dfroewrites

Everyone Needs a Hype Squad
By Dan Froehlich

Back during my first year at Auburn, one of the teams I worked with was the women’s tennis team. Their head coach, Troy Porco, is, undoubtedly, one of the greatest humans I have ever come into contact with. Kind, funny, easy-going. As a first-year, full-time employee, he was the perfect guy to work with.

In this instance, I, unfortunately, also worked with the swimming and diving teams. I say unfortunately only because since swimming and diving was always off winning nattys, the season always ran long and I would miss at least half of the tennis season.

Now, I am not at all complaining about my work with the swimmers and divers. They, to this day, remain some of the greatest individuals I have ever had the pleasure to work with. They too were kind, funny and easy-going while also being some of the most accomplished, dedicated and hard-working people I have ever met. They were scholars. They were athletes. They were Olympians. And they welcomed me with open arms into the Auburn swimming and diving family quickly and fully.

But, that did limit my time at the tennis courts.

As such, I had to have a student help me in the coverage of tennis, and I was fortunate enough to have a young man by the name of Chris Rushing as my guy.

Chris was a quiet kid when I first met him. He never caused trouble, was as reliable as anyone I ever met and he was always willing to learn, to listen or to just plain BS with me.

Working with a sport for the first time on his own, Chris really took to the tennis team. Troy Porco and his squad of women grew to love Chris back.

As was his nature, when the team played on Valentine’s Day, Chris went on his own and purchased flowers for each of the girls on the team. I do not know how they reacted to it as I wasn’t there when he gave them the flowers, but I do hope they saw the kindness and goodness in his heart.

I guess you could say that Chris was the tennis team’s one-man hype squad.

Sadly, Chris would pass away on Christmas 2012. Talk about a tough one to swallow.

But this is not about Chris passing away, but rather one of the greatest conversations and ideas we ever discussed.

It was early in the 2003 tennis season and I was still helping Chris navigate the world of being “the guy” as a media relations contact.

We were out at the old tennis courts on Auburn’s campus, guiding a young Plainsman writer on how to properly cover the team.

As tennis goes, there is a lot of time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the people and conversation around you.

Well, on this day, I came up with a theory, one that I still hold true today.

Behind us in Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum, the women’s gymnastics team was nearing the end of another season. I cannot recall if it was a good season or a bad one, but that is besides the point.

So the three of us, Chris, the Plainsman girl and myself, started musing on the scoring of gymnastics and the reception by gymnasts and their teammates after a routine.

The gist of it was this.

If life was like a gymnastics meet, everyone would be a much happier person and the world would be a much happier place.

Why?

Let me explain, as I did that February day.

In gymnastics, it seems no matter how good or how poorly you did on your routine, or vault or whatever event you were in, you were almost guaranteed to score at least a 9.0 out of 10.

Think about that for a second.

No matter if you did excellent or terribly, you were guaranteed a 90 percent score.

Who doesn’t want a 90 percent on something? I’d take a 90 out of 100 on every test I ever took, every paper I ever wrote, every athletic achievement I ever sought.

And, to top it all off, after you’ve gotten that 9.0, your teammates mob you with hugs and pats on the back, and, it seemed to me, they were always giving out bouquets of flowers.

Who doesn’t want that? You’ve just had a terrible performance but instead of being down, the crowd cheers, you score at least a 9 out of 10 and there are flowers and hugs waiting for you on the other side!

There is no way you could be upset about that.

Like I said, everyone would be happier. You have your own hype squad.

And that takes me to part two of this story.

Two weeks ago I put myself out there in a way I didn’t think I ever would. I entered a CrossFit competition.

Granted, it was a small, local-ish competition for people ages 30-and-up, but for me it was a big step.

It was not a team competition, so there was no one to cover up my weaknesses.

It was strictly me against me and the other people in my division.

There were three events per division, regardless of how many people were in each division.

For the 45-49-year-old bracket, there were four of us fighting for the top spot on the podium.

Event one was a decent one for me. I finished third in the first half of it and second in the last part. I was disappointed in my third-place showing, but very happy in my second-place effort.

