slightly used clubs—but even at Play It Again Sports, that will be $400. A jazzy new outfit will be $150 for gloves, shoes, and the rest. A lot of the courses for LA Parks are great and they are only $30; when you play twilight, you can even play some courses for $12.

If you want to get serious, you need to start to take lessons. It is a sport that you absolutely cannot teach yourself. Your natural habits in golf are going to be the opposite of what you should be doing. That’s why it’s a tireless game. You have to have the mentality and the physicality and spirituality—all cylinders have to be firing.

You’ll have the weekend warriors, guys who go play on the weekends and hit the ball around. I think it’s hilarious when people take golf up in retirement, because it’s one of the most stressful things! You have to be persistent and you have to practice. Most people go straight to the range, but you have to have a short game. You have to go to the putting green or else you’re not going to score. But that’s what people who are just beginning don’t know. They just go out and play and they are like, “Why can’t I hit the ball? Why is it going left? Why is it going right?” They try to self-correct and it doesn’t work… at all.

What would you say is the most fun part of the game? Is it the people, or a specific moment?

The most fun part is finding that sort of release where you relinquish control within the game but also within your life. It’s mind-altering and life-changing. If you go for a round, a four-hour round, and I’m playing with you, I will see every emotion I’ll ever have. It’s a picture of character really. The fun part for me is trying to maintain this game and realizing, every time, you are going to have shitty shots. You are going to mess up more than succeed but every hole is different. You always have another chance. You always have another round. You can be in a sand trap and only have one shot left and you can hole it. Or you can putt it in. You can always save yourself.

So figuring that out and being able to read the green—I love it. It’s always challenging, but it always brings you back because once you make that putt or nail that drive, you’re addicted.

It’s never repetitive and it never gets boring and I can see a future in it.

Is there always something to do? When I see golf it’s the most boring sport, but on the other hand I guess some people say running is boring too!

Take softball for example. If you go to a softball game, it’s a slow sport. I could be bored watching that, but the spectators aren’t thinking strategy like you are. They aren’t thinking, “Okay, if she hits it here, I’m going to throw it here. If she does this, I’m going to do that.” You know the mental aspect of the game and you are thinking ahead. With golf, it’s the same. You can have weekend warrior level where people just hit a ball, walk to it, hit a ball.

When you graduate to a higher level, you are using course management. You are able to control your ball flight, you are able to use a different swing for a different shot,  get this distance out of this club, put the ball here.

It’s hard and amazing. I can understand it seems boring, I thought it was boring for twenty-six years, but you know the diehard fans realize that these people are rock stars. She’s not alive anymore but Babe Zaharias is a legend. She was like back in the day during the founding the LPGA, but she was crazy good at everything: Javelin, golf, competitive sewer. And then today, I really admire Azahara Munoz. She’s from Spain. I saw her play a couple weekends ago at the Kraft-Nabisco tournament. I like the way she composes herself, and her swing is beautiful. She’s always on the cusp of greatness: she’s in the top five of every tourney but waiting to bust onto the scene. I like her style.

Final thoughts?

Play golf. Women reading, please play golf.

Liz Bohinc is a staff writer. Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Sports

Let’s Ask: You’re in a Curling League?

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Liz: So, tell me about curling. What is it? Why does it involve—

Anastasia: —the brooms?

Liz: Yeah, brooms.

Anastasia: Do you not know anything about curling?

Liz: I think there’s a Norwegian team that has weird pants? That’s what I know. And it shows up on the Olympic schedule. Actually I did see a good analogy for it the other day. Someone said something on Facebook about how curling is like bocce with brooms on ice. And I was like, “I wonder if that’s actually an accurate statement because that’s such an easy way to explain it.” So is it like bocce with brooms on ice?

Anastasia: Do you feel like you understand bocce ball better than you understand curling?

Liz: Yeah, I do.

Anastasia: (Laughs) Um, it is actually kind of like bocce ball on ice, I’m not gonna lie. The whole idea is that you have these giant rocks, that are called “stones”, and you—very similar to bocce ball—are trying to roll them down a large sheet of ice, as opposed to a lane of shells. And you’re trying to have your rocks be the closest to the center of the thingy at the end, which is it called—oh I’m the worst person to do an interview on this—um, fuck what is it called…the button. The middle is called “the button.” The rest of it is called something else, um, it’s like the…target. It’s not the target, but it looks like a target! You’re aiming for that space at the end. So each four person team throws eight stones, two stones per player, and at the end of those sixteen stones, whatever team has the closest rock to this little red thing in the middle, the button, that is the team that gets the points for that “end.” And an end is like one round.

Liz: How many points do you get?

Anastasia: You get as many points as you have stones in the house—the house! That’s what it’s called, the end thingy is called “the house.” The number of stones you have in the house until broken by the other team. [Editor’s Note: Here’s a link because this makes no sense.]

Liz: So why–what are the brooms for? Do you like use them to speed up and speed down? I don’t understand the brooms.

