Misc. Monday - 01-09-12 - We're going streaking
Our mom and dads flew feverishly into our bedrooms to keep MTV's Beavis and Butthead or The Real World from streaming into our brains. Super NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) controllers were made well enough that you could throw them against the wall and they would never break. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles put G.I. Joe on the bottom of the rack and slap bracelets were cutting children everywhere.
Windows 95 was the best operating system for your PC. Yikes. Yahoo! Instant Messenger was a must, Napster infected all of us and eBay was just starting. Gas was just over a $1 a gallon and blue jeans were reasonably priced.
In sports, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both hit 61 home runs in historic fashion. If we only knew then what we know now... Mike Tyson went from feared to crazy, chomping the ear of Evander Holyfield. Michael Jordan played hurt and sick, and still beat everyone. The Dallas Cowboys were America's team. Tiger Woods was winning. The NHL didn't have concussion issues.
On the way, way more local scene here in little old Millersburg, Ohio, West Holmes sports wasn't having as many great moments in the late '90s. You see, that is when the streak happened - the one thing that I still remember and am still ridiculed about to this day - the blasted streak.
It was my junior year. Being one ditched car, one twisted ankle and one lonely heart into the third year of high school, I couldn't imagine what would happen next - the one thing that outweighs all of the previously mentioned. And then it happened… or maybe I should say, and here is how it started.
I got on the bus to travel to the away game. You didn't have an iPod, Nintendo DS, Playstation PSP or iPad back then. You carried this heavy portable CD player that had duct tape-wrapped corners and surely skipped when it got to track six of your Metallica CD. Those things never worked.
Every one of these was junk.
It was the sixth game of our soccer season the fall of 1997. Wearing our Umbros and playing as hard as we did that night, we lost. After that fateful matchup, we continued to lose every game thereafter, and finished the season on a 10-game losing streak. After starting that season pretty well, it was a huge disappointment, finishing the season so poorly. But the streak didn't end there.
Just a side note: this guy knew how cool Umbros were back then. Just look at the expression on his face.
Playing three sports wasn't cool back then. It was what you did. So as soon as soccer ended, I moved right into basketball practice the very next week. One rule I have about my junior year basketball season is to never talk about my junior year basketball season (hint: another '90s reference). But I'm going to anyway.
We lost every single game. Yep. Every single one. We went 0-21 for the season. If you follow local sports in the area, you might remember. You also might remember that we got knocked down, managed to get up again several times, but never could quite earn a victory that year.
We were a pretty good team. Psyche! We were led by a pretty good player, but the rest of us were just role players, including myself, and we were waiting on a younger core to get a year older - a core that eventually went to Regionals just a few years later.
But not even the paper fortune life predictor thing could predict what would happen next.
As boys at West Holmes traded in their Bugle Boys for shorts, the spring baseball season started very shortly after the winless basketball season.
Now, I thought baseball was the "bomb." It was my favorite sport to play, to watch and to be a part of. Our core players had played together for quite a long time and were traditionally good in those earlier years. If we had another losing season after losing the previous 10 soccer games in the fall, as well as all of our basketball games, it'd total 31 games in a row. If that happened, I thought I'd "go postal." (Yeah, another '90s saying. If you are still using it, please stop.)
Well, oh my stars. It happened again. Our baseball team. Baseball! Where you have a better chance of winning a game you shouldn't. We lost every game. 0-22. So, you do the math. 53 consecutive losses.
Now, I could have gone home each night and tried to record songs off the radio onto my tape deck stereo, but I didn't. I would usually go to my grandma Money's house and complain to her about it, and she would just tell me I needed to work harder. And she was right.
It wasn't "fun." There was no "fun" about it. Not a dodge ball to the face of Pee Wee Herman or Richard Simmons could have cheered me up during that disgraceful run. Basically, I walked around with the "talk to the hand" attitude and avoided everyone until I got a win.
But if any good came out of the losing streak, it was that it made me a better coach, wanting to never lose a game again.
The win did finally come the first game of my senior season of fall soccer. The streak had ended and shortly after, so did the '90s.
It's over - that's what I tell those who still ask me about the losing streak of the West Holmes boys programs. It was the late '90s. Today, Zach Morris is grown up, Michael Bolton's career is over and pinched rolled jeans will never come back.
So it's time to put that losing streak to bed one last time and never talk of it again. So stop asking me. That was the '90s.
Misc. Web Video of the Week