I am a Freak

When it comes to the Winter Olympics.  I'm not so much a sports fan.  Yea, I'll turn the Chargers game on if I happen to be home and not doin much.  Usually during the second half.  I also take the kids to the occasional Padres game.  I was pretty into sports growing up, well, at least until 15 when I started surfing.  I grew up in a hotbed of baseball talent.  I had some great times and sometimes regret not keeping my skills up.  Though with the dynamics of surfing, you don't really have the time to make regular practices and/or games.  My regrets are short lived when I consider what surfing has really brought me.  At 41, I'm still as stoked as I ever was.  Surfing wasn't an easy sport for me to get into.  It wasn't handed to me by any means.  We lived quite a ways from the beach.  Speaking of the beach, my parents, who I love dearly and have been nothing but supportive my whole life, thought that going to the beach was a day on the bay, in the middle of summer.  The only waves generated by boat wakes from the gearheads speeding by.  I remember coming home from those annual trips from the bay, exhausted and roasted.  Those were the days of No Sunscreen.  And those of you who have met me will confirm, I ain't no bronzed, chiselled speciman.  I'm a true white boy.  Actually with a little red tint most of the time.  Recovering from those burns took some days, and some pain.  Back to surfing.  I was lucky to meet some great guys that were in the same boat as me.  We had to drive to go surfing.  Usually we'd plan while at school.  A buck a piece for gas was enough to get our VW bugs over the hill.  We surfed almost daily.  Sometimes making two treks over the hill in the same day.  We surfed anywhere from Cottons to IB, but, spent a good percentage of our days at OBJ or Cardiff.  We were lucky to be able to surf so many different types of waves.  While we grew to truly hate where our parents chose to bring us up, I am truly grateful today.  If I were spoonfed surfing and grew up living on the beach, much like my kids are, I would've turned out, well, lets just say, not so good.  Too much influence.  Too much of everything.  We dreamed of being that sponsored kid, our age, that we'd see on the beach everyday.  Killing it out in the line-up, then getting all the girls on the beach.  That wasn't our lot in life.  I occasionally run into those guys that I wished I was when I was a teenager.  They, well, let's just say, aren't as lucky as me.  Most don't surf much anymore and aren't really doing too much with thier lives.  Many have been in and out of Rehab and such.  I'm pretty sure I would have been one of em, had my lot been like theirs.  So, I am grateful.  Grateful for the friends that I still surf with on an almost daily basis.  Grateful for the times we had and endured, to be able to participate in this lifestlye/sport/thing, or whatever you want to call it.  Grateful for the many things I still have to look forward to in and around the ocean.  When I was 15, one of the most Ironic statements that anyone has ever said to me came.  It was my baseball coach.  He was a great man.  A great coach.  I had been missing practices to go surfing.  I was his shortstop.  Someone he had groomed to be his star.  He said to me, "You will never get out of surfing, what you have the potential to get out of baseball."  I look around these days.  A good percentage of the guys I played ball with were drafted.  Actually, 7 of the 9 starters on our High School team.  Which is pretty unbelievable.  Of those 7 that were drafted, not one is playing ball anymore.  I on the other hand, am still surfing on an almost daily basis.  Have seen the world through surfing, and look forward to spending as much time in the water as possible until the day I die. 

So, in short, or not so short, I don't really watch sports too much, but, I frickin LOVE the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics.  Something about the sports not being so mainstream really gets me going.  These people put so much time into their craft, to be the best in the world, with very little payoff in the end.  No six or seven figure lifetime contract, well a few, but generally, just that drive to accomplish something meaningful in life.  I watch them walk into that stadium and just dream about being that good at something.  To have endured so much to get to this point.  I respect them, and look forward to the next two weeks.  Long nights staying up past midnight, then getting up early to surf or work, all to repeat again.