Anastasia: Okay, the brooms. So when you throw a stone, it’s super heavy. Like, I can barely pick up one and carry it. So they are like these super heavy rocks with handles, and you have this thing called “the hack,” which is at the end of your lane of ice, and you basically put one foot in the hack, put a “slider” on your other foot (to make it slippery so you can slide on it), and launch you and your rock down the ice.

Liz: Mhm.

Anastasia: So you launch yourself off the hack and then release the stone turned a little bit to the left or right—that’s called an “in turn” or an “out turn”—and that’s what adds the “curl.” I don’t fully understand the physics, but this controls the direction the rock spins, which affects the way your rock will curl down the ice. And so what the sweeping does is that it can increase the speed that the rock is going or it can help keep the line straight. If you have really good sweepers, the friction that the brooms make warms up the ice, making it slicker, so the rock moves faster. A lot of times, you might release a light stone with the intention of “sweeping it in,” which means that you are going to have your sweepers sweep it really hard to get the most distance out of it. This gives you better control over placement because you can call your sweepers on and off. That’s why you hear all that yelling: the “skip” is telling his/her sweepers to sweep.

Liz: Mhm. Who’s the skip?

Anastasia: So there are four people on each team. The skip is basically the captain. He/she is the last person who throws, usually, and they’re also the person at the end of the lane calling the shots. The skip will tell you which way to turn your rock (so which way to curl—in or out), how much weight to put on your rock (aka how hard to throw it), and tell you where to aim. And then they yell at the sweepers and tell them whether to sweep or not. That’s why they’re yelling things like “hard”—hard means sweep faster, sweep harder—or “off”—off means stop. Stuff like that. When you’re skipping, you have to judge the speed and the “line”—the direction—of the rock to gauge what it’s doing and if that’s what you want it to be doing.

Liz: Um, awesome. Okay, uh-

Anastasia: Does any of that make sense

Liz: Yes. I also read a Wikipedia article as you were saying it and discovered it was like shuffleboard. And then I was like, “Oh!”

Anastasia: Why would you cheat and read a Wikipedia article!?

Liz: Well you were talking about the brooms and I was like, “I don’t… I’m confused.” So I looked it up and then I was like, “Oh! I get it. It’s like shuffleboard with brooms.” And then the brooms made sense.

Anastasia: I like how bocce ball and shuffleboard make more sense to you. I barely understand bocce ball and I’ve never played shuffleboard.

Liz: So where do you go to play? Do you play like at a rink somewhere?

Anastasia: So I play in California. When I started playing, I was playing in northern California, now I play in southern, but before I started, I didn’t even realize that there was any curling out here because it’s a big Canadian and northern sport–and by “nothern” I mean places where it’s actually cold.

Liz: It’s a sport that requires ice and snow.

Anastasia: It does require ice. So you have to play on an ice rink. But I discovered that a lot of ice rinks, at least in northern and southern California, have curling. But it’s not “dedicated ice,” meaning that we curl on the same ice you skate on and that hockey players play on, which is why they call it “arena curling.”

Liz: Is there a difference?

Anastasia: Well, the biggest challenge is dealing with the quality of the ice because you’re sharing it with all these other people. So we’re always kind of dealing with these dips and slopes and drops in the ice, which can really affect the way you throw things. I’ve seen rocks start curling one way and then completely switch directions by the time they get to the house, or make giant s-curves, or hit a bump and lose steam or just stop altogether, it can be really interesting to strategize through.

Liz: So you turn an ice rink into a curling rink?

Anastasia: We take an ice rink, first it gets zambonied, and then we go through and we use this thing—the best way I can describe it is to imagine a swinging Catholic incense urn—that we use to pebble the ice with water droplets. You shake water droplets all over the ice and then run a scraper over them, to clip off the top, which creates this sort of gritty surface. You can walk on it with sneakers and you won’t slip. I mean, it’s still ice, you can slip, and I’ve fallen a couple times while playing, but you can walk on it with your shoes with much less chance of falling. I know a lot of people are intimidated by the ice and say “Oh I’m gonna have to wear skates or I’m gonna fall over,” but I always tell them: all you have to do is wear sneakers and warm clothes. And you don’t have to bundle up cause you’re moving the whole time, so you get hot.

Liz: So who is the best curling team in the world? Like who’s gonna win the Olympics, in your opinion? Or do you not even know? You just like playing?

Anastasia: You know, someone asked me the other day if the Norwegian team was gonna win purely based on their pants–

Liz: (Laughs) I mean, it’s distracting.

