How to Succeed on the Sidelines Without Really Trying

While playing touch football in Central Park 21 years ago, when we were lithe and nimble enough to engage in such athletic endeavors, we went up for a pass and came down awkwardly on our right leg and could hear the crunch of meniscus in our knee. We tried to get up and return to the huddle but crumbled to the ground and crawled to the sideline.

Thus ended our effort to change careers. We were looking forward to becoming the first 30-something rookie in the National Football League. When the game was over (think we lost 66-42, first team to 10 touchdowns), a teammate and an adversary helped us to a cab, the driver of which we directed to take us to the emergency room of Lennox Hill Hospital, where but a month later our first-born was to make his debut.

Unlike Mr. Cutler of the Chicago Bears, we could not stand, but then, we are a famous sissy, prone to jumping at loud noises and crossing to the other side of the street when confronted with a fellow walking his pit bull.

Soccer and basketball players are known for taking flops to draw foul calls, yet baseball players are urged not rub it when hit by a pitch. Just jog to first base and glare at the offending pitcher.

Body language, it seems, is all important these days. Who woulda thunk it? Mr. Cutler was tweeted to death for looking disengaged and disinterested after leaving the NFC championship game with a knee injury.

So we have a new business in mind – teaching enthusiastic facial expressions, fist pumps and jaunty stances on the sidelines, in the dugouts and on the benches courtside for injured players with a normally phlegmatic demeanor.

Class would begin with back-slapping, segueing to exhorting teammates with shouts and hand-waving and ending with practice raising arms in the touchdown signal and chest-bumping your replacement. Diplomas will be issued that will certify and indemnify graduates against accusations of sulkiness and not caring.

Meanwhile, we are still cogitating on our Super Bowl pick. Essentially a pick ‘em game with Green Bay a 2 ½ point favorite. The total is 44. We are studying game film, not to discern x’s and o’s, but to check out how a quarterback stands on the sidelines when nicked up. Hopefully he will have graduated from Kev’s Kourse in Karisma and Karing and have the sheepskin in his locker to prove it.