"careful now, you'll hurt yourself..."

so, here's the thing. i play a lot of sports. and yeah, im totally serious about ultimate (given). i train really hard, i practice, i do crazy shit to my body to make me faster/stronger/what-have-you. and, in turn, when im playing on the field i try to play really hard. that is, at the top level. however, when im playing a hat league, or a pickup game or something, i take it easy. i dont call fouls, i dont call travels or picks (unless theyre aggregious). because its pickup. because it doesn't matter.

i would assume that this attitude transfers to other sports too. right? so, like, if you were playing 3 on 3 pickup basketball down at the park or gym, you would play less seriously than if you were playing a 5 on 5 league game that you paid for or whatever. so, what i cant fucking stand is when you're playing 3 on 3 pickup (pickup means its not a 3 on 3 tournament, just to make myself uber-clear), and someone on the other team is WAY TOO serious about the goddamn game. its just a game, dude. calm the fuck down. you dont need to scream "FUCK" every time you miss a rebound. you don't need to tell your teammates that they need to "step up the fucking D and get in their faces" when my team makes a shot. you don't need to punt the ball to the other wall in the gym when you lose the ball out of bounds. for god's sake, stop taking steroids and calm yourself down.

so this totally happened to me tonight. and you know what? i get playing hard. and i get being physical and all that. and if we're playing a game that matters, i get being pumped up and using that to up your game. but for the sanctity of the sweet virgin baby jesus, you don't need to rip my shoulder out of its socket or scream at your teammates or punch the wall or any of these things. its pickup. its 3 on 3. maybe you have trained 6 months just for this impromptu game, and if thats the case then i feel sorry for you and your pathetic life. however, im going to assume that this isn't the case, and you just need to put the needle down and take a nyquil or something.

so yeah. calm it down douchebag mcdouchington. so we can all walk away from the game.

"careful now, you'll hurt someone else."