Friday Night Lights

They finally let me out of the office and had me cover a high school football game on a Friday night. Even though I was covering a game I knew would be a blowout, I was still excited to watch high school boys tackling each other... I mean watch high school football in South Florida.

I got to the field almost an hour early. Talked to the coaches, watched the teams warm up and reminisced about my playing days.

As the teams headed back to the locker rooms, I went up to press box and realized I had already made my first mistake. Clearly before I took my stroll around the field, I should have claimed one of the four chairs in the press box.

Five minutes of standing in the west-facing press box with no air conditioning, I learned what was my second mistake. The west-facing aspect meant you get a beautiful view of the sunset. It also meant for the first hour the press box was essentially an oven. I had no way of wiping the sweat from pouring down my face besides my shirt sleeve. At least I was smart enough to wear one of my golf polos.

While I was setting up my notebooks to keep a play-by-play and stat sheet, I realize how spoiled I was covering games at UF, where they provide you with all that at your reserved seat in the air-conditioned press boxes with wireless internet connection.

The game ended up being a blowout, which made it pretty easy to write my story on deadline. I knew getting to see my story online and in print the next day would make all of this worth it. Oh wait, the paper only needed five inches (about 150 words). Well at least all of my hard work keeping score would be needed. Oh wait, the coaches called in their stats already.

Oh the joys of high school football.

I'm Not Fat, Just Big-Boned, OK Call It Fat

When I was in high school playing football, I never had to worry about what I ate. Apparently, being that young and being as active as I was, my metabolism rate was pretty high.

I have told this story to many of my friends but it is still the best example of how bad my eating habits were in back then. One Friday night, I went out to dinner with my family to a restaurant had a half-pound burger with fries and split 25 wings with my two brothers. As we were leaving, a friend called to let me know a bunch of them were going to Cheeburger Cheeburger downtown, I said I would take the trip with them even though I already ate. When we got there about 30 minutes after my first dinner, I couldn't help myself but attempt to eat the pounder. The one-pound beef patty was barely a challenge that 10 minutes after eating that I decided to indulge in some gelato. I capped off the night with stop at 7-Eleven for a snickers bar, sunflower seeds and a gatorade.

This was not a regular occurrence but I would hardly call this out of the norm, considering I regularly did all-you-can-eat wing nights where I would consume 40-60 wings.

Despite how poorly I ate, I never weighed more than 185 pounds.

Tonight I started my goal of getting back under the 185-pound mark.

At some point, I got lazy. And not just a little lazy, but I don't even want to walk to the garage to do a quick workout lazy. My brother built a gym with a squat rack on a platform with a bench, dumbbells, plenty of weights including rubber ones and a bunch of accessories. There was no excuse for me not to be working out regularly this past year. At times, I did workout often, but I have also taken hiatuses, including my current one of close to six months.

I recently decided it had to end. I had to get myself back in shape. By no means did I maintain my physique from high school throughout college, but at no point did I feel like I was far away from getting back in that shape. However, I barely recognize my body in the mirror.

I am not proud that I let myself go, but I still feel like I can back to a healthy weight in just a few months with a lot of dedication. I don't care what the people who came up with BMI believe, 130-140 is not my ideal weight. I would like to weight between 165-175, but for now the goal is 185.

I am committed to make this last and not just work at it until I am back at the weight I want to be, then just let myself go again. Despite that, I want to lose a lot of the weight quickly because not only do I feel like I need to just jump in but I want to save myself the money it would take to buy a new suit.

To do that, I need to be back at 185 by my birthday, October 10. That is less than two month away and I have about 20 pounds to lose. But about a week and a half after my birthday, I am going to Houston for my girlfriend's best friend's wedding.

I made the mistake of buying a suit when I had just lost a bunch of weight during the summer after my freshman year in college. I was 175. I figure I can still fit into the suit at 185. If I cannot get back into the suit, I will be forced to buy a new suit. I do not want to spend that money.

