Tennessee – 2011 Callahan award runner-up Nicky Spiva and his extended family gathered at a local high-end restaurant for a dinner celebrating his grandmothers’ 86th birthday this past weekend. The event featured relatives from around the state, including Uncle Glen Spiva. The gathering was going well for Nicky until a brief lull after salads had been finished left small talk necessary to fill the gap until the main courses would arrive. Spiva had been hoping to avoid the topic of his involvement with ultimate frisbee, but to his disdain it quickly became a focal point of the conversation.
Uncle Glen chimed from across the table, “Hey Nickster, what is this I hear about you making the frisbee football college championships or something?”
At which point several other aunts and uncles expressed interest before Spiva’s father Tom interjected, “Ultimate frisbee. It’s actually called ultimate frisbee. Go ahead tell em Nick.” Being put on the spot, Spiva half-heartedly explained that his college team had made the USAU national championship tournament in Boulder earlier in the spring, and had a great time playing despite not meeting the team’s expectations to win the tournament. Spiva had hoped this would be enough information to cool the interest of most his relatives, but his father Tom again interjected that
“Nick actually finished second in the Callahan award this year”. Uncle Glen took the bait and needed to know what that was all about. Spiva did his best to explain that the Callahan Award was similar to the Heisman Trophy in football, and he had finished second in the country in voting by other frisbee players.
Uncle Glen nodded his head while proclaiming “very neat”, clearly still confused as to what ultimate frisbee meant. A brief moment of silence followed, in which Spiva’s mind raced to come up with something else to talk about before the news of his 30 day cross country tour with NexGen ultimate came to light.
Nicky could see his father was ready to bring up the subject, and at the last moment managed to deflect the spotlight onto his younger cousin Alyssa, joking “I can’t believe Alyssa is going to be in college next year, I feel like I’m getting old!” To his relief, chatty Aunt Susan jumped on the opening to talk about Alyssa’s orientation and how she had already picked out her classes. Shortly thereafter the main course arrived, and the rest of the dinner went without another mention of ultimate frisbee.
After dessert was finished Grandma Spiva was quoted as saying she had “an absolutely lovely time.” She also added “I can’t believe how big Nicky has gotten.”
-AP Report, Randy Graves
(Disclaimer: This article for humor purposes only. Nicky Spiva was not consulted. All other characters are fictitious, any likeness to real people is purely coincidental.)
Follow Randy on twitter @randy_graves
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