Jason's Untimely Thoughts

I’ve spent about 12 years on college campuses… about 6 years at Mizzou (two degrees, wisecrackers) and about 6 years at Columbia College (over two jobs).

I was back at Columbia College this morning for a meeting. Beautiful campus, beautiful buildings, beautiful grounds, beautiful atmosphere, lots of activity, etc. Then I ran into some faculty members. Two were great, the rest were typical faculty.

Reminded me of my thoughts from early freshman year, college would be great if it wasn’t for the classes (or faculty).

This past Saturday I was at the MU football team scrimmage.  Ended up sitting with some of the parents, one of whom arrived late.  They wanted to know if their son had made an interception yet, then told me how they always tell him they want to see him with an interception returned for a touchdown.  But only against one of the quarterbacks, because the other one is a friend.  We joked about how that was a lot to remember during the course of the play.

On Tuesday, the scenario played out exactly as hoped for, except the poor kid tore his ACL when returning the interception.  It was just weird, given the conversation at the previous practice.

This leads me to Weird Athletic Injury Story #1, which took place on my last day of work in the athletic department at Columbia College.

We were hosting the men’s volleyball national tournament, just a few days after announcing we were not going to field a men’s volleyball team any longer.  Good vibes all around, and since every other team was playing somewhere, I was the only athletic department person around to share the fun.

I was keeping stats during the Championship Match, with the assistance of two volleyball players from China (now assistant volleyball coaches at MU).  Since it was the championship match, the All Tournament and team trophies were on the desk in front of me, at court side.

Sometime during the first game, a ball comes our way, smacks a trophy and breaks it.  The way the trophy was made, it breaks right at the trophy guy’s ankle, snapping off cleanly.  I laugh, make some comment about bad luck, move on.  The two Chinese players very seriously tell me that in their country this would all be a very bad sign.

About an hour later, in game three of the match, one of the players goes down with a…… broken ankle.  Worst injury I witnessed in 3 years there and 2 years in minor league baseball.   Story continues.

At the end of the match we announce the All Tournament Team and pass out the trophies.  Last member of the All Tournament Team…. kid with the broken ankle (who wasn’t there, so thankfully I didn’t have to give him the trophy with the matching broken ankle).