Friday Fun – Sports Edition


March 31st, 2017 By Catherine Hanna

March Madness is upon us and our thoughts have turned to sports. I’m dead last in our office pool so I don’t care that much, other than to say that I like bulldogs better than gamecocks and ducks better than whatever Tar Heels are, so count me in for a Gonzaga/Oregon final.  I’m much more interested in that other Final Four. Fear the Tree!

I recently surveyed my co-workers about their favorite sports. I was not surprised to learn that we are a soccer-loving firm. (Todd Key weighs in here to say that the sport we’re discussing is “real football, not American Gridiron Hand-Egg” and that Manchester United is the greatest of all time.)

Also ”real football” fans? Jeff Glass, whose son distinguished himself in his youth soccer career by telling jokes, running around the field with his shirt up over his face, and scoring in the wrong goal. (I think I know how that wrong goal happened.) David Plaut was a dedicated soccer player, from high school to college to semi-pro to open men’s leagues in Austin. David’s style of play was intense. He once got a red card five minutes into a game that his father (dear departed friend of the firm Jonathan Plaut) had driven three hours to see. You will now find David passionately pedaling his bicycle all around Austin.

Sarah Scott played soccer and softball. She fondly recalls hitting a homerun after a coach had told her that girls weren’t strong enough to hit home runs. She joins softball phenom Laura Tubbs. I’m going to let Laura tell her own story:

I played softball from the time I was 10 until I graduated from high school.  I didn’t start my softball career as a pitcher, but I picked it up when I was 15.  I taught myself to pitch by fastening a bucket to the fence and then taking a bucket of softballs out to the yard every day and pitched 100 balls into that bucket every afternoon. Our golden retriever Alex was my fielder, but he was less a retriever and more of a thief.  He would field the balls and then run around with them, which required me stop pitching and chase him around.  I eventually decided that his company was not quite worth the extra work and time, so I had to put him up when I practiced.  I became pretty accurate and my last year to play I threw a no hitter.

Among the rest of us, Eric Peabody excelled at swimming and now likes to watch tennis and nap on the couch when golf is on. Sheila Tan plays volleyball and loves watching figure skating. She’s looking forward to the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang in 2018.

I have always enjoyed playing tennis though I certainly don’t play very well and have more recently taken up weightlifting. Something about lifting heavier and heavier things makes me happy.

Many have written more eloquently than I could about how life mirrors sport and how the values we learn on the field (or in the pool, on the court, on the diamond, or in the weight room) help us achieve our goals in life. All I can say is that the dedicated athletes of Hanna & Plaut are also zealous advocates in the courtroom and I am proud to play on their team.