Most memorable personal championship moment(s)

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 12:22 PM

So....we watch the celebrations on TV. We cheer with our favorite teams. But is there anything like being on a winning team?

So go ahead and dust off those old stories of personal championship glory, because most of us should have them. And of course, if you've just always played on bad teams, it's ok to celebrate the first -- or only -- time you all won.

Reading that little league thread got me thinking.....

And yes, I'm back.

FrogMan · 04-26-2006, 12:34 PM

I will always remember the season when I was playing pee-wee hockey and we won our three tourneys in the season. I was never a superplayer but I played a pretty solid defensive defender position and in a game in one of these tourneys I faced three 3 against 1 and they never scored. I still get goosebumps thinking about it, heck my dad still tell the stories of him being behind the bench and going stir crazy watching his son as the last man in front of the goalie. Good times.

FM

rkmsuf · 04-26-2006, 12:36 PM

Our team won the Senior Boys International Candlepin Bowling title.

Seriously. I have the trophy to prove it.

digamma · 04-26-2006, 12:39 PM

The only two times I got pinned my senior year in wrestling were in the finals of big tournaments, including once against a guy I had beaten multiple times before. Really rose to the occasion.

On the positive side, we won the rugby Beanpot tournament my junior year in college. I made a huge tackle just in front of the goal line with time running down as we were nursing a small lead. Drinking beer from the championship Pot was sweet.

Travis · 04-26-2006, 12:45 PM

One of my most vivid personal sports memories is from the dying seconds of a hockey tournament championship game from when I was 14. We were down by 1, final 10 seconds and I managed to cause a turnover and recover the puck down low. Saw my centerman streaking to the net with two guys between us, knew there wasn't time for me to get into a shooting position, so sent a saucer pass that got over the first guys stick, actually managed to land flat, go through the second guys legs and was going right for the centers stick when it hit a divot in the ice and skipped over his stick. He had a wide open net, and yeah there's the chance that he would have missed or the goalie would have gotten across, but we both just literally collapsed to the ice when it skipped over his stick as the buzzer sounded before another person even touched the puck.

Of course this game was the culmination of having played 7 games in 3 days, going in expecting to compete in the B division but having clawed our way into the A finals only to come up just short.

Sad part is that has stuck with me more than any of the "glory" memories from hockey or baseball, but it's also one of the few movie type moments I can remember where everything seemed to just slow down and have that epic feel to it when it was happening. Of course the fact that I personally went from "Holy crap that actually worked!" to "sweet gentle mother of mercy how did that happen?!" in two seconds probably means I'll have this with me to the grave.

vex · 04-26-2006, 01:30 PM

I've never won a championship.

Simms · 04-26-2006, 01:32 PM

Not a championship moment, but...

When I was in 8th grade, the Toronto Separate School Board (Catholic schools) had a city-wide hockey tournament. There are probably a couple hundred catholic schools in the city, so it was broken into two parts...if you finished in the top 2 in the "preliminary" tournament, you went on to the "main" tournament. We won ours, so we advanced.

In the first game of the Big tournament, I don't even remember the name of the school we played. But we won 2-1, and I scored both goals, the winner on an end-to-end rush with less than 5 minutes left. So that felt pretty good.

Oh...and the tournament (2nd leg) was held at Maple Leaf Gardens. So that was pretty cool.

rkmsuf · 04-26-2006, 01:37 PM

Senior Biddy Basketball League MVP, beotches.

Butter · 04-26-2006, 02:02 PM

Won a couple of Little League Championships. I was mediocre, but did catch the winning fly ball in one game.

illinifan999 · 04-26-2006, 02:13 PM

We didn't win, but I'll remember this day and hate this girl for the rest of my life. It was the 4th grade intramural basketball championship. We were like super underdogs in the playoffs and we made it to the title against the best team in the league. We were winning with time running out, when we fouled one of them. He missed the free throws and we got the rebound. We call timeout. Since back then teams couldn't press we were just going to pass the ball into me and I was going to sit behind the halfcourt line until time ran out. The ball is intercepted by this girl (ON MY TEAM) and she throws it right to one of their players who hits a halfcourt shot to win it. To this day, you mention that girls name to any of the people that were on that team and we get mad. Otherwise all the teams I'm on suck ass, and we're only good during the regular season.

JonInMiddleGA · 04-26-2006, 02:16 PM

Same as Vex, never won a championship as a player in any sport.

JeeberD · 04-26-2006, 02:19 PM

My baseball teams won championships when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Seventh grade was basically the southern Germany championship and I was a starting pitcher and second baseman. The next year we won the European title, but that was an age group up from the year before and I was low man on the totem pole, so I barely saw any action. I did score the tenth run after a walk and stolen base to give us the mercy rule win in the championship game, though...

JeeberD · 04-26-2006, 02:20 PM

Dola-

I also won a couple of tournaments with my basketball squads, but we wound up losing in the later tournaments...

Pumpy Tudors · 04-26-2006, 02:21 PM

I haven't even won a championship in a video game.

Swaggs · 04-26-2006, 02:25 PM

When I was 10-years old, my team won the 32-team city Little League championship. It was a tight game, we won 4-3. I went 0-2 with a strikeout, a foul out, and a groundout and played second base. With the game on the line, with a runner on first in the bottom of the sixth, one of their better players hit a ball in the hole to our shortstop and he threw it to me for the final out. It was sweet.

Raiders Army · 04-26-2006, 02:26 PM

I remember winning our Little League championship. That was great. I also remember our High School Track team winning States, although I didn't really help much.

st.cronin · 04-26-2006, 04:11 PM

I have also never won a championship. For that matter, I think the only winning team I ever played on was my high school's hockey team, 11th grade. 9th and 10th grade they had losing seasons, and senior year, while I got a letter and everything, a variety of injuries kept me from even practicing.

TheOhioStateUniversity · 04-26-2006, 04:15 PM

No team I have ever been on has won a playoff game let alone a championship game. I will always remember the trip to Disney in Florida where we played against teams from all around the country and the world. We got crushed by team Puerto Rico or Cuba I think, man those guys played like major leaguers.

Fouts · 04-26-2006, 04:16 PM

Winning the softball championship in 1994, and being selected to the softball all-tourney team in 2003 (mainly for my defense at 1B). Also, hitting 2 HR's in one inning in 1994 (short porch in left, but 30 foot fence).

lungs · 04-26-2006, 04:18 PM

In American Legion Baseball we were in a regional tournament (to get to the state tournament). It was a double elimination tournament. We lost one game to the favorites but ended up winning the next few games to get into the Championship. We played the team we lost to earlier in the tournament.

Their starting pitcher had a career record of 36-0 at the time and there had been a story on the local news about him. Not only did we have to beat him, we would have to beat that team a second time immediately afterwards. Did I mention that our club was under .500 for the season?

Anyway, we ended up beating the pitcher with a 36-0 career record. I can't remember what I did in that game but I remember scoring a run where the throw had me beat but I slid around the catcher and touched home as I passed it.

