Grand Mom Rose says if it tastes good, then eat it

I can remember years ago a triathlon organizer reminding me to use the full title of the race when writing about it, but I refused to write “Coors Lite” in the title of an event. It gets worse: once a beer-sponsored race had part of the proceeds going to MADD, which on the surface is funny until you bump up against reality and when you do that beer and driving or beer and fitness is mostly not funny. We sports fans have become immune to the unabashed labeling of bowl games, but I will never say “Tostitos BCS National Championship” because it sounds beyond stupid; it sounds lame. And then there’s “Allstate” woven into the net that catches the football after it splits the uprights. And advertisers purchase “moments of the game” and I’m not trying to hear that, either. This greedy grabbing of advertising revenue sits in place alongside the strictest rules governing the actual athletes who play the game but can’t market their names or sell plaques and trophies won. Even athletes who don’t go to class understand hypocrisy; if they don’t, spell checker will spell it out for them.

Pound foolish - Penny wise and pound foolish is an expression we’ve all heard but never reflect, “What the heck does it mean?” I’m thinking real pounds and weight allowances for housebound high school wrestlers. Some snowy years a pound or two weight allowance has been granted.

Show me a fit teenage boy with muscles on a diet and I go penny wise and back off all food jokes because I don’t want to be balled up in a reverse cradle in front of the Wawa’s make-your-own-hoagie digital deli.

That would be so kilogram foolish.

Talking junk - In teaching and coaching, most rookies are not prepared for stuff that sometimes blows up in front of them. Teacher textbooks and coaching manuals are so deadly boring the digital 4G books won’t download them just to protect the consumer from himself.

There are just unanticipated nonscripted moments run back at you, and how you handle them determines your effectiveness as a leader. I won’t mention the name but once a track team I coached was on the way to wining a relay invitational.

The talented quarter-mile leg in the sprint medley was leading the field when suddenly it looked like he was shot, a sure sign of a muscle pull. But he was weirdly trying to power to the exchange zone. We lost the lead, the race and the team trophy. When I asked him what happened he said, ”My jock broke and my junk kept falling out!”

A nearby reporter acting cool like he was track guy came up to me and asked “Coach, what happened to your third leg?” “My third leg?” I queried. “Nothing happened to my third leg.”

The bus rolled out in shocked disappointment but all the athletes were laughing. Trophies and plaques get lost but good stories endure forever.

Dieting dietitian - Once upon a time - say it didn’t happen but you would be wrong - an unhealthy and gaunt high school girl was referred to an employed and certified dietitian to receive some nutritional advice.

The dietitian was all the way anorexic and I warned the girl not to step into any office where she outweighed her therapist.

I have a South Philadelphia friend who earned his Ivy League Ph.D. in nutritional sciences at Penn long before spellchecker found the second “t” in the word. Joe told me that some of the best bodies in sports had a steady diet of Mountain Dew and potato chips and that a hoagie a day would provide all the nutrients and vitamins you needed to live a long life while maintaining a warrior disposition. Joe is an oppositional personality, a Type A minus, and his food intake arguments for increased strength over lean muscle mass are all counterintuitive. Grand Mom Rose, the pearl and paragon of wisdom in my family, said, ”If it tastes good, eat it; when you get tired, stop.”

Snippets - This is the best weekend in pro football, the Saturday and Sunday double headers to determine who plays in the conference championship games.

The Jets are 9-point dogs at New England while the Seahawks are 10-point underdogs in Chicago. I’ll take Seahawks in upset, but don’t think Mark Sanchez can lollipop pass the Jets over the Patriots. I’m straight up picking the Ravens to beat the Steelers. The Las Vegas Line gives 3 to Baltimore. The Packers I like, for a bunch of reasons, so I’m picking them to beat the Falcons.