Anastasia: I think the Canadians are the best curlers, but I don’t actually know. You know, there’s a lot of people in my league who are really invested in it and in all the tournaments and things. We do these things called Bonspiels, which is like a big curling tournament, and a lot of leagues—um I don’t want to call it leagues, they are actually called clubs, “curling clubs”, I’m in a curling club—they will have Bonspiels. Like we have two in southern California and there’s at least one up in northern California. And so, there is this competitive circuit that goes on and there are curlers who are very invested in it and will travel to different competitions and things, but I haven’t really gotten there. I enjoy watching a good curling match but I’m not—I like playing the sport much more than I like to watch it. So I watch highlights, or the Youtube video of a really epic shot rather than sit and watch a full game or really keep up with who is curling. But I did spend a couple hours educating myself on the Canadian trials and I do think the Canadians are gonna be in medal contention this year.

Liz: Ooh medal contention… Okay, well I guess you already talked about how you ended up playing, but if I—I don’t want to start playing, I’m just gonna let you know—but if I did want to play…

Anastasia: Why not?

Liz: I mean, not to be rude, but is it like, physically hard? Is that a weird question to ask?

Anastasia: (Laughs)

Liz: We were talking about bocce ball and shuffleboard and people kind of consider those retirement, like on the beach, type sports. But clearly curlers are athletes, it’s not a game. But watching it, I’m like, this seems like a game, I don’t understand. And you said the stone’s are really heavy, but what makes it–

Anastasia: It doesn’t seem that physical?

Liz: What makes it physical? Or what does it require physically? Or like, is it something I can pick it up later?

Anastasia: Yeah. I mean, people can curl at all ages. There is an agility factor with the whole sliding thing but there’s actually this hand pole that people can use to release the stone if they can’t, or don’t want to, get down on their knees to slide.  But the thing that makes the sport really “athletic” is actually the sweeping. It’s very intense—you’re like running down a sheet of ice and sweeping with as much force as you possibly can while doing it. I mean, it’s not the same physical endurance as say basketball or whatever else. But I would say that it’s probably on par with like softball. I think it’s actually a really good intro sport if you’re kind of out of shape and you’re looking for a fun way to start exercising, because I do think it’s a good workout, but I like it more for the fun of the game than the exercise.

Liz: Yeah.

Anastasia: You, for example, would not be able to replace your running routine with curling.

Liz: Okay. That’s what I wanted to know.

Anastasia: But in terms of starting, you can go online and find out if there is a curling club at your local ice rink. I started with a club in northern California, Wine Country Curling, which I had to drive 90 minutes to get too. Now, in LA, I’m in the Hollywood Curling Club but I’ve also gone down and curled with the O.C. club. Most of these clubs, especially right now during Olympic rush, do tons of “Learn to Curls” and drop ins. That’s how I started, by going to a “Learn to Curl.” It’s very low commitment and it’ll probably cost you $15 to $25. But you’re there for a couple hours and they will teach you all the basics. You will throw stones, you will sweep, you will definitely be able to tell if you like it. I enjoyed it so much I decided to sign up for a league after that. But a lot of clubs will also do “drop in” nights where you can just come and play a game or you can “sub” for a league team, which means you come and fill in for someone who is out that week. And curlers are so, so, so nice. They really want people to learn and everyone is more than happy to teach or answer questions from new curlers. Curling is supposed to be this fun, social activity. So while we do take it seriously, but we have a lot of fun too.

Liz: So, what’s your favorite part of the game? And like, what was the part that took you a long time to understand? Was there something you really struggled with?

Anastasia: The best part of curling is, in my opinion, throwing. Because there’s this moment, when you kick off from the hack, where you’re just kind of floating along on the ice. I love that. You’ve done all this preparation: getting into the hack, making sure you’ve got your slider on, that you’ve got your rock, that you’ve figured out what turn your skip wants you to do, you know where to aim,  you know how you need to be positioned to aim there, you know how hard you need to kick off to give the stone the right weight—because the kick off is actually where the force comes from, you don’t launch the rock with your hand, that force comes from your legs—and then, in that moment when you kick off, it’s all done. So it’s this kind of this quiet, calm moment where you are just watching yourself execute. And I think that’s really cool. I don’t really like sweeping, probably because it requires the most physical activity. (Laughs) I also really like skipping. But that was a hard thing for me to grasp–the strategy of it all and really understanding the different ways the rocks turn and where they go and how the curl actually works and the physics of where you want to aim a stone. It took me a whole season before I really started to grasp it, but once I did, it made the game so much more fun.

Liz: Cool.

Anastasia: Now I’m gonna get you to go to a learn to curl.

Liz: No.

Anastasia: I can’t convince you?

Liz: (Laughs) Probably not.

Anastasia Heuer is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the UNDERenlightened. When she’s not writing, you can find her on the road in search of the world’s best hot chocolate, trying not to burn down her kitchen, or in a park somewhere with a good book.  

Liz Bohinc is a Staff Writer for the UNDERenlightened. She’s also a Compassionate Human Being. Runner. Reader. Science Fact and Science Fiction Enthusiast. Softball Addict. Animation Connoisseur. Twitter: @littlelyme.