The next game got pretty rowdy in the stands. We got out to a pretty nice lead right away and the opposing team's fans had been drinking all day and fully expected to dispatch us in the first game with their ace pitching. They got pretty restless and the cops had to come. Our coach told us a story about Bob Feller not losing his concentration when a train would rumble by the stadium when he was pitching. Late in the game, a flyball came out my way in leftfield and was sailing out of play but I leaned over the fence and caught it to end a threat. The next inning, the opposing pitcher threw at our shortstop and fractured his upper arm. We ended up winning and celebrating in front of those obnoxious opposing fans was damn near close to orgasmic.

We went to state, ended up winning a game there too before superior competition put us in our place. State was a week afterwards and our shortstop with the broken arm ended up playing. Another thing that made our team so special is that our Legion program discouraged graduated seniors from playing so we were a group of freshman through juniors with one graduated senior (who's batting average was below the Mendoza Line).

To this day I have younger ballplayers come up to me and ask about "The Catch". Apparently "The Catch" and that tournament live on in our town's baseball lore, and this is a town that has won state championships.

johnnyshaka · 04-26-2006, 04:57 PM

Playing in the finals of a baseball tournament in Kingston, Ontario against the home team and in the last inning we were down by one and I was on third when I saw the suicide squeeze sign delivered by the third base coach. I couldn't believe it. I'm not the kind of guy that has ever been a base stealer...not exactly built for speed, if ya know what I mean...so I figured that the coach thought that we could catch everybody off guard...or so I hoped. Anyway, the pitcher began his windup and I bolted for the plate and sure enough, the pitcher got flustered and ended up throwing into the dirt which made it very easy for me to score the tying run. Wow.

We then went into extra innings and the go ahead run was on third and I was up with one out and hit a single up the middle to put us ahead by one. We shut them down in the bottom of the inning and collected our first place trophies...very cool!!!

Kodos · 04-26-2006, 07:14 PM

Winning the District 2 mile my senior year in track was probably the highlight of my sports days. What made it funny was that the announcer kept calling me by one of my teammate's names...

JeeberD · 04-26-2006, 07:17 PM

Damn Kang getting all of your glory...

Sublime 2 · 04-26-2006, 07:33 PM

I've won a few championships/tournaments, though it's been a while. The last one being a traveling soccer league regional championship and a 24 team tournament. Now that was 5 years ago, when I was 16. It was probably the best championship memory I have, as a few of my friends were on the team and we were just having an awesome time. I still do play in some on men's league summer team, but it's not too serious...get drunk before/during/after a game and have fun.

My most memorable sports moment though wasn't a championship but a nice award. My hometown has an athletic achievement award that goes to 4 high school seniors, the St. Joseph's Hero Award and Unsung Hero award, a girl and guy each winning one. I thought I had a pretty good chance at the Unsung award, but to my surprise I was awarded the Hero award. I suppose my attitude/grades helped me out against some of my friends who had some major egos/attitudes, but it was still such an honor! It's a long tradition in my town going back some 50-60 years and it's cool to look back at the past winners who I watched as a kid and know my name is on that same list. Plus a got a wicked sweet trophy!

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 08:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

I haven't even won a championship in a video game.

Dude, cheat. It's theraputic.

RPI-Fan · 04-26-2006, 08:30 PM

In my pre-teen years we won or came very close in some hockey/soccer ones, don't really remember that far.

Since then, have never even threatened to win anything.
9th grade varsity tennis, we were >.500 but didn't challenge for a title. After that, we moved into the toughest league in the state and routinely got creamed.

Varsity soccer we were again in one of, if not the, best league in the state, and never had a prayer of winning a thing. I didn't play much club soccer during high school.

Didn't have a high school hockey team, so that wasn't an option unfortunately. Oh how I would have loved to have that opportunity.

In college, I have did win an intramural title. Gym hockey two years ago, we won, though we were in B League so it didn't mean as much. In Ice Hockey B league that same year we almost pulled off the double. This is perhaps my most exciting sporting moment that I can remember.

We trailed 1-0 against Zetes late in the game. We'd struggled all game long, and had given up a very early breakaway goal. But, with ~10 seconds left, I forced a turnover in the neutral zone. I passed it to my friend at the blueline and we had a 2-on-2 opportunity. He beat his man along the boards, but couldn't cut to the middle. He sent across a rocket saucer pass that magically landed right on my tape. I tried to take a quick snapping one-timer. But I didn't get good wood on it, it slipped a bit wide, and we lost the game.

~rpi-fan

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 08:32 PM

Hmm...the most memorable was my senior year of high school, though I have a coaching championship story..that I'll save.

On my high school tennis team, I was the only guy who was a four-year starter, but I wasn't a very good player for most of that time and it was a marvel that I'd played for one year, let alone 4.

Anyway, I was the only guy who'd been on the team when we went 3-17-1 my freshman year and lost all but three of our players, most of whom quit or were kicked off for being douche bags.

My sophomore and junior year, the team was servicable. Qualified for the state tourney and won 13 matches both years.

Well, our senior year, it all came together. We started the season 13-0 before losing our first match. We ended the season 17-7, but the best part came on a road trip one day, when I was doing the stats. (I was the defacto manager, too, but...it was cool, the newspapers paid you for calling in the match scores annually)

I noticed that we had an undefeated record in our division and if we won this one game against this school (Who ironically had the same mascot as we did, the Cardinals, though they spelled it with a K, because the town was Kearney)

At any rate, we played this match against them and well...my doubles partner and I could've sealed the deal and could've clinched the title. But we didn't. We had to rely on our 3rd singles guy to do that for us. But when he did it, we stormed the tennis court. It was seriously, the coolest thing ever. We went 11-0 in our division and it was the first time our coach had won a championship at anything in the over 20 years he'd been there. So, it was a really good feeling for us to be able to do that for him, given he built the entire program essentially from scratch.

Well, up to that point.

Joe · 04-26-2006, 08:33 PM

we didn't win, but in my final football game in HS, I sacked Joe Mauer 1.5 times. Maybe someone other that Sov actually knows who that is.

Eaglesfan27 · 04-26-2006, 08:33 PM

Never won a championship, but the best moment was when we beat our most hated rival my junior year of HS. I had 4 big run blocks in the game.

FrogMan · 04-26-2006, 08:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pumpy Tudors

I haven't even won a championship in a video game.

you need to bring back hammertime

FM

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 08:40 PM

In 1998, the year after the whole tennis thing, I went to Wisconsin to teach tennis at this summer camp. I ended up being the journalism instructor and just doing tennis part-time.

Well, all the counselors ended up coaching teams in the various intramural leagues they have there. My first league team was juniors in basketball..kids 7-9 years old.

It was pretty weird, because it's not as if you really "coach" them as much as you just make sure they don't hurt anyone, exhibit good sportsmanship. Well...we were the Heat. We won our first game 74-14 (they had them playing 40 minutes a game..dunno why...) anyway..i got chewed out for running up the score. But my worst players were scoring points and my kids didn't do anything..other than make a lot of baskets.