It is more than just a financial decision to lose weight. I want to like the way I look in a mirror again. But most importantly, I want to feel healthy again. I have started snoring, which I never use to do. I assume this was caused by my weight gain. And I hate the fact that I get winded doing simple tasks. I don't ever want to have to worry about getting a diseased cause by my weight. No, I am nowhere near that point, but if I don;t do something, there is nothing stopping me from getting there.

This always isn't just about looking healthy again. I want to feel athletic again. I still can run relatively fast for a stubby-legged, pudgy white kid, and I am still coordinated enough to pass as athletic. But I know what I use to be able to do, and it is depressing not to be able to do that anymore.

My goals are simple. By October 10, I want to weight less than 185 pounds, bench press 150% of my body mass, run two miles in less than 20 minutes and sprint a 40-yard dash in under five seconds.

If Newspapers Go Out Of Business, Then Who Do I Call

One part of my job is to answer the phone for the general sports number. I basically act as a barrier between the callers and people who have better things to do than answer every call. Sometimes it is a sportswriter who is checking to make sure someone got his story or has a question about his story or deadline. Unfortunately, that is just a small percentage of the calls.

The rest of them probably can be split into four groups: angry readers, drunk sports bar goers, the only phone number I have saved is The Palm Beach Post's Sports Department and people who still have yet to learn how to use the internet. To help you understand what I have to deal with most nights I work, I will give you a few examples of these groups.

ANGRY READER

1. Every parent whose mildly talented child did not get the recognition she/he deserved by people left off the All-Area Teams. I understand your child is trying to play sports in college but if she/he did not get enough nominations from coaches or good enough stats to crack honorable mention, then your child is going to want to come up with a backup plan.

2. The next one is a caller whom I have spoken with a couple times at this point, I refer to him as SEC guy. While I am a believer that the SEC is the best football conference in college, your request to get more coverage of University of Georgia and other out of state SEC schools into the South Florida newspaper is probably going to go unheard but everyone except me.

3. My favorite frequent angry caller is an old lady that after a couple evening cocktails can no longer contain her hatred for Michael Vick...or for black people in general. She was quite upset with our "coverage of that dog killer". Our coverage meaning one sentence mentioning him in the recap of an Eagles' game. But Vick being a freed man is apparently that black president Osama's (yes, she did call him Osama) fault because years ago someone like that would be given a more severe punishment. 

Drunk Sports Bar Goers

These always the same. A few friends get into an argument over some obscure sports fact and decide to wager who is right. Of course the only person who could possibly give you the answer is a person in the sports department. Lucky for me, I am that person. The questions are easy enough to look up, but since no one can be trusted, I am asked to either say it again after he puts me on speakerphone or the other option of them just passing the phone around while I tell each one the correct answer.

The Only Phone Number I Have Saved Is The Palm Beach Post's Sports Department

1. A Marlins game is scheduled to appear on SunSports. Instead, some sort of skateboarding competition is on the station. While Marlins fans don't crowd the stadium, the do like watching the game in their air-conditioned homes. So of course outraged by this injustice they all took to the phones to call the only people who could fix it...the local paper.

2. Similar situation except instead of TV it was radio and instead of Marlins it was Yankees. Despite the station's commercials informing listeners that do to maintenance they would be switching to another station number for a few days, they were still baffled by the game not being on the radio, so again they turned to the only people who could fix it...the local paper.

3. This next group is a mix of this group and the last. They call with some sort of knowledge about what is going on in the world, which leads me to believe they know about the internet, but either don't like refreshing websites or are so loyal to newspapers but still impatient, so they call to ask what the latest news on some trending topic in the local sports world. To make sure they keep buying those papers, I tell them there is no new news but check tomorrow's paper for any possible developments. I probably should be getting paid for my subscription work.

People Who Still Have Yet To Learn How to Use The Internet

Before I started working here, I assumed most people at least had internet. Now, I am not so sure. I knew some people were inept at using search engines, but I still assumed they had the option available. Some of the questions I have been asked are:

1. Who won Dancing with the Stars?

2. What time do the Marlins play Saturday?

3. Is the lockout over?

4. What does a pitching coach say to a pitcher during a mound visit?

5. What time does is your office bulding open?

6. How do you get to the magicJack's soccer practice field?

7. How can I cancel my subscription? 

8. How do you determine how many games behind one team is from another team when they haven't played the same amount of games? (This took three phone conversations for her to understand)

Trash TV

I watch way more trashy reality shows on TV than I am proud of, but I don't think it is my fault, or Americans, in general.

