Ted's Polish-Mexican Page

I attended the first game of the Fiesta Bowl Basketball Tournament last night. As we were reminded constantly, it is one of 50 community events held statewide associated with the Fiesta Bowl. Supposedly, they raise a bunch of money for scholarships. Everytime I hear that an athletic event is raising money for scholarships, it turns out that it is raising money for athletic scholarships. They want us to think that poor kids from Douglas will get the money, they don't want you to know that it goes pay for the NBA's farm team.

Oh, wait, they gave some scholarship money to the "Fiesta Bowl Queen" and her court. So, the money will go to the girls who date the athletes too.


Why am I so cynical?


Guy who sat in front of me for the second half wore a fraternity jacket and stank of stale cigarettes. Of course, he probably gets more dates than me because he is a total tool.


Every year, a board member of the Fiesta Bowl sings the national anthem at these games. These guys are always at the events wearing their yellowish jackets. I realize that they are volunteers, but they always mention their names at these games as if I had heard of them. They seem to be really nice to the kids that do the half time "spot shot" contest though.

I suppose that every year before the game, the Fiesta Bowl committee meets and sees which among their 160 members (I checked!) can sing, and that person gets to sing the national anthem. It always seems that people don't get the words quite right. Understandable, really, since the language is archaic. I think people these days are so used to songs that make no sense, that people don't pay attention to whether or not what they are singing makes sense.


Some common lyrical mistakes I've heard:

• "Through the perilless fight"


• "Through the perilous night"


• "At the twilights last streaming"


• "Or the ramparts we watched"


• "For the ramparts we watched"


• "Gave proof through the fight"


• "For the land of the free"


• "And the home of the Braves"

Before the game, I happened into Martin Bacal. Martin had been to the previous game that featured Western Kentucky and Central Florida. I made a crack about the teams, and he pointed out to me that they were once big powerhouses and had won several titles.

So, tell me, why does knowing the excruciating details of NCAA Basketball (where you have to know about hundreds of teams) make you a man's man, a real American, but I'm a pathetic geek that needs a life because I can name two teams from the Czech Premier League?


I wore a Poland jersey, because it was red. My mom and her friends gave me grief because they claimed it was orange, the color of Sam Houston State. The name of the polish team is Biało-czerwoni...white and RED. The shirt was red!


Hasta la proxima. Do zobaczenia.