Oregon Softball: Getting a Sign to Texas

While at the University of Oregon, I've been known to make a sign or two. It allows me to show support, offer words of encouragement, and brings attention to those who truly deserve it (unlike the attention that some of our athletes get).  My original sign simply stated that Liz, #6, was my favorite player on the volleyball team. Not particularly funny, but it was a solid, efficient and clean sign designed to do nothing more than state a fact. Both supportive and encouraging, no sign I've ever made has ever been more true.  Little did I know at the time of that original sign, the fact of Liz being my favorite would not be limited to just the University of Oregon Volleyball Fan Base. No, this knowledge would end up broadening to multiple sports across multiple schools. 




"What do you mean, 'multiple schools?'" You (the one other person aside from Dan reading this) ask.


"Well," I reply, "Let's start with the sign at Stanford."


Dan and I approached Nick via email, requesting an identical replication of my original sign. I was very hesitant to ask him, as at this point it seemed as if I would be creeping on not only Liz, but the entire volleyball team. To make one thing clear, my goal is to support the athletes at the University of Oregon, not to make them feel uncomfortable, which is why I was originally pessimistic about the idea. However, Dan's compelling argument of "It would be funny" eventually had me sold, and the plan was carried out . Nick successfully delivered the exact same sign down at the Stanford Game.

Photograph courtesy of the Volleyball Athletic Trainer (A story for another time)

"And what did you mean when you said 'multiple sports'?" You inquire.
"Stop asking questions," I reply.

A nearly identical situation arose for the Softball Super Regional this past weekend. As luck would have it, the University of Oregon Softball Team (of which Liz is now on) drew the #6 seed in the University of Texas. Dan has strong family ties to the school; at this point it seemed as if God himself were nudging my shoulder to have another sign made. That's the kind of thing God would do... right? Anyways, Dan and I had the exact same idea in that his Sister and Brother-in-law would be able to replicate the sign and show their support. Using his award winning pitch of  "It would be REALLY funny," Dan convinced both Katie and Rich to go to the game; sign included. 


So, without further adieu, here's Rich Lee's report on how the 3rd sign was presented:


Just as we entered the stadium, we walked by the visiting bullpen and saw none other than Liz #21 catching and throwing like a pro. We were caught a little off guard, but decided to improvise and unfurl the poster while we had her in our sights. We didn't get any pictures or video of the encounter, but she definitely saw us and responded favorably, though nothing could sway her from her bullpen catching duties--she had the focus of a champion. We also tried to get the sign on tv, but I don't think we had much of a chance standing in the very top row. We didn't watch the whole game, but saw some homeruns, some bad defense, and some even worse sportsmanship from UT's Taylor #6. I ate a texas-sized corndog and katie had frozen lemonade. A good time was had by all and Liz #21 is now my favorite player too.
Oregon is moving on to the WCWS and I'd like to think that our presence played a small role in their success (0-1 on days we were not in attendance, 2-0 on days we attended).

Attached is a picture of katie holding up our sign outside of the stadium, and a bonus picture of texas fans counting strikeouts at the always unfortunate 3 mark.

Although the syntax is a little different, the sign is definitely recognizable

I really don't think I can one-up this one. One sign, 3 Universities, ranging from Oregon to Texas. My originality hasn't shined, but the effort has definitely has (although all credit to the Mahoney's on this one). The only question is... how can I improve off this for next year?

Also, a big thanks to Rich and Katie for coming through!

Birthday yogurt, ft. Lauren Gross

Let me ask you a rhetorical; how do you give a birthday present to someone who doesn't generally like things? That's a tough one for anyone to answer, yet I was presented with this very scenario for Dan Mahoney's celebration of life. 

To try to answer that question, I first had to recount the things that Dan actually does like. This includes (but is not limited to)

• Riding bicycles
• Fencing
• Monotony 
• Watching Volleyball

Alright, that's the basis of all anyone knows about Dan. So, let's analyze what we're working with.

Riding bikes: I can't give him a present for that. A commuter bike? That's a $500-1000 gift. Necessities like tubes, tires, chain lube and bar tape would just be lame. Bicycle gift conclusion: Lame and unrealistic. 

Fencing: The same situation, things are expensive. The biggest difference between this and the bike is that I don't actually know anything about fencing. Conclusion: Not possible/too easy to screw up.


Monotony: We go to the campus sub shop all the time to get frozen yogurt, and it's a $5 gift. Nothing to change, quick and simple. Conclusion: This is a good casual gift, we're going to have a birthday yogurt.

