Jeff Piercy
CFL.ca
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention. So when roughly 20 Ticats were crammed into our modest player’s lounge Monday morning, eating Eggo waffles and watching Olympic synchronized diving, and needing a word to describe the divers’ ability to move in unison, “synchronosity” is what was invented.
Now if the fact that a word for this already exists (synchronization) isn’t evidence enough that there are more cerebral groups out there, being in the room in person would certainly lend you that impression.
Basically it was 20 guys roaring after every dive, seemingly amazed that these world class athletes can do front flips into a pool. Add the fact that multiple flips and twists are executed in perfect “synchronosity” with their partner, and that they then enter the pool with virtually no splash, and you are left with pure mayhem.
You often hear of “arm-chair quarterbacks” who always seem to have opinions after a play has been run. After about the third round of divers, we turned from 20 bewildered spectators into 20 opinionated judges.
“He didn’t jump as high as his partner!”
“Too much splash because he wasn’t perfectly vertical when he entered the water!”
“His knees are too far apart in his tuck!”
…and of course “Poor synchronosity!”
I follow every quote with an exclamation point because this isn’t a gentlemanly debate. This is the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange and if you don’t get in the debate early, you get left in the dust.
By the end of the competition you would have thought we had been judging diving all our lives. What had started innocently enough as a few guys eating breakfast and watching the Olympics, turned into half the team standing on top of one another bantering back and forth stopping only to watch the next dive.
With over two weeks of Olympic competition left in the 29th Olympiad, it is certain that this breakfast time behaviour can be expected on a daily basis. Tuesday’s ruckus will certainly be focused on men’s gymnastics and Wednesday’s on Michael Phelps.
Now is as good a time as any to mention that this kind of locker room banter is nothing new. It went on all throughout training camp as half the team’s L.A. Lakers took on the other half of the team’s Boston Celtics. Soon it will move on to track & field and then on to NCAA football and basketball.
No Monday’s fracas was nothing new, it was just the first time we invented a word.
Jeff Piercy is in his fourth CFL season. He was a second round pick in the 2005 Canadian Draft.
