Jock Juxtapositions

Kickball...
Each teacher in our school has an assigned "duty."  Some stand in the cafeteria during a lunch shift.  Some monitor the parking lots before or after school.  I drew a short straw this year, so I'm on "coverage duty."  When a teacher is out for less than a full day, another teacher is sent to cover for him or her.

Usually I'm sent to cover in the foreign language department or for another English teacher.  I once had to cover for the Dance teacher, but she left her students wonderful busy work.  Then last week, I was notified that I would be covering for a gym teacher.  This teacher left me the following instructions: "After the girls change, take them out to the field hockey field.  Lead them in stretching and running, then start a game of kickball."  We have a field hockey field?  We used a random field behind the school instead.  What kind of stretching and running warms you up for kickball?  We skipped that part.  That left us 27 painful minutes of kickball.  The only contribution I made was when a girl yelled, "Our team is doing good!" and I replied "Your team is doing well!"

Football...
I spent much of yesterday at our first Speech competition of the year.  During one intense round of Exposition speaking, a very nervous sophomore was trying to convince us that "David Miliband will not, in fact, make the Labour Party less electable."  Meanwhile, the equally intense Baltimore City College High School football team was going through its pre-game grunting and hollering just below our classroom.  I don't remember much after, "David Miliband will not, in fact, make the Labour Party less electable."