You fumble the football, and i will break my foot off in your John Brown hind parts and then you will run a mile.

Thought on football and other stuff from the weekend, plus a funny story at the end...

--The Dolphins are in first place. 'Nuff said.

--I have a strange fascination with the Patriots. They're like that celebrity you're obsessed with, even though you're happily involved in a wonderful relationship. They just look so good that you can't stop staring, although you know they're unattainable.

--Speaking of the Pats, is how many clutch kicks has Adam Vinatieri made? Maybe three of the greatest field goals ever (two Super Bowls and the through-the-snow winner in the Tuck Game). Might he be...gasp...the best kicker ever? Won't he have to be considered for the Hall of Fame? I can't believe I'm saying this about a freaking kicker.

--The Jets quarterback is now Brooks Bollinger. I don't think I'll pick them to win the rest of the year.

--The Iggles (and most all) black jerseys are a cheap marketing gimmick. Their kicker deserved to get hurt.

--Green Bay is 0-3. Remember when they were good? As in last year.

--I hate trying to pick the winners of the Chiefs games while living in Topeka. I get so blinded by my nearness to the situation, that I inevitably second- or third-guess myself, always thinking one level too far. And yes, I'm 0-3 on their games this year.

--I also hate ESPN's weekly segment where Sean Salisbury and John Clayton snipe at each other while pretending to talk about football. It's like two junior high kids on an internet message board calling each other names. I actually change the channel when it comes on. It's just that bad.

--If Commander in Chief, the new ABC show featuring Geena Davis as president, were the only show on television, I still don't think I'd watch. But it did receive an endorsement of Riveting! from Oprah Magazine, so maybe I'll reconsider.


Now the story. Last night I was calling the Hayden-Seaman soccer game at Seaman. A couple minutes before the contest starts, I'm up on the roof of the concession stand, ready to roll with my stat sheet and notes. Suddenly, I'm ambushed by a swarm of biting gnats (not a technical term). I swat a few off my arm, the game begins, and I swipe occasionally as we get underway. The itchiness intensifies as I am unable to continually smash the bugs, and a few minutes in, I look down to see a dozen or more on each arm, not to mention what feels like an equal number on my neck. They're even flying onto my sunglasses. Needless to say this is a little distracting while trying to describe a soccer game, especially when flying solo. There are few long pauses as I constantly flick gnats away. Then the coup de grace. A Seaman parent climbs up with bug spray, and douses my arms, neck and back. Great. But then he sprays the front of my shirt, inadvertantly squirting a dose into my face. Let's just say that OFF doesn't taste good. This incident causes my nose to morph into a spicket, my eyes to turn into Niagra Falls. and the two dozen bites on my arm swell up faster than Kirstie Alley. All this is happening, mind you, while I'm still on the air. I try to persevere for a few minutes, but soon I'm sneezing, coughing, and wiping tears from my eyes at a ridiculous rate, all while laughing at how annoyingly ridiculous this is, and trying to maintain some semblance of a broadcast. I gave it a go, but in the end I succumbed to the Army of Gnats, retreated to the truck to call the rest the game off monitors, and dubbed over the first half of the first half.

In my short broadcast career, I've called games from hills and fan-filled bleachers, had a little kid grab the crowd mike and start saying his ABCs, dealt with completely incompetent school administrators, and survived countless other wacky encounters. But this is the wildest thing that's ever happened to me. Unbelievable.