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Coverage of the 2014 Body vs. Brain Match

June 20, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

Only twenty eight minutes in, the game remains a 2-2 tie. My body came out strong from the starting whistle, showing natural talent and jeux de balle, dominating the first 15 minutes with little resistance from my brain’s defensive backs. My brain, despite glowing scouting reports and promising qualifying matches, failed to live up to expectations, and arrived to the game seemingly unmotivated. Taking advantage, my legs slipped one past the keeper (I warned my brain not to put the Parietal lobe in the net) around the 10th minute.

Relentless on the attack, my body scored another goal in the 16th minute; an outward curling rocket backed by energy and youth, launched perfectly from just outside the eighteen yard box. It looked, for a moment, given the weak play and lack of enthusiasm (and a .5 GPA one year in high school), that my brain would concede even more. At 2-0, my brain looked outclassed; defeated before the game had even really begun.

But life, like the beautiful game, remains ever unpredictable. My body’s lead striker and goal scorer (my right leg) went down with a career ending injury in only the 17th minute of play. His future had been all but determined – national tournaments and college scholarships – but a broken tibia saw him carried off on an orange gurney by worried medical staff, and gave my brain a fighting chance to turn the game around.

By the 20th minute my brain had regained composure, and stopped the constant pressure on their net. Without my right leg to support it, my left leg stood in the middle of the field awkwardly, unable to do much for the team. My arms and torso were nearly as ineffective, but did manage to defend without giving away too many reckless free kicks. It didn’t take long for my brain to ruin my body’s clean sheet; a sweeping cross from my Cerebellum to the awaiting head of some college applications set the crowd roaring. A silly mistake from my left elbow in the 24th minute left the net wide open for photography and beer, who with a quick give-and-go around a clearly fatigued left ankle, tied the game.

Now it’s a stalemate, neither side taking chances to commit and push players forward to score, concerned about the break-away counter attack, and being vulnerable on defense. My body hasn’t given up, but the loss of their best player clearly demoralized them, and their attacks have been less frequent and less intense over the past 5 minutes. My brain, conversely, has grown bolder and has done well to control the midfield, as the young attacking center mid, writing, has rallied his team with some inspiring dedication and hard work.

It’s unclear how this half will end, but all the momentum has shifted, with my brain boasting more than 65% possession of the ball. I can’t count my body out yet as he’s proven himself strong and resilient in the past, but if the brain keeps up this kind of clever, efficient gameplay, I worry that we’ll soon see the scoreboard much heavier on their side.

Stay tuned for more coverage of this riveting match up.

For match highlights, see:

Review: Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale

May 4, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve played a lot of soccer in my twenty-six years. I’ve run countless miles across green fields, rattled hundreds of goal posts, accumulated untold numbers of yellow cards, and kicked an astronomical number of balls. I have no idea how many goals I’ve scored, how many pairs of cleats I’ve worn until the stitching decayed to nothing, or how many miles my parents drove to deliver me to soccerplexes all across the country.

I got to thinking; how many other statistics have flown by me unnoticed, unrecorded? How many words have I read in my life? How many pennies have I accidentally thrown away? How many times have I said the word “repugnant?” How many people have I made laugh? How many people have I made cry?

More importantly, how many ounces of beer have I consumed!?

When I find a genie in a bottle, one of my wishes will be to have the ability to instantly, accurately recall any statistic from my life. It’d be my first, and probably only wish. I’ve thought about it long and hard, and short of the psychological impact of learning exactly how many horrible things you’ve done in your life and how many other lives you’ve inadvertently destroyed, there are no downsides!

You could finally find out how many miles you’ve traveled and by what mode of transport. How many socks were actually eaten by the drier and not just lost due to your lack of organization. How few times breaking up with that crazy girl was a bad idea. How many times you just barely avoided death in college.

The possibilities are endless. It’s perpetual entertainment. Just think of the graphs and flow charts you could make with this information at your disposal. You’d be a veritable one-man research team!