Brainfood, Sports

Olympics: Putin on the Propaganda

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Ever since I first saw Anya and her pup Pooka twirling around the ballroom of the Winter Palace in the animated movie Anastasia, I’ve had a fascination with Mother Russia. The fairytale of a long-lost duchess captivated me, and I’ve since spent a lot of time reading about Russian history. (Yeah, I’m a pretty big nerd, but I’ve learned to be ok with that).

With all eyes now on Sochi (and @SochiProblems), the issues concerning these Olympic games themselves—corruption, animal cruelty, environmental damage, hacking, and bathroom misadventures—have all been well documented. While I’m all for some friendly international schadenfreude, the vast majority of the media coverage has been driving me a little bonkers. While it is easy to file reports and express outrage over the jailing of pretty protesters or the passage of anti-LGBT propaganda laws (though we shouldn’t be ones to talk—similar laws exist in Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah), it is much harder to accurately depict the state of modern Russia—a basic overview of the abuses of power, human rights violations, and economic woes is sorely lacking.

From everything that I have read and studied, the simplest way I can think of to explain the Russia that grew from the fall of the Soviet Union is to call it a “bizzaro world”—a veiled, faux-democratic version of what the U.S. could have become had we lost the Cold War. While each controversy is worthy of its own Tolstoy-length novel, in order to truly understand modern Russia, I believe that it is first essential to understand how and why Vladimir Putin, the former KGB official (and Forbes’ reigning Most Powerful Person) has been in power for the past 14 years. This is what I have come to understand through the looking glass of social media and Lexis Nexis:

Following the resignation of then-president Boris Yeltsin, Putin was named acting president in 1999; he later went on to win an election in his own right in 2000. Since then, as the face and puppet master of modern Russia, Putin has consolidated his power by strong-arming the oligarchy (the roughly 110 Russian citizens who control over one-third of all wealth in Russia) into submission through an exchange of support for political appointments and financial favors, limiting—and eliminating—voices of dissent, and pandering to the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2007, Putin dissolved his own government in order to have a freer hand in controlling upcoming national elections; a year later, in 2008, he unofficially entered into a shared tandemocracy (that’s tandem+democracy) with current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. This arrangement allows the pair to simply exchange titles when they have reached the end of their term limits (though, of course, they’ve also extended their own term limits from four to six years). Because of this, Putin has the distinction of being both the second and fourth president of what is officially called the Russian Federation.

As terminology goes, Putin’s approach to politics has been described as a sovereign democracy—that is, he insists on the unquestioned acceptance of his actions as reflective of the will of the Russian people. Of course, that’s not exactly the case; Putin basically does whatever he wants. This appearance-above-fact approach extends to every aspect of his persona and governance. To wit: though Putin’s notorious attempts to cultivate a “he-man” image may seem overtly oafish or appear to be vanity training for Festivus’ Feats of Strength, his tactics actually mirror old Soviet propaganda strategies. This thought mentality extends past Putin’s image into official policy and has clearly been on display at Sochi (the Opening Ceremony was curiously quiet on certain aspects of Russian history). It may seem like a joke, but it actually must have taken extraordinary restraint for this man to not ride horseback or fight a tiger during the Opening Ceremony.

Putin’s promotion of traditional, conservative Russian interests (namely, money and power) are best exemplified through his attempts to influence former Soviet satellite states and silence dissenters, both at home and abroad. In this way, he operates as though the might of the USSR is still the status quo and ferociously objects to what he views as Western influence in the region.

Internationally, his recent $15 billion attempt to bribe the Ukraine into rejecting a trade agreement with the European Union has, much to his dismay, only helped to escalate tensions in the reign. However, the attempt itself is not surprising. Much like the 2008 South Ossetia War against Georgia (a NATO nation), the situation in the Ukraine hinges on the potential democratization of what Putin views to be Russian property. These actions, along with his agitated support of fellow human rights violator Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, are a clear assertion of Putin’s vision of Russia as an equally viable alternative to Western European and American leadership, despite the fact that he cannot provide his citizens with clean drinking water.

Within Russia itself, critics of Putin and his regime are often silenced by way of exile to Siberia—literally. Pussy Riot is, perhaps, the most famous example of this methodology; an individual or group voices criticism, is convicted of trumped up charges (hooliganism, etc) during a show trial, and sent to suffer in one of the state’s prison colonies. Throughout and after this process, the target(s) will also be under constant scrutiny and even physical attack from Putin’s armed forces and the state-controlled media.

And speaking of the media: in late 2012, Putin announced the creation of a new news agency, Rossiya Segodnya, tasked with the sole responsibility of broadcasting coverage to promote the Russian image. This is reminiscent of Soviet-era broadcasting and comes on top of the fact that nearly all Russian media is already controlled by the state (the one independent network, TV Rain, has recently been dropped by most carriers following governmental pressure).

