by request
A comment on my last posting:
High School tennis matches consisted of seven separate matches: four singles and three doubles. Each match was worth one point and whichever team took four or more points won the overall match. In general, the best players were in the 1st singles position and the worst in the 3rd doubles. I played mostly 1st and 2nd doubles. I played singles once.
Half Hollow Hills East was the best team in the conference. They had a strange situation. Their best player didn't play away matches...I am not sure why. We played each team twice a season. The first time we played HHH East, it was on our home courts, so their best player didn't come. In the 1st singles match, our best player, Mike, lost to their 2nd best player, Gunnar, 6-0, 6-0. I don't know what happened in the rest of the matches, but we got beat bad. For the match a few weeks later at their home courts, Coach O'Hara made some position changes. Mike was going to lose to their best player; that was a given. Our 2nd best player would lose to their 2nd best player (Gunnar) who had already destroyed Mike. So Coach moved our 2nd singles player into the 1st doubles team and moved one of that teams' members to 2nd singles as a sacrifice. That was me.
Just so everyone understands...I took the place of a player who could demolish me against a player who could demolish him.
In the very first game, I hit a heavy topspin cross-court forehand passed the charging Gunnar to take a 1-0 lead in the match. The 1st singles match was on the court next to us and switching sides during this point. After my shot, I heard their player say, "Man, Gunnar got burned!"
I lost the next 6 games, took the first game in the 2nd set and then lost 6 more games. On my way off the court, one of their players asked me what the score was and I told him it had been 6-1, 6-1. He said it was the best anyone did against Gunnar all year.
Coach O'Hara's plan came very close to working. The stacked 1st doubles team won and so did two other teams. With one match still on, the overall was 3-3. That was our 4th singles player and he ended up losing a very close match. He cried and apologized the whole busride home. And maybe some of the team felt bad losing 3-4 to those rich pricks at East, but not me. I played my best that day.
Gunnar went on to have a pretty good NCAA career at Indiana University.
I don't know Gunnar, but anyone who could take Sparklestone in straight sets must have gone on to greatness. Please share, was this Aggasi or Roddick who took you to the wood shed at old East High? Please don't say it was Tracy Austin.9So here is Sparklestone vs. Gunnar:
High School tennis matches consisted of seven separate matches: four singles and three doubles. Each match was worth one point and whichever team took four or more points won the overall match. In general, the best players were in the 1st singles position and the worst in the 3rd doubles. I played mostly 1st and 2nd doubles. I played singles once.
Half Hollow Hills East was the best team in the conference. They had a strange situation. Their best player didn't play away matches...I am not sure why. We played each team twice a season. The first time we played HHH East, it was on our home courts, so their best player didn't come. In the 1st singles match, our best player, Mike, lost to their 2nd best player, Gunnar, 6-0, 6-0. I don't know what happened in the rest of the matches, but we got beat bad. For the match a few weeks later at their home courts, Coach O'Hara made some position changes. Mike was going to lose to their best player; that was a given. Our 2nd best player would lose to their 2nd best player (Gunnar) who had already destroyed Mike. So Coach moved our 2nd singles player into the 1st doubles team and moved one of that teams' members to 2nd singles as a sacrifice. That was me.
Just so everyone understands...I took the place of a player who could demolish me against a player who could demolish him.
In the very first game, I hit a heavy topspin cross-court forehand passed the charging Gunnar to take a 1-0 lead in the match. The 1st singles match was on the court next to us and switching sides during this point. After my shot, I heard their player say, "Man, Gunnar got burned!"
I lost the next 6 games, took the first game in the 2nd set and then lost 6 more games. On my way off the court, one of their players asked me what the score was and I told him it had been 6-1, 6-1. He said it was the best anyone did against Gunnar all year.
Coach O'Hara's plan came very close to working. The stacked 1st doubles team won and so did two other teams. With one match still on, the overall was 3-3. That was our 4th singles player and he ended up losing a very close match. He cried and apologized the whole busride home. And maybe some of the team felt bad losing 3-4 to those rich pricks at East, but not me. I played my best that day.
Gunnar went on to have a pretty good NCAA career at Indiana University.
posted by sparklestone at 3:11 PM
6 Comments:
Everyone has his or her own El Guapo. For some, El Guapo is a tennis player from East High named Gunnar. For others, it's a snotty student council geek from Cy-Fair.
"Man, Gunnar got burned!" was actually,"Wham's gonna get spurned?" Questioning the on-the-court rumor that George Micheal was going on tour, solo. Since we were allowed to listen to music during practice, "Wake me up before you go go" was a big hit. Our first singles player couldn't travel because of what we'll call locker room antics gone awray. No question he was a great player, but Coach said "rules are rules men". Gunnar was into music as well. A fan of The Village People, he was always lobbying their fan club to kick the constuction guy out and replace him with a dancing tennis player. I was our team's traveling student manager. They called me Wristband Sam, because I could wear a wristband around my head. I never learned the game, but I did start my own Gaterade tennis towel business. You may be interested to know that Gunnar was the first guy I fired. He wet-towel snapped at the office one to many times.
Uncle Sparklestone, I wanna hear about the sweaty wristbands you got from the famous tennis player. The one's you wore everywhere and refused to wash.
Those weren't Gunnar's wristbands, were they?
No, not Gunnar. Wristbands belonged to Heinz Gunthardt. Look him up. Once was ranked #33 in the world or something like that. Wristbands were washed on a daily basis...sometimes twice a day.
Oh right, not Gunnar, Gunthardt. Come on Spark, we're all friends here. What's the real 'Gun' attraction here?
You might want to rename your site "Porn and Piffle"!
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