NCN LAX/BASKETBALL BLOG

Similar to the Bruney piece — who, by the way, threw a chair after word of his demotion down to Triple-A Scranton — this article is also a change of pace.

Thanks again to Will Leitch for taking the time out of his day to participate.

Enjoy.

Catch it before it passes you by

As many of our local high school athletes are poised to head off to college – whether they are playing sports or not – they will be coming face-to-face with the realization that succeeding in the classroom will require an exorbitant amount of heavy lifting – brain lifting.

So, I’m writing this as a precursor for those athletes who may or may not be up to the task—because, in my case, I know the 100-page psychology reading assignment on the inner workings of Sicko Freud strained my cortex a lot more than 100 pushups burned my pectorals.
With this in mind, as is the case whenever an individual is preparing for a grueling task, be it football or essay writing, it is pertinent to properly train and warm up.
The best way to do this? Just read a book.

Yes, since the time we all learned to read, we were forced to do summer reading. And, yes, there was clearly a reason behind the seemingly nonsensical madness.
Don’t fret, because I am not going to bombard you with classically stale selections such as John Knowles’ A Separate Peace. Instead, I have plucked a book that anyone in your shoes can relate to and which, if all goes well, will help turn your brain into the sponge it is destined to be.

Catch, a novel by Will Leitch, diagrams the journey of a small town kid, Tim Temples, during his last summer at home up to the very cusp of his leaving for college. Tim is a cookie cutter jock: he plays catcher for the high school baseball team, he drinks in parking lots with his buddies on the weekend, he has an in with ladies. In short, as Will Ferrell asserts in Wedding Crashers, he is “living the dream, man.”

However, as the summer enters its twilight, Tim falls for an older, sophisticated woman who completely jolts him off his all-too-familiar axis. This aberration forces him to question his very nature as a person in the scheme of his life. What ensues is an action-packed coming-of-age story about an ordinary American teen hurdling, sidestepping and finally bulldozing head-on, the reality of moving on to a place where everybody doesn’t know your name.

Leitch, the cheeky editor of the famous counterculture sports site Deadspin.com and author of the soon-to-be released book, God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Soulless Leagues, and Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It Back), was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book and about his own experiences shipping off to college.

NCN: How difficult an adjustment do you think the college life is for a local HS star athlete, especially one from a small town? What, in your opinion, allows some of these individuals to crack the mold and expand themselves, as opposed to remaining stuck in a rut and eventually returning home, i.e. Doug Temples in Catch?

Leitch: I think the key is that Tim from the book is aware, on some subconscious level, that life in his hometown is ultimately limiting. One of the things I wanted to get across in the book is that sometimes to really appreciate a place, you have to leave it. Tim loves Mattoon [his home town] and doesn’t want to leave it, but feels, vaguely, that there’s more out there for him somewhere. The old adage isn’t true: you really can go home again. And you’ll love it more if you’ve experienced some of the other pleasures the outside planet has to offer.

NCN: Do you think a novel like Catch is a must-read for a soon-to-be college freshman? What do you hope someone gains from reading it? What did you read before entering your freshman year of college?

Leitch: Well, I do hope people will enjoy it, first off. It’s supposed to be fun. But, the transition from home to college is a terrifying one. I was terrified at the time and, in retrospect, I realize I wasn’t scared enough. It’s a massive uprooting of everything you’ve ever known, and then they add all those classes just to raise the degree of difficulty. All I read before entering was the college newspaper, repeatedly. I wanted to get some notion of what the heck I was in for. And I had no idea.

NCN: In the end, based on Tim Temples’ experiences and your own, how large a part does your upbringing in a small town matter, especially when college life offers vast avenues of change and exploration to discover oneself?

Leitch: I think it gives Tim a solid foundation. I know it did for me. I felt like it set out a core set of values, some of which I accepted and some of which I did not. But I had a real choice. Not everyone has that, and I think small towns and close communities provide that excellently.

NCN: Based on your writing of the book and your own life, what advice would you give for a soon-to-be college freshman on July 24th—exactly one month before the first day of college? What should he or she do, see, read, listen to, ingest, and so forth?

Leitch: You should read, listen to and ingest anything that you come across. You’re about to be overwhelmed with new information, and you should take all of it in, absorb it and then make your own decisions. Have faith in yourself. It’s all going to seem confusing at first, but once you’ve been able to process it, you’ll know what to believe and how to live your life. As much as any of us do, anyway.

Here is a column written about the Empire State Games highs and lows — By Sports Editor Jim MacLean … CLICK!

Here is a column written about boxing at the Empire State Games — By yours truly … CLICK!