Newspaper

A new record set in Intramural Badminton

by Tim Pickwell Koala staff

Intramural Badminton was a mixed bag this past week.

The Good News: My team, Whoops! Wrong Sport!, finally won its first match, 8-0, over A Bad Mitten.

The Bad News: My team, Whoops! Wrong Sport!, after going 0-2 to start the season, with me playing my socks off, won without me.

It gets worse. I sat out this past game, with a knee injury, and my team got together and decided to replace me with ...NOBODY. Now, I could handle it if my teammates had brought in some ringer to take my place and lead the team to its first victory, but having them play short-handed and still win, well, that's more than my ego can take.

Deon Stein, all 5'6" of him, played both men's singles, both mixed doubles, and, most incredibly of all, men's doubles - by himself. (Oh, sure, I stood in street clothes in the back of the court, but I didn't hit the birdie - I refuse to call it a shuttlecock - once.) In the process, Deon set a never-to-be-broken, probably never-to-be-tied record by winning all five matches. Incredible. His aggregate score was 95-8.

But, for future opponents who may be sweating in their sneakers, relax. I'll be back next week and our opponents will again have a chance.

Of course, Annette Lewis and Pamela Middings of A Bad Mitten will have no chance against future opponents. It's not that they aren't good, it's just that they are both left-handed. Besides the fact that they had trouble finding some left-handed racquets, everyone knows that southpaws are fine coming out of the bullpen, but they never excel in racquet sports. (Take tennis, for example, with guys like, uh, well McEnroe, and, I guess Connor is lefty too, oops peaserver Roscoe Tanner, and... Laver also, and, oh, never mind.)

Anyway, lefties have made me sick since about age 8 when my little league coach tried to put little lefty Tom Sherlock at my favorite position, first base. It's been war ever since.

A woman I work with is left-handed and she claims that right-handed people discriminate against lefties. I say, "damn right. Us right-handed people are sick of hearing about how much more creative left-handers are, and this `left-hand, right-mind' crap was obviously invented by some southpaw psychologist who, no doubt, shocked the hell out of rat brains in some effort to justify his inability to do anything but pull the ball to the second baseman."

And now, to further make my life miserable, I've got to put up with a left-handed, bird-brained sports editor, Doug "I change my middle name every week" Jones. Doug is that most pitiful of creatures, a left-handed shortstop. I think his problem stems from the fact that he comes from Chicago, a city which recently tried to play left-handed Mike Squires at third base (for the White Sox). Next thing you know they'll be trying to let left-handers play catcher. Absurd.

Those of you who follow this collumn regularly, and are still reading this article after that particular digression, will recall the name of Rob Olney. Rob introduced me to the sport of IM Badminton by skunking me, 15-0. Well, now I have company. This past week, while leading the Shuttledocs to their third victory, Olney defeated Matt Adams of Swamp, 15-0. Welcome to the club, Matt. The Shuttledocs, with Olney, George Weiner, and the best female player in the nine o'clock league, Ahn Bui, are the team to beat. Olney, after zipping Adams, apparently apologized for his team sandbagging in the single A league. "I didn't know we'd be this good," he said.

Speaking of good, Dien Nguyen is easily the best male player this reporter's seen. Nguyen, of Crazy Birdies, has a full repertoire of drop shots, smashes, volleys, you name it. Those of you who are Phoenix Suns fans, or remember when Rocket Rod Foster played for the UCLA Bruins, will have no trouble visualizing Nguyen's style. At 5'5" he is smooth and graceful, and has the most utterly explosive first step in the league. He covers more ground than almost any two players.

Nguyen swears he's had only one year of competitive badminton, and that was at the junior varsity level in high school. "We had a very good varsity team," he says. We can only hope that the kind of players that could been this guy out for the varsity are now attending other shcools.

Strangely enough, however, Nguyen's team lost to the Nameless Wonders, led by Terry Figel and Jon Cohen. Nguyen and partner Michael Sanford won an exciting double's match, 15-14, but the Nameless Women were too much for Crazy Birdies.

The sad thing about these two teams, however, is that we still have to play them. Maybe I should get injured again.

Elsewhere in Intramural Action, High Strung, led by Nancy Blum, Ken Cooper, Susan Horowitz and "Charlie," (that'll teach him to to put only his first name on the scoresheet) beat TLK.

Matt Adams, who not only plays badminton, but writes for The UCSD Guardian, denied rumors that his article about tennis (May 5) had also been lifted from the pages of The San Francisco Chronicle. "C'mon," he said, "Would the Chronicle write an article about UCSD women's tennis?" We don't know Matt. But I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it'll be a long time before we trust articles about female tennis players that appear in the sports section of The UCSD Guardian.

Best t-shirt: Peter Corrigan of A Bad Mitten, "Blake: Why Argo Stays Awake."

All right, the controversial part, the lists, the rankings, the thing that television contracts are based on, the promised land, the pot o' gold, the elite group that every team hopes to someday crack:

The Fab Four

Killer
Orient Express
Four Flew
Shuttledocs