So, you had a bad day but would you trade places with American swimmer Ryan Lochte? Sure he has seven Olympic medals and is a good-looking dude but all of that chlorine on his brain caused a wisdom malfunction when he and two other teammates made up a story about being robbed by locals in Rio de Janeiro. That didn’t go over too well with the natives there. This past week he lost four sweet endorsement deals. He’s apologized but the “ripples in the water” will last his lifetime.
Speaking of bad days, how would you like to be one of the two quarterbacks competing for the starting job to replace the legendary Peyton Manning for the Denver Broncos. Last Saturday night was a “Bad Day” for both Mark Sanchez and Trevor Siemian. Two interceptions and a fumble by Siemian seemed to uninspire Mark Sanchez. He played four drives. The first produced a field goal but the next two drives ended in sacks and fumbles and the final drive was a three-and-out.
Bad day? How would you like to be the football coach at Notre Dame? On Saturday night, the Irish had cornerback Devin Butler jailed after a police officer said Butler punched and slammed him to the ground outside a bar, and five teammates were arrested when a trooper found marijuana and a loaded handgun inside their car. Obviously, those five should have gone to college at Colorado where folks have legalized the weed! “Those Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” Not!
Bad day revisited. Buffalo Bills star defensive tackle Marcell Dareus said he will enter a rehabilitation facility after violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy for a second consecutive season. The NFL has suspended Dareus for the first four games this season after also suspending him for the season opener last year. Bad day? Maybe not. Hopefully this will be a step into recreating a new life for Dareus.
A bad day turned into another and then another and then another and then.... Well, you get the picture, for Kansas’ Bluestem High School, on the football field. They hold the honor of the longest losing streak in Kansas at 69 games, ending in 2008. Last year the Lions ended a 29-game losing streak and in 1998, ended a 43-game losing streak so, football hasn’t been kind to the Lions of Bluestem High School. Still, there’s worse. Glasscock County, Gibson, Georgia, lost 82 straight games from 1990 to 1999. They picked up a forfeit win in 1997, but never claimed it because they had lost the actual game 55-0 but the opponent was penalized for playing their JV players more than five total quarters that week. The lads from Glasscock County had honor and were not going to accept a forfeit. Kind of a “if we don’t earn it, we don’t want it” thing.
Bad day. What if you had to go to Brazil and run in the 200 meter race against the World’s Fastest Human, Usain Bolt? That’s what happened to Yancarios Martinez of the Dominican Republic. 80 runners showed up in Rio for the 200 and, of course, the world was treated to the smiling, laughing face of Usain Bolt as he cruised to a first-place finish with a time of 19.78. Bolt was all over the world’s television screens. Martinez never got that far. In the first round of trials he was eliminated with a time of 22.97, thus securing an 80th-place finish. Absolutely last place. I’m not sure what kind of medal they award for that but, hey, the dude was there and that’s an achievement!
That silver-tongued orator, William Jennings Bryan perhaps said it best, when talking about the difficulties of a bad day: “The nurse of greatness—a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
Bad days test us to see what we are made of. They test us to see what we can become. Here’s hoping your bad day is a good one.
Charles Tabler is a contributing writer from Larned. He can be reached at budtabler@gmail.com.
