This weekend hundreds of football players, each one a star in college, start the process of finding out whether they are considered good enough to play on Sunday. And also if they can play on Monday, Thursday night, Thursday afternoon, Thanksgiving and maybe Saturday depending on how long after the Army/Navy the Poulan Weed Sniffer Bowl is scheduled.
The NFL really does own the fall.
Fans of the individual players, as well as football junkies, will watch the NFL network coverage of the combine. It’s about 20 minutes of action spread out over 20 hours of standing around over a long weekend.
Just like soccer.
Uh-oh. Now I’ve done it.
My neighborhood after the soccer hooligans find out my opinion of their little recess activity.
But the staff and management of FishDuck.com got together on Super Bowl Sunday:
Guess which one of us bet a hundy on the Pats?
To decide what would be a good way to measure the skills and commitment of the average football fan, we came up with the idea of a combine.
1. The Pee-Trough Stare: Many of you are too young to remember when Autzen’s only outlet for male urination was a trough. The water moved through it, slower than we liked, and we were left with choices, none of them good. You could look down and lose your appetite forever. You could glance right or left and be embarrassed by the, um … well-built guy next to you. Or you could look up and stare at the ceiling. Successful combine starers will be able to hold the stare for at least the 1:37 minutes it takes to empty a bladder filled by tailgating beverages.
I’ve never longed for a urinal before.
2. The Student Dash: After a wait of at least one hour, competitors will be asked to make their way to the best seats in the student section. To make it realistic, the alcoholic beverage of their choice will be given to them at approximately 17-minute intervals throughout the wait.
These were not the winners of last year’s combine event.
3. The Giddy Climb: Duck fans have never done very well at this one. In this exercise, fans’ expectations soar to peaks that their team’s recent history would never justify. Recruiting rankings, perceived “tradition” and enough hubris to fill the Rose Bowl (of which we are the champions) go into a good score.
UCLA fans have always excelled at this one.
4. The Terrifying Fall: As the power lift is to the 40-yard dash, so is the TF to the Giddy Climb. In the Terrifying Fall, the off-season National Championship is over and the real games have begun. Otherwise known as “Leaving the Bandwagon,” the record for the Terrifying Fall is held by Dave “Softy” Mahler. He predicted that the Ducks would be humbled by the inconsequential Willy Lyles brouhaha and the Huskies would end their losing streak against Oregon.
It is a little-known fact that the ”Mad Men” logo is actually a picture of Softy Mahler participating in the Terrifying Fall.
Go Ducks, both in school and in participation in the combine! The prediction from here is that Marcus Mariota is to Jameis Winston what Peyton Manning was to Ryan Leaf. But time will tell.
Top photo by nflrush.com
Related Articles:
Kim Hastings is a 1984 graduate of Northwest Christian College. He cut his journalistic teeth as sports editor of a paper in his home town of Fortuna, CA, and, later as a columnist for the Longview Daily News in Longview, WA.
He saw his first Oregon game in 1977 and never missed a home game from 1981 until a bout with pneumonia cut his streak short in 1997. He was one of the proud 3200 on a bitterly cold night in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1989 for the Independence Bowl, and continues to be big supporter of Oregon sports. He is an active participant on the various Oregon Ducks messageboards as “TacomaDuck.”