Eastern University Lacrosse

Dear Loyal Readers,

(Before I start take a deep breath and see if you can read the whole thing while holding your breath)

Sorry for the lack of posts within the last few weeks, but I would like to start this blog out by telling you that part of the reason that nothing has been written recently, is because I have done absolutely nothing with my life the past few weeks.  I sleep, work, sleep, class, sleep, sit around, sleep etc… Needless to say it may sound like I’m very busy, but considering I only have two classes this semester and work maybe 20 hours a week, that means I have approximately 142.5 hours a week to do whatever I want and I have been filling that time with sleep and being worthless.  So the other day I decided to retire from my “waste of a life” living style and decided I was actually going to start doing stuff.

One thing that has been on my mind heavily due to the fact that I will be graduating in just 6,480,000 seconds, I decided I need to get my future career figured out. To do this I went to my academic advisor to ask if he knew of any opportunities that I might be able to take advantage of.  As I mentioned before, for about the last 22 ½ years I have been quite the slacker.  This explains why when I talk to my advisor he always asks what year I am (the only reason he knows my name is because I emailed to see when he would be in).  This isn’t to say that the advisors here are bad; it’s just another case of me not taking initiative and going to him for anything other than having him sign my drop a class sheet.   Anyhow, he told me about a career fair that was to be taking place down at Villanova.  I decided to be the most go getter person in the world and drive the 2 miles to the career fair to try and find someone who maybe would consider if there was only two people left in the world look at me for a job opening.

So I met with this lady that recognized me from my Eastern Lacrosse shirt (hind sight being 20/20, maybe I shouldn’t have worn sweat pants and a t-shirt to a job fair, but the fitted Red Sox hat may have added a hint of professionalism).  So I started talking to this lady about how to start looking for a job.  Fist thing she asked me was “do you have your resume handy?” This is the first point in the conversation where I felt about as intelligent as a pizza crust.  I told her I didn’t have one and she kind of gave me this look that pretty much said to me I was hopeless.  But never the less I pushed on.   She then went on to talk to me and ask a few questions about career goals and shortly followed each answer of mine explaining why that was an impossibility.  Pretty much the whole night I felt like one of those early round American Idol contestants who think they are good and when Simon Cowell they start crying and run off swearing and telling them how good they actually are (All of this was the case for me except the swearing).   As I left the job fair the worst part was this deep feeling in my stomach that makes me think that the lady at the job fair was only telling me how terrible everything I did was just so she could blog about how she shot down some stupid college kid today.  Now that I think about it, maybe she wasn’t even part of the college fair.  I think I may have gotten punked.

So now, instead of getting started with trying to find a job, I have decided that I am going to come up with some more job possibilities that I can start telling people at job fairs just so I’m the one making myself look like an idiot instead of having someone else do it to me.  Hopefully someday I will meet up with little miss “you should have started working for an internship in the Christmas break of second grade, then maybe you would have a chance to get a job somewhere” and take away all the joy she got from making me look like an idiot.

Before I share my ideas for careers, I would like to say the only reason these jobs seem ridiculous to me is because I don’t have the mental capacity to do any of these, if you do and decide this is your career path more power to you, I am not mocking you right now.  The first job I wanted to tell her was to be a Sherpa on Mt. Everest.  I want to lead journeys to the world’s highest point and become a nature expert.  I was assuming if I said that to this lady she would tell me I didn’t have a proper internship for that and needed more work experience.  Second I wanted to tell her I was going to be president of the NCAA.  This may not seem like a ridiculous job to some, but if you have ever been around me when I’m watching a college sports I always explain how I would make the NCAA a better organization and throw out my suggestions.  No one ever listens to what I have to say due to the fact that it has no importance so I figure if I became president I may actually get listened to.  Just ask Mike Hofmeister about some of my changes to the NCAA.  (On a sad note, I have been saying this for probably a year now and this past week the NCAA president died so I really am not trying to make fun of that situation I really was planning on saying this before that happened.) Lastly I wanted to tell her that I wanted to be a professional filibuster.   For those none Political Science Savvy readers, a filibuster occurs when a bill is to be voted on, and if a side is completely opposed to the bill being passed they start talking aimlessly until the other side gets so sick of waiting for the vote to occur, they decide to give up entirely.  As most of you have probably figured out, I can ramble on about random nonsense for as long as needed.  Right now the longest filibuster in history is 24 hours and 18 minutes by Strom Thurman; my goal is to shatter his record.

