What Would You Do?
When I was a child visiting Provincetown for summer vacation, I used to watch local kids jump from MacMillan Wharf at low tide and try to induce passers-by to throw down money that they would either catch or dive for if they missed. This was not long after the release of Jaws (which was filmed just down the Cape in Martha's Vineyard), and I was suffering from a deep hysterical fear of sharks. The story goes that one day, one of the more adventurous youths spotted a gap between the fishing boats tied down at the end of the wharf, and decided to make a blind dive into the deep water. As he left the pier, he looked down and saw a quite large great white shark below him. Out of some masochistic fascination, I have often put myself in that position and wondered what I would do.
In this case, the young man hit the water and quickly swam the quarter of a mile out to the breakwater. The shark was dead--it had been caught out in the Bay and brought back and secured to the pier. The Coast Guard had to go retrieve this poor kid from the breakwater.
Yesterday, watching Real Madrid beat Olimpia in the World Club Cup, I saw Ricardo Tavarelli face the goalkeeper's version of that nightmare. Zinedine Zidane had gotten free of Olimpia's defense, and he and Ronaldo both stood over the ball just ouside of the six-yard box trying to decide who would take the shot. That indecision ended up costing them the opportunity. Nonetheless, I can't imagine what Tavarelli must have felt facing the two best football players in the world over the last decade at the same time.
8:25:56 AM 
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