I’ll be honest here. Finding interesting, relevant University of Kentucky athletic news has been a struggle this summer. I’m tired of reading lists of top coaches, underrated players, best rivalries, most intriguing non-conference games, and anything else the bloggers can come up with. I’m not quite ready to put on my football party pants (holding on to summer as long as I can, guys). I’m a little sick of recruiting news- will someone just tell me when we sign someone? It’s not enough to focus on, nothing concrete to write a lengthy post about. So instead, I’ve been daydreaming. I invite you to indulge with me for a few minutes and briefly forego trying to make news out of nothing. Seriously. There’s nothing happening right now.

One of my recurring hypothetical situation daydreams (yeah, I have those. Doesn’t everyone?) is what athletic feat would I most like to be able to accomplish, if only I wasn’t a girl of only 5’2″, barely strong enough to defend myself against the five year old I nanny (he’s ruthless, okay? I have bruises), and mildly afraid of anything that could conceivably give me a concussion. Without further ado, I’d like to present my finalists.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I had a short and wildly unsuccessful stint on the country club dive team. My failure as a child diver has pretty much ensured that for the rest of my life, the fanciest dive I can do off the bouncy board is a back dive. Maybe. If I’m up for it. So if a magical sports genie granted me one wish, I’d think long and hard about asking for the ability to do a legitimate dive- an inward flip. You know the one, where you stand backwards on a diving board and somehow launch yourself high enough into the air that you complete a full rotation forwards, yet you land safely in the water without hitting your head or any other body part on the board and making the lifeguard stop spinning her whistle long enough to jump in and “save” you. I’d impress all the young grasshoppers on the swim team with my dive- their jaws would drop, cheap ice cream treats dripping out of the corners of their mouths, and I’d casually hoist myself out of the pool with all swimsuit pieces intact. Lifeguards would shake their heads knowingly, communicating silently to each other that this was a diver they didn’t have to worry about safety-wise. I’d be recruited for Olympic synchronized diving and I’d win the Fourth of July diving contest, receiving free snack shack food for the rest of the summer as my prize. I’m about that life.

However, this trick is really only applicable from Memorial Day til Labor Day, and I’d rather have a magical athletic skill that I could employ year round. Similar to diving, a gymnastics move could be a fun party trick. So another possibility would be the ability to perform a standing back flip. No pads, no springy floor, just me and the grass in someone’s backyard. For some reason, people who can perform backflips are always in high demand at Greek Sing and random pep rallies. “You! Can you do a backflip? Okay, you’re in.” I’d be infinitely more employable for any future Olympic opening ceremonies in the U.S., and I’d honestly just enjoy the sensation of being turned completely upside down for a half second. I used to try and flip myself on my backyard swingset but the fact that the swing was only about a foot above the ground slowed me down some.

Dives and flips are fun, but if we’re talking absolute fantasy, I’d like to be able to accomplish an athletic feat that is completely outside any realm of realistic possibility for me. Something powerful. Something dominating. Something that says, “THIS IS MY STAGE” loud and clear without me actually saying those words because let’s face it, I’d sound kind of ridiculous and squeaky. Therefore, my ultimate fantasy athletic feat would have to be having the ability to dunk over someone. Monstars in Space Jam style. I don’t care about the fancy showboating, the reverse jams or the between the leg pass-throughs. Blake Griffin can keep those tricks to himself. I just want to be able to leap over someone effortlessly and shove a basketball down their metaphorical throats. One-handed or double-handed dunks are equal in my book. Sort of like wht Russell Westbrook did the other day.

(Yeah, I’m reusing a KSR main site gif. Deal with it).

There you have it. Dunking on someone is my ultimate athletic fantasy. Other options I entertained include hitting a walk-off grand slam, scoring on a bicycle kick, executing a spinning kick on someone who deserves it, doing the splits, mastering the art of backspin in regular tennis and table tennis, and beating Stone Cold Willow in the SEC Heavyweight Championship bout. If anyone can help me make any of these happen- should I be auditioning for MTV’s “Made”?- holler. And let’s get through the rest of this offseason without dying of boredom.

Tweet me your athletic “man I wish I could” daydreams @KristenGeilKSR