Big Brother

Growing up with an older brother who was not only 7 years older than me and who happened to be one of the best athletes in the area did 2 things to me.

#1-Made me somewhat of an athlete that enjoys playing and watching sports
#2-Scarred me for life!


FOOTBALL-Most brothers would play catch with the football. Go out for some long and short passes.  Not my brother.  We played Special Teams. Specifically Punt Returns. I'd be standing about 25-30 yards away and he's punt the football high in the sky. By the time it came down for me to catch it, he was was running at full speed to nail me.  Also, when we played there was one rule. NO FAIR CATCH. Nice!


BASEBALL-We played a game that some of you will remember called Fast Pitch. You'd play at the school yard with a rubber baseball.  One guy would pitch against the school brick wall which had a spray painted rectangle to act as the strike zone. You'd get hits, or fly/ground out, walk or strike out.  This is how it went with my brother. If he didn't pitch a no-hitter, he'd lose his mind.  So if I got a hit one of 2 things would happen.  He would either say "Game over, I'm done" and walk off or worse, the next pitch after I got a hit would be thrown as hard as he could throw and would be air marked for my leg, arm or ribs. Can you say anger management issues?

BASKETBALL- Most older brothers might play horse or 21 with their much younger brothers but not my big brother.  We'd play one-on-one. He'd play defense as hard as he could. He didn't let me score. I'm not saying this figuratively but literally.  For about 4 years, I didn't score a point on him.  4 YEARS!  So I'm a freshman at Ohio State and playing a casual game of 3 on 3 with some guys but it's not casual for me. I'm playing really hard and scoring a lot.  One guy says "Hey man, relax it's just for fun" in which I replied "You relax, I' haven't scored a point in 4 years!"

HOCKEY-Saved the best for last. My brother was an All- State Hockey Player in Illinois his senior year of high school. So of course, it makes perfect sense to make his 11 year old brother  play goalie in the basement while he fired tennis balls with a real wood hockey stick  from point blank range.(You starting to figure out why I'm so demented?). He would put me in old hockey pants, give me a sawed off plastic hockey stick along with a baseball mitt  and in an attempt to protect me from his slapshots/wristshots, a plastic $3.99 Tony Esposito Goalie mask. I actually wasn't that bad. Then one day he blasts a slap shot from about 15 feet away and it hits me square in the chest.  I drop and cannot breathe. In a panic, he runs over to attend to me. I cannot breathe and this rocket scientist is pumping my legs like a butter churn saying "You better not tell Mom about this" Oh the compassion.

As we got older, I eventually could hold my own with him when we played sports against each other.(Really a weird feeling when I finally beat him in One-on-One Basketball). All this being said, my older brother was a tremendous big brother who would hang out with his brother who was so much younger and always look out for me. I will never ever forget the fact that on Friday nights when he was 18, he would always pick up fast food for me and him on his way home from hanging with his friends knowing I'd be waiting up to see him. Those are the times I remember most which is amazing since I wasn't allowed to fair catch any punts!