This systematic control system that Putin has established underscores not only the climate under which the Olympics are currently being held, but also the living situation of the more than 143 million Russian people. While it is easy to scoff and dismiss the quirks of Sochi, I believe that there is a very real danger in laughing and falling down that rabbit hole. To not acknowledge the inherent problems and continued rise of Putin’s Soviet-style governance is to ignore the denial of voices and basic human rights to an entire populace; to not acknowledge this, but to acknowledge the double toilets, is to fall into Putin’s propaganda. His values aren’t Olympic values and there is nothing sportsmanlike about his conduct.

Photo by Remi Coin

Photo by Remi Coin

Sports

My Dark Confession: I Don’t Like Sports

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This is complicated. I have a lot of feelings I need to sort out. It’s not that I don’t like the world of sports, the idea of sports, or their cultural weight. Such high-stakes drama! Years of practice and dedication, all for this one moment! The agony of loss! The thrill of a comeback!

There’s a reason a good deal of my favorite movies as a child were sports movies (do not buy me tequila shots and ask me to recite The Mighty Ducks front-to-back unless that’s exactly what you want to happen). But for some reason, even though I’ll spend two weeks of my life cloistered away binge-watching Friday Night Lights, I glaze over like I haven’t slept in days the minute someone turns on the TV for the actual, for-real, big game. I feel like this webcomic accurately conveys what this experience is like for me:

via VectorBelly

And God help me if I’m in a social situation where every single person around me suddenly feels the urge to weigh in on Sunday’s playoff game and I have nothing to say except, “Yeah, they were like… really throwing the ball a lot, huh?” That’s my cue to whip out my phone and hope BuzzFeed has just tweeted a new list of “Dogs Who Forgot How to Dog.”

I really wish I had a sport that I cared about, or was at least marginally excited about. It can get lonely in here, in my non-sportsing head. But I think it’s safe to say that, aside from the Olympics—which I consider a much more cinematically-adjacent drama-fest than your typical NBA season (Read: Tonya and Nancy, even 20 years later)—it’s just not going to happen for me. I recently voiced this concern to the guy in my life, and he promptly took it upon himself to instill in me a passion for basketball (or at least, an understanding of the game and why someone—i.e. him—might find it exhilarating). This resulted in a lot of pause-and-rewind during crucial moments in the games, followed by “OMGWTFBBQ LIZ WERE YOU WATCHING? DID YOU SEE THIS THING?”

“Oh you mean… that? Where he’s jumping? I saw that.”

We would then watch the shot approximately 3-4 more times until he was convinced that my enthrallment with the moment matched his own. I really do applaud his efforts. But it just hasn’t worked. He still rewinds all the shots, but now we both know he’s just doing it for his own enjoyment.

Upon finding out about my lack of enthusiasm for sporting events, people often ask me if I ever played sports as a kid. No, not really, unless you count my eighteen months of gymnastics classes (I fractured a vertebrae roleplaying My Little Pony one day and was forced to hang up my leotard and retire at the ripe old age of nine), my brief horseback riding stint (won one ribbon at a horse show, got thrown by a horse the next week, and quit the week after—literally did not get back on the horse), or the semester of field hockey I played in high school (I benched myself a lot—my old back injury was particularly unruly that year… maybe). Point being, it just wasn’t for me. I was a drama club kid, through and through.

My mom, thankfully, was sympathetic and padded my extracurricular schedule with art and creative writing classes. Her only caveat was that I had to take a dance class twice a year so I wasn’t just sitting on my ass eating Twinkies writing Sabrina The Teenage Witch spec scripts all day. I remember the day that a parent of one of my peers said to my mom (in front of me, I might add), “Aren’t you worried she won’t have any people skills because she never learned to be a team player? Sports help with that, you know. She should play volleyball.” I’ll admit that I sometimes think back to that moment on days when I’m feeling particularly socially inept and wonder if she was indeed correct. But you know what, lady? I did learn to be a team player, thank you very much! Putting on a play with other kids, learning to suck it up when your BFF got the lead role instead of you, and being loving and supportive towards that guy with stage fright or that girl who’s totally tone deaf—every one of these scenarios is one hell of a team-building exercise for a ten-year-old.

So, have I managed to lead a functional life despite the absence of sports? Yeah, I think so!

Is it socially uneasy every now and then? Sure, but that’s what “Dogs Who Forgot How to Dog” is for.

I think, by now, everyone forgives me for my incurable disinterest, and more importantly, I forgive myself. I’m not going to spend my time trying and failing to be keen on something I obviously have never really cared about. That’s just how it’s gonna be, folks.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s an unfinished Sabrina spec on a floppy disk somewhere calling my name. GAME TIME.

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Sports

Demystifying Figure Skating

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When I was five years old I became obsessed with figure skating. Not just mesmerized or fascinated, but outright obsessed. I watched it every chance I got on television and imagined throwing myself into the air to spin like the skaters I idolized. I even used my slippers to glide across the kitchen floor, pretending I was skating on ice.

