In case you missed it, summer is now officially over which means that it’s now officially time to break up with that kinda hot chick who you never really paid attention to in high school cause she was a few years younger than you, and you only started dating this summer because you both worked together at Applebee’s in your hometown and you were bored (plus, she was wearing the great Larry Bird jersey 33). Just trying to give you a heads up. If you let your fling drag on for too long, she’s bound to spring a surprise college visit on you and knock on your apartment door right as you are rounding third with that hunnie from 3A. Even though you’d technically not be doing anything wrong, she’s immature and wouldn’t see it that way, which means that she will cry, cuss you out, and might even fake a pregnancy as a last ditch effort to save the relationship that never really was a relationship in the first place. And nobody wants that. So do the right thing and make the call. No matter how far away you now live from each other, take the safe approach and just blame everything on “the distance.” It’s the one excuse that women always accept, probably because it’s the one excuse that they aren’t embarrassed to tell their friends about. Every other reason for breaking up either makes her look like the bad guy or makes her look like a pushover who was used and kicked to the curb. Blaming it on “the distance” means she can tell her friends that it was nobody’s fault and there’s nothing that could have been done about it. Trust me on this. I have experience saw it in a movie once.
Aside from being the official time to break up with your summer fling, the beginning of fall should be a sign of something much more important in your life (get excited about the next blog post if you read that sentence and thought, “Well duh. The new FIFA always comes out at the start of fall”). That’s because, if you’re anything like me, the beginning of fall is an exciting reminder that basketball season is right around the corner. If you somehow aren’t enthused about that, maybe you should consider that this means another nine months of Adam Morrison’s mustache and Brian Scalabrine’s Scalabriness are right around the corner. That’s what I thought.
(By the way, I just realized that “Scalabriness” rhymes with “penis.” I don’t know for sure if I did this on purpose or not. That troubles me.)
This time of year has also historically meant that it’s time for The Villain and me to get our love-hate relationship going again. This usually was accomplished during our first weightlifting workout of the fall, when The Villain would hit me in the nuts while I was bench pressing, and would explain to me after the workout that he was taking my Gatorade because, even though I always lifted more than him, he deserved two bottles for working so hard. This year will obviously be different, though. The Villain selfishly took his talents to the NBA and I, well, I didn’t. For the first time in my life, I will not be playing basketball throughout the fall and winter, except for the handful of occasions I go to the Y and demoralize more middle aged men than erectile dysfunction and gold-digging ex-wives combined. I guess I could pull a George Costanza by showing up in my old practice uniform at the first OSU practice this season and acting like I’m still on the team, but since I never made any significant contributions during practice when I actually was on the team, I doubt anyone would even notice I was there. Alas, as it stands the basketball world will have one less shark in its oceans this time around.
To deal with the depression that comes with knowing I’ll never play competitive basketball again, I decided to do what every other semi-depressed person my age does – I turned to Facebook to somehow make everything better. Any other time, I would do some self-healing by posting lyrics from an applicable song or Bible verse as my status, followed by “OMG SO TRUE!!!!” or something similar, because it’s a well-known fact that this method always works. In this case, though, I couldn’t really find a song that applied to my situation (some Tupac songs were close, but he uses the N-bomb too much) so I instead decided to look through all of my pictures on Facebook, because that obviously makes a ton of sense. After looking at the pictures for a few minutes, I was reminded of a few things. One of these things is that my haircut/facial hair/outfit for this past Indy 500 is one of the proudest accomplishments in my life. Another is that the Trillion Man March is awesome.
Seemingly every other picture on my Facebook was actually a picture of one (or many) of you wearing a CLUB TRIL shirt or “throwing up the shark fin,” or both in a lot of cases. There were pictures of the TMM from tourist attractions in foreign countries, pictures of handfuls of teammates celebrating their victory with shark fins, and pictures of guys in their CLUB TRIL shirts with swarms of babes at their side (obviously). As tacky as it sounds, these pictures made me realize that this blog was never about me. It has always been and will always be about the Trillion Man March and benchwarming in general. Sure I’m the one who does the writing, but the fact is that, for the most part, you all have stories that are very similar to mine because you are either living them right now or you lived them in the past. I’m far from the first benchwarmer and I certainly won’t be the last. Keeping this in mind, if benchwarming will continue after I’m done doing it, why can’t the Club Trillion we all came to love continue as well?
Heading into this basketball season, I plan on making Club Trillion less of a one man operation and more of a community thing, because that’s really how it should be. I obviously can’t fill the role of the walk-on giving a behind the scenes look at the world of college basketball anymore, but there are plenty of walk-ons who can. Maybe they don’t have as strange of an imagination as I do (and I can guarantee that their jumpers aren’t anywhere near as moist as mine), but I’m sure they can offer a different perspective on some of the same hilarious and disrespectful aspects of being a walk-on basketball player. I don’t know yet how things will work when the season does eventually get here, but I do know that I want this blog to be less about one man’s thoughts and more about how awesome the collective benchwarming community is. I’ve had fun writing about celebrities and wiffleball this summer, but it’s time to get back to the fun and relevant stuff (like the FIFA 11 review I’m writing in the near future).
