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Sitting down a spell
to catch a buzz

YOU know summer is almost upon us when ESPN is showing a spelling bee.

You really know summer is almost upon us when I'm writing about ESPN showing a spelling bee.

Is this sports? It doesn't matter. I was just happy to turn on ESPN without seeing some vapid game show or sportswriter scream fest. I was riveted.

Spelling bee aficionados will tell you this is great competitive drama. This was not why I was watching. To me, every attempt on every word seemed to be a pure, wild guess. People just don't use these words. You can't tell me these kids know them.

If they knew these words they wouldn't take 15 minutes from the time they first heard them to the time the last letter spilled out of their mouths.

That's what I loved about this sport -- the stalling. The bluffing. No, that's the real competition here. It's an art form.

You have to relish the bluster in the same way you shake your head admiringly at Coach K having the gall to insist he's not a basketball coach but "a leader who happens to coach basketball."

Exactly.

These kids could be con artists straight out of a Chris Tucker movie. Every one of them reacted as if he or she had been asked if he'd finished his homework:

"My homework."

"Yes, your homework."

"You want to know about my homework."

"Your homework."

"My homework?"

"Yes, your homework. Did you do it?"

"What were we talking about again?"

It's brilliant. That's what the spelling bee is, a three-day exercise in holding your interrogators at bay long enough for your brain to come up with a way out of this.

You get exchanges like this:

Official: "It's a Greek word that blah, blah, blah."

Kid: "What is its language of origin?"

Official: "Greek!"

Or a contestant stretching the request for the proper pronunciation into a long, drawn-out siege:

Kid: "Sphygmomanometer?"

Official: "Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "Sphygmomanometer?"

Official: "Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "Do I have it right? Sphygmomanometer."

Official: "Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "Can you use it in a sentence?"

Official: "If you don't hurry up and spell I'm going to shove this pencil right up your Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "Is it French?"

Official: "No."

Kid: "Is it bigger than a hat box?"

Official: (Banging head on table.)

(You know, one of the best parts of the telecast is that you can't see the official, only hear his voice. You have to imagine the patience draining away.)

Kid: "Can you give me the correct pronunciation again?"

Official: "Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "Sphygmomanometer."

Official: "Sphygmomanometer."

Kid: "And it's spelled ..."

Official: "S-P-H -- Hey!"

I'm telling you, these kids are geniuses. No wonder they've all got straight A's.

Is this a sport? Maybe not, but it's bigger than that. If I were Donald Trump I would watch this show and hire half the field.

These kids are our country's hope. I see greatness. Specifically in the fields of public relations (just try to pin them down on a straight answer on anything), sketch comedy (there were several potential future Lovitzes here) and international diplomacy.

I'm telling you, they are not spellers as much as they are leaders who happen to have entered the bee.