My parents were pretty entertained by this and when my obsession didn’t go away after a few weeks, they enrolled me in skating classes at the local ice rink. I’m pretty sure they thought I’d get bored with it and move on after a few sessions. But instead I turned out to be an avid skater, rarely ever falling, and skipping right past the tots intro class that required you to wear a helmet and skate with an orange safety cone.

For the next few years I skated every winter (it was a seasonal rink) and did fairly well, that is until I hit the moves that required me to have a fair amount of (read: any) coordination.

I skated on and off until I was twelve, when a not-so-great injury made me realize that I was not built to throw myself into the air and never would be. I moved on to other interests but I still hold a love for the sport that captured my attention when I was little.

So to help those who are new to this wonderful sport (yes, it’s a sport, don’t you dare argue with me), here are a few keys elements you’ll be looking at when watching the skating unfold.

1) Jumps

Ah, yes, throwing yourself blindly into the air and then landing on a thin piece of metal on a slippery surface. No big deal, right? There are six types of jumps – the toe loop, the Lutz, the flip, the Salchow the loop, and the Axel – often in double and triple form (if not quads, which is INSANE) because that’s how many rotations they have to get through in the air before landing. To get an idea of what these look like and for more detail on what each of them are, check out this awesome article from The Wire with gifs of each of them. They then have to land on the appropriate edge of their skate (inside or outside, depending on which way they’re going) and they better not even dare to land on two feet or man are they screwed in points.

2) Spins

There are a six core spins you will see and hear about in the Olympics, all of which require so much speed that many of the skaters become blurs before your eyes –  the scratch, the flying, the sit, the Biellmann, the layback (my favorite), and the camel. Check out this handy guide, with GIFs, that compliments The Wire’s article. All of these require a solid center, much flexibility, and an enormous amount of power and core strength to keep the speed up. These spins often have variations as well – like switching feet, picking up speed mid-spin, and even occasionally combining spins – in order to get more points for difficulty. On top of it, they are seen as more artistic than jumps, and therefore must be graceful in order to also be seen as effective. It’s no easy task.

3) All those other random moves they do

A lot of other moves are seen more for artistic movement. Some don’t have official names, and most of that is dance-like stuff, but there are a few I can quickly introduce you to.

Spiral – nonsensically, this is the move where the skater puts her leg high into the air behind her (or sometimes in front of her if she’s a pretzel) and glides. It’s actually a lot easier than it looks (didn’t think I’d say that, eh?) but requires massive amounts of flexibility and balance.

Lunge – this is exactly as it sounds. The skater puts his leg down onto the ice and drags it behind him, usually for just a second or two because it will slow him down. This requires a strong center of gravity, let me tell you, or you’ll end up in the most uncomfortable half-split of your life. I may or may not be speaking from experience.

Crossovers – oh, these things suck. These things are what did me in early in my years of lessons because I was so clumsy. The concept is that you cross one foot over the other, either forwards or backwards, and it helps you gain speed—plus it looks nice. They do these constantly while skating. Look for them next time you watch and you won’t be able to un-see them again.

There you go – your basics to the language of figure skating. If you’re still hungry for more terminology, check out the United States Figure Skating Association’s glossary of terms – it’s comprehensive and very useful. Now go pop some popcorn and settle into your couch while you watch these skaters fling themselves into the air, spin at high speeds and generally do things that seem unsafe for the population at large. And then watch them cry as they get their scores. It’s the next great American pastime – only with ice, blades, and absolutely no padding, because padding is for amateurs.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Sports

Why I Love the Olympics

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If you have been following my battle with the cable cord, you know there is one thing and one thing only that is the lynchpin with my cable TV attachment. I’ll give you a hint: it’s an international sporting event that takes place every two years and it’s not soccer.

I’ll be the first to admit, I have an Olympics problem. Like, I could tell you down to a five-minute window when Sasha Cohen would skate in the 2006 Free Program on Wednesday. I literally watch Procter & Gamble commercials on my laptop and start to cry. I am planning out which bar I can go to watch the Opening Ceremonies just so I can hear that Olympic fanfare this winter.

But why do I love the Olympics so much? It’s a bit hard to pinpoint one thing that makes them special to me, but I’ll try to break it down into pieces with the help of YouTube links.

Let’s get the easiest ones out of the way. The Olympics are a huge television event where NBC makes a ton of money off millions of eyeballs. As a result, NBC produces a lot of great promos aka “fluff” pieces. These are the little films before each Olympics broadcast  or each event that take the Olympic competition and make it super epic with music, great cinematography, and slo-mo. They are extremely well-produced and the best kind of sappy. To be honest, for a very long time, my dream job was to produce the Olympics fluff. (We’ll skip the part about how I actually went to film school with this dream in mind…)

The Olympics also bring a slew of really amazing commercials, brought to you from the likes of Home Depot, McDonald’s, Visa etc. They’re very memorable. Come on—I’m sure a large portion of the world only knows who Morgan Freeman is because of he says “Visa: Proud Sponsor of the Olympic Games” for eleven days straight every two and a half years. Additionally, these sponsors know how to produce commercials that celebrate the hurdles Olympians have to overcome and the people who are right there with them. One of my particular favorites this year is the commercial celebrating the addition of women’s ski-jumping. Seriously, guys, it’s set to a recording of Amelia Earhart talking about being the first woman to fly. It’s awesome.

