Cocking Off, As Related To Beanbags And Duke Basketball

Ok so before I write a post based partly upon how I don't usually like to brag too much, allow me to brag for a minute here, purely for background information: I'm really good at beanbags. Gangel and I held the boards at the College World Series for hours, before I finally gave up my spot to Addy since I just wanted to sit down for awhile. I once held court at a KU football tailgate for about 25 games in a row, and my partner was a 21-year-old Asian chick who had never even seen the game before (that was one of my all-time favorite "sports" accomplishments, since there were around 100 people watching that tournament, and our competition was fierce.) We have bags tourneys at almost all our tailgates and/or BBQ parties here in Lawrence, and I've NEVER lost a tourney, no matter who my partner is (I've lost three individual games, but never a double-elim tournament, so my record is probably somewhere around 125-3.)

For the most part, I was pretty quiet when I played. It's a gentleman's game, and besides a few comments here and there (and almost always in response to someone else's verbal jab) I mostly just make my shots and concentrate on complimenting my partner/coming up with elaborate handshakes with said partner. Team chemistry goes a long way in bags.

At our tailgates/BBQs, we always set up what we call "Heckler's Row", which is basically a line of 15ish lawn chairs right next to the bags game, so we can all properly talk shit to whomever is throwing in the current game. And because my streak of tourney wins has lasted over three years now, my games always attract a large crowd, full of nonstop heckling, pretty much all directed my way, simply for the fact that I win all the time (I was partners with Tara a few weeks ago, a girl who is relatively new to the group, and my friends actually pulled her aside to make sure she knew that her team was going to get booed a lot, but none of it was directed at her, so not to get bent out of shape about it. Naturally, even though she had never played bags before, we rolled through the tourney.)

So I started calling myself the Duke basketball of beanbags, since I'm hated simply for being good at what I do. This understandably infuriated my friends (in a funny way, I don't want to give the impression that we're having fights or anything here) and now they mockingly call me Coach K and cheer against me even harder. I read something from Simmons back when JJ Redick was the best shooter/biggest cockbag in college basketball, and it said something like "if JJ Redick was named James Redick and played for Indiana and not Duke, he'd be the most popular player in the country." This theory was proven correct this last year, when Jimmer Fridette, from BYU, became the most popular player of the last few years for doing the same things Redick did five years earlier. Granted, Jimmer was about 1/10th as cocky as Redick, but I also believe that if people wouldn't have hated Redick from the beginning (for going to Duke and being an amazing shooter) then he wouldn't have turned into such a dick.




I say this because it's currently happening to me. I started out polite and deferential. Amongst my friends, I've incorporated the hats-off, 18th-hole handshake that pro golfers do into beanbags, Golden Tee, and everything else where there's competition, in order to promote good sportsmanship. But I got mercilessly heckled for being good at bags. So now, I've embraced being the bad guy (something the Miami Heat should've done from the start last year.) And now I'm not just beating everyone, I'm letting them know I'm doing it before, during, and after the beating. And it's awesome.

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This is unrelated, but I guess sort of relevant, if we're talking about cocking off. My buddies enjoy watching sporting events with me when I've gambled on them, because I get, shall we say, animated, during big plays-- both good and bad. So there was plenty of laughter at my expense last week, after there was a stretch of about 15 minutes when all the games were going my way, capped off by the Seahawks scoring a touchdown to get within the spread, and me leaping off the couch and exclaiming "Everything's coming up Hammen!" Almost immediately, the 49ers took the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown and I eventually lost the bet. The Gambling Gods HATE bragging, apparently even if it's in the form of a Simpsons reference.