It really is a wonder that the Indian River High School swim team is winning South titles year in and year out, considering that, really, they don’t even have a pool, and that, really, being a school near the ocean, you’d figure swimming would be a sport that got a little more love.
Right now, they’re driving to Georgetown twice a week to swim at Howard T. Ennis, swimming at Bear Trap twice a week, and on Fridays, they’re doing yoga in the gym because their only other option would be the aforementioned ocean, which should probably be dropping below 50 degrees any day now.
None of this is stopping the Indians from winning meets, of course, and if I’m being honest, my main reason for even bringing up the subject in the first place — other than pure puzzlement — is probably more self-serving than altruistic, considering the fact that I’m not a big fan of driving to Georgetown for any number of days a week or for any reason and that it’s really hot in Howard T. Ennis and there’s nowhere to sit.
But even though Point photographer R. Chris Clark made the not-so-surprising suggestion that I invest in a pair off those pants that zip off into shorts, like he owns for one reason or another, I figured I’d move past that for the time being to see if there was anything else in the sports world as surprising as the Indians not having their own pool.
And while I obviously didn’t find anything as shocking as a grown man owning a pair of zip-off pants, I did find a couple things that don’t seem to add up:
• The Jets and Giants sharing a stadium — It makes a lot of sense. A city has two NFL teams that don’t play in the same conference, so logic dictates that sharing a stadium shouldn’t cause too many problems.
But when you put the plan under the microscope, a couple of questions start to loom. Who’s painting the end zone every week? When the Jets and the Giants face each other, do the season ticket holders have to sit in each other’s laps? Why do two teams from New York play in New Jersey?
It’s questions like that the makes the whole situation… well, not make a lot sense. I say they knock down MetLife Stadium and build a couple of stadiums that are actually in New York. I mean how much could real estate possibly cost in downtown Manhattan anyway?
• The Utah Jazz — Dizzy Gillespie. Charlie Parker. Nat King Cole. What do they have in common? Well, they’re all great jazz musicians. They’re all dead. And, of course, they’re all for Utah.
Well… everything except for that last one. In fact, I would venture to bet that none of them had ever been to Utah — a state which, to the best of my knowledge, is far better known for its Mormon culture than its jazz scene.
While we’re at it, I don’t know of many lakes in Los Angeles or Grizzlies in Memphis either, but I’m sure that at least the jazz music’s better.
• Why Emilio Estevez started Goldberg instead of Julie “The Cat” Gaffney in “D2: The Mighty Ducks” — I can get past the fact that a federal judge decided that putting a guy with multiple DUI arrests in charge of a troubled youth hockey team would be a good idea, but why did Emilio Estevez refuse to start an obviously more talented Julie “The Cat” Gaffney over Goldberg until the very last game against Iceland or Greenland or whatever?
Goldberg sucks, everyone knows that, and Gaffney saved everything and was a total badass, too. Was it because she was a girl on a boys’ hockey team? Seems awfully sexist, but maybe. Could be a pretty heavy “Tripple Overtime” topic for another day…
• R. Chris Clark owning zip-off pants — I know I said that I’d move past this, but I just can’t. Buy a regular pair of pants, Chris, or I’m gonna start telling people that you work for another paper. [Editor’s note: We won’t mention that photos from Chris’ recent tropical vacation show him sporting a sarong. Because, apparently, he owns one of those, too.]
So there ya have it. And after a list like that, still none of it really seems quite as crazy as the Indians not having their own pool to swim to South titles in. I don’t really know how to go about the process of lobbying for one, or even who to lobby to, but if anyone from the school board, or the DIAA, or the NCAA, or the MIB, or Tom Cruise or whoever reads “Tripple Overtime”… Could we get a little help here, please?