Well, we went undefeated in that league and only trailed at the half in one game during our undefeated 7-0 season. It was pretty sweet and shows what kids can do when they play together, because my team was not even remotely the most talented group and we even lost all of our best players during a changeover session and yet, we still managed to keep our system in place. Our system was mostly just having fun, staying positive and for some reason, these kids REALLY bought into it.

Well, the 2nd half of the summer they put me in charge of a junior league softball team. (They didn't do baseball, because they want anyone to get cracked in the head) My team was god-awful. We started the season 0-13. They got rid of these two kids who kept bitching about "hating" my team and not wanting to play and traded me this other kid who was a good hitter and another one. Then, I decided to take over the team and rather than letting this one kid who was team captain decide the lineup and run the team, I decided to take things over.

Well, after that..we won our last 3 regular season games.

Because it was the junior league, all four teams made the playoffs. Best 3 out of 5 games series.

We went 6-0 and won the league title.

That by far was my best championship summer ever. Those kids were awesome and they just left it all out on the field. The basketball team was sweet, because they were like a well-oiled machine. But the softball thing, I still marvel that those kids didn't melt down after losing so many games early on.

Jumping in the lake after the win is pretty sweet.

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George W Bush

we didn't win, but in my final football game in HS, I sacked Joe Mauer 1.5 times. Maybe someone other that Sov actually knows who that is.

That's pretty cool.

Pumpy Tudors · 04-26-2006, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrogMan

you need to bring back hammertime

I did. I'm so desperate.

Easy Mac · 04-26-2006, 09:13 PM

In little league district All-stars final, I hit as grand slam in the bottom of the sixth to win the game. That was the first home run I ever hit (over the fence), dead center, I remember not even seeing it go over, I just ran like hell since I didn't think I could hit it that far, then everyone went crazy and the kids mobbed me at home plate. The only game my mother ever recorded on her video camera, the video all of a sudden just starts jumping all over the video is kept some place safe.

Also won both of my little league championships (for the county) and 1 out of two Pony league crowns and the title both of my years in the rec league basketball. So of course I quit those sports for soccer, where we finally made the playoffs my senior year of high school, only to lose 6-1 in the opening round.

Celeval · 04-26-2006, 09:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George W Bush

we didn't win, but in my final football game in HS, I sacked Joe Mauer 1.5 times. Maybe someone other that Sov actually knows who that is.

Nice.

Young Drachma · 04-26-2006, 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Easy Mac

In little league district All-stars final, I hit as grand slam in the bottom of the sixth to win the game. That was the first home run I ever hit (over the fence), dead center, I remember not even seeing it go over, I just ran like hell since I didn't think I could hit it that far, then everyone went crazy and the kids mobbed me at home plate. The only game my mother ever recorded on her video camera, the video all of a sudden just starts jumping all over the video is kept some place safe.

That's a cool story.

RPI-Fan · 05-28-2006, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPI-Fan

In my pre-teen years we won or came very close in some hockey/soccer ones, don't really remember that far.

Since then, have never even threatened to win anything.
9th grade varsity tennis, we were >.500 but didn't challenge for a title. After that, we moved into the toughest league in the state and routinely got creamed.

Varsity soccer we were again in one of, if not the, best league in the state, and never had a prayer of winning a thing. I didn't play much club soccer during high school.

Didn't have a high school hockey team, so that wasn't an option unfortunately. Oh how I would have loved to have that opportunity.

In college, I have did win an intramural title. Gym hockey two years ago, we won, though we were in B League so it didn't mean as much. In Ice Hockey B league that same year we almost pulled off the double. This is perhaps my most exciting sporting moment that I can remember.

We trailed 1-0 against Zetes late in the game. We'd struggled all game long, and had given up a very early breakaway goal. But, with ~10 seconds left, I forced a turnover in the neutral zone. I passed it to my friend at the blueline and we had a 2-on-2 opportunity. He beat his man along the boards, but couldn't cut to the middle. He sent across a rocket saucer pass that magically landed right on my tape. I tried to take a quick snapping one-timer. But I didn't get good wood on it, it slipped a bit wide, and we lost the game.

~rpi-fan

By the way, I did think of something we won.

My senior year of high school we were in an "academic bowl" against all the other high schools in the capital district (probably 50-100 schools). It was an NCAA-style knockout tourney.

We rolled in our first game, and then lost our second against a team who just spanked us on the science & arts questions (we were amazing on math & history). Somewhat dejected, we found out like a week later that we still got to move on because we had the highest score of all the losing teams (i.e. we got a wildcard). In the semifinals we rolled, and then in the finals, we found out we were playing a team who had beaten (badly) the team who crushed us.

Surprisingly, we dominated them. It was an all-girls school, so we got every single math & science question and most of the history, and it was a blowout.

The best thing was I was our star "player".

That's pretty much the only thing I can think of that I ever won.

Huckleberry · 05-28-2006, 10:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by George W Bush

we didn't win, but in my final football game in HS, I sacked Joe Mauer 1.5 times. Maybe someone other that Sov actually knows who that is.

He's a major league baseball player that was the Top QB recruit in the nation. I'd think plenty of people know who he is.

As for me, I only won in baseball, but we lost the state tournament. That required winning a district tournament and a regional tournament. But as a coach my first (and only so far) little league team won the league when our left fielder made the greatest throw of his life to throw out a runner at the plate for the final out. That was awesome.

Grammaticus · 05-28-2006, 10:42 AM

I was on the 4 X 800 meter relay team that won the Junior Olympics in the summer of 1985.

Awesome experience, it was held in Baton Rouge, LA. I ran the second fastest split on the team. The guy who ran the fastest split ran the 1,500m for the U.S.A. in the 1988 Olympics.

Antmeister · 05-28-2006, 11:18 AM

Wow, this is one of those flashback threads.

Well the only sport that I participated in for 6 years (high school and junior college) was track and field.

The school I was representing was Oceanside High School. In 1986 and 1987, we always fell behind the San Pasqual Eagles when it came to winning the banner and the school didn't have a track and field banner in over a decade. Unlike our football and basketball programs, there wasn't hardly any support for the track and field program since the other sports garned a lot more attention and championships. In fact, in 1987, we were a few points away from beating our heated rivals with Junior Seau throwing the discus and shotput in his senior year.

Then came the year 1988 and I was a junior in high school. At the time, I was a good utility guy who could get points wherever it was needed, but I primarily ran the 400 meters, 4 x 100 meter relay, 4 x 400 relay, and the long jump.

What made this time special for me was that I trained with a dedicated bunch of guys that pushed me further than I ever thought I could. Most of them were a year older than me and were about to graduate and there were a number of magical things that happened that year in the championship run.

For instance, one of our distance guys beat out the top distance runner in the state, giving us the needed points to win the meet. Although we had the top hurdler in the division, we placed 1, 2 and 3 to give us the extra points needed to win another meet. Our 4 x 100 team destroyed every team in the division. There are a number of others, but my personal favorite is when I actually placed 3rd in the high jump because the coach though we needed the points there and I only practiced doing it that day. I stand at 5'7" and there were 7 people competing in it. I figured to best hope for 2nd to last.

