All teams need benchwarmers

By Alex Conover
Sports Editor

My roommate recently passed along to me a blog written by Ohio State basketball backup Mark Titus. Titus is a former student manager who eventually earned a spot on the team (playing time not included). He journals about his quest to attain the “trillion” score sheet in a game: one minute played with nothing but zeros for all the other statistics.

Reading Titus’ blog made me think of my own long and illustrious career as a basketball reserve with no hope. I was okay in junior high, but I soon realized in high school that my destiny was to ride the pine. There are two types of benchwarmers in sports: the ones that get their hopes up only to have reality slap them in the face; and the ones that accept their role. I made sure I was the latter.

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High school football was mostly a disaster for me, as the coach’s son played over me at both of my positions (how cliché is that?). I did get mild enjoyment from trying to look cool in warm-ups, but near the end of the game I usually ended up looking at my friends in the stands and wishing I was up there. Every once in a while a girl would ask to wear my jersey to the game, but she quickly gave it back the next week once she realized I never played. My shining moment was an interception my junior year that got tipped in the air and could have been caught by just about anyone.

Something that everyone forgets, however, is the impact of benchwarmers on a team. The scrubs on our football team were always clapping hard, as they were under some delusion that a good attitude equaled playing time. If a starter broke a piece of equipment, my fellow reserves and I were forced into giving up our own gear as a replacement (this was rather demeaning, being the only one on the sideline without a helmet). We were cheerleaders, mechanics and most of all a pretty inadequate and unprepared option if anyone important ever got injured.

The latest National Football League season saw a few bench players rise up and represent: Matt Cassel led his Patriots to 11-5 in his first season as a starter since high school. Tampa Bay receiver Antonio Bryant caught over 1,200 yards and seven touchdowns after not being signed in 2007. Even professional sports have benchwarmers, something a lot of common fans forget. Every Peyton Manning has a Jim Sorgi, that trusty clipboard-carrier with the baseball cap on.

Every team needs benchwarmers like Mark Titus and me; without us, squads would fall apart at the seams. When you attend your next sporting event, remember the players at the end of the bench with their warm-ups still on. It is a role that some reject but others embrace.