Now here's where the fun gift idea comes in...

Watching Volleyball: I obviously can't bring a volleyball match to Dan's birthday yogurt, can I? Well, no, but I can bring a volleyball player. The question is, who? I don't know any of them very well on a personal level, and if I ever approach a player I'm not usually able to complete a coherent sentence. Alaina doesn't allow either of us to think, I can't invite her. 4 is chill, and I've talked to her before, but she's not necessarily Dan's favorite player (just a little too much swag).  Hmmm... well... what about Lauren Gross? I've talked to her a total of 2 times in my life, which is 2 times more than I've talked to almost everyone else on the team. She's a personal favorite of mine, Dan's and Jim Moore's. She has also finished her last season with the team, so I could buy her yogurt without worrying about NCAA sanctions. This seems like the best option.

Now something you should realize is that I thought of this months ago, literally in March. I sent Lauren a message on facebook about attending his birthday party yogurt. Miraculously, she agrees (already a major accomplishment!)

March 27th, to be exact

Here's what I didn't account for: Dan and I think identically. Now, my birthday was mere weeks ago, and Dan himself was talking about inviting Liz, JP, or Alaina to my yogurt celebration. The only thing I could think of saying is "Don't do that." How creepy would that look if he invited someone on the team after I invited someone on the team? 

But no... normal me would never tell him to say "Don't do that." Normal me would be excited, and pressure him to actually bring one of the players on the team. This is where my plan becomes elaborate.

First, I have to make sure that Dan becomes too afraid to actually invite anyone on the team. I use the Tobias Method, and straight up confront him about it. Go on, do it, invite someone. We'd both be terrified. Go on. Yeah, I didn't think so.

The Tobias method worked successfully, but that wasn't enough. No, now I had to mess with Dan's mind. 

"Alright," I told Dan, "I'm going to invite Alaina to YOUR birthday yogurt" 

"Ha no you won't. You wouldn't"

"Oh, you're right... but I will invite 15!!! (Lauren)"

"No you won't"

"You're right, I'm too much of a coward"

Now it's time to not only make him think, but also truly believe that I was a terrible liar. As luck would have it, I found out that Liz, #6, was playing on the softball team before he did. I put on this ridiculous charade of "I have a secret, and I'm not going to tell you."

Then I let it slip that "It might involve a girl on the team playing another sport," which bled in to "FINE LIZ IS PLAYING SOFTBALL"

"Man," Dan replied, "You're really bad at keeping secrets." Ha. Sold it like a pot dealer to Cliff Harris.

After a few more days of REALLY taunting him (without him actually knowing that's what I was doing), finally the day comes where we get yogurt.

After a brief miscommunication, I place Lauren inside the Campus Sub Shop, where I grab unsuspecting Dan and act like it's any normal evening yogurt. As we enter the door, I head straight to the yogurt and let the surprise happen for itself. I could not see, but only hear Dan's immediate smirk-turned-laugh-turned-panicked  "OH GOD I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY."

Dan's first distinguishable words were "You didn't..."

To which I replied "Did what?"

"You..."

"OH! Dan, let me introduce you to Lauren" 

From there on we had a conversation as we normally do when we get yogurt... only this time we actually talked about volleyball more than average. We got some good knowledge about the team that we'd always been curious about, but too shy to ever ask. In return, I found it only fitting that we spilled a few of our own (Including the one about JP being JP, and me still playing my original 1988 gameboy pokemon). Overall it was a successful evening, and we were far less shy and awkward than I'd previously anticipated. All thanks to the smooth talking and willingness of Lauren Gross.

The worst $5 I've ever spent. Ever.

Just like any other workday, Dan sends me a chat message informing me of a Student Athlete Talent Show taking place in the evening. A talent show, you say? Sounds moderately intriguing. I imagine Softball Players playing the piano, Basketball players juggling, some crappy stand up comedy, Alaina being pretty (that's a talent, right?)... sounds like something I could kill two hours with. Alright Dan, after your compelling argument of "Well, you have nothing better to do," I cave. Lets go.

We get to the Talent Show, and the stands are quite well packed. Mostly athletes, a few fans here and there, and a full stage front and center. It looked like a mini concert arena, with a concert feel to it. Let's get this show on the road.
Here come our hosts for the night...two SHIT faced athletes, one football, one Womens Lacrosse. We'll get to more on them later. They say their (rather slurred) hello's, everyone is in a generally perky mood, and we're ready to see our first video.