So like usual, the championship came down to the last track meet against our rivals, the San Pasqual Eagles yet again. Yet it also came down to the last event of the day which was the 4 x 400 meter relay.

That was the first vivid memory of pressure for me. My teammates depended on me and I on them. Any little mistake was going to cost us the meet and the championship.

As we started to warm up, it began to rain. If this would have happened at the beginning of the meet, it would have been cancelled, but yet it just had to happen on that last event. My heart was racing like crazy and I think my teammates sensed my nervousness so we joked around with each other brutally like we usually did to alleviate the pressure.

So with our soaked sweaters and sweat pants on and minutes away from the last event, Jessie and Shaun decide they want to pray. Being that I am not a religious person, it sort of caught me off guard, but in respect for both of them, Mike and I joined them. I don't know what they mumbled under their breath, but all I was doing was visualizing winning that banner and seeing it being hung up in the auditorium with my teammates.

Now was time for the race. We decided before than Shaun would run 1st leg, I would run 2nd, Jessie would run 3rd and Mike would run anchor. Everyone on both teams gather around the track's sidelines to root for us.

After the gun went off, Shaun took off and you could hear the wind whisting through the baton. I was a freaking bundle of nerves and had to remind myself to just run my race, because if I ran too fast in the first 200, I would be too weary in the last 200.

Shaun rounded the corner, feet splashing in random puddles, with about 5 yards on the opponent. As he got near me, I was too worried to run to soon because I didn't know how the weather condition affected his speed, so I trotted slowly and reached my hand back. He was a little bit faster than expected, but we manage a clean handoff.

I take off, recreating that same whistling sound in the baton. Somewhere in the first 50 meter I step into a large puddle and kick water in the opponent behind me who has gained some ground and is about to pass (this is what I was told after the race). He tries to pass me, but I pick up just enough speed not to kill myself in the first 200 meters and yet maintain my lead on his. As we both round the corner, I believe I reserved enough energy to give that final kick. Of course, I am wrong and both of us are running neck and neck by the time we reach the last 100 meters. It is not until the last 30 meters or so that he starts to trail off slightly, but not much. He was about a yard away before I handed it off to Jessie. So of course I didn't feel too proud of my leg at that time because we had a bigger lead.

Jessie starts the first 200 meters of his leg with a sizable lead, but as he reaches the final 200 meters, we are back to that same 1 yard lead. There is all this yelling, chanting, whistling, encouragement, berating. As Mike rounds the last 100 yards, everyone of both teams run down the sidelines screaming for their guy. But in the last 50 meters, Mike pulls away
and gains a 5-6 yard lead. Our team explodes with screaming. Our coach calls all of us over to give us thanks and although we are sure we have won a close meet, we still have to wait for all the points to be calculated officially. Our coaches kept their own scorecard, but we aren't 100% sure.

After 15 minutes that seemed to take hours, we are the official winners of that meet and are crowned league champions. Considering that we were the Oceanside Pirates and they were the San Pasqual Eagles, it seemed fitting that we won in bad weather conditions.

Today that banner still hangs and that school hasn't won another banner for track and field since. It's too bad, because they had some great coaches at that school, but track and field isn't a big thing in San Diego county at all.

ahbrady · 05-28-2006, 01:45 PM

I never won a championship as a player, but I am now an assistant girls' basketball coach at the high school level. This past season we won our second consecutive state championship. I'm sure many of you might not consider that anything special being girls' basketball and all, but it was very satisfying to watch all of those girls' hard work for years pay off. To see those girls celebrate and joining in a little on the celebration was a great feeling.

MacroGuru · 05-28-2006, 03:00 PM

Junior year in high school, I played backup OLB and DB and starterd Special Teams for our varsity squad.

Our team was ranked top 5 in the nation that year with our defense being ranked 1st.

We won state that year in a double OT thriller 35-34 and our game was also ranked top in the nation by USA Today.

I however, watch the last 2 games of the championship from the sidelines with an injured back.

However, I was the first one out on the field in the dog pile on our kicker when he nailed the game winning field goal.....

Cringer · 05-28-2006, 03:12 PM

Crap, I think the only championship team I was ever on was 9th grade football. We went undefeated and won every game by about 30 points. Our final game of the season we were up by 40 at the half. Our last game of the year should have been the next week, but it was canceled because of smoke from surrounding fires. It sucked but we still got the title.

In high school we did make it into the city playoffs, the first time that had been done by our school in about 15 years at the time. We then lost out on our chance to go to state because the coaches son fumbled. Bastard.

Antmeister · 05-28-2006, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ahbrady

I never won a championship as a player, but I am now an assistant girls' basketball coach at the high school level. This past season we won our second consecutive state championship. I'm sure many of you might not consider that anything special being girls' basketball and all, but it was very satisfying to watch all of those girls' hard work for years pay off. To see those girls celebrate and joining in a little on the celebration was a great feeling.

Actually that's very cool. Seeing it from a coach's standpoint is just as satisfying, in my opinion.

Joe · 05-28-2006, 04:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Huckleberry

He's a major league baseball player that was the Top QB recruit in the nation. I'd think plenty of people know who he is.

Yeah.. I don't follow baseball so I don't know how well known he is outside of Minnesota. And it seems only HS football recruits from Tucker are known on this board.

And I would like to chime in on my worst sports moment. I was in 8th grade and it was the state basketball tournament. First round game was under a minute left, and I made a shot to put us ahead by 1. Then the other team scored. I sprinted down the court, got the outlet pass... and missed the layup as time expired. That one sucked.

Buccaneer · 05-28-2006, 05:09 PM

I guess we could count band since I was on a team and it was intensely competitive tournaments, couldn't I? My high school, Orange Glen, was one of the power bands of Southern Cal in street marching band competitions. We would win all of the competitions in SD County (beating Helix and Poway) but in some of the regionals, we would go against the three of the best in all of So Cal: Loara (out of Anaheim), Arcadia and the evil Antelope Valley (out of Lancaster). Sometimes we would beat them and other times not at the All-Western (which was the championship for all So Cal).

Desnudo · 05-28-2006, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rkmsuf

Our team won the Senior Boys International Candlepin Bowling title.

Seriously. I have the trophy to prove it.

Have you ever tried to explain what candlepin bowling is to anyone not from NE? I've had people disbelieve that people actually roll small balls at narrow pins.

Personally, I won a lot of trophies playing hockey growing up. Then none at all in high school because we sucked. Favorite personal victory moment was probably taking three of my friends to the cleaners in five card draw. Either that, or finishing an entire bottle of Jack Daniels in one night while I was in college.

korme · 05-28-2006, 06:28 PM

I have never won a championship. The closest I came was when my 6th grade select basketball team went 10-0 in the regular season, and promptly was outted in round 1 of the tournament.

AlexB · 05-28-2006, 06:52 PM

As a teenager I was always the top scorer for my football (for the one and only time in this post

(soccer)) team, Narborough & Littlethorpe.

