Things I miss and things I don't miss from the Metro East

1) I miss... the Colonial Section.

Sectionals was never much of a joke to our team. Granted some of the games were, in fact, funny, but beating up on the "God-is-on-our-side"-cheering Catholic team was never as fun as it sounds. Of course, when we did get a little too full our ourselves, we got fucked pretty hard for it. I am speaking of course of Sectionals 07, the beginning of the craziest emotional rollercoaster I have ever experienced.

We had a good sectional coordinator in Farrell. I have no idea who our current sectional coordinator is, even though I am the team contact person for tournaments. Farrell always kept us apprised of every little development when it came to Sectionals, and we certainly don't get that out here at IU.

2) I miss... knowing people on other teams.

We had a lot of interaction between teams. From what I can tell here at IU, the official line on other teams is "Fuck those guys!" Honestly, I don't even know people's names on other teams, or who their main guys are. This is in great contrast to when I was at GW and knew all sorts of other people (even when I was a freshman):

-Danimal from Maryland and his pep talks
-Bulb from Delaware and his daring leap into the banquet hall pool at Nationals
-Pretty much any player from Del and their [insert weird thing here].
-Kiefer from Rutgers and his relentlessness in being Kiefer.
-Sean from Pitt because I wanted to be as good as he was (still working on that...)
-Rabbit from Maryland and when he was driving the bus that picked us up from the Metro
-Miyagi from Salisbury because I thought he would never graduate.
-Wes from Pitt because a) he booted me in the head at Easterns and b) because he introduced (I suspect) Pitt's entire f-ing team to my blog.
-TallE from Pitt for his good throws, cutting remarks, and presence on the internet.

2) I miss... things being close-by.

I remember that we would groan about having to drive 8 hours to Easterns. I realize that being stuck on the goddamned Jersey turnpike pretty much every time we traveled northward was no fun, but at least the drives were shorter. Now, I find myself selecting tournaments, and for the spring no tournament is closer than 9.5 hours away. This includes, of course, a 17-hour drive down to Louisiana for Mardi Gras, 13 hours to Easterns (probably) and finally, a 16-hour drive to...

4) I don't miss... fucking piece of shit Salisbury, MD

And yet I'm going back there in the spring (probably). I vowed I would never return, especially after the debacle that occurred there at least year's sectionals. All in all, I think I went to Salisbury at least 7 times, each time despising it more and more. Why? Sandy soil, ridiculous townspeople, route-fucking-50 and the Bay Bridge, Bob Evans, the abandoned mall, complete lack of grass, the Wicomico County police -- I mean, the list goes on. And I'm sure that people out there can contribute to the list. Please do. I hate that place. A million times... I DESPISE SALISBURY. Yet, Huck of the Irish 2008: here we come! What a fetid pit of monstrous horrors...

I guess this is kind of losing steam since I can't really think of more things. I guess I also don't miss playing Pittsburgh, since I had some of my best games (with one exception) against them, and yet g-dub never beat Pitt. Other important people always had terrible games or tried to play outside their ability, resulting in some of my angriest moments. Then again, I also did enjoy playing Pitt because they were our rival. Not much of a rivalry, though, when one team always won...

I also don't miss being the worst region in the country. Except now the Metro East isn't the worst region in the country, thanks in large part to the class of players that came through the various schools while I was there. I do not claim to be part of their elites, but the players who have just graduated in the past couple of years were the ones who brought the Metro East out of obscurity, I think. And now I'm in the Great Lakes. So now my former teammates can say to me "at least you're in the Great Lakes region..." Bah. The hell with this.