re: Have you ever made a mistake in sports that haunts you?

Yeah I'm a cycling fig but there were at least 2 races I had a chance to win that I blew.

One race in Sparta TN everyone was going slow over the final 10 miles which was mostly rollers that I'm very good at and I was riding my brakes the whole time trying to get off the front but couldn't break through because of the yellow line rule and being too far back in the bunch.

Had I gone off the front there is zero doubt in my mind no one would have caught me. I was under the radar riding as an independent.

I had pre ridden the route the week before and I knew my wattage and my weight and knew I could get away at the pace of the group and by the time they realized they shouldn't have let me go it would have been too late to catch me.

I knew one guy in the pack was a pure sprinter and if the group was still together in the last mile nobody was going to catch him. My only move was to escape of the front several miles out because no one would chase me down.

Later that same day over most of same terrain I won the time trial because I still had all that pent up energy.

But if you know bike racing winning a road race in a group of 75 people is a better feeling than going out single file on a time trial and finding out 3 hours later your time was the best.

Yeah I know who cares about cat4 bike racing but it was still real to me, dammit.

It doesn't really haunt me because it was merely a statistic that I caused the team to miss, but I was playing all-star basketball, maybe 10 or 11 years old and the tournament was in our home town gym. I don't remember who we were playing but we were having an absolute dominating offensive performance. Our games would typically have high scores maybe in the 50's. We had 67 and the coach made the decision that we were going to go for the 70 spot. This may or may not have been a dick move but we wanted the 70 spot.

I was the best 3 point shooter on the team and the coach drew up a play for our final possession. Basically worked to perfection and I had a wide open three. Bricked the frick out of it. I definitely want that shot back.

Played first base in the majors for a long time. Back in 86, all I had to do was field a grounder and step on the bag to take the game into the 11th inning. I missed the ball, it rolled passed me and the runner on third scored. The other team went on to win that game and the next one to win the World Series. Wicked sucks.

Ejected in the 7th inning of a playoff game. I was pitching and hadn't allowed a run.

Wassup Bill?

ETA: I once caught a cool arse foul ball at Wrigley that didn't turn out so well for the Cubs.

I don't have anything that haunts me now, but I sure did feel stupid for a while. In high school, we were leading a game 5-4 with two outs in the bottom of the 7th inning. There was a runner on second, and a guy hit a bomb to me in right field. I raced back the the fence and could tell that it was not going to leave the park, but I turned my back and gave body language like it was going to anyway. When I looked back up for the ball, I could not find it until it was just above my head. I could not get my glove up fast enough, and it landed right behind me. It allowed the tying run to score and the batter got to third. The next pitch, he scored on a passed ball, and we lost because I was stupid.

I missed a PAT my junior year in HS in the last minute of the state championship that would have sent the game to overtime. To this day almost 35 years later if I see an old teammate or friend from HS they still call me "state".

Thankfully I went 3-0 FG 2-0 PATs the next year and we won state by 3 points but it still never erased the stain or the pain.

I did this when our punter was standing in our end zone.

Hell no. I was the star running back for Polk High. I scored four touchdowns in the city championship game against Andrew Johnson High.

A broken leg and a wife cost me a scholarship at LSU.

Not really a mistake per se, but something that I still think about every now and then, and wonder “what if?”

HS football. State quarterfinal game. Down by 7 in the 4th quarter with the ball at our opponents 20-yard line with enough time for two throws into the end zone. I played RB and the two plays we ran both called for me to stay put and help with pass protection.

On the first play, they only rushed 3, and dropped everyone else back into coverage. Our O-line handled the 3 rushers easily. I basically just stood around doing nothing and waiting for a hypothetical rusher that never came. Incomplete pass.

When our last gasp play was called in the huddle, I figured they’d only rush 3 again. And so I actually considered saying “what the hell” and ad-lib a route into the end zone to at least give us an additional receiver. They only rushed 3 again, and again our O-line handled them no problem. But I stayed put. The pass into the end zone gets tipped up into air, and hangs for a good second or two before falling to the ground in the exact area I’d considered running to had I broken script.

End of season.


I have another story of what would've been my BIGGEST mistake by far, but for the grace of God.

Same season. Last game of the regular season. Playing our biggest rivals who we hadn't beaten in years, and they were ranked #3 in the state I think (they eventually won the state championship that year).

We were up by 3 with about five minutes left in the game. We have the ball at our own 45-yard line or so. The play was an off-tackle handoff to me. I was really amped because we were so close to winning, so instead of taking a little hop-step like I'm supposed to do (to give the QB enough time to get to the hand-off point), I pretty much start running straight at the gap. The QB has to stretch to get the ball to me, but couldn't quite make it, and we botched the handoff. The other team recovered. I felt like an absolute arse, and wanted to just disappear from the face of the earth.

Thank heavens, our defense stonewalls them and forces them to punt back to us. We get a couple of first downs and ran the clock out to win. I wanted to kiss every single defensive player who made that stop (no homo).