re: What’s your biggest choke moment in sports/life?

#1 Sophomore in high school… 1997-1998 season.

First game of the year. Started.

Ended up fouling out … more fouls than points (5 to 0), to go along with a tech.

#2 Junior year in High school…. 6-7 seconds left, down 1. Missed FT by other team, got rebound, drove down, airballed a 15 foot baseline J. Complained I got fouled. Definitely didn’t. Only time ever losing to Tara High school (I think..)

Got fouled on a 3 pt shot at the buzzer against a team that we never came close to beating all 4 years in high school except this game. I was a guard and a pretty good shooter. I air balled the first one, bricked the second one, and the last one didn’t matter because the game was lost. The next day I didn’t go to school. I don’t remember the reason. My parents just sort of let me skip when I wanted to. When I didn’t show up, my coach told my brother, “well, yeah, I wouldn’t have come either if I’d done that last night.” LOL

quote:

---

Had a number of memorable hero moments, but it seems I can remember every interception, turnover, error or strikeout however rare those were.

---

Funny how that works huh?

Texas high school football playoffs… 1995, my junior year.

I played tight end and always went out with our QB in pregame and we tossed the football back and forth. I sometimes wore receivers gloves and sometimes didn’t. Depending on humidity and hot/cold, sometimes they didn’t feel right. This game I wore them.

Made several good catches in first half. About 50 seconds to play in the first half, coach calls a play where the qb fakes fullback dive hits me with a pass going straight down the field. I’m wide open. No one in front of me.

What do I do? Stick out my left hand and try and catch a perfectly thrown ball with one hand. Ball hits my hand. I juggle it back to my body and then it hits the ground. We punt and go to halftime down six.

Keep in mind, my dad was booster club president, my parents and many of the coaching staff hung out away from football.

Make it all the way through halftime and I thought nothing would be said about my drop… I was wrong…

Coach comes streaking across the lockerroom and kicks my helmet across the floor and says… JoseVargas… for all I care you can take those receivers gloves and stick them up your arse!

I played both ways and ended up having a great game and we won, but I still flashback to that drop.

WTF was I thinking? One handed catch for no reason.

Ive constantly been choking my entire life at everything.

Still havent found something im good at.

Not really a 'choke' but I was on the Varsity basketball team in 10th grade which at my school wasn't easy to do. I rarely played except in mop up duty so I usually would go out on Friday nights and get shite faced with my friends with no care in the world. Well, one Friday night in the middle of the season I drank a whole liter of vodka and had an awful hangover the next day no big deal as I wasn't going to play in the game so could just sit on the bench and drink water to help it go away. Nope. The starter in front of me got in an argument with his parents that morning and punched his kitchen cabinet and hurt his hand real bad so he was going to be out for the game. I get to gym about 4PM for our 7PM game as usual and my coach says "Ron, Matt has a swollen hand you are starting tonight" I still felt like death from the night before. Lets just say it didn't go very well and I played absolutely awful

quote:

---

mile high popup 

---

Those were the fricking worst. Especially at night.

Sun Belt Conference championship game. Came in the game in the 5th up a run with bases loaded. Get to a 1-2 count to their 3 hole hitter. My absolute best pitch was my changeup, hands down, the sequence though called for a breaker which was my worst pitch. Dude stayed back on it long enough to shoot it over second baseman’s head to score two runs. I think about it everyday. In baseball as in life Always go with your best stuff

Sports - On kickoff coverage, I thought I was going to level the returner. I left my feet, dove, watched him side step and I ate the ground. He scored a TD on that play.

Life - Had a girl in college (my freshman year) throw herself at me all night, asked me to walk her to her dorm, asked me hang around while she got in pajamas, then left thinking she was ready to go to bed. Anyway, realized the next day and that has periodically has haunted me my whole life.

quote:

---

Think I was 13 or 14 in rec baseball.

---

I was 12 in the 12/13 year old league and our team was set to play in the championship game. Our stud starting catcher could not play due to a family vacation. I was deemed to be the only replacement and the other team stole second every single time someone got on base. It was fairly humiliating, but in the end, we won. Yay.