Thread seemed to be running a little low on AWESOME!!!
Ah, but that's when Gardner was a twelve, now he's a NINETY-EIGHT! The Jersey of Legends.
He was walking along the shore of Lake Michigan one September morn, when out of the mist, the Lady of the Lake appeared and pointed to a jersey stuck between two stones, "If you can pull the jersey from the stones without tearing it, you will be the King of Ann Arbor and lead your team to a great victory over the Leprechaun People."
He reached out and tugged on the sleeve and the rocks yielded, the jersey came free and un-torn, though it did have a bit of the scent of mildew about it, and he did lead his team past the feared Leprechaun People.
Unfortunately he was so excited he didn't hear the rest of what the Lady of the Lake had to say. "But you must bring that Jersey of Legends back to the rocks and its rightful owner, or it will lose its power and you will become somewhere between mediocre and awful and you will be defenseless against the People of the Corn, The People of Pedodelphia, the other People of the Corn and finally the People of the Tree, who will smite you with their silver helmets and leave you covered in scarlet and playing in a mid-week December bowl game named for a fast food business."
And so it came to pass, and as the final moment of the game was ticked off the great clock and the scoreboard did show, "Mich 7 - Ohio 53" and the hand of King Urban reached out to him and stated unto him, "Taking football strategy from a watery tart is no basis for a consistent offense."
And his teammates did ask him who it was that he had just spoken with, and Devin did reply, "King Urban."
And his teammates, said, "King Urban? Did we elect him in our huddles?"
"No," replied young Devin, "but you can see he IS King."
"How is it that we may see this man you call King and know, in fact, that he is indeed who you proclaim him to be."
Young Devin lifted his sad eyes and glanced about the locker room, seeing his teammates, covered in filth, dirt and the detritus of defeat, their once proud blue jerseys hanging in taters about their bruised and scarred bodies, their heads bowed with the weight of the 53 points they had yielded and the shame they would bear until they left the Ann Arbor, and he opened his arms to them and sayeth, "Well, for one thing, he isn't all covered in shit."
Apologies to Monty Python
