Click-Clack.
February 9, 2009 Many years and almost as many surgeries ago, I was a dedicated weekend tennis player.
Note I said dedicated, not good. Weekend doubles tournaments on the hard courts of the Mis’sippi Delta can be brutal. To go the distance, you had to win a match on Friday, as many as three matches on Saturday, and sometimes two on Sunday. If I avoided elimination until late Saturday, I’d had a good run.
My choice of tennis apparel has always been 100% cotton. During a changeover in a particularly difficult match, one of my worthy opponents looked at my sweat-soaked cotton shirt and said, “Isn’t your shirt heavy? How can you wear that stuff?” “Easy,” I said, “Watch this.” I opened my tennis bag and pulled out another clean dry 100% cotton shirt and changed. Ah, the touch and feel of cotton. But he was right about the dirty shirt being heavy, and it hit the court with a splat. Always one to fight for the last word, I looked at his synthetic shirt and said, “How can you wear that disco-looking polyester? Don’t you know it’s made out of the same stuff as Brylcreem?” (It’s probably not, but it sounded good.)
Cotton has a worthy opponent in Under Armour. As you can see, we are the enemy. What you don’t see on the display is that they claim to have the feel of cotton with the performance of Under Armour. Which is sort of flattering for us, if you think about it.
Without question, the Under Armour brand is one of the hottest these days, and they have one of the all-time classic sports slogans: Click-Clack. I think you hear us coming. Anyone who has ever caught a pass over the middle knows what that means.
Now, thanks to some very innovative technology from Cotton Incorporated, 100% cotton athletic apparel is ready to take on the Under Armours of the world. Touch. Feel. Comfort. And performance. See for yourself on page 16. “Our emphasis has been to convey to companies that they can achieve substantially better performance and moisture management than what is available today – even better than Under Armour,” Cotton Incorporated’s Mark Messura says in the story.
Cotton has picked up the gauntlet Under Armour threw down. Click-Clack, Under Armour. I think you hear cotton coming.
The goal for the remainder of my tennis life is to beat my daughter Julia, and I haven’t been close in a while. In the gentile world of the Delta, a man never gives a woman his best serve. Julia gets mad if I don’t. She is a worthy opponent.
So I’m in the gym these days as often as possible, trying to get myself back into shape after clearing yet another injury hurdle. One day after setting some personal bests, I sent Julia a smack text message: Click-Clack, Julia. Do you hear me coming? And she sent the smack right back: Click-Clack, Daddy. Do you hear me laughing?
Caption:
Under Armour retail display.
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