By Joel Weckerly, Sports Editor
Weck’s World
“Today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth…”
Perhaps the immortalized words uttered by Lou Gehrig in his 1939 farewell speech aren’t appropriate for my use. Yet somehow, the Iron Horse’s sound-byte doesn’t cease to
inspire me 65 years later in this, my farewell speech.
After four years of covering ACU athletics, I have several regrets, several things I would
have liked to see happen.
The first is a national championship in a non-running sport. Not to discount the six I witnessed in men’s indoor and outdoor track and field, but let’s face it: they’ve kind of become expected. Considering that 49 of ACU’s 52 national titles since 1952 have come in track, it’s become bigger news when we don’t win a championship.
My No. 2 regret is that I didn’t walk on the football team as a placekicker my freshman year. If you ever went to a game in that infamous fall of 2000, I needn’t say more.
My next regret, which should make me as equally unpopular as No. 2, is that I never asked former men’s basketball coach Mike Martin the hard-hitting question: “Sir, exactly what year did the turtleneck/sport coat combo go out of style?”
Another regret is that I was so intimidated when first interviewing Britt Bonneau. The 5-foot-9 head baseball coach might not look like much, but he’ll bust a freshman beat writer’s chops worse than Bob Knight did Jeremy Schaap. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but I probably would’ve gathered better quotes from him were my notebook not shaking so violently.
My next regret is a bit of a sensitive spot: I wish I would have lobbied for legislation to ban all football coaches and graduate assistants from playing intramural waterball. Call
me crazy, but the team assembled two years ago consisting of strength coach David Hess, linebackers coach Cody Farrell, and former defensive mammoths James Washington and Ryan Boozer didn’t seem fair. Perhaps it was the fact they could all dead-lift me–and did.
Regret No. 5 is that I failed to capture assistant athletic director–and former ACU standout–Jared Mosley’s backboard-breaking dunk on tape two years ago in Bennett Gymnasium. Why on tape? A spectacular highlight for one, but more importantly–blackmail material.
My final regret? That I should’ve heckled at ACU basketball, baseball and tennis events. Wait, never mind; I did that plenty of times. What’s impartiality anyway?
I don’t know how impressed Lou would have been with this farewell piece, but then again, I’ve never claimed to be like Lou: the only time I hit four bombs in one game was in 8-bit Nintendo’s RBI Baseball, and the only thing I’ve ever done 2,130 consecutive times is sleep through Chapel.
I’m totally kidding. It was only three homers.
