If I make a deal with myself in my head, do I have to stick to it? If no one hears it? I can just break off the deal at anytime, right? Question mark? Wilson?
I decided to use an old motivational tool often used sports, and I'm afraid it's going to backfire. Here's the situation: with regards to winning percentage, I'm on probably the worst two-year run I've ever had in organized amateur sports. It's abysmal. 2-7 in PCAL summer basketball. 2-7 in spring basketball. 6-6 in PCAL basketball last year. 1-3 in intramural football (I'm not counting our second win--it was a forfeit). 0-3-1 in IM soccer. and something like 3-5-1 in kickball, which really shouldn't even count (although we did have a championship game for our "A" kickball team, but I played in that game and we lost!).
So in "real" amateur sports, the teams I have played on are 11-26-1 in the last two years. I'm not a math major, but if I consulted one on this he would come to the conclusion that the winning percentage derived from that record is: bad. Not "but there were some good games in there" bad. More like "you should really consider the common link on all those teams" bad.
Now we're entering my favorite season for intramurals: spring, the season of diamond-based sports and allergies. I will be playing at least 3 short-field soccer games, 8 softball games, and a few indoor soccer matches as well. I haven't really put any goals on the season in terms of winning percentage, but I did think to myself: "wouldn't it be funny if the teams I played on went 0-for-the-spring?" I thought I'd have at least make
one victory a reason to celebrate, so I decided not to shave until we won our first game. What a motivator I am! I'm like Jack Welch.
I really don't know if my personal motivation has anything to do with 11-26-1, but maybe it does, and that's enough to make me try something different. Unfortunately, I kind of miscalculated the amount of games before the WSCA conference in Denver this weekend, at which I should probably look presentable. Three mistakes on my part: 1) I thought we would have more soccer games before mid-February, 2) I thought I was going to play intramural basketball, which I ended up not doing, and 3) I forgot that we were trying to get a first-week bye for kickball (yes, I would have counted kickball) because some people were going early to WSCA.
So now my face looks like this...
...and we have one game left before WSCA (we lost our first soccer game last week).
I guess my question is not really based on whether I have to keep my promise to myself, but honestly if things like this actually motivate people. I wonder if I am truly going to play differently with the added pressure of the possibility of a hairy face at WSCA, or if I do it because I want to add a little more excitement to the game. You would think wanting to win would be exciting enough!
We'll see how it goes on Tuesday night; I'd imagine Heather might pay off the other team.
Labels: beards, intramurals, sports
