So, I thought I would share something about him that I just found out this year... But, first I will preface it with something I have known FOREVER. My dad love sports. I am not just talking manly sports, I am talking anything that appears on ESPN 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6... you catch my drift?!? Billiards, sure... that's a sport. Bowling... yep! The Daytona 500, what's not to love about watching ALL 500 laps, even if it takes all day. Horse races are totally a sport. World's strongest man, what's un-sporty about moving an elephant with one hand? Absolutely nothing, in fact... and here's the kicker Ping Pong! Literally the man can watch ping pong and be totally enthralled. How people can break a sweat in ping pong is so totally beyond me. But, they can, and they do! Unfortunately, I have seen it in the very own living room of my youth on ESPN 4,328. And, Phil... he has always watched. But, I never knew that he could play!
I vaguely remember him brutally beating me on our rickety old ping pong table... but, I also remember being pretty much non-existent at the other end of the table... ping pong (along with the recorder, ballet, drill team, tennis... the list is LONG) was never really my thing.
However, as it turns out... my dad is a wicked table tennis player! I found this out from a recently returned missionary who just got back from the Fort Worth Mission. Turns out he served in my parents ward, turns out my dad is the Ward Mission Leader, turns out my dad slaughtered said-RM in ping pong. When I heard the story (from the pulpit, mind you... I still don't get how ping pong made it's way into a testimony... but that's another story... for another day), I instantly called my mom and asked her if my uncle, the other Brinkerhoff in the ward, played ping pong (he's wildly competitive). She said 'no, but your dad is REALLY good at it'.
Who knew!?!
Here's to you dad... you ridiculously good Ping Pong player. Happy birthday... sleep it off... you deserve it!
4 comments:
don't mock the world's strongest man. that's a serious sporting event and one of any true sports fan's favorites. just because it's incredibly dangerous and those guys are so full of supplements they probably die painful deaths shortly after the competition doesn't mean we shouldn't love it. and watch in awe as a man heaves beer kegs, rocks, rolls cars, tires, and whatever other random objects seem heavy and unwieldy.
Yea, exactly!
If that's a sport, so is walking fast paced around the mall... which makes me EXORBITANTLY athletic.
wait? are you still not believing world's strongest man is a sport? have you ever tried to pull a 747 with a rope? or lift boulders onto pedestals? yeah, i thought not. totally a sport.
Ok. Technically, by definition because it is competitive in nature, requires physical prowess and requires a slight degree of athleticism, it can be called a sport.
But, by definition, we can also call power shopping carrying a dozen or so shopping bags, walking/running with a fast pace (in heels) trying to hit all the sales before the mall closes, while balancing a diet coke in one hand and a cell phone in the other could also be considered a sport!
But now, we are making sport of sports (the good ones, anyway).
I'll give you world's strongest man competition = carnival game. But, that's all the leeway you get from me!
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