1. The Making of an Olympian
The dedicated readers of the sports section - all two of you - are aware that our Assistant Editor, Bennett Ostdiek, is good friends with a tall, tan and brilliant kid by the name of Karsten Lutz. For those of you who are not among our two dedicated readers, here is a refresher.
This kid rows crew for Stanford. In his spare time, he studies mechanical engineering with a focus in sustainability and fraternizes with the brothers of Kappa Sigma. His coach has informed him that, if he gives everything he has and does all he can do, he will row in the Olympics for team USA.
The question for Karsten is, is it worth the effort to row in the Olympics? Our over-achieving readers must be aware of the infamous triangle of sleep, grades and socializing, and the fact that, in college, you can only pick two. Well, make it a quadrangle and put training for the Olympics on the fourth side. That is Lutz's dilemma.
Needless to say, we at On Fire do not give a darn about Karsten's grades, sleeping habits or chill-to-pull ratio (which is, for those who are curious, six to nine). All we are concerned about is with him becoming an Olympian.
So what will motivate him? Pride, glory or honor? Come on. Patriotism, loyalty and duty? You obviously do not know this guy. All the sweet Ralph Lauren swag that the Olympians get for free? Perhaps, but he could always become rich and just buy it off Ebay.
It is the girls. The Olympic Village. That is what will get Karsten out of bed at 5 a.m. The question is, will the promise of two weeks with the most beautiful (we are not necessarily talking face, but you know they all have great bodies) women in the world be enough to overcome four years of drunken nights at the frat house with Stanford girls? As they say, nine out of 10 girls in California are pretty... And the 10th goes to Stanford.
Your audience-pleasing On Fire correspondent is sure that our dedicated readers are dying for an update on Karsten's progress. Bennett received a text message just on Saturday night. It read:
"Sigh. We need to have a chat with Marcus. On a side note, we had a 20 kilometer [editor's note: since we won the war and now use the U.S. customary system, that is between 12 and 13 miles] row this morning followed by weights. Our first fraternity party was the night before. Living both dreams."
Things seem to be going well out in California. We at On Fire will keep our dedicated readers informed on future updates.
2. The Token Black Guy
It has been brought to the attention of your observant On Fire correspondent that the first two sentences of Karsten's text message to Bennett make no sense. Please allow him (or her) to put them in context.
Marcus is the token black friend of Bennett and Karsten (shout-outs also to David Toups, Carl Mueller, Kori Rady and the rest of the boys). Bennett was out on the town having crazy adventures Saturday night (shout-out to Sarah Elliot) when he happened to bump into Marcus, who goes to school in the ghetto somewhere (I think the school was called Georgia Tech, but it may have been Morehouse).
After this encounter, Bennett felt compelled to text Karsten. It read: "I just ran into Marcus... He was walking around with a cane. He was not injured."
Bennett then brought David and Carl into the discussion. Carl noted that Marcus is becoming Wilbon from PTI. David observed that Marcus must have been "keeping his pimp hand strong!"
No definite answer, however, was ever discovered. Bennett asked to touch the cane. His request was refused. Apparently it is related somehow to "stepping," which is a thing black fraternities do.
Speaking of which, Marcus is in a black fraternity with seven other brothers. Your statistics-loving On Fire correspondent is just throwing that out there.
A little more background on Marcus. He is black. He owns at least 23 pairs of Jordans. He lives in the hood (nowhere near your lily-white On Fire correspondent). If you leave a basketball on his porch, it will get stolen.
So that explains the first line of Karsten's text. If it has not already been made sufficiently clear, Marcus is awesome.