The purpose of this blog entry is to accomplish two things. The first being that I want to call on the Trillion Man March to email me with any ideas you have about what we can do on the blog during the upcoming basketball season. I already outlined in a previous post how I envision quirky player profiles and interviews of different walk-ons around the country, and maybe even guest posting from time to time (from current and former walk-ons/benchwarmers). Basically, anything that can give these guys an opportunity to let their voices be heard while also providing different perspectives of the walk-on role for the TMM. So if you have any good ideas, please don’t hesitate to email me. As always, if your ideas suck please keep them to yourselves.
The other objective with this blog entry is to inform the TMM about the one thing I have decided on for this upcoming basketball season. In the same previous post, I discussed how I plan on eventually having a Club Trillion awards ceremony in the future, where I would give out a scholarship to my favorite walk-on and a custom made WWE belt to the walk-on who recorded the most trillions during the season. Well, as of right now, it’s looking like the scholarship isn’t going to happen this season due to the small problem of not having any money. Rest assured, the scholarship will eventually happen, but probably not until I get a job and spend my first big chunk of money on a SHARK JETSKI/SUBMARINE (HOLY F’ING BALLS). The most-trillions award, on the other hand, is most definitely going to happen and is going to happen in a much more badass way than I ever thought possible. After an hour of searching for the belt to use for the award, I eventually came across a belt that I’m almost positive was conceived solely for Club Trillion.
You know you want one.
The above picture is a rough idea of what the belt will look like, only there will be CLUB TRIL logos and American flags on the sides. It has the potential to be the single greatest college basketball award in history. And by “has the potential,” I mean “is guaranteed.” Unfortunately, though, I do have to lay out some ground rules for this award because it is going to be nearly impossible for me to track box scores for every player in the country. Here they are:
- Division I players only – I respect the hell out of all walk-ons, but I’m restricting this to Division I guys for a few reasons. I’m just guessing here, but it seems much harder to get trillions at the D1 level, not to mention that walk-ons are much less likely to get playing time in Division I games. Maybe if enough guys from other divisions/NAIA express interest, we might be able to do multiple awards in future years.
- To be eligible, all walk-ons must send an email to clubtrilcontest@gmail.com by January 1, 2011 – This rule is in place simply because I don’t want to have to look at hundreds of box scores every night to keep track of all the trillions in the country. Also, I don’t want the award going to someone who doesn’t know anything about Club Trillion or *gulp* wouldn’t appreciate a custom made WWE belt. All it takes is a simple email that says you want to be considered for the belt. Please make sure you send it to the new email address so I can keep it separate from the normal Club Trillion email. Even if you aren’t a Division I walk-on, I encourage you to find a way to inform the walk-ons for your school/favorite team to email me so they can have a chance at the belt. Hell, they don’t even have to be walk-ons. Any D1 player is eligible. I’m just assuming that walk-ons are the ones who have a legitimate shot at winning. Either way, I’m writing about this now so everyone has ample time to get their names submitted for the contest. Spread the word.
- ESPN box scores will be used – To avoid any discrepancies, the ESPN box scores will be the official box scores for the contest. Not all box scores are the same, so to establish consistency, I’ll be looking just at the ESPN box scores.
- You can play any number of minutes – The only stat that doesn’t matter for the contest is the minutes played. Everything else has to be a zero, but minutes played can be any number. All forms of the trillion are accepted, including the rare 0+ trillions.
That pretty much sums it up. If any other problems arise concerning the trillion contest between now and the start of the season, I’ll be sure to address them on the blog. As the season progresses, I’ll post the leader board at the end of each blog entry so the TMM can pick their favorite benchwarmers and cheer them on to benchwarming supremacy. Shoot, I even encourage the TMM to gamble on which walk-on they think will take home the title. Also, I’ll talk to the company that makes the belt and put together a more detailed idea of what the belt will look like. In the meantime, it’s your duty as a valued member of the Trillion Man March to inform every Division I benchwarming basketball player that you know about their opportunity to win what will forever be remembered as one of the greatest awards our generation has ever had a chance at winning (second only to the “glowing piece of radical rock” from GUTS, obviously). ___________________________________________________
Before you watch the awesome YouTube for this post, I feel like I should clarify something. It’s true that I find very few things in this life more ridiculous and annoying than awful rappers. But, when an awful rapper happens to be French, it somehow becomes funny to me. And when the awful rapper also happens to be one of the better players in the NBA, it becomes hilarious. With that in mind, here’s your awesome YouTube, sent in to my by Matt B. There’s your shout-out, Matt. And here’s your video.
Proud To Be An American But Even Prouder To Be A Buckeye,
Mark Titus
Club Trillion Founder