I tell you this again not to mock any of these goals, but I intend not to tell any “career fair ladies” what my real life objectives are in order not to be shot down at the age of 22.  Another career path that I have decided I might want to take up needs help from my loyal followers.  I have decided that in order to take this blog to the next step, there needs to be a little more marketing for this blog to get more people to read.  That is why I have been researching the possibility of a “Boring whistle” clothing line (and by clothing line I mean one t-shirt).  That is right, I am trying to sell t-shirts so everyone who loyally reads this blog can show how awesome they are by wearing a t-shirt that let’s others know what the future hottest website in the world is.  If you are interested, please leave a comment.  If I can get 20 people to actually do this, there is a price cut when ordering 20 or more shirts so it will bring the price down.  If there isn’t 20 people who want them then this probably won’t happen because come on, who wants to pay a lot for a stupid amateur bloggers t-shirt.

Another thing I wanted to tell everyone is since I really don’t do anything exciting, I am opening up my blog to something of a mail bag approach.  If you email me a question or topic I would love to honor the best ones in the blog.  This causes great danger to me however because I know I’m going to get about 80 emails/facebook messages a day saying “Sharbs you suck” and will serve as not helpful for the blog (I probably would do the same thing to someone else so I won’t be upset). But please try to keep it to a minimum.

Feel free to e-mail questions, comments, and concerns to boringwhistle@gmail.com . There will be college interns working around the clock to select the best questions and comments for future blogs.

Also a few birthday shout outs from the last few weeks: Amy Hofmeister, Bethany Sharbaugh, and Jimmy Clausen.

This blog must see video is a tribute to David Robinson who was inducted into the Basketball hall of fame.  “The Admiral” was inducted along with my boy John Stockton (my boy from Gonzaga), Jerry Sloan and some guy who makes shoes I think (his name was Mike Jordan?) yeah I’d never heard of him either.  ENJOY THE ADMIRAL!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FInsapjeY_M

Please take not on the pink and teal stripes on the Spurs old warm up uniforms….BEAST!

Ahoy laxers and fans.  I have just finished my last EVER first class of the semester and couldn’t be more depressed that I am still in school but no worries, the money I make through this blog should help me make it through.  The first week of school is always a fun one, see some old friends, some new faces, and in my case, have random people say hi to you and not know who they are.  Usually, this is one of the three types of people. It is either someone that is new or trying to make friends and since I look pathetic and bummed out to be here in the first place, they try to brighten up my day.  Although at the time, I may not always seem like I was interested in the strangers greeting, I appreciate the effort.  Another type of person is someone who I have met somewhere along the line of my Eastern career but has since not been a part of my life.  This includes people who have gone abroad and not kept in touch or friends from freshman orientation week that got a new group of friends or  even some Sophomore who I had a class with as a Senior.

But my favorite type of people that I get a friendly hello from are the people that I have my favorite relationships with. These are the people that I once made an awkward moment for or the people around those awkward moments and therefore now are my “friends”.  If you don’t understand what I’m talking about I’ll give you an example.  Say a lacrosse player, in this case we’ll call him Branford (and all my loyal readers should find that funny from last week’s video) and the girl he has just recently met and started trying to hit on we’ll call her Tom (in honor of Tom Brady’s magnificent return to the NFL.) So Branford has just worked up enough courage to ask a girl to a romantic rendezvous to the Breezeway café.  I see that there is a little awkward tension and decide that I am going to go in for a move.  As Branford does his best not to make Tom think he is a fool, I decide to give Branford a shout out to try and distract him from his game “YA BRANFORD!” This is an easy one just to let everyone notice that there is an awkward lunch going down.  Next after they start ignoring my yelling I may go to the text message where I will text him stupid pick up lines to use such as “did you just fart?  Because you blew me away”. (I have many more don’t be afraid to ask.)  Sometimes I’ll even ask embarrassing questions such as “Branford did you ever solve that bed wetting problem you had?”  As much as it may torture Branford, a lot of the times this turns into Tom thinking that we are all friends. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to Tom, it’s the fact that when they say hi to me on campus I am so surprised that I don’t say hi back.  It’s not because I’m too cool for school (obviously I’m not, I’ve been in school for 17 years now), I just have the awkwardness turned around on me and to that I say good work Tom!

