I recently had an interview at a school where they not only wanted me to teach English but also do a sports program. I really got my hopes up for that one because I absolutely love sports. So that made it all the cheesier when the woman who had interviewed me very eloquently, spent about 30 seconds going uh, um, er, uh, ah, er, uh when I asked WHY I didn't get the job. Why is such a tough question in Korea! They're still not used to being asked. Evidently she hadn't formulated a convincing lie to cover for the fact that I wasn't hired for being too old, too fat, having crooked teeth, a long nosehair, wearing stripes with checks, or some other ridiculous reason. So after a barrage of fillers while she flipped through resumes to try to find mine she says, "Well we were um looking uh for someone with more university experience than you. It looks like you have uh, one and half year."

First of all I have only relevant experience listed on my resume. I have the experience with better educational facilities here in Korea listed there. I don't list the years with the fake schools because I am actually too good a teacher for those schools and that was the ultimate reason for my leaving in every case. To list them would infer that my teaching skill and academic integrity is suitable for those places. Secondly I have 2 and a half years of experience listed on my resume. And thirdly, we had spent the entire interview talking of my 4 years of teaching low level university students, which is what they told me to expect at the school I was interviewing for; my 2 years of teaching at a college in Canada where I did the sports programs in conjunction with Arkansas Tech. University that they were interested in; and I think I also mentioned that I had been teaching at the college/university level for 9 years.

Anyway, I KNOW I was lied to so I guess it's good that I didn't get the job working, as my friend Ang says, "...for bozos like that." But it would have been so nice to teach sports again!

Sports in so many ways is like life. I figure a person can become a very well-rounded, free-thinking, well-adjusted, moral human being just by playing sports. In fact I'm not afraid to say that a majority of the major weaknesses I see in the world, and in Korea could be cured with sport and may actually exist for lack of it. The aforementioned interview is a spectacular example. If you choose a person for your team who is popular or LOOKS like a good player and pass over one who you KNOW is good but doesn't wear the uniform as well, you're gonna lose. The player will let the team down, may ask for more salary than better players, make errors, not play hurt, slag the coach in interviews, refuse to give autographs to fans or whatever. Meanwhile the GOOD player will be helping his/her team elsewhere and you'll wish you had taken that player. One bad player can really kill the chemistry of a good team. And chemistry can make a team of so-so players better than a team of great players. It's been shown again and again.

Reporters can make the life of the person who chose this bad apple really uncomfortable. They will have to lie and they will be caught in their lie and look really foolish. Maybe if the interviewer knew this she wouldn't have had such an embarrassing phone call from me. She knew she was busted and kept trying to end the phone call but I kept her on as long as I could allowing her to either admit the truth or dig her hole deeper. She did the latter, (or course). I even at one point told her that she knows she chose the wrong person for the job and she didn't disagree. But she did put the maraschino cherry on top of her phony, plastic, artificial, business-speak pie when she invited me to apply again next semester.

Anyway, enough about that. I want to talk about sports more than my trials and tribulations in the Korean job market. The recent Super Bowl was pretty good I thought. It wasn't a blowout like so many of them are. But it had a couple peculiarities that brought to mind some of my pet peeves about sport. First of all, why do so many sports have limits on celebration? I forget who it was but after a TD catch he was penalized for "going to the ground in celebration." Excessive celebration. It's impossible to guess but I'd say about half the world has a sporting dream. It may be to win the gold medal at the Olympics or to climb Mt. Everest or to kayak down the Amazon or to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Most people, like myself, will go their entire lives without even coming close to their sporting dream. But if you are one of the miniscule number of gifted, lucky, skilled, dedicated athletes who manages to attain the goal and then some JAGOFF says, "Hey, wait a minute! You can't celebrate too much," and actually PENALIZES you, there is something wrong.

I mean, okay, you reach the summit of Everest and yell at the top of your oxygen-starved lungs and somebody tells you to keep it down in case you cause an avalanche, well okay. THEN I can see that the celebration is excessive. It could be dangerous. It could hurt people. But what is dangerous about a little victory dance in the endzone at the Super Bowl? Who is being put in danger? Who is hurt by it? The fans of the other team? The players on the other team? Please! What is this day camp, where everybody gets a medal for participating and score is not kept? Do you really think the players don't know who won the game and who scored the most goals? This is the NFL. If the other team doesn't like the celebration, get a TD and do some celebrating of your OWN!

Every sport's players know when celebration becomes excessive. There are unwritten rules against running up the score and if the Tigers are losing to the Yankees 25-0 and Arod starts moonwalking from 3rd to home after hitting a homerun, then he's a dick. He'll probably be benched for a game or at least should be. If he's not, it'll be what I described above: the tightness of the team will be eroded by it because his teammates will know he's a dick. This is one of so many valuable lessons we can apply to other areas of life. If only some of the psychopaths in business domination would take it easy on the competition! I'm looking at YOU, Walmart! Walmart needs to be benched for a game or two.

There was a guy on the Colbert Report lately named Sean Kelly. A Harvard Philosophy professor who says that there is great meaning in sporting events even to the fans. When we jump up off the couch together and high five after a big play he says that's "sacred." I think he's right. I even think when a satarist like Colbert or Jon Stewart really nails a villain good there's a similar sort of feeling. I'd give you a link, but just this week the Colbert Report website will no longer allow anyone in my area to view full episodes. It's like a referee has blown a whistle, thrown a flag and taken away my sacred celebration of Colbert slamming the selfish, capitalist scumbags who own this world. They have all the money and power and now they're trying to stop us from laughing at their folly. Please, Stephen, tell me you won't begin complimenting their invisible new clothes too!

Even my beloved Kia Tigers are going to have to put a limit on their celebrating. Starting this upcoming season, if a player gets a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning the players can no longer crowd around him at home plate, pour water on him or anything like that. Why the hell not?

Who are these stuffed shirts making these rules who think that THEIR sense of decency overrides that of the athletes? Do they think because they play sports they are dumb? I submit to you that every single one of these stuffed shirts led a sportless life otherwise they would know that every athlete has a perfectly good grasp of when and where celebration is excessive. MUCH better than them! And what kind of Orwellian madman tries to regulate FEELINGS???

Let's examine THAT point, shall we? If there are any misplaced emotions at any sporting events they are in the moments just before the action begins. A moment of silence for the victims of Hurricane Katrina; Observe with us the hanging of the flag to support our soldiers; Please remove your hats and stand for the singing of the national anthem, not of the players but of the government run by the conglomarations that own them and you. COME ON everybody, take your Soma now. Could it be more obvious? Not a single person is there to think of that stuff and there may just be a whole lot of them who are hoping to put it out of their minds for a few hours.

Of course we may support these things but what in the wide wide world of sports do they have to do with baseball or hockey or football or whatever? Why don't they have the national anthem before golf tournaments? Because golfers and golf fans already achieve the emotional tranquility that best suits the consumer manipulation perpetrated by the sponsors of the events? Who knows?

All I know is NObody is throwing a flag on Mariah Carey or the latest winner of American Idol when she/he sings her/his 18-minute magnum opus rendition of America The Beautiful before a game between two hockey teams that have no Americans playing for them. Some day I would just LOVE to see the national anthem cut short like a droning Oscar acceptance or even GONGED! Ha ha ha. That would be so sweet! But then I'm sure that won't happen because all around the world the viewing audience would all jump off the couch, high five, hug and show excessive celebration at it. I know I would.