THE CAPITAL ONE BOWL GAME

THIS IS SPARTA

Michigan is where I was born and raised.  It really was not until I was an adult and began my interpretation of the Dr. Seuss book that I began to acknowledge the Wolverines.  I had not really cared one way or the other about them before that point.  In fact, it was still a point of discussion with my lovely ex-wife during our marriage.  I did not really began to pay them much attention until their amazing run to the NCAA title in 1989 in men’s basketball.  I had sorta liked Glen Rice (pre-Sarah Palin affair!!  Notice that rumor was never ‘refudiated’) and his story from being an also-ran in the fertile hoops area of Flint, to becoming the all-time leading scorer and one of the sweetest jump shooters I ever saw in college.  Then there was Desmond Howard, who was simply a magnetic player.  If I had a son, that would have been his name!  So between those two individual and ‘the Fab Five’, I found myself being able to tolerate Michigan a lot more.

My cousin who went on to have a long and productive pro career and now coaches in the NFL pulled my attentions to Ohio State football.  I always want the Buckeyes to win on the gridiron and in basketball as well.  Two of my most remembered players are Carter Scott (which was unseated by Desmond as a boy’s name) and Dennis Hopson (Dennis, the Buckeye Menace!).  It is a little astonishing that you have two schools with the basketball history of both Michigan and Ohio State is overshadowed by their dominant football programs.  I mean between the individual players to the programs accomplishments, with all those National Titles, appearances in big games, any other school would feature basketball as a prominent jewel.

But always lurking in the background, much like the annoying little brother that former Wolverine football player once called them, was Michigan State.  It isn’t that State did not have major accomplishments and notable highs.  It is State that played in ‘The Game of the Century’ against Notre Dame in 1966.  And Sparty had more appearances in the NCAA basketball tournament but still was under the radar.  In fact, the star player before Magic came and would change their basketball fortune, Gregory Kelser, grew up in my general neighborhood (it is hard to say ‘my neighborhood’ as I grow accustomed to Omaha; the same distance is ‘across town’ here).  lurking He would sometimes help his younger brother deliver papers and we would go at it in the newsstation, where we would pick up our papers for delivery.  He was a little older than me, but at that age, 11 and 12 is a sight away from being physically and emotionally mature as a 15 or 16 year-old teenager.  He would try to pick on me, and I was always like, “brother, I thought you knew!  You can SAY what you want but it costs!”

The reality of it was still overwhelming.  He was too big, too strong, and too fast.  The reason I found this out was because it was the outcome of our ‘Foghorn Leghorn-Barnyard Dog’ relationship, with me playing the former!  But because it was not a zero sum game, I never stopped being ‘me’, which was as annoying as ‘Obnoxio the Clown’.  I would also invest in finding out about Michigan State and ballers like Terry Furlow, a Detroit product and that was when I noticed who played for State and who played for Michigan.  It just seemed that the cats that played in East Lansing were different from the ones that would go to Ann Arbor.  It was always like that.

I remember a football coach for State calling the Michigan people a bunch of ‘arrogant a$$es’ after losing a game to the Wolverines.  I also recall when Kirk Gibson played All-American level wide receiver for the Spartans and he ran past, over and well, he never seemed to go around anyone too much, especially Michigan players!

IT DIDN’T START WITH THE FAB FIVE…

Michigan basketball has underachieved for many a decade.  From the Cazzie Russell-led teams, to the squads they had in the late 70’s-early 80’s, they would produce teams that were loaded with talent, but for whatever reason, never got over themselves to actually win anything.  This was never more true with the Roy Tarpley-Antoine Joubert led teams, always preseason favorites, only to take a gaudy regular season record into the tournament to lose in their first game to ‘Nobody U’.  Meanwhile, over in East Lansing…

