Thursday, February 3, 2011

Being an Ass 140 Characters at a Time

Good god. I'm going back to sleep. I was woken up by the ringing of my cell phone. It was one of the fun student loan companies looking for their money which I don't have because I haven't passed the bar and am poor. Awesomesauce.


Then, I made what I thought was an innocuous statement on the Twitters:

My high school posted about it's National Signing Day news: A kid who signed to play at Brown. While that is undoubtably impressive (trust me, I'd probably get kicked off just walking around Brown's campus. "Giggle. You aren't smart enough to be here..." Which plays into my own insecurities. Developed WHILE IN HIGH SCHOOL), I follow NSD news. A kid going to Brown? It is no Isaiah Crowell with a PUPPY announcing that he's going to Georgia. (Please someone have a baby tiger when you say you go to LSU next year. PLEASE.) Guffaw. All these college football soon to be greats and my high school's news is a kid going to Brown? Puhlease.

So I tweeted, laying in bed, half awake: My HS is nerdy, y'all (also: not good at major sports) RT @StIgnatius: On D1 signing day, SI senior LB Xavier Russo '11 commits to Brown


That not good at major sports thing was an afterthought that I actually edited. Because guess what? Crew, lacrosse, water polo? The Prep rocks. Football? Eh. Not so much. We're not bad, but we're not sending 10 kids to D1 schools every year either. And why am I explaining this? Because my tweet set off a flurry of tweets from said high school about our athletic prowess.


SI not good at major sports? SI just honored last night 3 SI players who played on USF's NCAA Championship hoops team in 1955.
 St.Ignatius 




@ 
SI not good at major sports? What about NY Yankees catcher Charlie Silvera '42? A 6 time World Series Champion with the Yanks.
 St.Ignatius 




@ 
SI Not good at major sports? What about NFL Hall of Fame member Dan Fouts '69? One of the greatest quarterbacks in history.


In that sudden inundation of tweets I IMed Beth. "Um, should I be sad or proud that I started a Twitter war with our high school?" Beth said proud. And that the person in charge of tech at SI was really nice. Which was a relief because I thought I'd just pissed off a teacher. High school shame cycle, ftw!

But I had to laugh at the tweets, too. I saw the Dan Fouts one first.

Because I can't let things go, I said: You went back 42 yrs. Even spot you Olshanksy '00. But: how 'bout 'consistently dominant'? Not tons of SI d1 football players


I was already feeling guilty about the whole exchange. Guhh. I stay out of twitter wars. I don't like feeling stupid, looking stupid, or insulting people/schools. Especially when you only have a 140 characters to make your point. And my high school experience was not the best so I was already like, "Great. They're just gonna think I hate the prep to hate the prep and that wasn't my point."

School then tweets back:  Maybe not "tons of SI D1 football players" recently but SI makes up for that in other D1 sports w/both boys and girls. AMDG


Which I totally concede! And like I said way up there: golf, cross country, field hockey? We're your school.

So I say, Absolutely, & fantastic academics. Point was: I LOVE CFB & followed NSD would love to see AN SI name at D1s, even my alma mater


The school was butt-kickingly academically challenging, even for over-achievers. I could site all the super wealthy businessmen/politicians/attorneys that went to SI as why us not having a bunch of D1 football players shouldn't matter, but won't (and I'm actually really excited about the downtown business lunch this year, assuming I can score a ticket somehow, because it's a Navy Admiral). But we could stand to throw a couple kids up on signing day! (There is hypocrisy on this point, as I think signing day is ridiculous. 18 year old boys make decisions that in the grand scheme of things probably don't have THAT great of an impact on their future or the future of the schools. They could, but you also never know. And I think it plays into the cult of celebrity to have 18 hours of ESPN coverage on the topic. The LSU hat is kind of awesome though. Or awful. I still haven't decided.)

I ponder a second more and then I feel like SUCH a jerk. I realized that some kid signed a LOI to go to Brown and is all super excited to play ivy league football and some jerk on the internet just cracked on him because he isn't going to play at her alma mater. I'm a jackass. That was totally unfair. So I end with this comment: Lost in this is a hearty congrats to Mr. Russo bc I sure as heck couldn't have even played checkers at Brown. I mean, this kid is going to BROWN. Even for the best of the best college players he will probably have a much more fulfilling set of life experiences. And probably better balanced.


In the meantime, the administrator of the SI account direct messages me, asks me about LSU, reads this here ridiculous little blog and is being really nice. Guhhhhhh.

Lesson time!: what you say on the internet matters. Be careful with your words. Should have figured this one out by now. I still have lapses, apparently.

I'm gonna go crawl into bar study cave for awhile and ponder this. The feeling of stupidity comes from not being on the right side of the argument. A lot of what I engage in, I am whole heartedly on the right, and when I start to lose the argument I can always just (silently and to myself) scoff at how idiotic the other side is. I have valid points I can back up, you will lose. And while my main point holds true (SI doesn't excel at the sending kids to play at D1s in the major sports), the rest of my argument sort of falls apart. So, without having much else to say on the subject, using a phrase my mother loathes: my bad. You're right, SI twitter account, those names you mentioned ARE impressive.

Though: You still couldn't pay me a million dollars to go back to high school. And the nightmares that aren't bar study related are the ones where I fail a class and am like perpetually stuck there. Just sayin'...

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