I am not fortunate enough to have HBO and its quality shows at my house, so I am left with basic cable to entertain me.

While I watched Jersey Shore, Real World/Road Rules Challenges, Real of Housewives  of New Jersey, just to name a few, I also enjoy watching sitcoms such as The Office, Modern Family, The Middle and Parenthood. Other than those and a couple others I have been meaning to try to get into, there are few sitcoms on TV that are good.

I don't know if writers are no longer creative or if networks are just unwilling to take a chance on something different, but every new show seems unoriginal and just not good. And if a network does come up with something new, every other network will have its own show with a similar subject matter soon after.

If it was up to me, I would have only one or two guilty pleasures. Instead I am left with just a couple that I am proud to claim as a show I watch regularly.

Hopefully, writers and networks will return to trying to make creative, new shows instead of just reusing old themes and scenarios. Or maybe I should just give up on basic cable and invest in HBO.

If anyone has any suggestions for good TV sitcoms that are on basic cable, please let me know otherwise I will be sticking to the infinitely more entertaining reality TV.

Why I will never be a good golfer

My adventures golfing will likely be one of the most common reoccurring topics I write about.

I started messing around with the sport earlier this year. I expected to only occasionally hit some balls at the driving range just as something to do in my free time. Unfortunately for my wallet, I am too competitive to be bad at a sport.

When I started, the only thing I could do better than anyone else was slice the ball further than most would think possible. I have improved a lot since then, and I am proud of the fact that I can hit the ball straight about half the time now and when I don't there is usually just a small slice.

But I had to work hard to get to this point, much harder than I would for most other sports. I have always thought of myself as a coordinated person, so most sports just came naturally to me. I even think considering how short of a time period I have been playing golf I am better than most would be in that same time span.

Not only has my driving improved drastically, but so has my putting and chipping. My iron play has gone in the opposite directions however. While I am getting better, I realized while at the driving range Thursday that I don't think I will ever be as good at golf as I am at baseball or football, and I finally figured out why.

In baseball, there was never a ball I couldn't get to or a hit that I couldn't beat out -- at least in my mind. Even though I was usually the smallest person on the football field, I never thought there was an opponent too big or too fast for me to tackle, block, whatever. I would outhustle anyone on the field, that was my biggest strength.


Unfortunately for me, hustle has no place in golf. This realization has been damning to my psyche.


I still intend to spend countless hours, and dollars, on improving and being decent, but it is hard to accept the fact that decent is all I probably will ever be at golf.

But in the words of Roy McAvoy: "Golf and sex are the only two things you don't have to be good at to enjoy."

What's in a Name?

I have been wanting to start a blog for a while now, but I could not think of a way to begin.

I decided just to start one and hope something came to me, especially since I had about three hours of nothing to do while sitting in front of a computer at work (I know the title says I am unemployed, but I don't really count 20 hours a week of mindless work as a real job).

It wasn't until I had to enter my name that a topic came to me. What name should I go by?

I don't mean in my personal life because I don't think I will ever be anything but Bobby, as childish as that sounds. I don't mind being called Bob, but introducing myself as Bob just sounds weird. As for Rob or Robert, I don't like when other people call me those, let alone referring to myself as those.

The problem is every time I read Bobby Callovi as my byline, in introductory e-mails to potential employers or at the top of my resume, I feel like my credibility takes a hit. Bobby sounds childish, and I hope to be taken more seriously than a 5-year-old.

Even though I have had many articles published as Bobby, I believe it is still early enough to switch to something more professional sounding. I just don't want to be still thought of professionally as Bobby when I am 50.

I have asked some of the people closest to me what they think and have gotten mixed thoughts. I hope to get more responses with the blog, so please give me some feedback as to what my byline should be.