He is a respected NBA coach now, but Scott Skiles was a load as a high school player.  From a small town in Indiana, a rural place that most of the athletes who go to State have in common, that hard-scrabble outstate ruggedness, and he was truly a wild cat.  Had problems drinking and the coach at the time Jud Heathcote (with Tom Izzo on staff) flat out took Skiles under his wing.  When the press was howling for Coach Heathcote to kick him off the team, Jud stood by him and you knew it wasn’t simply a matter of a coach giving a player special treatment.  Scott was beset by the kind of demons that city cats are too self-involved to understand.  For instance, I doubt if anyone in a major city like Chicago can understand what methamphetamine is doing outside of the city.  But it is a scourge that is at least as harmful as crack cocaine was in the city and is harder to prevent.  By that I mean I do believe that if the government wanted to cut into the cocaine trade, they could.  But when you can go to a few drug stores and mix your supplies (the process is the risk escalator on par with those that exist in the urban drug scene), it is a different kind of fight.  Jud being who he is, simply provided Scott with the stability and structure that allowed him to get to a place where he could make the most of himself.

Anywho, of all the State athletes in my lifetime, he used to take such a pleasure in beating the Michigan basketball team, that you would have thought that there was no greater calling in his life.  Before the Fab Five, there was Joubert, who was as well-renowned as a high school player as LeBron James was when he was in school.  This is not an exaggeration by any stretch.  He was the most recruited player in the country out of Detroit Southwestern and he chose to go to Michigan, as their version of ‘Magic’ Johnson, the Lansing Everett (and Mookie Dee) alumnus.  But he never quite came close to the lofty speculation that was made about him and essentially, that was that.  Still, for his time and place, he was the measuring stick for Michigan basketball and supposedly the cat to make them a major player in basketball.  Except, along with their gag jobs in the tournament, those teams had problems trying to guard Scott Skiles (who was immortalized in song by ‘A TribeCalled Quest’).  I recall before one match up between Michigan and State, Joubert talked about how he was going to such Skiles down, despite his deadeye marksmanship and superior passing skills.

The game was played and Skiles would light the Wolverines and Joubert especially, up.  One news report in either the Freep or the News over heard some of the smack talk on the court.  “You better lose 20 pounds if you’re going to check me, fat boy,” was what was in the paper, a quote of Skiles to Joubert, who simply could not hold him (and really could have stood to lose 20 or maybe 30 pounds!).

Watching the first half of the Capital One Bowl game between Georgia and the Spartans was like watching your girlfriend out with another cat on the couch and he is on third base… and he is making the turn for home!  I kept the game on and gritted my teeth, getting myself prepared to hear more crap about how much better the SEC is than the Big Ten.  Then one of the announcers began to talk about the new attitude that has been put in place with Mark D’Antonio’s arrival as head football coach.  This season’s seniors were his first class and they had never played on a bowl game-winning team.  It recalled the situation a season (or was it two??) ago in basketball where there was a chance that Tom Izzo would have his first senior class of players who never got as far as the Final Four.  I remember thinking as they Spartans would suck it up, including an amazing buzzer beater against Maryland, to reach the Final Four in Indianapolis, where they fell against Butler.  It seemed to me that the underclassmen really were playing for the seniors.  I know that the atmosphere at East Lansing really does work like that, even as the ideal is overused and seems Pollyanna in this era of the recruiting issues that makes the notion of playing for the team, quaint.  Well, when it comes to the football and men’s basketball programs I want to believe that it is true.

The second half of the Capital One Bowl looked like one of the second halves of a State basketball game… the one in mind is a game against Derrick Rose’s Memphis team a few seasons ago, where Memphis had their lead cut but were still winning.  But a look at the two benches could not have been more telling, as the Spartans players truly looked like they were warriors who had fought their way through the worst that they enemy could provide, and now they could sense victory.  On the other team bench, the anxiety in their eyes and on their faces provide poor cover as they bore the unmistakable look of not just defeat, but worse, surrender.  It wasn’t that they were destined to lose, at least not until they stopped fighting.