Event two was the event I worried about. It featured two movements I am not very proficient in and I knew I was going to struggle to finish. And I did, coming in fourth out of four - and it wasn’t really close.

Going into the last event, I had become friendly with one of the other guys in the division, one that I was chasing, Steve. He had been scoreboard watching and he mentioned if I won the event, he would drop down from first place to a tie for first place.

And event three was a good event for me. It was five moments that I was good at, especially with the weight that needed to be moved.

Steve and I were at opposite sides of the gym and the way the competition was set up, we would be facing away from each other the majority of the 10-minute workout.

With about 90 seconds left, I was able to glance over and see that I was just slightly ahead of Steve, and well ahead of the other two competitors. But that was the last I saw of him. For the last 90 seconds it was all on me to keep him at bay and come away with the W.

What made this competition so great was that the other competitors did a great job of cheering everyone on when they were not competing. And that seems to be part of the CrossFit community, and one that I have grown to appreciate. Yes, we are ‘competing’ against one another, but we are also there to see each other’s successes and to cheer them on.

On a daily basis, I am not in the gym to beat you or to see my name at the top of the whiteboard. I am there to beat me, to better me. Your 10 rounds may be better than my 7 rounds. But my 7 rounds topped my 6 rounds from a year ago. That’s winning in my book.

Fortunately for me, there were three other athletes from my home gym, CrossFit Midpoint, also competing, and a few others that came out to watch and cheer us all on. Whenever someone was up, we made sure to be visible to our fellow Midpoint athletes, encouraging them to give it their best and cheering them on from the sidelines.

As I was the only one in my age group from Midpoint competing, I had all eyes on me during each of my events, my hype crew standing just outside my square, cheering, yelling and encouraging.

They got me through every workout as I put up one of the biggest lifts of my life in event one, got further in event two (by a lot) than I had when I tried it out two weeks earlier (personal win!) and pushed me through the buzzer on event three.

So how did it turn out?

As I lay on the floor when the 10 minutes were up, the woman collecting scorecards came to my square to get mine from my judge. I asked her how far Steve got.

She casually flipped through to find his scorecard.

He had beaten me by four reps.

I was disappointed in myself, but only for a moment.

How could I be upset? I just completed my first competition (I finished third overall) and my hype squad was there for high-fives, words of encouragement and hugs. Not only were Midpoint people congratulating me, but so were coaches and competitors from other gyms.

As I talked to Steve later, I found out that he did what I hadn’t. He told his hype squad to watch me so he would know where he was in comparison to me, and when I (intentionally) dropped the barbell to break up my set, he held on to pass me with about 30 seconds left. The difference between first place and second for me in that event.

As it would turn out, in event one I would actually take second over the second-place overall finisher by one rep. Maybe Tony needed to prep his hype squad too.

All this to say, Chris, I think we (and gymnastics) got it right. Give someone a 9, and they will feel like they hit a 10.

I miss ya buddy. I know you are rubbing elbows with all the Auburn greats up there. Thanks for always handing out 10s to anyone you met.

MARCH MADNESS

Everyone has their favorite March Madness story.

“I was at the (fill in exciting game here) in (year) and man, that was the best game I’ve ever seen in my life!”

Or, “Dude, remember when (some unknown small-school sharp-shooter) took down (your friend’s favorite team here) in (year)? Yup, I was sitting on the couch when I jumped up, hit my head on the ceiling, sprained my ankle on the landing and said, ‘holy S*, did you see that?’”

For me, my favorite March Madness story is from 1994.

Growing up on Long Island, following college basketball was huge. For the first half of my life I was a huge Georgetown fan. My older brother, Tim, loved St. John’s. My dad, Wisconsin. My younger brother, Pete, and my mom, UConn.

When I went to college at Villanova is when my still-to-this-day love affair with the Wildcats began.

But the 1994 NCAA Tournament will always hold a special place in my heart.

I believe heading into my senior year of high school I had only been to one Big Time college basketball game.

