How much you wanna bet I could throw a football over those mountains?

This is slightly embarassing. About a week ago I had an "Uncle Rico" moment. I caught myself being deluded by an overwhelming desire to go back in time and change the course of history.

As Rico would surely have swung the outcome of the state football chamionship in his team's favor had his coach been wise enough to use his talent, the state debate championship would have been mine for the taking had I not been so overzealous in our last round. It was an exciting time to be in octo-finals of TFA state (that's the sweet sixteen of texas high school debate). My partner and I were true underdogs. Everyone else in the competition spent their summers at colleges around the country in debate camps while we stayed home. They paid thousands of dollars to develop strategies with elite coaches and read everything they could to be prepared for it all. I like to think my partner and I achieved as much as we did with luck, elbow grease and a little bit of liger magic.

We prepared for the state tournament better than anyone, our strategies were polished "D-Quon's Dance Groove" tapes. We were ready. And then in that fatal round we choked. We were farther than anyone expected us to be, and we were in a position to win the round pretty easily. Our position became weak when we threw in too many arguments. We couldn't defend everything and we eventually lost.

We promised the judges that all of their wildest dreams would come true and we tried to throw a football over the mountains. Unfortunately, the mountains rejected our best attempt. I was day dreaming about going back in time and doing things right... if only we hadn't read this argument, if only we'd been a little faster here we'd have taken state. No doubt in my mind. Man you better believe things would have been different. I'd have gone to an ivy league school, ran for mayor or comptroller... and then I decided to just be happy that I'm not living in a van making videos of myself giving debate speeches.