When the football team for State had fought back from a 16-17 point halftime deficit and then to drive down the field with less than a minute to play and score, sending the game into overtime, the sidelines were of such stark contrast that I had tears in my eyes.  The Spartans looked as glorious as the fictional Spartans did in the movie ‘300’ did facing the approach of the Persians.  And on the Georgia sideline…

ANOTHER THING THAT “YOU” CAN’T DO

It did not matter that the game was still in the balance or that maybe Georgia form the big, bad, SEC may have had better players.  What they did not have was a better TEAM, one that was playing for something so much larger than their own individual glory, that they were not going to be denied.

Standing there on the precipice of defeat, several times the Spartans fought their way back to victory.  Glory or doom, baby, glory or doom.  No one is leaving until you give us what we came here for!

So I cried when Michigan State won today.  I cried because it symbolized so much of what I hope to accomplish means overcoming moments where it may seem all is lost or I have to preserve for the sake of others, or just because the only option is to hold on and be strong.

MARK, DIDN’T YOU SAY YOU WOULD NOT MAKE AN ENTRY OF MORE THAT 1500 WORDS..?

Yes, yes I did Charlotte.  So sue me.

JUST SPORTS POST... OR AT LEAST AS 'JUST SPORTS' AS I CAN GET

FRIDAY NIGHT FIGHTS
In the first televised bout between Charles Hatley (the prospect) and Chris Chatman ( a fight scored accurately a draw) they did a cut away between rounds three and four to former Chicago Bear and quarterback of the Bears Super Bowl team, Jim McMahon and a disabled vet from he brought from Wisconsin for Super Bowl weekend. During the brief interview, my esteem of the former Bear quarterback grew as he ceded the spotlight to the vet from Wisconsin, not bothered by his guest’s allegiance to the Packers.


Also evident in the brief interview was the humility and graciousness of the soldier. It is sort of hard for me not to project traits unto a guy like that especially since I think I have a lot of those qualities in me as well. I think that those who have been following me along, particularly the past year or so, it may be hard to believe.

The comments that I leave in journals prolly do a better job of reflecting the kind of person that I am inside. I had not thought of myself as chaotic and pitiful before now… but instead of squaring up and going back after ‘it’ (sometimes it is nefarious how ambiguous ‘it’ can be at times, but I am still in hot pursuit of ‘it’!) once again.


Reading over my posts after I arrived in Omaha and before I was struck by a car, I see a sharp difference in my thoughts and outlook. As time has begun to pass, I am angry not at the cat who hit me (cause he didn’t mean it… honestly, I ain’t mad at him), as I am that the incident happened. Eventually I will be completely over it, and soon, I believe. I never could stay angry about anything for long. That is why I use pictures like the ones of Johnny Cash and Sonny Liston to remind me to have an attitude and to ‘behave like a fighter’ as I face the different challenges I am facing in my life.

IT’S A COIN FLIP…

… between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. I am leaning towards the Packers, the one true ‘little guy’ in professional sports. The Packer fans are all shareholders in the team and the connection between the fans and the players are apparent in such a small community. The Steelers are a family owned team and that is a very cozy arrangement as well.

As far as any personal connection with either team… I like Aaron Rodgers but I wonder if he isn’t an ‘Easter egg’ in the mold of a Tom Brady. I used to like the Patriot quarterback when he played at Michigan and from his brashness in telling the owner of the team that he would make the owner proud of the team’s choice or something to that effect. Anywho, I think that he also is in contradiction of his image and that allowing such misrepresentations persists is an indication of a lack of character. But that is me.

The Steelers quarterback Ben Rothlisberger has been about as unrepentenant a jerk as someone could be. If he was a brother, with two sex crimes and a long history of being a d*ckhead of a teammate that goes back into his college days, he would not survive the flogging he'd get in the media. The NFL cat I compare him to most directly is Mike Vick of the Eagles, because just as there are some people who will never forgive ‘The Dog Murderer’, I won’t ever forget that Ben Rothlisberger shows the same kind of lack of respect towards human beings. A crappy teammate AND a serial rapist… hey, I know for some people that being inhumane to an animal is the worst thing a person could do. But the disrespect for another human being that the Steeler quarterback has been caught showing (I qualify what we know was ‘alleged’ about him… I wonder if there are 
other women who did not come forward with a story that may be out there ...) towards women is kind of a 1 – 1a situation. And with ‘Big Ben’, there may be more stuff that sticks to his character as well.