Awkward situations are kind of something I live for.  I go through phases where I think of new ways to make things awkward.  I went through a phase when I would take library books off the shelf and put them into unsuspecting peoples bags. This way, when they left the library the alarm would go off.  I also went through a phase where I would purposely trip in the middle of public areas just to see how people react.  I even sometimes just stare creepily at people out of the window of my car. That’s just how I roll.  However, some people are much more easily embarrassed than I am and for that I feel this story needs to be shared. I have been given another great opportunity to embarrass a friend. So here goes! So my roommate Michael Hofmeister convinced me to go to the weight room to work out. Lifting is certainly not on my list of things to do.  So naturally, I try to annoy everyone who is taking it seriously and trying to better their physical image and athletic performance.  I do such stuff by hiding one of the dumbbells to a set that only has 2, I will also yell funny stuff when people are trying to lift to distract them and make them laugh.  But not even I was prepared for the hilarity to ensue when a man we’ll call Bave Nogar decided to go for a jog on the treadmill.

Since I’m such a trend setter, while I laid on the sit up and crunch mat trying to get some beauty sleep (trust me I need a lot of it), Hof decided to try and distract me from doing what I do in the weight room and threw the big red fitness ball at me.  At first, I was enraged that Mike was disturbing my slumber but after a few minutes and a couple tears of anger, I got over it.  All was back to normal and Hoff went back to benching his 100 lbs. 3 times. At this point “Bave” was about 45 seconds into his treadmill workout.  Again, being the jerk that I am (I’m really trying to work on that) I decided to distract Dave.  I picked up the fitness ball and threw it at “Bave” as he was running.  I was expecting him to just swat it away or for it to hit the monitor on the treadmill or most likely miss the whole thing completely. Anyway, as the ball was just a little bit underthrown, it went between the monitor and the actual running surface and took out “Bave’s” legs and tripped him badly.  “Bave” made a valiant effort to stay on but eventually let go of the handles and tumbled off the treadmill.  It was possibly the most terrible thing I have ever seen or done.  It was one of those things that looked hilarious in my head but ended up looking like the scene from “Rookie of the Year” when Henry Rowengartner breaks his arm and it’s all in slow motion.

So the reason I am telling these stories is because I understand how awkward the first week of school can be for people. Trust me I have had about as many first weeks as anyone at Eastern (other than coach Mac).  Fear not guys, things do get better as the semester gets older.  Speaking of getting older, I would like to send a birthday shout out to Daniel Hofmeister.  His birthday was August 26^th followed by Benjamin Sharbaugh’s birthday 27^th.  So happy birthday fella’s.

And now a video from my newest sports idols… the Curacao Little League baseball team.  If anyone has any information on how to adopt a young Curacao born baby that is prone for baseball greatness please let me know.  Pay particular attention to the steal of home plate at 7 seconds.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4418299

Once again I am very apologetic about the long periods of silence on the blog, but for the last few weeks I have been as nomadic as I have ever been and really didn’t have time to write a new entry, until today.   Over the past few weeks I have been all over the Northeast (literally, the only two states I haven’t been in northeast of PA is Vermont and Maine).  I have logged many miles and many hours along the way but I finally made it back here to Philly in one piece.   Since it’s been a while since I have last updated you on my life, I will start from the beginning.

Last time I told everyone about the weekend getaway that the interns all had up in Point Pleasant, NJ.  I honestly had such a good time that I decided to go back and play for FCA in the War at the Shore tournament held right down the road.  This tournament could have been one of the craziest things I have ever seen.  From the amount of people who were there, about 70 teams, to some of the actual players that were there, Max Quinzani and Jack McBride, to some of the ridiculous team names, Peeping toms and the NJ Playboys, it was just an all around chaotic weekend.  Our team didn’t do too hot, we went 2-4 and only beat one team because they were all completely hung over and the game was at 8 am.  But hey a win is a win.  The highlight of the weekend was after one of our game a team starts warming up and this team consists of Max Quinzani, Ned Crotty, Jack McBride, and a whole host of other DI players so naturally I hung around to watch how good this team was.  Little did I realize that a team of no name kids would come out and absolutely man handle the DI all stars.  It was actually pretty crazy how badly they got beat.  That weekend I also caught a baby duck in the ocean so that was also pretty sweet.