My team was too good for the 2nd division, but always got relegated from the 1st division. I would have carried on playing for the same team, but our best player (a lad called Michael Balfour, who I really don't remember often enough, sorry Bally) died out of the blue from menigitis, and at the end of the season our coaches didn't feel like carrying on.

So for the U-17s league I moved to Blaby & Whetstone, the next most local team to me (who are also in FM/WSM FWIW) and one of the top two teams in the county. At first tbh my new teammates (and coaches) thought I was crap - I have never been any good in training/ to a lesser extent friendlies: it doesn't mean anything to me if not competitive, and I don't treat it seriously enough.

I was sub for the first half of the season - couldn't argue: the team was doing well and others were better than me in training. However, it got to the point where one week we only had eleven players, plus one who was going to be 10-15 minutes late, and rather than start with me in a full team, I was sub while they waited for a lad called Lee to turn up. Very humiliating.

After this I told the coaches I was not putting up with that, and for whatever reason, they promised to put me in the starting XI the next game, either through guilt or just to shut me up. I scored four goals.

By the end of the year, depsite only playing half a season, I was top-scorer. One of my teammates (FWIW who is also died as a teenager) recommended me to the manager of his team at the regional level, where l sucked big time

However, at county level I was the man, and won a second championship the year after as the league's top scorer, before I moved to uni and stopped playing truly competitive football.

All this happened 15 years ago - however the resounding memory I have of this is not anything to do with winning, but of losing a friend, and guilt of only remembering this because of the question in the post

MrBug708 · 05-28-2006, 06:55 PM

In 6th grade, I was on a little league team that started the season 10-0, we then were ruled to have an inelgible player who didnt live in the city. He was the younger brother of the AC but only son's counted I guess. We ended up losing the next 9 (he was the best hitter and pitcher in the league) and we had to finish three games that were never completed. We lost the first game (which we were tied), we lost the second in which we were down by 4, and the last game was one we needed to win to go onto the playoffs. If we lost, we were out. We ended up making up an 8 run deficit in one inning and going to the playoff. We then beat the first place team and then beat another team in the league championship to face the other LL team. Sadly, we had used a pitcher one extra inning and therefore had to forfeit. (there was actually political crap in a LL!) Needless to say, it was my best year playing baseball. Lead the league in AVE, 2B, 3B, walks, SB, Runs, and RBI's

04-26-2006, 12:34 PM	#2
FrogMan Hattrick Moderator Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Pintendre, Qc, Canada	I will always remember the season when I was playing pee-wee hockey and we won our three tourneys in the season. I was never a superplayer but I played a pretty solid defensive defender position and in a game in one of these tourneys I faced three 3 against 1 and they never scored. I still get goosebumps thinking about it, heck my dad still tell the stories of him being behind the bench and going stir crazy watching his son as the last man in front of the goalie. Good times. FM __________________ A Black Belt is a White Belt who refused to give up... follow my story: The real life story of a running frog...

04-26-2006, 12:36 PM	#3
rkmsuf Head Coach Join Date: Dec 2001	Our team won the Senior Boys International Candlepin Bowling title. Seriously. I have the trophy to prove it. __________________ "Don't you have homes?" -- Judge Smales

04-26-2006, 01:32 PM	#7
Simms FOBL Commish Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Team Radii	Not a championship moment, but... When I was in 8th grade, the Toronto Separate School Board (Catholic schools) had a city-wide hockey tournament. There are probably a couple hundred catholic schools in the city, so it was broken into two parts...if you finished in the top 2 in the "preliminary" tournament, you went on to the "main" tournament. We won ours, so we advanced. In the first game of the Big tournament, I don't even remember the name of the school we played. But we won 2-1, and I scored both goals, the winner on an end-to-end rush with less than 5 minutes left. So that felt pretty good. Oh...and the tournament (2nd leg) was held at Maple Leaf Gardens. So that was pretty cool. __________________ FOBL Commissioner 34 Productions Web Design

04-26-2006, 01:37 PM	#8
rkmsuf Head Coach Join Date: Dec 2001	Senior Biddy Basketball League MVP, beotches. __________________ "Don't you have homes?" -- Judge Smales

04-26-2006, 02:02 PM	#9
Butter Coordinator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Dayton, OH	Won a couple of Little League Championships. I was mediocre, but did catch the winning fly ball in one game. __________________ My listening habits

04-26-2006, 12:39 PM	#4
digamma Torchbearer Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: On Lake Harriet	The only two times I got pinned my senior year in wrestling were in the finals of big tournaments, including once against a guy I had beaten multiple times before. Really rose to the occasion. On the positive side, we won the rugby Beanpot tournament my junior year in college. I made a huge tackle just in front of the goal line with time running down as we were nursing a small lead. Drinking beer from the championship Pot was sweet.

04-26-2006, 12:45 PM	#5
Travis Pro Rookie Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Canada eh	One of my most vivid personal sports memories is from the dying seconds of a hockey tournament championship game from when I was 14. We were down by 1, final 10 seconds and I managed to cause a turnover and recover the puck down low. Saw my centerman streaking to the net with two guys between us, knew there wasn't time for me to get into a shooting position, so sent a saucer pass that got over the first guys stick, actually managed to land flat, go through the second guys legs and was going right for the centers stick when it hit a divot in the ice and skipped over his stick. He had a wide open net, and yeah there's the chance that he would have missed or the goalie would have gotten across, but we both just literally collapsed to the ice when it skipped over his stick as the buzzer sounded before another person even touched the puck. Of course this game was the culmination of having played 7 games in 3 days, going in expecting to compete in the B division but having clawed our way into the A finals only to come up just short. Sad part is that has stuck with me more than any of the "glory" memories from hockey or baseball, but it's also one of the few movie type moments I can remember where everything seemed to just slow down and have that epic feel to it when it was happening. Of course the fact that I personally went from "Holy crap that actually worked!" to "sweet gentle mother of mercy how did that happen?!" in two seconds probably means I'll have this with me to the grave.

04-26-2006, 01:30 PM	#6
vex Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Tulsa	I've never won a championship.