During Super Bowl week, Commissioner Paul Taglibue was quoted for a story by sports writer Peter King of Sports Illustrated. Instead of parsing it out, I will post the quote and what I took from it

Regarding Roethlisberger, Goodell said when he was investigating what to do with the quarterback, he talked to "I bet two dozen [Steeler] players ... Not one, not a single player, went to his defense. It wasn't personal in a sense, but all kinds of stories like, 'He won't sign my jersey.'

Later the comment was amended slightly to mean that people in the Steeler organization and not teammates felt put off by the troubled (again, if he was black causing this havoc, he would be described as ‘troubled’) by Ben. Thinking back to another story where people who were a part of the organization of a professional sports team, where the one-time Detroit Piston head coach Rick Carlisle is alleged to have been rude to a long-time organization employee and that was what got him fired, I have to say I am a little surprised that the Rooney’s were talked into giving Rothlisberger another chance after his second alleged transgression. I am of the mind to think that if he is still like this to non-football players that he is still a jerk, an unrepentant one at that. I have some trouble with cheering for a guy like that… just as I have NO doubt that folks have trouble cheering for a guy like me. Eh, whaddya going to do? Need to get some conditioner for all those split hairs… and that is what it comes down to for me regarding the Super Bowl.

I guess I want Green Bay to win the game. I think it would be a nice way for the franchise to step out of the shadow that Brett Farve has cast over it in recent years. So I am going to hope that the Packers win, though ‘nothing really matters and no one ever tells me, so what am I to know’?

ON WISCONSIN

CORN FED DAIRY BOYS

Yes ladies and gentleman, this is yet another in what has been a very irregular series of ‘Sports… As Life’ posts. Being from Big Ten country, I tend to favor teams from that conference over almost any other. It still is going to be a bit strange with Nebraska playing against the Buckeyes, State and the Wolverines and those being the hoodies that I wear regularly. There is very little non-Husker merchandise available as far as I can tell. A big difference from shopping in the Metro, but then again, I haven’t really checked out what’s what regarding shopping in these parts just yet.




Because of some big game embarrassments with my Buckeyes and Michigan, but when you go beyond the top teams, the Big Ten has done quite well. And since their top tier teams play against the SEC in bowls, I am miffed that people don’t mention this when discussing how tough the SEC is. Iowa, Michigan State and Penn State  have had success against the supposed big boys from Dixie and hey, Michigan has beaten a SEC team a time or two as well. This year in the Rose Bowl, the big red of Wisconsin will be playing for something more than conference pride. I think that the 2011 Rose Bowl will be the tipping point of the big time college football teams against the non-qualifiers in the BCS bowl system.






TCU is a very good team, very fast and athletic. In fact, they seem to be a team that could have competed in the supposed superior SEC, Saturday after Saturday, which is the common complaint about teams like TCU, Boise State and Utah. Even with their success in the past few years in big bowl games against teams from one of the power six (I wonder if the powe six conferences are anything like Six Sigma??) football conferences, the line goes that they could not line up week after week and match up against schools like they have beaten regularly in big time games.

But if there was a team that I thought really personified ‘big boy football’, it is the Wisconsin Badgers. Like the cat in my Face Book photo, what you see is what the hell you are going to get with Wisconsin. They are bigger and stronger than you and will run the damn ball right at you. We DARE you to stop us!!

