Donkeyball Post Game Assessment

We was robbed! You thought the officiating was poor to criminal in the Super Bowl? That was nothing on the Donkeyball tournament on Friday. The community team took the court against the school administrators, and it was quickly clear that the cards were stacked against us. Jeff Spang, of the YMCA Phantom Lake camp, had bravely volunteered to ride the sweetly named Honeypot, a misnomer if ever there was one.

Honeypot (shown above, with me trying to stop him so I can attempt to ride him for 5-10 seconds until he bucks or ducks me off) is one ornery, unsweet little equine. So, right from the get go one of our four players was hamstrung trying to get on the donkey, much less actually ride and direct it. Two of our other donkeys steadfastly refused to move. Yet despite playing roughly 1 on 3 (the adminstrators did have one donkey that did not move as well), we were ahead at half-time and tied 12-12 with only seconds left in regulation.

As a side note, 12-12 is huge scorefest in donkey ball. The first game, 7th grade teachers vs. 8th grade teachers, ended 8-6.

But I digress. After a controversial ruling on an adminstration technical foul, the game ended in a tie, with the adminstrators winning in "overtime". OT consisted of an arm wrestling match and a Rock, Paper, Scissors throw down, both of which the community lost. All of which should've been irrelevant, since we had the game cinched in regulation-- despite our donkey disadvantage!-- until the ref weighed in and virtually handed the game to the admin team. But I'm not bitter.

Seriously, it was fun, the crowd was great, and the school raised a lot of money for their technology drive. As for your intrepid correspondent and erstwhile donkey rider-- I was not in much, as the community team had 12 people to rotate into four slots. But I did get to know Honeypot up close and personal. He actually seems like a nice enough donkey-- he just doesn't like large people riding on him.

Which is understandable. So, I spent a good part of my time sliding alongside him as he pulled me wherever he happened to want to go. I did manage to mount up a few times. I think I even lasted longer than seven seconds once-- which is pretty good! Oh wait, that's in bull riding.

Well, either way, it was fun and I applaud my team, the opponents, everyone who came to watch the show, and the donkeys themselves-- they were very patient.

Here's a few more pics from the show (sorry they are a little dark-- the lighting in the gym wasn't so good for pictures):