The next weekend was a pretty good one as I traveled home to New Hampshire just to leave two days later for my brother’s wedding in southern Connecticut.   Over the next few days there was the rehearsal dinner and the actual wedding.  Thankfully this time there were no people ruining dances by not knowing which way to go (Harshaw).   And just in case anyone even thought for a moment that Harshaw was right in that I was messing up the dances, let me just assure you of how very wrong he was.  The song “hit me with your best shot” came on at one point and I started to break it down to say the least.  Before I realized it there was actually a circle of people around me clapping and cheering for me.  Needless to say that I am prepared at any point while I am dancing so I did not panic, instead I pulled out a move that most people probably thought was the highlight of the whole wedding (way more interesting then that whole ceremony with rings and all the readings and what not).  So as I walked into the center of the circle, to the untrained eye it probably looked as though I was confused and just dancing around.  But what came next blew the crowd away.  It was in the last chorus of the song and when Pat Benatar screamed the words “FIRE AWAY” I stole the show by spinning around on my butt break dance style.  I know that most of you probably didn’t know I had the capability to steal a show like that, but that is why it was so perfect because no one was prepared for it.  And that is the story of how with a few spins on my butt I made the Sharbaugh wedding complete. 

So this brings us to the last weekend and let me just say that between these weekend excursion my life has been filled with a lot of sleeping and sitting on that same butt that I break dance on like a champ.  This past weekend I actually took a trip down to Ocean City Maryland to play in the OC classic with an FCA team.  Well we did even worse than the first tournament going 0-4 but I would say our team had multiple wins throughout the weekend.  The last game was particularly memorable because we actually stood a chance against the team we were playing seeing how there were no DI all Americans or MLL players on the other team.  The first memorable moment was when we decided to have the two goalies take the face off.  It was probably one of the more pathetic things I had ever seen so as I ran in as the LSM the other wing guys and I decided we would stand back and let the two of them battle for the ground ball and not give them any help.  The second best moment of this game was probably the play of my career and I don’t know why I didn’t think of this tactic earlier.  One of the other teams defenders (who was an under armour all American, just FYI) was running the ball down the sideline on the side of the field our box was on.  As middie came off so I could go on as LSM the ref was standing right in front of the box, so I had a stroke of genius.  As I came onto the field, I ducked down and hid behind the ref as the other teams defender came unsuspectingly closer to me, once he got in striking range I jumped up from behind the ref and screamed.  This kid may be going to Maryland, but I guarantee he will never see such an intelligent defensive play in the ACC.  As he was startled I stripped him and fed it up field to one of our attack men who scored.  Yes, that was the time I stripped an All American and got an assist all in the same play.

Over the summer I have spent a lot of time in front of the computer reading about lacrosse and lacrosse related things.  Here is a video to sum up my new personality as a “laxer”….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqg01Nk3SYI

enjoy.

