Talkin’ with Tewks: Reborn Like a Phoenix Rising from Arizona

Allow me to put on my big boy serious journalist man-pants for a moment, as I explain my two month absence from this blog.

Gretzpo did not accurately capture the pain and suffering I put my body through playing beach volleyball in the Dominican (through no fault of his own, he’s just not a very good writer).

The first two days of the trip I was a beach volleyball dynamo; diving all over the court, doing whatever it took to ensure my team emerged victorious. It was, without resorting to hyperbole, a virtuoso performance.

My team’s dreams of resort dominance were dashed when I jumped up for one of my patented super blocks, came down and snapped a bone in my right foot.

The smart move (scratch that: pussy move) would have been to stop playing immediately and seek medical attention. That’s what any regular, non Crossfit man would have done. Not Tewks.

I rubbed some dirt on my foot, saw how far my foot is from my heart and continued to play for another two hours. I literally willed my team to victory on, for all intents and purposes, one leg. Earl Woods was wrong: Tiger is only the most mentally tough person he’ll ever meet until he and I are introduced.

(Quick aside: Tiger’s performance in the US Open was awe-inspiring; undoubtedly the best golf tournament I’ve ever seen. What does it say about the rest of the PGA Tour when Tiger can kick their ass with a torn ACL and two stress fractures? From watching NBC’s coverage of the tournament, Tiger’s left knee is now the second most popular player on the tour. Also, I think Johnny Miller is drifting into senility; I actually saw him use his telestrator to circle Tiger’s knee and say, verbatim, “That’s Tiger’s left knee right there.” Thanks Johnny, what would we do without you?)

After spending three days in a hard cast doing nothing more than drinking pina coladas and rubbing sunscreen on my sinewy muscles, Gretzpo and I were challenged to a game of beach volleyball by two girls we met on the trip.

Sometimes it’s more important to be a man than be smart; keeping this is mind, I heroically took my cast off, swallowed a handful of Dominican horse tranquilizers to dull the pain and proceeded to wipe those girls off the court with my unstoppable Blitzkrieg serve attack.

Upon returning to Canada, the pain in my foot was so excruciating that I slid into a downward spiral of Percocets washed down with Canadian Club. I couldn’t bring myself to put underwear on in the morning let alone write blog articles.

After a month of hard living that would make Amy Winehouse blush, I received word that I was nominated as one of Canada’s 12 Hottest Bachelors. This was the wakeup call I needed; it would be a disservice to the free world to continue on my path of destruction and rob society of the chance to gaze at my perfectly symmetrical facial features and chiseled body.

I reconfirmed my commitment to Crossfit and began to embark on a journey to break into television as a Z-list Canadian celebrity. Currently, I am doing the colour commentary for the Intercounty Baseball League on a community television station. How did I get such a great opportunity? I did my best Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman impersonation. Take from that what you will.

Also, I will be taking over the lion’s share of the writing on Gretzpo’s Sports Blog from this point forward. Gretzpo says he’s too busy from his full time job to commit to writing more than 300 words every couple of months. Luckily, I don’t have that problem, so I will be hammering out smaller columns weekly on topics that are near and dear to my heart: sports and popular culture.

Tewks is a frequent contributor to Gretzpo’s Sports Blog