i wish i was a little bit taller

So I spend the last 3 months near the shores of the Atlantic ocean in the Spanish region of Galicia lapping up the nautical delicacies that come with it. Due to my lack of blogging activity one would think I was having the time of my life, too busy conquering Spanish point guards and partying through the night. Well unfortunately that wasn't the case. 

After my debut we started promisingly, winning by large margins and showered with praise and confetti after home games, we were the toast of the town. However, soon we lost an influential player to injury for the year, we then fell to a tough defeat at home to a poor team and all team-confidence seemed to evaporate. Over the next ten games we won only one, seemingly self-imploding into a free fall down the league standings. 

hopeless losersAs our final game approached we were tied with the team from Catalunya at the bottom of the table. To avoid being sent down we either needed to win against the Tenerife team or hope that the team from Catalunya lost. We sat in a perilous place perched over the prospect of having to endure potential embarrassment of relegation. But with the tie-breaker in hand if we both won we felt self-assured.

As the game started we played with a new found sense of urgency we hadn't had in weeks, diving on the floor, scraping for every ball and urging our near sell-out home crowd to get behind us. As halftime approached we heard the score from the other game and knew our rivals from Catalunya had a sizeable lead. If we lost our pride would be left in tatters and our prospects of a new contract all but gone for the next year.

The second half started well, two 'three's' by our top scorer and we were back in the lead. Then like clockwork, we imploded, our team became a 'team' with each player trying to win the game and salvage our respect by themselves. As the final buzzer sounded, a chorus of boos rang out. We had been thrashed in the fourth quarter and ended up losing by 25. A microcosm of the season, so much promise but ultimately so little to show for it.

We headed to the locker room dejected, and waited for confirmation from the other game that we had, in fact, been relegated. I slowly pulled off my sweat-soaked jersey and shorts and headed to the shower with the other players surrounded in silence, under a cloud the scent of abject failure. 

hopeless loserStanding there naked with the water pouring over my head I heard a scream from the other side of the locker room. I turned my head swiftly thinking there was a fight between players. Then I heard more screams and the walls reverberated with excitement. The general manager came running to the entrance of the shower yelling the final score of the other game. They had lost, a last second shot had sealed their fate, and only a monumental collapse from the only team more pathetic than us had saved our season.

As the news came in, one guy on his way to the shower took a 5 gallon jug of gatorade and drenched the coach as we looked on from the shower and cheered. The general manager came in with a bottle of champagne and sprayed it everywhere. One guy grabbed him and threw him in the shower soaking his suit as we jumped up and down around him in celebration.

There we were, 10 grown men, naked, smiles as wide as a 6 ton truck, screaming at the top of our lungs and high-fiving each other in the middle of the shower after losing by 25 points at home. Celebrating the fact, that although we were inept and useless there was still one team more hopeless than us.