Coach, Ref, and Team Captain: All in One

Busy night

THIS WEEK:

• Sports!

• WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Our cartoon debut in The Funny Times

• WHAT DO YOU RECOMMEND? Mr. McMahon and Miracle

• BEHIND THE PAY WALL: Losing Losers in overtime

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Believe it or not (believe it because I’m not kidding), this very night within a span of three hours, I will be not only a coach, but a ref, and a team captain.

Wow, sports!

“I’ll be your coach; I won’t be your friend. If you need one of those, take it up with Doc or Coach Patrick here.”

- Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks in 2003’s Miracle

My dad coached my sisters and I in baseball and basketball and tried his best to pass his love of golf on to us. With the exception of tennis, I quit every sport I ever played. I didn’t get it. When I was a kid, in my mind, everything took time away from drawing.

I quit soccer after second grade because I didn’t like getting kicked in the shins. Years later, I rediscovered soccer when my friends started an intramural team freshman year of college. We played 2-3 times a week for four years and got to be pretty good by our senior year.

My epic night of sports begins tonight doing what I’ve been doing for the last seven weeks: coaching soccer.

After a fast dinner, I will then (for the first time ever) don the roll of referee. Actually just kidding, what am I talking about? I’ve been reffing the soccer games every Saturday since the beginning of September. Oh right! So that’s why I’ve been standing out there in the middle of the field! HA! I’m just like my players.

Anyway, when I become the ref, it’ll be anything but a “Judgement Free Zone.”

See what I did there? Reffing? Passing judgement? Judgement Free zone, Planet Fitness, gym membership? Alright, I’m doing the best I can. I need some sort of connective tissue for these cartoons…

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Finally, I will end the night as Team Captain! Wow! I texted my mom right away to tell her the astonishing news. I, her “second-string, sit-the-bench, pull-some-weeds, strike-out-so-you-can-eat-a-sandwich son was just named Team Captain

Of the dodgeball team.

Over the weekend, Frega put together an afternoon at the bowling alley (which evolved into a full on sit down Italian meal at home until 10:00) with my extended family. I overheard my dad delight in recalling the time I erupted in rage on the drive home from basketball practice because he made me play on the “skins” team during the shirts/skins scrimmage. I was deeply ashamed and embarrassed of being so thin so I let him have it. I’ve spent 20 years changing that physique but a shirts/skins car ride in 2024 would still play out the same way it did in 1995. At least I got a cartoon idea out of it.

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Leave a tip in the Tip Jar!

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Our first cartoon was published in The Funny Times in September. We’d been submitting to them for years so it’s been a delight to finally see our cartoons in their newspaper and to have multiple purchases since then as well [About that. News soon].

This cartoon was originally published in Kappan.

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Have you seen the Mr. McMahon docu-series on Netflix? The words “shocking,” “fascinating,” “complicated,” and “horrifying” come to mind. Everyone had a wrestling phase. Mine was late high school/early college (2002 to about 2004). Frega’s might have been around that time or a little after. When we were first dating, she had a photo of Triple H on her fridge from the time she met him at a book signing.

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Also, Miracle. If you’ve never seen Miracle, it’s one of the greatest movies ever made. Buy it, stream it, or just ask my dad and my sister and I to recite the entire movie for you. We can and we will.

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