I had the pleasure of playing in the first annual Sports4Kids Charity Corporate Kickball Tournament. That's right, I said kickball - as in the sport we all played in the 2nd grade. Apparently there's a thriving adult kickball community, even a World Adult Kickball Association. Who knew?
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a colleague approached my cube and the following conversation took place:
Colleague: "Hey Alex, you used to play soccer, right?"
Me: "Yup."
Colleague: "So...you could kick a ball pretty far, right?"
Me: "...uhh.....yeah, I guess."
Colleague: "Cool...Cool....so hey would you wanna play in a kickball tournament
Me: "...a what?"
Colleague: "A kickball tournament, it's for charity and we're putting an RHI team together."
Me: "I dunno man, I got tons of stuff going on and I ne..
Colleague: "We're playing marketing"
Me: "I'm in."
So on Thursday I found myself heading towards Treasure Island (for those of you not familiar with Bay Area geography, Treasure Island is the little island (duh) in the middle of the Bay that connects the two spans of the Bay Bridge)
Funny side story: my drive out there almost ended rather badly; when I was merging onto 580, I floored it and when I took my foot off the accelerator....I kept accelerating! It was stuck! So I quickly reached down and pulled the pedal up, hit the hazards and pulled off the road. Seemed as though the floor mat had jammed up against the pedal. Bit of excitement.
Anyway, the tournament took place on a large field right on the water (see photos. There were a total of 10 teams, including 2 from RHI, a very drunk Oakland Fire Department team, and various other Bay Area companies.
We had a fairly strong team including a former cleanup kicker for his Navy OCS team, and of course Deanne who played MUCH better than I did. We played a total of five games, won 3, lost 1 and were ROBBED in the final game. We placed second or third (I left before the final standings were announced.)
I pulled muscles I didn't even know I had, got sunburned and blown around by the 25mph winds. I woke up Friday morning feeling like an old man. Don't let anyone tell you Kickball is a kids' game....it's not.