Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes with me (or has paid attention to this blog's previous entries) knows that I am a HUGE University of Michigan football fan. And as a delusional dad-to-be, I sometimes daydream how awesome it would be if one day my son was Michigan's starting quarterback. Like, say, this guy. The problem is that most Michigan quarterbacks are like 6'6 and weigh upwards of 200 pounds. Unfortunately, when I arrived in Ann Arbor as a freshman 12 years ago (good lord!), I was 5'9 and weighed 135 pounds (current stats: 5'9, 160. Sigh). I don't think I was large enough to make the dorm intramural flag football team. Meaning The Baby Vohra is fighting an uphill battle if he even hopes to make Michigan's practice squad, because the necessary size to make the team certainly isn't going to come from me. Nor, sadly, is it going to come from The Baby Vohra's maternal side. Neha is 5'5, which is a decent height for a girl, but weighs only 100 pounds soaking wet. Neha's parents? Tiny. And her younger brother may or may not be a hobbit. But I don't blame us personally for the likelihood that The Baby Vohra won't be a fotball player; as this fantastic tribute to Indian athletes demonstrates, we're amazing at a ton of sports:
Football just doesn't appear to be one of them. At least not yet. But I shall not deny The Baby Vohra, boy or girl edition, the opportunity to participate in any sport it chooses (whether mom allows the playing of competitive football remains to be seen)!
Since making the football team is probably a long shot, I started thinking about what other athletic endeavors The Baby Vohra could pursue. Because we aren't in India, certain sports at which The Baby Vohra would certainly dominate - cricket, shuttlecock, mens' field hockey - are probably out (though if The Baby Vohra is a girl, she can play field hockey, although I remember all the field hockey-playing girls from my high school being large and scary). But that still leaves plenty of other sports for The Baby Vohra, either boy or girl edition. I'm a big golfer (not literally big. As explained above, I'm a very average-sized guy), and will impart my quasi-skill and knowledge of the game onto The Baby Vohra from the moment its born. Plus, The Baby Vohra will have plenty of role models to look up to: Arun Atwal, Daniel Chopra, and most importantly, my hero, Vijay Singh (watch the clip to hear Vijay drop multiple f-bombs!):
Classy Vijay! Golf is definitely a possibility.
As is tennis. As everyone knows, Indians love the racket sports. The previously-mentioned shuttlecock, ping pong, racketball, squash, and tennis are all sports to which Indians gravitate. The Baby Vohra's family is no exception. Both Neha and my brothers played high school tennis (as did I), and there are great professional tennis-playing role models of both sexes for The Baby Vohra to emulate. For example, The Baby Vohra (girl edition) can look to Sania Mirza for inspiration. And for The Baby Vohra (boy edition), the history of tennis is full of Indians who owned the sport, such as tennis pro-turned James Bond bad guy Vijay Amritraj, and Leander Paes, the author of what I humbly submit is the greatest tennis shot of all time (watch this video while screaming "YYYAAAAAAARRHHHH!!!!" and pretending that it's you hitting the shot for full effect):
I'm not going to lie, my eyes well up with tears every time I watch that clip. I'm lying.
Since we're talking tennis, a brief pointless aside: what's with the Serbians taking over all sports? It's one thing when they were infiltrating the NBA in record numbers (Petrovic, Pavlovic, Sabonis, Stojakovic, and Darko!). But now they're conquering the tennis world as well, as evidenced by the success of the Serbs at the Australian Open (Ana Ivanovic made the women's final, Novak Djokovic won the tournament on the men's side)! This hardly seems fair. Tennis is the province of my Indian peeps, and I cannot understand how our country of 1 billion people cannot compete with those 10 million in Serbia. In order to ensure its athletic success, I'm left with no choice but to change the name to The Baby Vohravic.
There are certainly options out there. And as I said, I will strongly encourage The Baby Vohra to participate in any sport it chooses (except ice hockey, which sucks). Perhaps The Baby Vohra will be the Tiger Woods of Indian-Americans, opening doors to allow the generations that follow to play all sports, not just carrom. I remain incredibly optimistic no matter what happens. After all, Nike sponsors Bollywood cheese.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Thanks for the shout out on Serb sport domination. One correction, Sabonis was Lithuanian (another very small country that played a very big part in International basketball for no good reason).
You probably were thinking of the Godfather of Serb basketball, Vlade Divac. Who in addition to being part of Magic Johnson's last Showtime hurrah, also managed to star in a Bic razor commercial in the early 90s, where his only line was "Nema Problema," tranlation: No Problem."
One suggestion I do have for TBV is that you have him or her visit the Dalmatian Coast - on the Adriatic Sea - during childhood. This region, along with the coast of Montenegro, which is all part of former Yugoslavia (home to Monica Seles - super grunter - as well), is a regular vacation spot for all these phenomenal athletes you mentioned, and also helped produce Toni Kukoc (hoops) and Goran Ivanisevic (tennis). I think it has something to do with the water there, so if you can just get TBV to splash around a bit I think you might get him/her where he/she needs to be in terms of athleticism.
If not a super athlete, he/she will at least become a James Bond type figure (not only because Casino Royale was filmed there, but because the character James Bond was allegedly based on a Serbian spy named Dusko Popov, aka "Tricycle"...look it up).
A basketball or tennis star...or a super suave spy. Not bad. We'll save Nikola Tesla talk for another day. (Yep, the guy who invented all things electricity, but got bamboozled by Thomas Edison...again, look it up).
P.S. - Don't ask why I didn't turn out to be any of the above. It's still a sore spot I'm trying to work through.
U.Va.'s Somdev Dewarman (Indian) just won the NCAA men's tennis title last year and is currently the top rated player. Yes this is what happens when its Jan-Feb and your bball team has 2 wins in league play. When does lacrosse season start? . . .
Post a Comment