I’m sure, after a dozen years or so, I would have dried-up all of the generic statistical wells, and be well into asking for numbers on extremely abstract or oddly specific things. How many times did I miss seeing a horse in the wild because I was too busy looking at a mountain? How many times did my car keys strike my belt buckle from the ages for seventeen to thirty-one? Rounded to the nearest tenth, how many milliliters of hand sanitizer has my body absorbed through my hands and how many brains cells has that killed?

How many used car ties would the amount of Flying Dog Tire Bite Golden Ale I’ve consumed fill? Why is Tire Bite so light at tasty? Why does it refresh like a lager, but send my taste buds soaring like ale? Why would you ever bite a tire?

Wait, those last few aren’t statistical questions.

How many brewmasters does it take to make Flying Dog so good at what they do? How many other beers exist that are this good? How many beers are there that I don’t like? How many people are as crazy as me?

9 out of 10.

How many photos have I taken in my life? How many of them are any good?

Next up: Sam Adams Summer Ale!

Review: Harpoon Belgian Pale Ale

April 18, 2012 · by Oliver Gray

In 2006, I crossed the ocean blue to watch France play South Korea in Liepzig, Germany. Play each other in a match of football, that is. Real football, where feet kick balls, none of this American hand+egg nonsense. During that big event that happens sometimes. It’s called the World Cup, I think.

My little adventure had me back on European tides for the first time in a long time. My family is British (my little, squishy baby self appeared unto this world in Manchester, England some 26 years ago) and I’ve spent a decent amount of time gallivanting in the countrysides of those neighboring members of the EU.

My earlier trips back to the motherland were during that tragic age where it wasn’t socially, mentally, or physically appropriate for me to be drinking beer. Thank the maker those days are behind me. I missed out on countless pints of traditional British Ale, slowly pulled Guinness in the pubs of Ireland, and myriad tastes of masterfully made German brews.

But in 2006, I was 21. The magical age when your body magically becomes able to process the magic inside of beer that makes it just so…magical. I was also able to legally buy it and not get thrown out of bars, which was a definite plus.

I drank all sorts of beer, most of which had names I couldn’t pronounce. Most of it was good. Some of it was very bad. But I distinctly remember that it was all of the highest quality, served at the perfect temperature, served in proper, made-of-glass glasses. It was like being in my own personal heaven for a week.

I remember thinking that some of the beer tasted funny. Not bad, not off, just different. The ales were a little more pale, somehow. Fewer hops, more yeast.

Harpoon Belgian Pale Ale is brewed in this tradition. It tastes as though it were brewed with aged hops, offering a much more understated hop flavor, which allows the traditional Belgian yeast to permeate the rest of the beer. The hop flavor is not completely absent; it offers just enough flowery citrus to truly put this in the pale ale category.

It maintains a solid, craggy head for a good few minutes after de-bottling. At 5.8% ABV, it’s a tad on the strong side, giving a bit of alcohol aftertaste. But hey, it’s beer; that’s to be expected.

As I finished my glass, my memory sparked. This is the kind of beer that makes you want to go back to Europe. Sit on a little table outside of a pub, watching the soccer hooligans flood the streets and set fire to anything flammable. It’s orange body reflects all of the adventures you had in the days of your misspent, drunken youth.

It washes back a lot of fond memories.

8 out of 10.

Bubbles from Brussels.

Next up: Brooklyn Brown Ale!

The Right Pair of Shoes

December 27, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I used to live by a simple rule: never own or wear a pair of shoes that you can’t play soccer in.

Sadly, I abandoned that rule right about the time I got my first real job. While my Clarks® and Dr. Martins® are plenty comfortable, they don’t provide much fine motor control. The price we pay for fashion is steep, my friends.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that,due to circumstances beyond my control, I’m no longer much of a soccer player. I don’t have time to keep match fit, don’t live in an area that provides many (safe) opportunities to play, and I’m the walking definition of a “fall risk.” I’m ok with it, really, as I’ve come to enjoy various other activities to the same extent I used to enjoy soccer.