04-26-2006, 02:13 PM	#10
illinifan999 Pro Rookie Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: VA	We didn't win, but I'll remember this day and hate this girl for the rest of my life. It was the 4th grade intramural basketball championship. We were like super underdogs in the playoffs and we made it to the title against the best team in the league. We were winning with time running out, when we fouled one of them. He missed the free throws and we got the rebound. We call timeout. Since back then teams couldn't press we were just going to pass the ball into me and I was going to sit behind the halfcourt line until time ran out. The ball is intercepted by this girl (ON MY TEAM) and she throws it right to one of their players who hits a halfcourt shot to win it. To this day, you mention that girls name to any of the people that were on that team and we get mad. Otherwise all the teams I'm on suck ass, and we're only good during the regular season. __________________ Chicago Eagles 2 time ZFL champions We're "rebuilding"

04-26-2006, 02:16 PM	#11
JonInMiddleGA Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Behind Enemy Lines in Athens, GA	Same as Vex, never won a championship as a player in any sport. __________________ "I lit another cigarette. Unless I specifically inform you to the contrary, I am always lighting another cigarette." - from a novel by Martin Amis

04-26-2006, 02:19 PM	#12
JeeberD General Manager Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Town of Flower Mound	My baseball teams won championships when I was in seventh and eighth grade. Seventh grade was basically the southern Germany championship and I was a starting pitcher and second baseman. The next year we won the European title, but that was an age group up from the year before and I was low man on the totem pole, so I barely saw any action. I did score the tenth run after a walk and stolen base to give us the mercy rule win in the championship game, though... __________________ UTEP Miners!!! I solemnly swear to never cheer for TO

04-26-2006, 02:20 PM	#13
JeeberD General Manager Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Town of Flower Mound	Dola- I also won a couple of tournaments with my basketball squads, but we wound up losing in the later tournaments... __________________ UTEP Miners!!! I solemnly swear to never cheer for TO

04-26-2006, 02:21 PM	#14
Pumpy Tudors Bounty Hunter Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Pittsburgh, PA	I haven't even won a championship in a video game. __________________ No, I am not Batman, and I will not repair your food processor.

04-26-2006, 02:25 PM	#15
Swaggs Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000	When I was 10-years old, my team won the 32-team city Little League championship. It was a tight game, we won 4-3. I went 0-2 with a strikeout, a foul out, and a groundout and played second base. With the game on the line, with a runner on first in the bottom of the sixth, one of their better players hit a ball in the hole to our shortstop and he threw it to me for the final out. It was sweet. __________________ DOWN WITH HATTRICK!!! The RWBL Are you reading In The Bleachers?

04-26-2006, 02:26 PM	#16
Raiders Army Coordinator Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: The Black Hole	I remember winning our Little League championship. That was great. I also remember our High School Track team winning States, although I didn't really help much.

04-26-2006, 04:11 PM	#17
st.cronin General Manager Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: New Mexico	I have also never won a championship. For that matter, I think the only winning team I ever played on was my high school's hockey team, 11th grade. 9th and 10th grade they had losing seasons, and senior year, while I got a letter and everything, a variety of injuries kept me from even practicing. __________________ co-commish: bb-bbcf.net knives out

04-26-2006, 04:15 PM	#18
TheOhioStateUniversity High School Varsity Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Columbus, GA via Columbus, OH	No team I have ever been on has won a playoff game let alone a championship game. I will always remember the trip to Disney in Florida where we played against teams from all around the country and the world. We got crushed by team Puerto Rico or Cuba I think, man those guys played like major leaguers. __________________ Buckeyes Football/Basketball >>>> Your Favorite School

04-26-2006, 04:16 PM	#19
Fouts College Starter Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: California	Winning the softball championship in 1994, and being selected to the softball all-tourney team in 2003 (mainly for my defense at 1B). Also, hitting 2 HR's in one inning in 1994 (short porch in left, but 30 foot fence).

04-26-2006, 04:18 PM	#20
lungs Pro Rookie Join Date: May 2002 Location: Prairie du Sac, WI	In American Legion Baseball we were in a regional tournament (to get to the state tournament). It was a double elimination tournament. We lost one game to the favorites but ended up winning the next few games to get into the Championship. We played the team we lost to earlier in the tournament. Their starting pitcher had a career record of 36-0 at the time and there had been a story on the local news about him. Not only did we have to beat him, we would have to beat that team a second time immediately afterwards. Did I mention that our club was under .500 for the season? Anyway, we ended up beating the pitcher with a 36-0 career record. I can't remember what I did in that game but I remember scoring a run where the throw had me beat but I slid around the catcher and touched home as I passed it. The next game got pretty rowdy in the stands. We got out to a pretty nice lead right away and the opposing team's fans had been drinking all day and fully expected to dispatch us in the first game with their ace pitching. They got pretty restless and the cops had to come. Our coach told us a story about Bob Feller not losing his concentration when a train would rumble by the stadium when he was pitching. Late in the game, a flyball came out my way in leftfield and was sailing out of play but I leaned over the fence and caught it to end a threat. The next inning, the opposing pitcher threw at our shortstop and fractured his upper arm. We ended up winning and celebrating in front of those obnoxious opposing fans was damn near close to orgasmic. We went to state, ended up winning a game there too before superior competition put us in our place. State was a week afterwards and our shortstop with the broken arm ended up playing. Another thing that made our team so special is that our Legion program discouraged graduated seniors from playing so we were a group of freshman through juniors with one graduated senior (who's batting average was below the Mendoza Line). To this day I have younger ballplayers come up to me and ask about "The Catch". Apparently "The Catch" and that tournament live on in our town's baseball lore, and this is a town that has won state championships.

04-26-2006, 04:57 PM	#21
johnnyshaka College Benchwarmer Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Edmonton, AB	Playing in the finals of a baseball tournament in Kingston, Ontario against the home team and in the last inning we were down by one and I was on third when I saw the suicide squeeze sign delivered by the third base coach. I couldn't believe it. I'm not the kind of guy that has ever been a base stealer...not exactly built for speed, if ya know what I mean...so I figured that the coach thought that we could catch everybody off guard...or so I hoped. Anyway, the pitcher began his windup and I bolted for the plate and sure enough, the pitcher got flustered and ended up throwing into the dirt which made it very easy for me to score the tying run. Wow. We then went into extra innings and the go ahead run was on third and I was up with one out and hit a single up the middle to put us ahead by one. We shut them down in the bottom of the inning and collected our first place trophies...very cool!!! Last edited by johnnyshaka : 04-26-2006 at 04:57 PM.

04-26-2006, 07:14 PM	#22
Kodos Resident Alien Join Date: Jun 2001	Winning the District 2 mile my senior year in track was probably the highlight of my sports days. What made it funny was that the announcer kept calling me by one of my teammate's names...

04-26-2006, 07:17 PM	#23
JeeberD General Manager Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: The Town of Flower Mound	Damn Kang getting all of your glory... __________________ UTEP Miners!!! I solemnly swear to never cheer for TO

04-26-2006, 07:33 PM	#24
Sublime 2 College Benchwarmer Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: New Hampshire	I've won a few championships/tournaments, though it's been a while. The last one being a traveling soccer league regional championship and a 24 team tournament. Now that was 5 years ago, when I was 16. It was probably the best championship memory I have, as a few of my friends were on the team and we were just having an awesome time. I still do play in some on men's league summer team, but it's not too serious...get drunk before/during/after a game and have fun. My most memorable sports moment though wasn't a championship but a nice award. My hometown has an athletic achievement award that goes to 4 high school seniors, the St. Joseph's Hero Award and Unsung Hero award, a girl and guy each winning one. I thought I had a pretty good chance at the Unsung award, but to my surprise I was awarded the Hero award. I suppose my attitude/grades helped me out against some of my friends who had some major egos/attitudes, but it was still such an honor! It's a long tradition in my town going back some 50-60 years and it's cool to look back at the past winners who I watched as a kid and know my name is on that same list. Plus a got a wicked sweet trophy!