July 22

Hellllllloooooooooo everybody. Long time no updates. I know you have all been staring at your computer screens waiting for a new update to pop up so you are welcome for getting back so quickly. The last few weeks have gone by pretty quick but there was quite a bit of substance to them. First thing we did since last time was run a tournament in Annapolis, MD. Pretty much my job was to look good and cruise around in the gator and be “eye candy” for the girls at the tournament and give FCA a good image. I did that very well. We then went to Salisbury camp for FCA, and let me tell you how good a time it was. All that we really had to do was suit up for two sessions a day and play against high school aged guys. Needless to say, I think I would have been selected to the first team all camp. I tallied somewhere around 14 ground balls and I assisted in the two games I played in. The twelve year old I stripped had no idea what was coming to him. After returning from Annapolis, I returned to the Philadelphia area for a wedding. To my pleasant surprise, Coach John Harshaw was in attendance at the same wedding. Let me stop right here and say that I am putting it in the hands of this year’s freshman class to teach coach Harshaw the Cupid shuffle. I understand the lyrics make it difficult to follow (“to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right, to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left, now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick, now walk it by yourself, now walk it by yourself”). Again, it’s very difficult to follow and I can see how coach bumped in to me multiple times. He just stood there dumbfounded and didn’t know where to go. So I am picking Eric Docherty from Plano, Texas (random selection and I know that Texas Cowboys know how to kick it line dance style) to perfect the cupid shuffle and teach coach Harshaw how the dance is done. You will be tested at the first meeting of your new found skill. I came back Sunday morning but not without a little detour to one of my favorite places to eat in Philly, Pat’s Cheese steaks. One of my bosses asked me to bring him back a whiz with on my way to Baltimore. But as I drove down 76 I found out the South Street Bridge no longer existed so I had to find a new route. I drove a little further and jumped on city Line Avenue and found Ninth Street and decided to just drive down it knowing that I would eventually run into the famous cheese steak place. What I didn’t realize is that I would be driving through the scariest section of Philly I’ve ever been in, and it was 11:30 on a Sunday morning. To make matters worse, as the beat up black Saturn from New Hampshire made its presence felt in Philly (I think they were just as scared as I was once they caught sight of the whip I was rolling around in), Gangsters Paradise by Coolio came on the radio. I quickly rolled up my window and turned down the radio and might have soiled myself in the process. This week so far we went on a beach trip to Point Pleasant, NJ. Great time, swam in a pool with two crazy dogs, fished for 5 hours (it took me 4 hours and 15 minutes to actually catch one but I ended with a hot streak of 5 in 45 minutes.) kayaking, boat rides, and water skiing. Today every muscle in my body aches, but it was well worth it to enjoy the 8 seconds I spent cruising along the top of the water behind a boat before I ate it. One last thing before the video of the week, in my last post someone named Canandaigua lax mom/soon to be Eastern lax mom (I know, I can’t figure out who it is either, I wish she would just be a little less secretive), asked a question and I wanted to take a second and answer it: “These posts are too funny! I especially liked the Stanley Cup/Buffalo Wild Wings episode. Have you considered a career writing for late night television? Keep it up!” No I have not considered a career writing late night television. I feel as though my antics are funny to me and only to me and sometimes I make the stories a little funnier than they actually were. Thanks for your comment and if you have any more I would be happy to field them. Video of the week, a collection of videos of people wiping out on water skis, making me feel better about my failure at the sport. Of course, these people are dumb and forgot to put on one of their skis……. so they deserve to crash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVA5W7mdGSc&feature=related

June 29th, 2009

Well it’s been a while since I have created a new post, but I have been in Virginia for a week coaching at the NOVA power camp. It was a pretty good time; I would say that I made the all camp team after stripping 8 and 9 year olds of the ball and their dignity for a week straight. These little kids wouldn’t come into the middle if there was a hundred dollar bill, they were fading like Wagner. It was a very nice and very necessary confidence booster for myself. But something I didn’t enjoy was finding out that I have no skills at building puzzles, I tend to give up after about 20 to 30 minutes and it never ends up getting resumed. Two pretty fun things that I did do since the last post were the tour of Baltimore sports, and a trip to Top Golf. First, we went on a sports tour through the city of Baltimore. First stop was the US Lacrosse hall of fame right next to Homewood Field at Johns Hopkins. The tour of that took about 3 minutes and I got free admissions due to the fact that I showed them my expired US lacrosse membership card (haha, suckers, didn’t get the $3 admission charge). Then we went on a tour of Camden Yards. I’ve been to the stadium before but hearing about it and getting to go in the Brooks Robinson Party Room (that’s right, THE Brooks Robinson), and all the press boxes and saw all the plaques of people who have hit homeruns onto the road (3 Red Sox have plaques out there). During the tour there was a high school all star game going on and it took me a while to realize it wasn’t the orioles playing. We then took a tour and had a question and answer session with the guys (and one fairly attractive lady) at Inside Lacrosse. It was fun to look at all the work that goes into the magazine and website. The best was saved for last as we went over to Annapolis and watched the Baltimore Bayhawks get rocked by the Boston Cannons. Paul Rabil had approximately 17 points and approximately 12 inches of flow in the back of his helmet, so he did alright. The best part of the game however, other than seeing a girl from Oyster River high school there, was the tour of the Naval Academy hall of fame. This hall of fame is easily 4 times the size of the US Lacrosse hall of fame, but we actually got a tour from one of the founders of the Navy hall of fame. It was insane all the history that the Naval lacrosse program has and to see it all, from the All Americans they had in the 40’s, to the trophy for best goalkeeper that Matt Russell won in 2004. I would also like the voice how angry I was, as I’m sure a lot of you were, when Coach Childs posted an article about Will Johnson ruining the ending of Season In the Balance before the final episode was even available. Now we all have to wait for next season to see if we can finally keep the suspense until the very end. Life’s full of disappointments. But either way, congrats to the CA Braves and all the state champs coming to play for Eastern this upcoming season. Top golf was a journey we took in Virginia. It is a driving range that has giant targets on the range that are worth different point values. http://www.topgolf.com/ Check it out, it is ridiculous. I think I drove 2 balls more than 40 yards, needless to say I was quite a liability for my team. But I had fun. Ben Horton, aka THUGLIFE has just joined me down here in Sparks and we are getting ready to turn this town upside down. This week I will be helping coach Team Teabow (aka FCA South), in the Gettysburg College Gait Cup, hopefully I will bring home the gold with the boys of the SEC.