Despite this, I still try to keep my shoes ready, because…you never know.

Like sometimes, you’re on vacation in Arizona, about to go to the Cheesecake Factory, when your fiancée’s friend’s husband texts her to see if you’d like to play some pick-up soccer after dinner.

Happens all the time.

Being a reckless maniac, you agree, despite a lack of gear/clothes/functioning body parts. You also eat way too many fish tacos before hand, full well knowing it’s a terrible idea to sprint around with a belly full of tortillas when you haven’t played a real match in a year and a half.

This time I had some running shoes. I was as prepared as I needed to be, fish tacos be damned.

At 10:00 PM, I walked out onto a “field” that had some mobile spot lights setup on either side. The goals were of the shoddy, duct-taped-together PVC variety. We had an uneven number of players of varying skill levels. The air was a surprisingly cold 37 degrees (I had always thought the Phoenix area never dropped below 85 degrees prior to this). But all of this mattered little as soon as I got the ball at my feet.

I only knew one other player, the aforementioned fiancée’s friend’s husband, and I’d only met him two or three times. As is typical of friendly pick-up soccer, there was playful banter between the opposing teams. Jocks being jocular, and all that. As we were warming up, I didn’t pay much attention to the conversation, as I was transfixed with the ball.

Then someone said something I couldn’t ignore:

“Chicken Marsala? Yea, I love that stuff. But you’ve gotta make sure the chef cooks out all of the wine, so you don’t accidentally swallow any alcohol.”

Odd.

I laughed until I remembered where I was, and who I was with. Someone asked me if I was “LDS”, so I awkwardly laughed and said no. They were concerned with ingesting a tiny bit of cooking wine in a chicken dish and I had just finished making 5 gallons of homemade mead. Suddenly I felt very, very out of place. I was the outsider on this pitch; a foreigner in the capital of a country where he doesn’t speak the native language.

I started listening to more of the conversation. The more I heard, the more awkward I felt. I had stumbled into a long-standing Thursday night tradition whose participants were so culturally different from me I was worried they’d find out my secret and banish me from their sacred land. I stayed silent, just passing the ball around, trying to avoid being questioned too thoroughly.

I spent the first 20 minutes in the back field, passing the ball off quickly, staying away from everyone else, irrationally fearing the worst.

But then a strange thing happened: the game got underway and the verbal conversation stopped.

The language shifted to one I knew, so I began to “talk.” I spoke with chips across the field, through-balls, and curving shots on net. I questioned with give-and-gos, Cruyffs, and rushed attempts to get back and defend. It turned out we had a shared language after all, and I spoke it fluently. The other plays spoke back: cheering great plays, lamenting missed shots.

It was only a matter of minutes before I’d forgotten any insecurity, and was just playing soccer with some friends. I didn’t really know them, but we had a connection, and that was all that was necessary. I respected them, they respected me, and at the end of the night, we were little more than a mob of exhausted 20-somethings.

It had been a long time since I’d played, and all the emotions and excitement were pretty overwhelming. I was thankful that these strangers had let me play with them, despite our obvious cultural or spiritual differences. I had revived a part of me I thought long dead.

I went to sleep that night sore but contented. I slept soundly. My dreams were pleasant.

All because I had the right pair of shoes.

Cruyff? Cruyff!

Old Trafford

June 28, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I don’t play soccer anymore.

10 years ago, if you had asked me who I was, I would have succinctly said, “Oliver Gray: soccer player”.

Soccer was life, was family, was me. A rolling ball was at the forefront of my brain at almost all times; I played what I loved, and loved what I played. Leather cleats danced across freshly mowed pitches, my music a cacophony of whistles, cheers, and trash-talking. Equilibrium was achieved when foot met ball, and ball met net.

