Baller, Shot Caller, Twenty Inch Blades On the Impala

While watching football the other day something occurred to me that I'd never thought of before:

A lot of these guys weigh about the same as me.

Maybe it was because the teams that were on my TV weren't that entertaining, but I found myself for the first time in a while paying attention to anything else but the game itself, which made me realize a few things. First off, despite the fact that I am a longtime fan of The Fixx, I've pretty much decided that whatever a-hole it was at Toyota who greenlighted their insipid "Saved by Zero" campaign (that doesn't even use the real song, btw -- just some studio hacks recreating the chorus) that they play during every football game on TV needs to be strung up by his ankles and fed to a pack of hungry wolverines.

I actually got into one commercial break where they played this spot followed by a
"Free Credit Report.com" commercial and I thought my head was going to explode.

But once the game came back on -- they did that sorta flashcard thing they run whenever someone makes a play that shows their face without the helmet, lists the college they went to, and their height and weight.

And I started to see some numbers that looked pretty familiar.

I've been struggling with my weight lately, which has led me back into regular workouts and trying to change my eating habits. I've also been using another blog I contribute to as a weight loss journal, which I think has been helpful in keeping me mindful of where I'm at -- but as I was looking it over the other day has also sort of turned into a big "bash myself" party where essentially I run myself down for not making more progress on a daily basis.

But here on my TV suddenly were a bunch of guys running around supposedly in tip top shape and half of them weigh 30, 50, and in certain cases like 100 pounds more than I do.

So it got me to thinking -- because a big part of the issue for me has been my body frame. I'm a wide shouldered guy who comes in just under six feet in height. The kind of thing they used to call "stocky" back in the day. Had I been less of a nerd and gone to a high school that actually had sports, I might have easily gone out for football. No way to know if I'd be any good at it or not -- but it certainly would have been something I would have been interested in.

True story -- when I was going to college in Tallahassee, my then-girlfriend/future ex-wife's dad was a teacher at FAMU. This was around the time they'd gotten this new football coach named Billy Joe (not a nickname) who actually went a long way towards turning their long-suffering football team into a winner for the first time in years, which garnered them a lot of local news coverage. Anyways -- there was this day where we were at the local mall shopping for something or another and I was wearing some of the FAMU swag her father had given me, and a guy wearing a FAMU hat actually stopped me in the store and said,

"Hey -- Great game last Saturday!"

Neither of us knew what he was talking about, so we asked -- and he proceeded to gush about my apparent poise in the pocket against Bethune Cookman.

I had no way to tell at the time if he was actually being serious or not -- but eventually I
decided to take his assumption that I was actually a member of the team as a compliment.

Of course the truth of the matter is that I'm way too short to play quarterback at any sort of collegiate or pro level. But it got me to thinking -- as much as I'm struggling with my weight and fitness level right now, this isn't the heaviest I've ever been. Perhaps instead of spending time on the other blog running myself down all the time maybe what I really need is to take a moment to see how I stack up against America's most famous and well-payed fat guys.

So I went on the web and did some looking (sources on this were actually more scarce than I was expecting them to be), and what I came up with was this: There's a bunch of dudes in the NFL that are my exact same height (which I was surprised by), but when you start trying to pair up that height with my average weight lately what you get is a much shorter list.

In fact, according to my own (admittedly limited) research -- there's only two:

Patrick Kearney	Me	Elvis Dumervil

Essentially if you stood me next to these guys, I'd supposedly fit right in. Sure they're both about 10 years younger than me, obscenely rich, and in fantastic shape -- but for some odd reason learning that at my current weight (in some alternate universe) I would be able to play fullback or defensive end in the league made me feel kinda good.

Not good in the "Get Drew Rosenhaus on the phone right now!" sort of way -- but that even though I've still got a ways to go before I feel like I've achieved my fitness/weight goals, I'm maybe not as far off the track as had I originally thought.

Which in my mind is cause for some celebration --

Can a brother get a hug?

[Listening To:  L7 – "Pretend That We're Dead" ]