Wednesday's With Tom

Folks, it’s no secret that today is Valentine’s Day. It’s a day dedicated to that patron saint of superfluous gifts and romantic dinners at packed restaurants. The day we all frantically buy chocolates and cheap cards at Walgreens on our way home from work to express our deep love for that special someone who we kinda put off ‘til the last minute, sorry next year will be better. Last year even I was swept up in Valentine’s Day activities and invested in purchases for that special someone (to the tune of $5.62). However, this blog post is not going to be dedicated to this ever-so romantic day, but to something more important (and romantic): Me. 

That last statement may seem a little bold, and also narcissistic, but I contend that actually falls right in line with what the ideals set forth for Valentine’s Day. In our own way, by talking about me, we are celebrating what this day is all about.

The answer's each other right?

Every Wednesday morning for the past few weeks our top doubles team, Noah Sprinkle and Curtis Newman, have been meeting at the Clark Racquet Center to play former Coe player Tom Jennings and myself. Close followers of the program will remember that Tom and I played a doubles match against each other during our college playing days. Tom squeaked out the victory for those of you wondering. Now we team up to once a week to play the best current Coe team and re-live our glory days while being constantly reminded that we aren’t as nimble, quick, or agile and have less power than we once did.

You see me and Tom are like your dad’s old muscle car, or if you’re my dad’s age, then we’re like your old muscle car that you got rid of for that Toyota that has much better gas mileage and the money you saved is helping to pay for your son go to college because there is no way on God-Green-Earth he’s staying home and being a bum for life (sorry, I got a little off track there). Just like an old Chevelle , me and Tom have a poor turning radius, can’t corner for anything, and have bad handling. Our safety features are non-existent , and we are just waiting to get into an accident. Oh yeah, and we leak a quart of oil a day (I’m not sure what that last part of the analogy even refers to). However, when we get going in a straight line there’s no stopping us. That’s because we’re very good moving in a singular direction and also because we have no brakes. What all this means for doubles is that me and Tom do one thing, and only one thing, very well: we charge the net like the running of the bulls.

Tom is in the lead

On the other side of the net is Noah and Curtis who are the newest models of European luxury. Look at him, he’s fast, can turn on a dime, has power, and can still accelerate through any turn. The only saving grace for Tom and I is that we’ve played quite a bit of doubles and can usually read where to be on the court. This is good because like I said, we only move well forward and in a straight line. Just point us toward the spot we need to be and let us go. An observer of our matches would no doubt notice the striking number of times Curtis or Noah re-directs the ball in an unexpected direction past me and Tom for a winner, very slowly. There are no shortage of points where this occurs followed by that person walking back and apologizing with something to the effect of, “sorry that really slow ball got by me. I kinda expected him to go the other way.”

Despite all of this there is some interesting strategy involved. It took Curtis and Noah all of 2 seconds to find that my weak spot on returns is my forehand, or the entire right side of my body. And it only took me a few weeks of practice where all I received was forehand returns to remember how to hit that shot

I was really confused for a few weeks

This last Wednesday, Curtis had the misfortune of playing us on a day where we couldn’t stop hitting 1^st serves in to him. However, that does not mean that we held easily because Noah had the fortune of playing us on a day where we couldn’t stop missing 1^st serves to him. It was frustrating for everyone involved as Tom and I wondered why we couldn’t make serves to both sides of the court. Curtis wondered when we were going to stop pile driving the ball at him without missing. And Noah wondered how many returns he was going to have to crack (or redirect every-so-delicately) for a winner before they won the game.

Some of our deficiencies even help us in unexpected ways. For instance, overheads at the top doubles spot are hit with a good deal of chutzpah, but when either me or Tom strike an overhead, well, no of us are really sure what’s going to happen. After one such overhead that Tom struck when he was a good 2 feet from the net, he turned to me and in anticipation of my question said, “No I didn’t miss-hit that ball. That’s just all I got.”

Overall both teams have 1 win apiece, so the old guys still remember something about how to play doubles. Or as Curtis put it: we got incredibly lucky. Me and Tom are fine with either assessment. Next week (and a few quarts of oil later) we’ll play again. Who’ll win next round? I’ll keep you informed.