For years and years my identity was tied to speed and fouls and goals and tournaments. My social life was dominated by soccer; the girls I dated were players themselves, the guys I hung out with keepers and strikers alike. I wanted nothing more than to be another Giggs or Cantona or Scholes; I talked of playing abroad, dreamt of scoring goals in stadiums I had only seen on TV.

In my mind, it was all I was good at, and it defined my worth. Every goal I scored bolstered my confidence, every crushing loss left me dejected and empty. I could not mentally separate myself from being on or off the field; it was often hard to tell where the boy began and the player ended.

Despite a very disruptive injury, I kept playing, even past when I probably should have. I hung onto the game I loved, to who I was, and all I knew about myself. I’ve spent the past 5 years trying to convince myself that I am still a soccer player, partly in personal lamentation, partly in starry-eyed nostalgia. I tried and tried to be who I once was, and play the game I thought I was supposed to play.

But I don’t play soccer anymore.

If you ask me who I am now I would – not so succinctly – say, “Oliver Gray: writer, IT enthusiast, mandolinist, runner, fiancé, homeowner, gamer, even at times, dancer.”

Soccer isn’t practical anymore. My knees aren’t what they used to be, limping around work is hardly professional, and the circle of friends I used to play with is no longer emotionally or physically proximate. My heart, whether crushed from watching my dream die, or wizened with age, just isn’t in it anymore. I’ve become very aware that I am no longer a soccer player, but still find myself claiming I am in certain situations.

I’m sure, if a ball rolled to my feet, I would still know what to do with it. I could probably still put it into the back of a net with impressive speed and decent accuracy. I’m probably even fit enough to pull off a 90 minute game, should it ever prove necessary. As Toby Keith said, “I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”

But just because I can, doesn’t mean I should, and doesn’t mean I want to. As I’ve grown, I’ve found similar fun in other avenues; some far more cerebral than the young soccer player in me would have ever expected. I enjoy reading and learning and becoming a better person in ways that don’t involve the World’s Game.

My mind is now open to a world outside of a 110 yd X 75 yd patch of grass. My goals are no longer confined between three white, metallic posts. My legs can take me to see the world, instead of just pursue a ball.

Because I don’t play soccer anymore.

10 years from now, if you ask me who I am, I will confidently say, “Oliver Gray: husband, father, author, friend, brother, son, bandmate, manager, tutor, wizard and whatever else I want to be.”

Soccer has served as a framework for growth. Scoring a goal was just training for getting what I want out of life. Score enough goals, you win the game. Play hard enough, work with your team, and you’ll win the championship. If you lead your team by playing fast and hard, they’ll learn from your example and return it in kind.

It taught me to listen to my body, to eat right, and drink inhuman amounts of water. It taught me to respect fitness and never be ashamed of sweat caused by hard work. It hardened me to take any slide-tackle life can throw at me, and “rub some dirt on it” if I do happen to fall. Most importantly it taught me to keep a cool head, as a red card does no one any favors.

I am who I am because I played, not because I was a player. I love the game, and always will, but I can finally accept that I don’t play soccer anymore, and that’s OK.

Options

March 14, 2011 · by Oliver Gray

I’ve talked a lot about my history of injuries, but just realized I never qualified how I got all of those injuries.

I was a reckless and foolhardy youth, but remained surprisingly uninjured from day to day. I skateboarded, climbed all sorts of tall things, trekked through creeks and woodlands, and even at one point, became an amateur lumberjack. These activities generally led to abrasions, cuts, and all sorts of minor wounds, but never any fractures or otherwise hospitalization requiring maladies.

The main cause of my perpetually broken self was soccer. Weekend tournaments with upwards of 10 games over 2 days, 3 hours long practices 2-3 times a week, and all the random pick-up/street soccer my hooligan friends and I could get our feet on. Soccer was my entire being from 7-17 years old, and I played it with the fervor of a Nordic Berserker, circa 1179.