July 9, 2009

So after about two weeks out of the office, mainly being in Gettysburg PA, Coach Childs said that it would make sense to combine two blogs. Since the last update I have had two of the busiest weeks of my life on almost no sleep. First we spent all of June 30th picking up kids from the airport and train stations in Baltimore who were flying in from all over the country to play on our FCA teams for the Gait cup. None of my kids from Georgia flew in that day and so I was a little annoyed with all these kids running around who weren’t even going to be a part of my team. I met some nice kids and got to talk to people from many random areas (i.e. Alabama, Oregon, California, Colorado, New Hampshire…). So finally the day of truth arrived and we drove up to Gettysburg for the Gait cup. When I got there I saw my team of 16 Georgians, a Kentucky kid, a kid from North Carolina, and one Maryland kid. This team actually turned out to be very good as we went 7-1 in the tournament finally losing in the semi finals, which in turn was good because the team that won our division was disgusting, they won the championship game 17-1 or something. So I was fine with a one goal semi-final loss. A couple of funny stories came from this tournament. One great story was our team was quite superstitious. One thing we did was where the same color (white) every game. So one game we get out on the field and the other team is also in white. So the ref calls over and says “one team needs to change colors.” As the mature responsible coach of the team I yelled “Nose goes” and my very disciplined team all yelled the same. Well the ref thought it was a poor way to make the decision so one of our kids decided that rock paper scissors would be the more logical solution. So both teams gathered around and two kids played rock paper scissors, of course the dirty south (since none of the kids were Bull Dawg fans Team Teabow wasn’t as humorous as I hoped so we renamed the team) and we got to be white. The very next game we played the same team and when we both came out in white, their coach actually initiated the rock paper scissors battle. At this point the ref saw the two teams running at each other to start the contest and he thought there was a potential fight breaking out so he got in the middle and we explained what was going on. It was easily the funniest thing I’ve ever watched take place in a lacrosse game. After Gait Cup we stayed up in Gettysburg for Gettysburg FCA camp. The camp was a good time from ages 8-18 there was multiple levels of lacrosse going on. Kevin Huntley stopped in for a shooting demo (I tried to get Matt Wagner but he was at the beach so we had to settle for Huntley), and Tyler Fiorito the freshman goalie from Princeton was there (which was a good thing that Wagner wasn’t there since Fiorito would not have been able to handle the low to low shot he has mastered.) Some fun things happened at that camp, some cool campers from places like Gilman, Haverford school, and Landon were there making the competition pretty good. Coach Childs stopped by for a day and we got to hang out a little bit. And Horton and I got to do the Gettysburg run we did over spring break. So we got back today and tomorrow at 7 am we are leaving for Annapolis for a tournament that FCA hosts every year and then one last camp at Salisbury and we are done. Video of the week: Crazy basketball shot from the beautiful Whittemore Center at the University of New Hampshire

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=5r0mTi3NNeA&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3D5r0mTi3NNeA

Sorry this one was so long, it’s actually two in one.