Wait, what? A video? Ok, I'll sit through it, it's brought to us by Women's Soccer. And that's what the video was of... women's soccer. It was soccer players... playing soccer, then cutting to other non-soccer players... playing soccer. Back to soccer players now juggling the ball at the football stadium. Now to a coach not playing soccer very well. Back to soccer players playing on campus. Literally 6+ minutes later, the video ends, and everyone applauds. Applause? What the fuck was that? What are we applauding? Is every sport just going to show a video of what they do, and then we do a talent show after? Well, I'm glad this video is over, let's bring back the MC's of the evening.

The football player (announcer 1) quite literally stumbles back on to the stage floor, as he and his lacrosse partner (#2) ramble about a charity that they clearly don't know anything about. #1 incoherently rants "We go over there, it means a lot, we play dodgeball so hard, it gets really competitive, and here's our next act."

On comes a 15 year old boy and a 45+ year old man doing a song on African Drums. All I could do was stare at this point. What am I watching? And what does this have to do with Student Athletes? 5 minutes of confusion later, The MC's come back and announce our next video for Women's Lacrosse.

Another Video. My heart sank and reality was kicking in. This was just the appetizer in a 17 course meal of athlete videos for the next two hours.  The women's lacrosse team made a parody of the viral video "Shit Girls Say" only it was "Stuff that Women's Lacrosse Players Don't Say." I thought these were going to be videos of athletes doing what they do, like what Women's Soccer did. No? Alright... Well, can anyone tell me when actual talent takes part in the TALENT SHOW??? No? This is awful. I want my pianos and stand up comedy that my-previous-self promised me.

Time passes, as do some really terrible "acts." Not Talents. Acts. The basketball team did a version of "the dating game" with their own teammates. The Women's Golf team made a Happy Gilmore trailer with their own athletes. None of this is talent. None of this is funny. None of this deserves anyone's attention.

But wait, here comes the volleyball team, and they're doing an act on Beauty Pageants? I think I know where this is going. Out comes #1, dressed ugly. #JP, looking like JP (but supposed to be ugly), then Miss Oregon, USA. Alaina Bergsma. Oh my did she look amazing (and was the only one of them all trying to be attractive).  They have "judges" help narrow down the selection, and finally the audience gets to decide who the winner is. Unfortunately for the VB team, they didn't account for the fact that they made one of their "ugly" participants a comedic relief, and the crowd unanimously voted her to win. But that's not what the script called for. The script called for Alaina to win... so they chose her as the winner of the fake competition, after which she promoted herself (which is fair). The script also called for Liz, #6, to come in during the middle of the act and do pushups on a volleyball and basketball wearing a softball uniform, then just stand there without really saying anything.

Following a "half time" intermission, the night was becoming long and the alcohol of the MC's was thinning. They began to literally read off of a script about charities they had no idea about. Female MC even said something along the lines of "I really don't know anything about this pet shelter, so I'm just going to read from the script. I've been once, and got to play with the dogs." Their tone became less patient, and their sass (the girls in particular) changed from trying-to-be-funny to being pessimistically evil and bitchy. Anyone who had common sense could tell that they didn't care at all about the charities they were promoting; they wanted the night to end. This isn't to say that ALL athletes there didn't care about charitable events, but man, did O Heroes do a poor job in choosing who the speakers were.

The tennis team was the only team that put a show on. It was filled with makeup, music, props, choreography, multiple sketches and Rabea. Everything I needed in a performance, they had. Men's golf (although long) also put in a solid effort (in video form). They made fun of themselves and the lack of respect they get, which translated well into humor.

As the end of the night approaches, we turn our focus to the judges. One judge in particular was a 10 year old boy with Intellectual Disabilities. It looked as if he was enjoying himself, but in reality it was really a tragic situation. 99.9% of the people in the stadium were oblivious to the fact that he was being used as a tool to make adults promote their charity. All he did was read statements that were right in front of him, or say things whispered in to his ear. He was, quite literally, a human prop. It was degrading and pitiful. People laughed at anything he coherently said. After a while, it was just hard to watch.

Finally, the end of the night comes, and the judges make their decision on who the winners are.
Best video went to Men's golf (which was deserving). And best act goes to Football (which was a freestyle 'Danceoff' that clearly none of the players had practiced). A fitting end to what was quite possibly the worst 2 hours of my life in Eugene Oregon.