I played for some high caliber teams, including then Maryland State Champions, Potomac Cougars, and then National Champions, FC Delco Dynamo II. I played with some guys who now plays in the MLS, for the US National Team, and even, on occasion, went toe-to-toe with the famous Freddy Adu.

I suffered broken ankles, wrists, torn ligaments and all sorts of probably avoidable injuries because of the uncontrollable bloodlust I channeled every time my foot touched a ball. But despite all these injuries, I always bounced back. I had been relatively injury free for the few months leading up to March 15th, 2002. Playing in the Richmond Jefferson Cup with FC Delco, I fractured my right tibia and fibula, setting into motion a series of events that lead to the end of my childhood dream of playing soccer professionally.

It sounds very melodramatic when condensed into a single paragraph. At the time, my 16 year old self could see no future, and the perceived inequality of cosmic order was almost too much to bear. I attempted to play competitively until 2004 at Loomis Chaffee, when I finally decided that I was not the player I once was, and would leave the scene admirably with whatever honor I had from playing in my prime.

It was about this time that I developed a strange habit. I began to just run, aimlessly, from place to place, akin to Forrest Gump. I was still in very good shape from playing so much soccer, so running seemed a natural way to expend my energy, albeit without a ball. I enjoyed running; I made friends the battery acid feeling so well described by Chuck Palahniuk, reveling in the masochistic pain of a long, good run.

This habit persisted through college. I ran where I could, and often, on nights of excessive frivolity, I would run home from a party, as it seemed the right thing to do at the time. I never approached it as a sport or workout, instead it was like dropping these words into the text box in my browser; a cathartic release of my potential (energy).

I still run. My elbow injury (that for explanatory purposes, happened when I fell 8 feet from a ladder) prevented me from running as much as I would have liked, but Winter is always my least favorite running season anyway. Now that warmer days are upon us, the urge to put one foot in front of the other at a brisk pace is slowly creeping back into my mind.

To this end, I created a timeline of the evolution of my running shoes:

There is a clear shift from soccer oriented shoes to more traditional running shoes, to ultimately, minimalist running shoes. I’ve read tons of arguments over the merits or dangers of running barefoot, and have to admit that both camps sound like extremists, pushed to being defensive for no real reason.

I started running in Vibram FiveFinger Sprints in the Spring of 2010. I bought them originally just because I like the gimmick and generally love to be barefoot, but after running in them a few times, really appreciated the difference that “supportless” shoes make. I have a bad knee from my aforementioned leg injury, and always ran in very padded running shoes, thinking I needed the extra cushioning to make it past the first mile.

Oddly enough, running nearly barefoot was only painful for the first 2 or 3 miles. After I adjusted my running to avoid landing heel first, I found that the pain in my knee actually dissipated and I was faster and lighter on me feet. It is entirely possible this was just a placebo affect that I could have stumbled upon by adjusting my gait in traditional shoes, but I would have never known, had I not tried different shoes. I just ordered my second pair of Virbam’s, this time opting for the KomodoSport cross training version.

I’ve read the science behind wearing a supportive shoes, and have to admit that it is pretty weak of both sides of the argument. The distances used to simulate running stress and astronomical; I run 3 miles 3 times a week and get a great workout. No one needs to run 10-15-30 miles, and I guarantee they would develop injuries no matter what they had on their feet. Running barefoot seems more natural, but admittedly a person has to relearn everything they know about running to do it without injury.

I disagree that running barefoot is dangerous. I also disagree that running barefoot is the best way to run. People are different; it comes down to having options. You can run in normal, padded shoes, if that is what gets you out there, but it is very cool to see that companies are at least entertaining the idea that some people might and can run differently. I for one love the tactile feel of pretty much just my foot hitting the ground; I can picture ancient Greek armies rushing into combat with nothing but flat pieces of leather protecting their soles.