Since last time I checked in not much has happened.  I went home for the weekend to go to the final chapter of the Sharbaugh family graduates from Oyster River High School.  For most schools, graduation is some sort of torture device that has people sitting for hours on end just to see their child walk across stage and get handed a little booklet with a piece of paper in it that sums up all the work you have done over the last 4 or 5 years.  However, whenever I go to a graduation at Oyster River, I am always humored at how lightly the process is taken.

This year started just like any other, a bunch of kids with gowns, caps and aviator sun glasses marching into the ceremony wearing either flip flops or no footwear at all.  But when the Principal of the school stood up to give her opening comments, is when all madness broke lose.  The tradition of passing around beach balls was taken to a new level when in the first ten seconds of her speech, at least twenty beach balls were thrown into the air.  What even topped that was when the life size inflatable “Stone Cold” Steve Austin punching bag was thrown into the air and passed around.  Not only was I amazed at the creativity of finding the former WWF superstar in the form of an inflatable punching bag, but I also decided that I must have one for my room next year. 

I’m now back in Baltimore at the office and not much is going on.  Yesterday however, we recently split up the 72 high school players who have signed up for the Gait cup at Gettysburg College.  I am happy to say, that the team I have selected should make a run at the tournament.  My team consists of 16 kids from the best high schools in Georgia, a kid from Tennessee, one kid from Alabama, and my sleeper pick, the 6’ 8’’ Beau Bagley of Kentucky, and if all goes according to plan, I will turn Beau into the next great crease man for Eastern University and he will shatter the pathetic freshman scoring record set by a Sophomore…coughWAGNERcough.  I feel as though I have created a team with every ingredient necessary to go the distance.  Football powerhouse states, southern accents, and 6’ 8’’ high school midfielder named Beau, could this team be any more perfect?  Since I have four SEC football states present, I decided to stick with the theme and name the team “Team Teabow”, not because I’m a Tim Teabow fan necessarily (which I am), but because if my calculations are correct, everyone on the team hates him, so it should make for a good ice breaker.

 Since 85% of my summer job so far has been surfing the internet and reading useless stuff, it shouldn’t surprise some of you that I have read plenty of blogs.  My favorite being the club trillion blog, so I have decided to take one of his traditions and post a good video at the end of every entry, although this is an oldie, it is most certainly a goodie.  So check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F2d7M4Lbmw (I recommend any of the fantasy file video’s, but since Laurence Maroney is a Patriot, he is superior in every way to any other football player)

 And one last thing, in case the Phillie fans forgot, the Red Sox beat you twice without their entire starting line up, just FYI.

Go Sox.

