General: Beach of dreams

Recently, it seems, the majority of the news surrounding the world of sports has been reserved for some not so respectable stories like the University of Colorado recruiting/rape scandal, the Kobe Bryant rape case, and the Jayson Williams' manslaughter case, just to name a few.

Sometimes it's good to get away from the scandals, the colossal salaries, and the spousal abuses. To get back to the innocence, the purity of sport that you enjoyed when you were young.

When you were eight-years old you didn't care about how much an athlete made, or how any university lures promising recruits.

Recently, I had a chance to revisit the innocence of my sports past with my eight-year old son, Grant.

It was a warm, sunny, day in Panama City Beach, Florida. My family and I were on vacation and my son and I were about to hit the beach for some fun in the sun. Then it hit me. We didn't have anything to play with, not a football, a baseball, or even a frisbee. What kind of a father was I? We headed for the hotel store.

We found the perfect ball. A football. Not an official size and weight pigskin that is used by the NFL, but a styrofoam football by Whamo.

This ball was perfect for a few reasons. First, it had "tail fins" which made it spiral under any condition. You could throw it with your off hand and it would spiral. Hell, Joe Namath could have thrown a spiral using his off hand, following his interview with Suzie Kolber, with this baby.

Second, my son is just starting to get the hang of catching and the styrofoam is a lot more forgiving than a baseball or an official size and weight football.

There were very few people on the beach, which made it easy to pick out a spot to play catch. After awhile, I could tell Grant was getting bored with playing catch, so I soon came up with a fun way to play two-man football and work on my son's catching ability at the same time.

We stepped off a field in the sand that was about 30-yards long and 10-yards wide, complete with end zones marked with slanted lines. It was a really cool little replica of a football field, and even though there was no one watching, the crashing of the waves on the beach replaced the roar of the crowd.

To most it didn't look like much, but to us, our field was a "Touchdown Jesus" away from being Notre Dame Stadium.

Here were the rules: We started at one goal line and had four downs to cross the other goal line. We could only pass the ball and I could be the receiver for only one of the four downs. The play was dead once the ball was caught or dropped. If the ball was caught, the next play would start at that point. If we scored in four downs, we were awarded seven points, if we failed to score, the other team was awarded seven points. The game ended when one team scored 28 points.

We had a field, and we had a few rules, it was time to name our team.

Naming your team is very important. The name has to be tough, scary, even intimidating. No sissy names allowed.

I offered, to my son, a few names, like -- the Grizzlies.

"Dad, we're on the beach!" Good point.

"How about the Sand Dollars?"

"Dad!"

"Okay", I said, "You think of a name."

My son thought for a little while and said, "the Great Whites." Perfect.

We decided that the teams we were going to play were also going to be named after sharks, and our first game was against the Bullsharks.

The first game was decided, not by my pinpoint passing, but by Grant's effort. I was throwing passes a little too far to the left, or a little too far to the right, or just a little too far.

Despite my shortcomings at quarterback, Grant made every effort to catch all the passes thrown to him, or to somewhere near him. Grant would dive for a pass, the ball would sail over his outstretched arms, and he would land face first in the sand. He would either get up with a sandy grin, or get up saying, "It's time for the big guns."

Of course, "big guns" meant that it was his down to play quarterback.

It was our best play. Our version of the Hail Mary. When the ball was hiked, I would run as fast as I could, okay, it looked like I was pulling a plow, but it was fast enough. Grant would throw the ball as far as he could, and I would usually catch it. He was much more accurate than I was.

Uhhh... you know how it is, throwing to targets much shorter than you. The ball being too small for your hands and, there was this one time that it didn't spiral, and well, that's my story and I'm sticking too it.

Despite the obstacles I had to conquer, we defeated the Bullsharks, 28-14.

We were not that fortunate against our next opponent, the Bluesharks. After losing three straight games to them, we decided that they were much faster and more athletic than we were. We decided to start our season over. After all, aren't we entitled to one mulligan?

We were much smarter with our scheduling for our second season. We scheduled the sissy Nursesharks first. The scheduling, and Grant's catching, combined for a Great White win, 28-7.

Grant remained on a roll in our second game, as we prevailed in a rematch against the Bullsharks, 28-14. We knew we could beat the Bullsharks, since we had beaten them before and our confidence was sky high, no one could beat us now.

We were ready for the Bluesharks.

Unfortunately, we had run out of daylight. The showdown against the hated Bluesharks would have to take place on another day, on another beach.

As Grant and I walked back to our hotel, he said, "Daddy, I really had a lot of fun playing football with you today."

I had a great time with you too, kiddo.