Taking Weekend Tennis Seriously

As a captain of recreational adult tennis teams, I am obligated to do something called “research.” Players will say something like “I trust my captain to do the proper research, put out the right line-up, and lead our team to first place.”

Sometimes my teams will do quite well and the players will credit me for doing a terrific job of this thing called “research.”

Sometimes I will tell my team, “Okay, let me do some research and crunch some numbers, and I’ll get back to you all on the line-up as soon as I can.”

Can I tell you a secret? I have no idea what doing “research” entails.

I say I do research just cause it sounds like something I should be doing. Like I’m not just throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing which strands of noodles and meatballs win their three-set coin flips. Then when one of those coin flip wins turn out to be the deciding match, I end up looking like a mad genius with amazing captaining prowess who did an excellent job of “researching.”

Maybe I’m doing it wrong. For me, doing “research” means mindlessly clicking through the faceless names on the opposing team and glancing at meaningless scores against more names I don’t recognize. For hours.

This is what I do instead of finding a cure for cancer.

Read the rest of this entry »