        So this summer I am an intern for the FCA Lacrosse Ministry just North of Baltimore. We have been put up in this house that legitimately looks like it should be on MTV Cribs (Indoor basketball court, I have counted 4 40”+ LCD tv’s, personal gym about the same size as Eastern’s, air hockey table, old school power hockey table, ping pong table, pool table etc…) and that’s just in the basement. Now that you’re all jealous of my living arrangements for the summer I will continue with my story… I went to watch Timmy, who is the 11 year old that lives in the house we are staying in, play in his state lacrosse championship game. I got there expecting us to walk up to this little field with a bunch of kids trying to scoop up a lacrosse ball, so to say the least I wasn’t expecting much. What I didn’t realize, is that Lutherville lacrosse club, would compete for the DII national championship. I was almost peeing my pants as I watched their 5’3’’ LSM “Chazz” throw over the head checks on middies running down the sideline. On the next possession, I watched them run a slide and recover defense nicer than our slide drill ever looked last year. All I know is I took down some names and told them to fill out recruiting questionnaires at goeasterneagles.com. I mean, we played plenty of teams this year that struggled with their on the fly substitution, these 10 and 11 year olds were running mid line substitutions on the fly, it hurt my head just to think of how bad I was at that age and watching these kids. Another great part of the house I’m living at is that I am located no farther than two miles from St. Paul’s school for boys. If you haven’t heard of it, it is where Brandon Childs went for his high school education. I would just like to let you all know that Childs must not have had the rip he does now, because those nets did not want any of my Allie Fultzesque cannon (Allie is Matt Wagner’s girlfriend who shoots harder than him and has more assists than him). Needless to say I had to leave after I ripped the nets off both goals. I would also like to mention that Childs is not on the big board of alumni who donated to make those fields possible, well coach, maybe you can donate some new nets since the ones I shot on are now not even an option for use. Lastly I have a little story of our office’s sense of humor. Jon Colo, of Detroit, Michigan, is a goalie from Seton Hill University (not Seton Hall as everyone he has introduced himself to has responded with “oh Seton Hall up in New Jersey). Needless to say this has been a very stressful week for Jon with his beloved Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Finals. So last night we are Buffalo Wild Wings, and Jon, who has been checking his iPhone every three seconds to make sure he has the right time and channel for the game, asks our waiter if he will put the Red Wings game on. So our waiter leaves and Colo stairs helplessly at the projector waiting to see the igloo pop up as his Wings take the ice. About 10 minutes go by and the game isn’t on. At this point, Colo is starting to get a little anxious “why isn’t the game on yet”, “where is our waiter?” he starts saying sporadically. As our waiter walks by Colo asks him again if he can put the game on and the waiter says that he told his boss to put it on. Colo calmly explains that the game is on NBC and should be easy to find. So the waiter leaves and we see the manager flipping through the tv menu looking for the game. At this point Colo gets up to relieve his nerves in the bathroom. It is at this time that another intern named Thunder checks his iPhone and realizes the game is the next night, and that there is no hockey on the current night. Instead of explaining to Colo that he has his dates messed up and that he isn’t a true Red Wings fan, we decide to mess with him. Thunder deletes my name from his phone and I start texting him fake updates from the game. I start with a basic “O man, Crosby just scored they’re up 1-0.” At this point Colo is standing up looking around for our waiter to put the game on. He even starts saying quite loudly “what kind of country is this where the Stanley Cup isn’t even on basic cable.” So I text Matt again trying to increase the chance of Colo actually punching someone. Again I start small but get a little bigger. “Malkin just had a sick between the legs goal, 2-0 Pens.” Thunder goes to show my new update to Colo who responds with a loud and emphatic “DON’T SHOW ME THAT!” At this point we are all laughing out very loudly. Colo starts to look at us with a hint of suspicion in his beautiful eyes. At this point I decide to make it obvious that this is a hoax “Crosby just broke Datsyuk’s leg with a hit.” At this point we explain to Colo that the game is on the ninth. Colo storms out of the restaurant as we all roll out laughing. Yup, we are absolutely, the funniest, craziest interns that FCA has ever had in the summer of 2009.

How’s everyone doing?  My name is Dan Sharbaugh and I just finished up my four year career as an Eastern Lacrosse player.  Since I am the most important and interesting person that has ever graced the campus with my presence (may or may not have been the exact quote). Coach Childs has turned to me and assigned me to the important task of writing semi annually on his blog. Either way, I decided to share what is going on between the ears of Dan Sharbaugh.

First off, I would like to say welcome to all the incoming freshman, we are very excited to meet you all and know a little more about each of you, than you may think.  From the midfielders who get five penalties in a championship game, to a high school student whose team is sponsored by New Balance and has team Redneck Games (GO BRAVES!!!).  We won’t fully get to know you until you actual step onto Eastern’s campus. We are looking forward to it.

Just to share a little bit about my summer, I have recently perfected the game NHL 09 on Xbox 360.  Not only have I figured out how to be unstoppable in “Dynasty Mode”, but in my “Be a pro mode”, I have scored 150 points in just 40 games, which is more than Matt Wagner scored in his entire hockey/lacrosse career.

Although we have graduated 12 seniors, the freshman could fill the shoes at each position pretty easily considering we have the best player on the team returning for his junior season.  Yes, you will all play with the BPOT Matt Mandia this year, if you are lucky enough to get his autograph let me know, I will buy it off you for a pretty hefty amount. 

Enjoy your summer, and get jacked up for season, I know Hoff has already put 50 pounds on his bench press this summer alone (that’s 50 pounds total, not on his previous total). 

Later fellas,

Sharbs

What’s Up Guys, just giving you the heads up that my Blog is on the way.