COLUMN: The world of turtle racing

The field lays before them, chalked and ready to go.

The crowd grows by the minute and subsequently raises the stress level as much as it does the noise.

One by one, the “athletes” take to the field of play. They do not prance about the arena, flexing “look at me, look at me” choreography. No one makes a point of “mugging” for the camera.

But they are ready to go. Chomping at the bit as it were. They came to play, big money and TV cameras be damned.

You will not hear any words that make you place your hands across your child’s ears lest they be exposed to “adult” linguistics. The focus, plain and simple, is the task at hand as they take their starting places on the newly chalked “ball park”. Or as it was in this case, the ball parking lot.

Nary a syllable will be spent on contracts, money or off season commercial gigs or the discussion thereof.

Nope.

These guys, and no doubt girls, are there for one reason: get to the other side of the chalked lines before anyone else does and crawl if you must to achieve your goal.

Some are battle hardened veterans, eager to kick on the afterburners and shatter the land speed record.

Ain't going to happen, but they will try without whining or complaining.

And the fans will love them for it.

Many a spectator will leave the arena with voice altering harshness of voice, brought on by high decibel cheering for their heroes on the playing surface. For their part, the combatants will not come out of their shell, they will stay within themselves, laser focused on winning.

When there is a pile-up of bodies as is so often the case in this high energy sport, the athletes will slowly but surely unravel from the pile. They will do so without intentionally gouging out the eyes of their opponents and without sneaky punches to the genitalia.

No mean-spirited words will spew from their mouths, hidden for the most part behind the hard covering of their armor.

And they will be doing all this for bugs and lettuce.

A bowl of water and they are content, no complaints, no threats to leave the team and head for greener pastures.

If only pro sports general managers and player personnel officials had it so good.

This, dear friends, is the world of turtle racing.

A sport taken very seriously by some, viewed in amazement by others and dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders by others.

At the end of the game, they will slowly crawl back to their makeshift water bowls and tanks. They will appreciate a good meal of flies and call it a day. They will retract back into their shelled world and wait to be pulled from their watery sanctuary by their handlers.

The fans will disperse, most of them with a nervous laugh indicative of someone who just watched something humorous, “entertaining” and curious at the same time.

Prizes will be awarded to the winners.

This will all happen without a single word uttered by the players. There will be no blaming the loss on illegal plays or poorly defined rules.

Tomorrow will bring another day on the Turtle circuit.

They played Plains Days this past weekend, albeit on a bank parking lot. It was a crowd pleasing success. Now they will humbly journey to their next stop, and dream of cracking the one mile per hour barrier.

Play on oh shelled ones, play on!