There is nothing fancy in their arsenal. Two tight ends and a lead full back… they let you know by personnel what they are about. For sure, you have to ‘man up’ and get ready to knock slobber and rattle some cages. So for the Horned Frogs to be able to beat a team who is nationally known to be a physical football team, representative of a region that prides itself on being tough and enduring, in a signature bowl game (even though in its early years, it was the Pacific Coast Conference v. anyone, it is mostly seen as the Big Ten v. Pac – 10 game) for the Badgers, it would be a coup like none of the other previous bowl wins. Not the mention how damaging it would be for the Big Ten’s rep. You never hear about the game that got Urban Meyer the Florida job, when he took his non-automatic qualifier Utah team and beat the snot out of Alabama, do you? Yeah, those days have been overshadowed by the Crimson Tide winning a national title but still, they are the ones who got beat up by the ‘little guys’ when they were the cats meow (this just in… but with his long hair and scruff of a beard and moustache, Rickey Stanzi of Iowa is quite a freakin’ catch !!).


SONNY LISTON

At some point I will put a picture of yours truly for my Facebook profile again, but the Dread Destroyer and my man Sonny the Elf will be in the rotation, according to how I am feeling. They are significant characters in my mind because they are the characterizations of the kind of single-mindedness I strive for and for sheer badassery; they are in my mind, the baddest.

Let me repeat that. THE baddest.

Not only do I have fuzzy memories of a young Mike Tyson, when I came home from the service and would read no-nothing sports writers who were pulled from covering local girls’ high school volleyball to do articles on boxing that featured Tyson, they often would make the comparison with Mike and Sonny. I assure you there is NO freakin’ comparison. The only person that ever came to mind that would compare with the kind of attitude Sonny had was the cat Denzel Washington played in the movie ‘Glory’ and the scene when Matthew Broderick goes to whip him and orders Denzel’s shirt to be removed. Anyone who saw the movie should remember all the scars on his back from whippings as a slave… Sonny lived a life that was like that. But I think that he was haunted by hoping that beating Floyd Patterson (who was TERRIFIED of Sonny… and he was trained by Cus D’Amato, which is worth noting as he ‘discovered’ Mike Tyson) that he would finally be embraced and on his plane flight back to his adopted home town of Philadelphia. He had come to grips that he wasn’t going to move the hearts and minds of every one, but when he got off the plane, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw as he came off his plane.


There was almost no one at the airport to greet him as Philly’s own heavyweight champion. A few sportswriters and a handful of airport employees were there to welcome Sonny. He knew at that moment, no matter what he did or who he beat was going to erase enough of the taint of his associations or his attitude, which was a thousand times more pant-pissing inducing than Mike’s because Sonny was FOR REAL.


Comparing whose life was harder, Sonny’s or Mike’s is a case of apples and who gives a rat’s patoot. Being black as Jim Crow was still strong as they were in Sonny's era or in the 80’s where the seed were planted that would eventually sprout into a Black President? It isn’t any competition. Sonny had it harder and HE was tougher. Even as they both were managed by ‘inside guys’, Mike with the trio of Bill Clayton, Cus D’Amato, and Jimmy Jacobs, all independently well-off and established to get Tyson the right fights, Sonny Liston was not so lucky, even for a guy who was controlled by the Mob. He fought EVERYBODY on the way up. I don’t think there has ever been a heavyweight champion who fought as many top contenders before he finally got his title shot than Sonny, and he beat guys up.

He could bust you up with his jab and when he put his right hand behind it, it was good night and thanks for coming… please drive home safely.

Watching Sonny bust up guys like Cleveland ‘The Big Cat’ Williams on repeats of the Cavalcade of Boxing would help me connect with the misunderstood Liston. Like many people, he wanted different but the world would not let him be any more than what he had been for most of his life. Begrudgingly, he would play his role as he did in the Esquire cover, the ‘sais quois’ of white fear of the black man. Still, as a little boy I did not know all of this and all I could see was how bad and tough Sonny Liston was and that I wanted to be able to make people shake in their seats and avert their gaze lest they draw my attention.

Sonny was a bad, bad man. For real. But he was buried by the relentless waves of history and is nothing more than a footnote in the accomplishments of others.