04-26-2006, 08:30 PM	#26
RPI-Fan Pro Starter Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Troy, NY	In my pre-teen years we won or came very close in some hockey/soccer ones, don't really remember that far. Since then, have never even threatened to win anything. 9th grade varsity tennis, we were >.500 but didn't challenge for a title. After that, we moved into the toughest league in the state and routinely got creamed. Varsity soccer we were again in one of, if not the, best league in the state, and never had a prayer of winning a thing. I didn't play much club soccer during high school. Didn't have a high school hockey team, so that wasn't an option unfortunately. Oh how I would have loved to have that opportunity. In college, I have did win an intramural title. Gym hockey two years ago, we won, though we were in B League so it didn't mean as much. In Ice Hockey B league that same year we almost pulled off the double. This is perhaps my most exciting sporting moment that I can remember. We trailed 1-0 against Zetes late in the game. We'd struggled all game long, and had given up a very early breakaway goal. But, with ~10 seconds left, I forced a turnover in the neutral zone. I passed it to my friend at the blueline and we had a 2-on-2 opportunity. He beat his man along the boards, but couldn't cut to the middle. He sent across a rocket saucer pass that magically landed right on my tape. I tried to take a quick snapping one-timer. But I didn't get good wood on it, it slipped a bit wide, and we lost the game. ~rpi-fan __________________ Quis custodiets ipsos custodes?

04-26-2006, 08:32 PM	#27
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	Hmm...the most memorable was my senior year of high school, though I have a coaching championship story..that I'll save. On my high school tennis team, I was the only guy who was a four-year starter, but I wasn't a very good player for most of that time and it was a marvel that I'd played for one year, let alone 4. Anyway, I was the only guy who'd been on the team when we went 3-17-1 my freshman year and lost all but three of our players, most of whom quit or were kicked off for being douche bags. My sophomore and junior year, the team was servicable. Qualified for the state tourney and won 13 matches both years. Well, our senior year, it all came together. We started the season 13-0 before losing our first match. We ended the season 17-7, but the best part came on a road trip one day, when I was doing the stats. (I was the defacto manager, too, but...it was cool, the newspapers paid you for calling in the match scores annually) I noticed that we had an undefeated record in our division and if we won this one game against this school (Who ironically had the same mascot as we did, the Cardinals, though they spelled it with a K, because the town was Kearney) At any rate, we played this match against them and well...my doubles partner and I could've sealed the deal and could've clinched the title. But we didn't. We had to rely on our 3rd singles guy to do that for us. But when he did it, we stormed the tennis court. It was seriously, the coolest thing ever. We went 11-0 in our division and it was the first time our coach had won a championship at anything in the over 20 years he'd been there. So, it was a really good feeling for us to be able to do that for him, given he built the entire program essentially from scratch. Well, up to that point. __________________ Current dynasty: Playtesting chaos (Viperball 26) \| OOTP Mod: Managerial Strategy Files \| GM Excel Competitive Balance Tax/Revenue Sharing Calc \| FBCB Mods on Github

04-26-2006, 08:33 PM	#28
Joe Pro Starter Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Minneapolis	we didn't win, but in my final football game in HS, I sacked Joe Mauer 1.5 times. Maybe someone other that Sov actually knows who that is.

04-26-2006, 08:33 PM	#29
Eaglesfan27 Hall Of Famer Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: New Jersey	Never won a championship, but the best moment was when we beat our most hated rival my junior year of HS. I had 4 big run blocks in the game. __________________ Retired GM of the eNFL 2007 Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles (19-0 record.) GM of the WOOF 2006 Doggie Bowl Champion Atlantic City Gamblers. GM of the IHOF 2019 and 2022 IHOF Bowl Champion Asheville Axemen.

04-26-2006, 08:40 PM	#31
Young Drachma Dark Cloud Join Date: Apr 2001	In 1998, the year after the whole tennis thing, I went to Wisconsin to teach tennis at this summer camp. I ended up being the journalism instructor and just doing tennis part-time. Well, all the counselors ended up coaching teams in the various intramural leagues they have there. My first league team was juniors in basketball..kids 7-9 years old. It was pretty weird, because it's not as if you really "coach" them as much as you just make sure they don't hurt anyone, exhibit good sportsmanship. Well...we were the Heat. We won our first game 74-14 (they had them playing 40 minutes a game..dunno why...) anyway..i got chewed out for running up the score. But my worst players were scoring points and my kids didn't do anything..other than make a lot of baskets. Well, we went undefeated in that league and only trailed at the half in one game during our undefeated 7-0 season. It was pretty sweet and shows what kids can do when they play together, because my team was not even remotely the most talented group and we even lost all of our best players during a changeover session and yet, we still managed to keep our system in place. Our system was mostly just having fun, staying positive and for some reason, these kids REALLY bought into it. Well, the 2nd half of the summer they put me in charge of a junior league softball team. (They didn't do baseball, because they want anyone to get cracked in the head) My team was god-awful. We started the season 0-13. They got rid of these two kids who kept bitching about "hating" my team and not wanting to play and traded me this other kid who was a good hitter and another one. Then, I decided to take over the team and rather than letting this one kid who was team captain decide the lineup and run the team, I decided to take things over. Well, after that..we won our last 3 regular season games. Because it was the junior league, all four teams made the playoffs. Best 3 out of 5 games series. We went 6-0 and won the league title. That by far was my best championship summer ever. Those kids were awesome and they just left it all out on the field. The basketball team was sweet, because they were like a well-oiled machine. But the softball thing, I still marvel that those kids didn't melt down after losing so many games early on. Jumping in the lake after the win is pretty sweet. __________________ Current dynasty: Playtesting chaos (Viperball 26) \| OOTP Mod: Managerial Strategy Files \| GM Excel Competitive Balance Tax/Revenue Sharing Calc \| FBCB Mods on Github

04-26-2006, 09:13 PM	#34
Easy Mac Registered User Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Here	In little league district All-stars final, I hit as grand slam in the bottom of the sixth to win the game. That was the first home run I ever hit (over the fence), dead center, I remember not even seeing it go over, I just ran like hell since I didn't think I could hit it that far, then everyone went crazy and the kids mobbed me at home plate. The only game my mother ever recorded on her video camera, the video all of a sudden just starts jumping all over the video is kept some place safe. Also won both of my little league championships (for the county) and 1 out of two Pony league crowns and the title both of my years in the rec league basketball. So of course I quit those sports for soccer, where we finally made the playoffs my senior year of high school, only to lose 6-1 in the opening round.

05-28-2006, 10:42 AM	#39
Grammaticus Pro Rookie Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Tennessee	I was on the 4 X 800 meter relay team that won the Junior Olympics in the summer of 1985. Awesome experience, it was held in Baton Rouge, LA. I ran the second fastest split on the team. The guy who ran the fastest split ran the 1,500m for the U.S.A. in the 1988 Olympics.

