Of men with sticks, pig bladders, abusive sports bars
My sports bar hates me.
This all started because of that
nagging human characteristic, that
need to be included in something,
that desire to go to a place where
everybody knows your name. Sure,
I wanted Cheers,
bar I fell in love
with even has a
Cheers-like
name: The
Cheerful Tor
toise.
And even if
they didn’t ex
actly yell
“Pete!” when I
walked in the
door ... well,
we’ll get to that
later. I’ll start
this story from
Who doesn’t? The
Peter
Hockaday
Two minutes for
crosschecking
the beginning.
The Tortoise was the perfect bar
for me. The place has more televi
sions than a Circuit City. And they
play sports. And I’m a sports guy. It’s
not a complicated relationship. I
started going in on Sundays, soaking
up the Sunday Ticket package, en
gulfing myself in football games.
The love affair began.
I started going Saturdays for col
lege football and Oregon away
games. Then Mondays for A1
Michaels and Dennis Miller. Then
Thursdays for the dollar-beer spe
cials. I took a friend there for his 21
er, dropping a ton of money as a
small thank you for the months of
good, Cheerful times.
I was like A1 Pacino in Scarface. I
was riding high, living the life. But it
wouldn’t be long until I was fighting
Is LOUIE’S VILLAGES
^ RESTAURANT AND LOu£E »
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1m
CHINESE AND AMERICAN FOOD
Tuesday-Thursday I 1:00am-10:30pm
Friday I 1:00am-1 1:00pm
Saturday Noon-1 1:00pm
Sunday I 1:30am-10:00pm
Monday Closed
Yearly Parking Available
ORDERS TO GO 343-4480
947 Franklin Blvd.
off the feds with a machine gun,
sniffing coke as the people I once
trusted tried to take me out like a
prom date.
Wait, where was I going with this?
Back up.
It was a hard, cold March night
when Darren died, and those who
knew him will always hold the Tor
toise responsible. It was a Thursday,
and word about the drink special
had started to get out. So the bar had
set up a bouncer at the door and a
new cover charge. I brought my
friend Darren Rhode. The bouncer
killed him.
Darren was possibly, maybe, not
real. He might have been possibly,
maybe, my alter ego. My fake identi
fication alter ego. But that doesn’t
give anyone the right to just take
poor Darren and put him in their
back pocket, does it?
I was faced with a harsh reality.
Three months until my 21st birth
day, three months without bars.
Three months without hope, with
out friends, without sunshine. It was
a dark period.
But then, hope. A birthday. A tri
umphant return to the Cheerful Tor
toise, preseason football games and
baseball pennant races.
And here’s where the bar starts to
mistreat me. Some of my favorite
waiters and waitresses leave. Not a
big deal, like taking my fake — not
something that they can necessarily
control.
Then they shrink the size of the
dollar-beer cups. Advertise a dollar
pitcher special and run out by 7:30
p.m. Run out of pizza cheese on the
same night. Have a movie — “Deuce
Bigalow, Male Gigolo,” I’m not even
kidding — on the big screen during
an important Giants-Padres game.
The Beaver game on all three big
screens during the 49ers-Giants
game, the monumental opening
game of the NFL season. I could go
on. Little things. A small punch in
the arm here and there. A knee to
the gut, metaphorically of course.
And yet, and yet...
It is, after all, a sports bar. The
only true sports bar within walking
distance of campus. And that’s why
I’ll probably keep going there. And
I’ll probably follow the same destruc
tive pattern in a new town after col
lege, a new setting for the same old
story.
For the sportsaholics, this is our
curse. We will go to many lengths —
even to the point of personal peril —
to cheer, jeer, and generally enjoy our
men with sticks and pig bladders.
Such is the life of a sports nut.
Contact the sports editor
at peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com.
Pac-10
continued from page 15
Baylor, they went directly from pi
geonholed to holy ... whatever.
The point is, nobody knows how
Gal will perform against Washington
on Saturday. The Bears haven’t
beaten the Huskies since 1976, a
streak that includes 19 straight
losses. But the Bears weren’t sup
posed to win a game this season,
never mind topple Michigan State
last month.
Washington hasn’t lost at Husky
Stadium in 17 tries. But when a
team, Gal, needs one more victory
to equal its win total from the last
two seasons combined, you never
know what could happen.
Farming for
some health
It looks like Clarence Farmer
fr~
shouldn’t have played those last
couple minutes.
Farmer, the Arizona running back
who finished second in the Pac-10
last season with 111.7 yards per
game last season, tweaked his knee
in the closing minutes of the Wild
cats’ 14-9 victory over North Texas
and will likely sit out Saturday’s
game against Oregon.
“At the beginning of the year,
everyone was talking about a
big showdown between Onterrio
Smith and Clarence, which won’t
take place,” Arizona head coach
John Mackovic said in a press
conference Monday.
The injury is not the first to hit
the Wildcats this season. Star cor
nerback Michael Jolivette is out in
definitely with a knee injury. Line
backer Lance Briggs and defensive
tackle Brad Brittain both went down
against North Texas. In all, Arizona
starters have missed 15 games due
to injury.
Somehow, the Wildcats are enter
ing the Pac-10 season at 4-1, despite
their injuries.
Rumble this Saturday
Saturday Saturday
Northwest meets southwest in
two key Pac-10 games this week:
UCLA takes on Oregon State and
USG squares off against Washington
State.
The Trojan defense held the
Beaver offense scoreless last week,
in Derek Anderson’s first hiccup as
a Beaver starter. But this week, the
USG “D” will face off with the much
more formidable Jason Gesser-led
Cougars. Youth one week, experi
ence the next for the Trojans, and
the difference could show up in the
win/loss column.
Contact the sports editor at
peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com.
I
Nowhere to run to. Nowhere to hide.
The Oregon Daily Emerald on the world wide web.
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Basic
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of 30
participants
may enter a
workout
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enter a
workout, the
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REGISTRATION begins Monday, Sept. 30, Sam-5pm
CLASSES RUN FROM October 7 - December 6, 2002 (9 weeks)
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Classes meet in Room 41 of the Student Rec Center
For more information call 6-4113 or drop by 102 Esslinger.
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