I don’t want that to happen to Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. I will be pulling for them (after all, Wisconsin IS a party state!) and for the Big Ten and all the people who work in decaying industries and have to acquire talents to find work and do so wordlessly, the same focus determination that comprised the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ and put the whole friggin’ world on wheels. On Wisconsin.

SOME OF THE SAND IN MY POCKETS

 INCH BY INCH, STEP BY STEP

This week I got a couple of things done that I see as vital to my comfort and future efforts to make a life for myself here in Omaha. I adjusted my information on my FAFSA application, which will make registering for school easier and I went to the MAT offices and received my fare reduction pass.



One of the reasons that I longed to be to myself is that the small, incremental steps that are necessary to get towards a goal, I don’t mind taking nor do I mind celebrating. Everything counts in small amounts and that is so true. Plug up a sink with a slow drip faucet and see what you come home to, right? Many people will do something that is geared to moving them in the direction that they wish and lose heart when they look up and that thing they seek is still miles and miles away. Not me. I am not cut that way. “Be quick, never hurry,” Hall-of-Fame basketball coach John Wooden instructed his players when running through plays in practice. The small things that seem inconsequential at the time nearly always seem to matter at the end. That is another lesson that sports offers to us, the dual lesson of perseverance and diligence. When you set your mind on doing what you are supposed to do, you often accomplish the things that you set out to do.

I know that a few people out here feel that I ‘think too much’ (which sounds to me like saying some that one ‘breathes too much’). At times, maybe I do. And that is another thing about my being alone. Every thought and action of my mind can be accounted for, each purpose and reason for them validated. It is only when I have to deal with different systems of thinking and people who would impose their thinking upon me, whether they arrived at their conclusions through inferior or bad information (for instance, someone who is informed by the reactionary echo chamber of Fox News and the like) or their own poor choice and think that the results they had are absolute. When people would caution me about an undertaking of mine that sounded to them similar to events in their lives, I had a phrase that I would reply with… ‘That stuff happens to other people, it doesn’t happen to me!” With that I would happily do whatever it was I set out to accomplish. The thing about my effort is that I believe there is nothing negative about discovery. Now you know what not to do if you fall short and you can get set on working to improve on the next attempt. “Ever tried? Ever failed?? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”




That is why I only get so down when I am to myself. I definitely believe in those words. Sometimes, my knees knock a little when I think about where I am and being far away from anything remotely recognizable. But when I go to the squat rack and I am working with 350lbs. of weight, they always stop. They become steady and I remember that I have broad shoulders that can bear the weight. I also remember how it took small steps to build the strength to train with that much weight.  And I also know that it is making me stronger and more capable physically.  All that translates so easily into a working philosophy that I think of it as the by product of being alone.  People have their issues, their quirks and preferences.  They want to believe that something special needs to happen outside of themselves before they have what they want.  Yes, I am introspective and I am real with myself.  But as I acknowledge my missteps, I am aware that there is a lot more to me than that. 



Another thing that being alone allows me to do is to not neglect myself. That has been a constant theme in my thoughts and my life that I was often acting out of the visions or beliefs of other people. I don’t have those worries anymore. Next year is going to be about seeing my Carolina girls, which will mean I need to get some house hold goods, a couch, a table and a place to eat, along with a frame for my bed so that I will feel comfortable hosting them. While there has not been a discussion of the length I will have the items on loan to me, I don’t expect to be ready to return them until 2012.


I will save as much as I can for school books and equipment for next fall. Getting some storage for all the things on my hard drive is a must and once they settle on the budget in Washington, I believe that they will announce a one-time payment of $250 for those receiving benefits from Social Security. They did that last year even as they played the same kind of political football with the legislation as they are doing now. I am going to cross my fingers because that would be huge. Given the rancor and the mission (remember, the GOP set their agenda on ‘hoping Obama fails’… motivated by latent racism or not, they did not have the well being of the country on their mind… another reason to not speak to mostly conservative people here in town) of many in Washington, I can’t be counting on something that is still up in the air.


