Weekly weigh-in: 208.7Weekly weigh-in: 215.2
Loss: +6.5
Total loss: -76.8
Emotion: Not as happy as I was all last week
On January 1, 1929, the California Golden Bears football squad faced the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Midway through the second quarter, Cal center Roy Riegels picked up a fumble by Tech's Jack “Stumpy” Thomason. Just 30 yards away from the Yellow Jackets’ end zone, Riegels somehow got turned around and ran 65 yards in the wrong direction.
Teammate and quarterback Benny Lom chased Riegels, screaming at him to stop. Lom finally caught up with Riegels at California's 3-yard line and tried to turn him around, but he was immediately hit by a wave of Tech players and tackled back to the 1-yard line. The Bears chose to punt rather than risk a play so close to their own end zone, but Tech blocked the punt and Georgia Tech scored a safety, giving them a 2-0 lead.
Speaking of going the wrong way, I had a mighty big slip-up on the ol’ weight-loss front. It was vacation eating run amok… baked brie and crackers, brew pub pints, ice cream with freshly picked raspberries, homemade huckleberry ice cream, pizza and tempura sushi for Heaven’s sake (and speaking of “sake”, I think there was a couple of large sakés in the mix as well).
I thought long hikes might minimize the damage, and it’s a little bit scary to think that maybe they did. If I had laid around like a lump, I shudder to think what the scale might have said…
Anyway, “Wrong Way” Riegels (as he came to be called) was so distraught by his mix-up that he had to be coaxed into returning to the game for the second half. He turned in a stellar second half performance, however, including blocking a Tech punt.
The example of how the distraught Riegels was persuaded to pick himself up, return to the field and play so hard during the second half is sometimes used by motivational speakers to illustrate overcoming setbacks.
Unfortunately, “Wrong Way” Riegels' team wound up losing in that national championship game.
I plan on losing next week, too.