Of course the moments that really stick with me in the games are the things that aren’t choreographed and produced. It’s pure athleticism and it’s great to see someone succeed in such a big way after hours upon hours of hard work. It’s those wow moments that, thanks to my old DVR, I could watch over and over again, saying to myself, “I can’t believe that just happened.”

Take for example, McKayla Maroney’s vault during the last summer Olympics. Yes, she fell on her butt in the individual finals of what was supposed to be her “best” event. But I am never going to forget watching her stick that insane vault in the team finals. This is a girl who had a broken toe and landed such a perfect vault that a judge literally exclaimed “Oh my god” on camera.  You just can’t recreate those moments, that rush everyone in that stadium and watching on television experienced.

Conversely, there are also moments we remember for being—for lack of a better world—bad. Like things went horribly wrong and you suddenly remember how much these athletes risk for their Olympic dreams.  The thing about Olympic athletes is that while some of them might be “professional” athletes, many of them can’t live off their Olympic dreams alone and are risking so much every day. Dana Vollmer has a deadly heart condition that could kill her while she’s swimming.  If you remember the 2012 Olympic Games, there was a lot of buzz around Sarah Robles, the US’s best shot for a weightlifting medal. Sarah lived off food stamps and could barely pay her rent, while athletes like Michael Phelps were rolling in endorsements. It was a shocking juxtaposition that reminded me how much these athletes have to give up. This isn’t the same as the NFL.

Fourteen years ago, a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea named Eric Moussambani competed in the Olympic Games in the 100M Freestyle. It was a dramatic moment when he won his heat due to the disqualification of his opponents after they had two fault starts. He was soundly defeated in the following semi-finals because Eric’s fastest finish was still one minute slower the world record set at that same Olympic games. So what’s amazing about this? Well, everything. This guy almost didn’t finish his first race, but the crowd of 17,000 people cheered him to the finish. It’s an iconic Olympic moment and something that’s stuck with me for over a decade. (Ignore Moorhouse, the British commentator in the video, because he clearly doesn’t get it). In the same way, Sasha Cohen fell on her two opening jumps in her Long Program in 2006, blew her chances at a Gold Medal, but still got up and skated a final compelling and emotional performance.  Watching these athletes stand back up, and watching the world come together to support them, is as an incredible moment as any big win.

I don’t have a perfect answer as to why I love the Olympics—it’s just something about the way the multiple elements evoke an emotional human response for me. What can I say? They mean something to me. I mean I’ve already booked myself for February 14th, 2016 when Los Angeles will host the 2016 Olympic Trails for the marathon. I’m going to participate in an Olympic Trials weekend! That is so awesome.

“Yeah, I love the Olympics that much.”

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Geekery, Sports

Girl, What’s Your Fan-ta-ta-sy? An Introduction to Fantasy Football

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In November, the refresh button on my iPhone never sees more action than it does on Sundays, which can only mean one thing: I have a fantasy football team, and it’s almost playoff time, bitches.

I grew up watching (and enjoying) football in a Giants-loyal family. Even when I was living abroad, I would stay up until 2:30 am to watch the Sunday afternoon games—although I drew the line at the 8 pm games. In college, I agreed to join a friend’s fantasy football team, but I mostly forgot about it, and by mid-season, I had conceded the bottom position for my team, the New York Sandwiches.

Let’s briefly pause and try and define the complex she-beast of a hobby that is Fantasy Football. And by that I mean let’s all visit its Wikipedia page, which concisely defines FF as “an interactive competition in which users compete against each other as general managers of virtual teams built from real [NFL] players.” Essentially, in a private league of usually 10-14ish people, each participant, or “owner,” builds a team of NFL players, whose real-life performances on a given Football Sunday (or Thursday night, or Monday night) are converted using a standardized scoring system into Fantasy points for the Fantasy Team that that player inhabits. Players from your FF “team” can be from any real NFL team—say, a wide receiver from the Buffalo Bills, another from the New England Patriots, a tight end from the New York Jets, and the quarterback of the Oakland Raiders. Each league’s draft takes place right before the NFL’s regular season commences, and the season goes until Week 16 of the NFL season. Every weekend, the scores of all the football players in a FF team add up to that owner’s total for the week. These made-up Fantasy teams exist only in their designated league, which could be comprised of friends, coworkers, acquaintances who were looking for extra members, or complete randos. More explanation below—please stick with me on this; I swear it’s fun.