OTHER IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS


In college basketball last night, the University of Oakland, located in Rochester, Michigan, went into Knoxville and beat the 7th Tennessee men’s basketball team. For those of you who merely think you are unfamiliar with Oakland County, Michigan, I have two words: Reagan Democrat. It was coined to describe the migration of socially liberal but fiscally conservative voters from the Democratic Party to the Republican. When I first heard then-Senator Obama speak on the campaign trail that is what I heard in his oration. He never moved me with any of his speeches, save the one he gave at the ’04 DNC. I was for and behind Hilary Clinton.


When ALL THE MONEY began to amass itself behind the Illinois Senator’s candidacy, the writing was on the wall. John McCain was credible until he selected his running mate. Even before he did that, I thought it odd that here was an avowed ‘outsider’ now running in the middle of the track as a ‘favorite’. I guess what I am saying is we were doomed before the ship even sunk.


Brittney Grinder, the 6’8 center for the Baylor women’s basketball team also ‘showed out’ at the expense of Tennessee’s Lady Vol’s and their Hall-of-Fame coach, Pat Summit. Brittney’s dominance for me verified the inherent greatness in the Connecticut program, which beat Baylor earlier this year. Even in saying that, I hope that the Ohio State women can knock them off this weekend. Something about seeing a measuring stick like the UCLA men’s consecutive game streak go down makes me feel a little more vulnerable. I was able to live through the end of that streak and grew up with it as the standard for dominance in athletics. But if the Lady Huskies get the record, they will have earned it.



What does this have to do with anything? President Obama has been who I feared he may be, a President whose timing on the scene was impeccable. He does not seem able to have in him the gravitas to organize his party and develop a cohesive platform from which to govern from. My worries are that in 2012, it will get worse. I am less afraid of what even a candidacy for Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin would mean to me. I would put on ‘ignore’ any discussion of moral fiber in society with a person who found a way to vote for two of the more morally ambiguous and opportunistic people in the political public eye. I am not spouting opinion as much as I am judging them on their actions alone.



Well, now that I am alone, what do I do with myself? And what is up with me and the SFC?

LIKE PORRIDGE ONLY DIFFERENT

FIRST, A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE WEATHER




As many of you already know, winter is on the way and it gave the Midwest a preview this weekend. But Omaha was spared a large accumulation of snow. I am not sure what the amount was officially, but it could not have been more than 2 or 3 inches. When I went out yesterday evening for a workout, the streets were mostly clear and there was little ice. Perhaps the ‘banana belt effect’ saved us from the worst of the storm, I am not sure. It is COLD here, but like a ‘dry heat’ is not as bad as a humid one, the same stands for a dry cold. It is what I would call very brisk. I went out only in a hoodie, making sure my hands were covered.


SPORTS… AS LIFE


Even though Nixxie knows how I feel about cheerleading, having discussed that when she was playing in a softball league and I had to take her to a hospital during after she was injured in a game, but KT is still doing some kind of pom-pom sqaud in high school. I have the same kind of swirling emotions regarding football. As much as it is a game of character, it is also a device for revenue as well as a narcotic to the masses.


I’ve have spoken about the inconsistency between how football is sold to us and the inherent risks involved in participation. Even though it is called pugilistica dementia, football players mostly make up those who suffer from the condition. Now you could say that there was less known about the concussive effects of football, but I don’t think that is the case. The NFL, like many large, monolithic global corporations have swept studies on the subject of player’s health and safety for years. Not to mention the culture that surrounds the sport, the bravado and machismo that it compels men to display.


Aaron Rodgers suffered a concussion yesterday against the Lions, his SECOND for the season. I should not have to say anymore than that but again, being able to spread propaganda, the NFL has made the about brain injuries that many people see as no more significant as a knee injury (not to be pooh-pooing the joint damage football players suffer, that is an under-reported travesty as well). Years ago I remember John Madden making a comment about a player who got knocked out and returning to the game, saying that “If he was a boxer, he would be out for 30 days”, and that is pretty much true. I don’t think that Aaron Rodgers should have been in the game from his EARLIER concussion.