05-28-2006, 11:18 AM	#40
Antmeister Pro Starter Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: At the corner of Beat Street and Electric Avenue	Wow, this is one of those flashback threads. Well the only sport that I participated in for 6 years (high school and junior college) was track and field. The school I was representing was Oceanside High School. In 1986 and 1987, we always fell behind the San Pasqual Eagles when it came to winning the banner and the school didn't have a track and field banner in over a decade. Unlike our football and basketball programs, there wasn't hardly any support for the track and field program since the other sports garned a lot more attention and championships. In fact, in 1987, we were a few points away from beating our heated rivals with Junior Seau throwing the discus and shotput in his senior year. Then came the year 1988 and I was a junior in high school. At the time, I was a good utility guy who could get points wherever it was needed, but I primarily ran the 400 meters, 4 x 100 meter relay, 4 x 400 relay, and the long jump. What made this time special for me was that I trained with a dedicated bunch of guys that pushed me further than I ever thought I could. Most of them were a year older than me and were about to graduate and there were a number of magical things that happened that year in the championship run. For instance, one of our distance guys beat out the top distance runner in the state, giving us the needed points to win the meet. Although we had the top hurdler in the division, we placed 1, 2 and 3 to give us the extra points needed to win another meet. Our 4 x 100 team destroyed every team in the division. There are a number of others, but my personal favorite is when I actually placed 3rd in the high jump because the coach though we needed the points there and I only practiced doing it that day. I stand at 5'7" and there were 7 people competing in it. I figured to best hope for 2nd to last. So like usual, the championship came down to the last track meet against our rivals, the San Pasqual Eagles yet again. Yet it also came down to the last event of the day which was the 4 x 400 meter relay. That was the first vivid memory of pressure for me. My teammates depended on me and I on them. Any little mistake was going to cost us the meet and the championship. As we started to warm up, it began to rain. If this would have happened at the beginning of the meet, it would have been cancelled, but yet it just had to happen on that last event. My heart was racing like crazy and I think my teammates sensed my nervousness so we joked around with each other brutally like we usually did to alleviate the pressure. So with our soaked sweaters and sweat pants on and minutes away from the last event, Jessie and Shaun decide they want to pray. Being that I am not a religious person, it sort of caught me off guard, but in respect for both of them, Mike and I joined them. I don't know what they mumbled under their breath, but all I was doing was visualizing winning that banner and seeing it being hung up in the auditorium with my teammates. Now was time for the race. We decided before than Shaun would run 1st leg, I would run 2nd, Jessie would run 3rd and Mike would run anchor. Everyone on both teams gather around the track's sidelines to root for us. After the gun went off, Shaun took off and you could hear the wind whisting through the baton. I was a freaking bundle of nerves and had to remind myself to just run my race, because if I ran too fast in the first 200, I would be too weary in the last 200. Shaun rounded the corner, feet splashing in random puddles, with about 5 yards on the opponent. As he got near me, I was too worried to run to soon because I didn't know how the weather condition affected his speed, so I trotted slowly and reached my hand back. He was a little bit faster than expected, but we manage a clean handoff. I take off, recreating that same whistling sound in the baton. Somewhere in the first 50 meter I step into a large puddle and kick water in the opponent behind me who has gained some ground and is about to pass (this is what I was told after the race). He tries to pass me, but I pick up just enough speed not to kill myself in the first 200 meters and yet maintain my lead on his. As we both round the corner, I believe I reserved enough energy to give that final kick. Of course, I am wrong and both of us are running neck and neck by the time we reach the last 100 meters. It is not until the last 30 meters or so that he starts to trail off slightly, but not much. He was about a yard away before I handed it off to Jessie. So of course I didn't feel too proud of my leg at that time because we had a bigger lead. Jessie starts the first 200 meters of his leg with a sizable lead, but as he reaches the final 200 meters, we are back to that same 1 yard lead. There is all this yelling, chanting, whistling, encouragement, berating. As Mike rounds the last 100 yards, everyone of both teams run down the sidelines screaming for their guy. But in the last 50 meters, Mike pulls away and gains a 5-6 yard lead. Our team explodes with screaming. Our coach calls all of us over to give us thanks and although we are sure we have won a close meet, we still have to wait for all the points to be calculated officially. Our coaches kept their own scorecard, but we aren't 100% sure. After 15 minutes that seemed to take hours, we are the official winners of that meet and are crowned league champions. Considering that we were the Oceanside Pirates and they were the San Pasqual Eagles, it seemed fitting that we won in bad weather conditions. Today that banner still hangs and that school hasn't won another banner for track and field since. It's too bad, because they had some great coaches at that school, but track and field isn't a big thing in San Diego county at all. __________________ "I'm ready to bury the hatchet, but don't fuck with me" - Schmidty "Box me once, shame on Skydog. Box me twice. Shame on me. Box me 3 times, just fucking ban my ass...." - stevew

05-28-2006, 01:45 PM	#41
ahbrady High School JV Join Date: Apr 2002	I never won a championship as a player, but I am now an assistant girls' basketball coach at the high school level. This past season we won our second consecutive state championship. I'm sure many of you might not consider that anything special being girls' basketball and all, but it was very satisfying to watch all of those girls' hard work for years pay off. To see those girls celebrate and joining in a little on the celebration was a great feeling. Last edited by ahbrady : 05-28-2006 at 01:46 PM.

05-28-2006, 03:00 PM	#42
MacroGuru Coordinator Join Date: May 2003 Location: Utah	Junior year in high school, I played backup OLB and DB and starterd Special Teams for our varsity squad. Our team was ranked top 5 in the nation that year with our defense being ranked 1st. We won state that year in a double OT thriller 35-34 and our game was also ranked top in the nation by USA Today. I however, watch the last 2 games of the championship from the sidelines with an injured back. However, I was the first one out on the field in the dog pile on our kicker when he nailed the game winning field goal..... __________________ "forgetting what is in the past, I strive for the future"

05-28-2006, 03:12 PM	#43
Cringer Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Edinburg,TX	Crap, I think the only championship team I was ever on was 9th grade football. We went undefeated and won every game by about 30 points. Our final game of the season we were up by 40 at the half. Our last game of the year should have been the next week, but it was canceled because of smoke from surrounding fires. It sucked but we still got the title. In high school we did make it into the city playoffs, the first time that had been done by our school in about 15 years at the time. We then lost out on our chance to go to state because the coaches son fumbled. Bastard. __________________ You Stole Fizzy Lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and steralized, so you get NOTHING! You lose!

05-28-2006, 05:09 PM	#46
Buccaneer Head Coach Join Date: Oct 2000 Location: Colorado	I guess we could count band since I was on a team and it was intensely competitive tournaments, couldn't I? My high school, Orange Glen, was one of the power bands of Southern Cal in street marching band competitions. We would win all of the competitions in SD County (beating Helix and Poway) but in some of the regionals, we would go against the three of the best in all of So Cal: Loara (out of Anaheim), Arcadia and the evil Antelope Valley (out of Lancaster). Sometimes we would beat them and other times not at the All-Western (which was the championship for all So Cal).