After that losing Fantasy season in college, I kind of gave it up on the grounds that it was too time-consuming and that I would never remember to set my team every week. But earlier this fall, my cousin emailed me to ask if I would be interested in joining her friend’s league. The buy-in was $10, she said, and the draft was that night. After some deliberation, mostly about what clever team name I would choose, I agreed; the buy-in was low, and it would give me something to do while my boyfriend was meticulously honing his own Fantasy team. If you’ve had the good fortune of never sitting through a Fantasy draft, I’ll explain: like the NFL draft (minus the zillions of dollars, minus the suits and yammering commentators, plus a congealing Lean Cuisine on your kitchen table), each participant (AKA owner) takes turns selecting a football player for sixteen rounds, eventually filling each teams’ sixteen slots.

Offensive players are the only ones who count individually in most Fantasy Football leagues (sorry, Clay Matthews). Running backs (who run the ball down the field), wide receivers (who catch the ball, often in spectacular fashion), tight ends (who double as blocker/smashers and ball catchers), quarterbacks (who throw the ball) and kickers (the white guys) earn Fantasy points by either gaining yards or scoring points. Additionally, each NFL team’s entire defense fills one slot, losing Fantasy points for touchdowns scored by the other team and gaining them for scoring points in plays like a “pick-six,” which is that thing you do when you’re really hungry and a full tray of hors d’oeuvres passes by.

Every week, you play one quarterback, three wide receivers (WR), two running backs (RB), one tight end (TE), one kicker, one defense, and one “flex” slot, which you can fill with either a WR, RB, or a TE. Before that week’s football starts, you shift around those slots with your sixteen players depending on who’s hot, who has a bye-week, who’s injured, who’s on a sucking streak, etc. Then you go head-to-head with another owner and their team. To be clear, unless some of your players happen to be playing some of the other team’s players that weekend, your teams will have no direct interaction with each other, à la some kind of Mortal Kombat-esque duel arena. In real life, these football players do not care about your Fantasy team. Another factor to consider is whom each player is going up against; for example, if you have a WR like Antonio Brown who typically puts up high numbers but this Sunday is going up against formidable dreamboat Joe Haden of the Cleveland Browns, you can expect that his numbers will probably be lower than average, and you might swap him out for a less reliable receiver—say, Alshon Jeffrey, who plays for the Chicago Bears and, omg, was born in the nineties. Throughout the season, you can also trade players with other teams and “sign” unsigned players by dropping one of your own. After a season’s worth of matches, you stand to win whatever pot has been determined by the league, usually ranging from a hundred dollars to a few thousand.

Here’s how a typical Sunday goes for an active Fantasy Football participant: around noon, you do one last check of your players on your FF app or on the league’s host site (typically ESPN, CBS Sports or Yahoo!), making sure the injury statuses haven’t changed, taking into account that some of your players may have played on Thursday and their positions (either benched or active to score Fantasy points) are unchangeable. Then before you can say “pass the nachos,” the 1 o’clock games begin, then the 4 o’clocks, then the 8 o’clocks, and suddenly it’s nighttime and you wonder what kind of contribution you could have made to society if football Sunday didn’t exist.

How frequently you check your Fantasy scores depends weekly on the company you keep. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the universe, I generally watch football with other Fantasy-ers, so we all spend the day continually shifting our gaze between the wall-mounted TV screens and the live-updating Fantasy phone apps in our hands until our necks are sore and our thumbs are bleeding.

For the record, my team name is Nerds (I gave up on the clever thing), I stand to win about $100, and at the time this article is being written, I am in second place, having been recently knocked out of the top spot by a Wes Welker ankle injury and an unforeseen 30+point performance by the normally ‘meh’ Tayvon Austin. My quarterback Robert Griffin III (RG3) is prone to injury, but his numbers have been mostly good. While pretending not to care about competitive hobbies like these is generally my M.O., secretly I really, really want to win.

FANTASY FOOTBALL PLAYOFFS UPDATE:

When my team entered the three-week Fantasy playoffs, I won the first two rounds handily, thanks to a well-timed pickup of hotshot Eagles quarterback Nick Foles. But, sadly, I was just barely beaten in Week 16, AKA Fantasy Super Bowl Week, by one stupid running back in the very last football game of the weekend. And for those of you who still don’t think that Fantasy Football can be thrilling, consider that I was one (dropped) Josh Gordon touchdown pass away from taking the whole damn thing. My second-place winnings were $20, which makes a total condolence profit of $10. Alas.

Nevertheless, I am hooked. Despite way too many hours squandered on stat-crunching, this new convert will see you next year, Fantasy Football. And if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go buy a book.

P.S. If you’re reading this in late-summer 2014, you’re just in time to sign up for a league! (Also: Did American Hustle win the Best Picture Oscar? Are Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un still friends? Who’s the President?) Here are some links for creating a FF league or joining an existing one:

ESPN Fantasy Football
CBS Sports Fantasy Football
Yahoo! Fantasy Football

See you on the field!! And by that I mean the Internet.

Photo by Alyssa Kurtzman

Photo by Alyssa Kurtzman