It gets pretty hard to reconcile things at times, doesn’t it?  Being a fan of something so brutal and callous, where they obviously think of these things as nominal hazards??


WHOA! THIS IS TOO HOT!!


Alright, my ex-wife was the wrong person at the wrong time of my life. I was in a good place so that keeps her from wining the triple crown of fail. That we kept at it until we got pregnant was either a testament to my obliviousness or lack of hormonal control.

If her violence was a by-product of her hormones and the pressure of now raising two children (she has a daughter from an earlier relationship) I couldn’t tell you. The last straw was the night I decided to take my allowance (yes boys and girls, I let her handle our money, surrendering my paycheck and letting her ‘pay me’ out of my own earnings…) and try to take Jan out for a night of pub-crawling. When Jan would drop me off at our place, my ex-went ballistic and threw my things out right then and there.

I would never look back. Now this is the first time where I will mention to anyone the level of humiliation that I felt at that moment, because of course the mini-riot that went on woke up the girls. What I remember is the look on HER daughter’s face, as if her Mom was in danger. That was one time I was glad Jan was around because she had went into the kitchen and came out with a…


…anywho, I knew from her attitude about men (charter member of the Single, lonely and loveless Mother’s Club) that she was not only fortunate to have found me to marry her, but that she’d be lonely for a long time. I think she is a crap human but hey, I did ‘put a ring on it’. She won’t cop to it, but she has obstructed the relationship that Skye and I have, talking crap about her father even after we’d have father-daughter time and not allowing me to take her to Carolina for a summer, defying the court-ordered visitation. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Hindsight is 20/20 and there were other issues that complicated that problem that I don’t think I should have to go into.

THIS ONE IS TOO COLD


Nixxie and I had decided to let the curtain fall on our ‘benefit arrangement’ and go our separate ways when I ran into Pecan Sandie. Had I heeded Bell, Biv, and DeVoe’s advice about trusting big butts and a smile, ignoring her ‘crazy eyes’ and ‘spooky girl’ qualities, things would have been different.

A couple or three months into our relationship, my boxing career began to skid, Nixxie broke her news and Sandie began pressuring me about moving to Atlanta. Oh, not to mention the standard ‘She is trying to trap you away from me,’ behavior regarding Nixxie. All I can say is that I was such a maroon.

Some of our fail may have been because she saw us as having so much in common. She took some of my non-traditional qualities as self-loathing. I think she kind of doesn’t like being black and it is the attitude that Skye’s Mom has infected her with. But because we have a relationship and her Mom did understand where I was coming from and we did go to the Atl and try out a relationship for a bit. I’d like to think that we know each other well enough to where she’d want to come for a visit as an adult (as long as she is a minor, she really doesn’t have a choice).


WHY THIS ONE IS JUST RIGHT


Both Nixxie and I went to HBCU’s and as far as I am concerned, scholarship athletes are minor league professionals. I think that to balance all the things entailing being a student-athlete is a lot of pressure. Not only that she was the only person who was that close to me that got why I trained the way that I did and understood enough about how that part of my psyche worked. So we had that in common but the only problem between us was that we only really liked each other.


It isn’t like I don’t talk to Lexxie and keep abreast of what is going on, but Nixxie has always made sure that KT and I got along. The first time that I told her I would not be able to visit (I was new at the non-profit I was working for and did not have vacay days accrued) she straight away sent her up for the summer, a routine that lasted until ’07. Not only that, she has called me to talk about our daughter and life in general.


She would also send KT to me with ‘instructions’ about conversations that a Dad should have with his daughter. It always made me feel more like a Dad, because the conversations were the foundation for the bond that we have. KT is definitely her Mother’s daughter, but she has a lot of her Dad in her. Oh, as far as when it comes for her to take HER walk down the aisle, KT who has an active step-father in her life, has came up with a solution to who does that honor.


Both of her Dads will do it! :0)