The year was 1992 and my dad had scored some baseline seats for the Miami at St. John’s basketball game at Carnesecca Arena. To get to our seats, we had to walk through the hallway that went right past the St. John’s locker room. I remember this because as we were walking to our seats, Robert Werdann, St. John’s 6-11 monster of a center, walked basically right next to us on his way to the court.

Now remember, I am a Georgetown fan. But I was in awe of the extremely large human ambling towards the court next to us.

Side note; to be honest, I did have a little affinity for St. John’s at the time. Bill Wennington had graduated from LuHi and starred at St. John’s and my dad knew him. So even though, for me, the connection was weak, I still thought it was cool my dad knew a guy playing in the NBA. So I didn’t hate the Johnnies.

I also remember the opponent because it was Miami’s first year in the BIG EAST and as a die-hard BIG EAST fan, we all thought it was a sham that the U was in the same league as our teams. Football school...

And the U had a center, Constantin Popa, a 7-foot-3 freshman from Romania, who was not the best looking guy in the world and was kinda awkward, roaming the paint and getting heckled by the SJU fans all around us.

St. John’s won the game and I was pretty sure I was hooked forever on being that close to the action, which would come into play later in life.

But now back to the 1993-94 school year.

March Madness was coming to the Nassau Coliseum for the First and Second Rounds and Long Island Newsday had an ad where you could mail in a coupon to be put in a lottery to buy tickets to the games.

Always having wanted to experience something like this, I gleefully snipped the coupon out, put it in the mail and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And then finally, in mid-February, I got a letter back saying I had ‘won the right to purchase two tickets’ to the games at the Coliseum.

After reading the letter, I ran straight to my dad’s office and told him, “We won! Can you buy us these tickets now? I’ll pay you back…” [I believe I did pay him back, the full $84 it took to get me into all three sessions. Talk about a bargain!]

When March Madness finally arrived, I got mom to give me an excuse to miss school the day of the First Round and off dad and I went to the Coliseum.

If you’ve never been in the Coliseum, let me describe the sight lines thusly. First, it is 100-percent a hockey arena, home to the New York Islanders, though Dr. J and the Long Island Nets of the ABA also called it home for a time. Best site lines in the country...unless you were sitting in the upper deck behind the goal line. If you were...well, they had monitors hanging down so you could see what was happening on the other end of the ice because not only were you blocked out by the enormous scoreboard hanging down but the luxury suites from above you also slant down in front of you. So, not the best vantage point.

Of course, dad and I were in either the second- or third-to-last row of the Coliseum, behind the goal line. So we probably watched as much of the first session on the tv as we did in front of us.

But we didn’t care, we were having a blast.

I had to go look it up but here were the first three match-ups of the day.

George Washington beat UAB, 51-46.

Second-seeded UConn toppled Rider, 64-46.

Then to open the night session, Penn took down a really, really good Nebraska team, 90-80, in a game that saw the entire Coliseum rocking for Penn.

By the time the last game rolled around, No. 3 Florida vs. No. 14 James Madison, the energy had left the building and the game was playing right to the crowd’s energy. Badly.

The halftime score was JMU 22, Florida 18. And it was not a well-played game.

Having arrived at the Coliseum at 11 am and still being there now, at probably 9 pm, both dad and I were ready to jet.

So when the halftime horn blew, us and about 10,000 of the 11,000 remaining fans left.

Florida would come back to win the game, 64-62, with dad and I getting home to watch the final 5 minutes of the game. A guy named Dametri ‘Da Meat Hook’ Hill was the ‘star’ of the game for the Gators, at least in the fan’s eyes. Hill averaged 12.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game that year and went for 3 and 1 that night, indicative of how bad the game was. He was given a good Long Island welcome that night by all those who stayed for the game.

When it came time for the Second Round, dad had been basketball’d out and let Pete have his ticket. Florida topped Penn, 70-58 and UConn knocked off GW, 75-63, setting up a Gator-Huskies Sweet 16 matchup in Miami, which UF won, 69-60.

It would only be another six months before I started school at Villanova and became a regular in the student section for a team that would get to as high as No. 2 in the rankings during my sophomore year.

But man, that Thursday in March is one I will never forget.