Relative Something

It is that time of year again. Floorball is starting up! So now, in addition to my three-mornings-a-week indoor soccer, I will have one evening per week of floorball competition. I hope I am up to it. That is an awful lot of running around. I have often said that there is no way I see myself doing a fraction of this amount of running without having a ball to chase around for incentive. In the end, it is not the running that is most taxing, it is the sudden stopping and frequent changing of direction. I’m pretty sure there is a line to be crossed between the activity being good exercise for a body and the activity being too much stress, but I have no idea how closely I operate to that line. I’m afraid I will discover it after I have over-stressed something like a knee or an ankle.

In addition to all the activity I am participating in, I have also been offered two more opportunities to go see the Gophers play football in their new stadium this season! This Saturday looks to be an exciting opponent in Illinois and it will be a day game with pleasant weather being predicted. Sweet! But that’s not all. I have also been given tickets to see the Gopher basketball team the following week on the new floor installed at Williams Arena.

It’s probably a good thing that the Vikings have a bye this weekend or I might exceed a reasonable quota of all things sports related with so much happening in such a short span of time. At least I won’t have to worry about the World Series calling for any more of my attention since the team from New York claimed that championship last night. That’s good, because I need that time for watching college and NHL hockey now, anyway.

So much sport, so little time. Feel free to follow my example. Get out there and play something! It’s a great way to make exercise fun. I think playing a sport makes watching sports a much more rich experience. The two do go together quite well, complimenting each other nicely. But be careful. You might discover it to be a bit addicting and then you run the risk of becoming a Sportsmaniac! But I don’t know anything about that. I barely dabble in sports…

The new stadium on the campus of the University of Minnesota is indeed a wonderful thing. It was a great experience for me to be back out under the elements to watch football. I do not deny that it will be more taxing to watch a game when the weather is miserable, but the number of days of misery will be out-numbered in the long run. Last night was a little chilly, but far from too cold. I found it ideal. The game, however, was a lot more ‘trick’ than ‘treat’.

Every time I attend a game in person lately, I am made more aware of how conditioned to seeing football games on television I have become. I expect to see every play multiple times and from multiple angles. I’m guessing, had I been given that opportunity last night, that I wouldn’t have such a bad opinion of the decisions the referees were making. But live, in real time, what we saw didn’t always align with the calls being made, and combined with the mistakes the home team was making, it produced a pretty ugly, sometimes scary evening.

It is only fair that I reveal that plenty of my pleasure over the beautiful stadium comes as a result of being the beneficiary of receiving premium level tickets that include access to a club room with soft cushion seating, a fireplace and refreshments, where you can warm up when necessary and view the action on large flat-screen televisions. The hot chocolate was HOT and large and a very welcome treat I was taking advantage of, just at the right time there, so I didn’t have to witness the opponent’s kick-off return for touchdown at the start of the second half.

In the end, the home team prevailed and all was deemed a great success. I may be basking in the initial gush of glee over the new stadium, but right now, I am feeling as though I would be happy to go there and watch college football whether my team performs admirably or not. There were a lot of years I witnessed embarrassing performances in the Metrodome; enough that I chose to finally give up season tickets that my father had initially purchased in 1944. Sitting through ugly Gopher football in that dome was more than I could tolerate. Being high above the field, on campus, with a view down 4th Street SE, in the Minnesota autumn air, is anything but ugly, regardless what caliber of sport is being performed on the field below.

I have watched a lot of football over the years, but I have never figured out why teams that get desperate late in a game, all of a sudden are able to execute plays that gobble up 10 and 15 yards at a crack. If they are able to accomplish this late in the game, why don’t they do the same thing earlier? If it is because the defense switches to a ‘prevent’ defense late in the game, why doesn’t the defensive team just use the earlier formation that kept that offense from working in all previous possessions?

If a team can march down the field so well at the end of a game, why don’t they do the same thing while the game is young? Is it possible that some athletes need that added incentive of coming from behind with little time left, in order to lift their game to the highest level? I honestly don’t understand why the game changes all of a sudden and an offense suddenly seems unstoppable. In the end, my gut tells me that it has more to do with what the defense changes that allows the offense to succeed, than what the offense does that makes the difference.

If this subject doesn’t resonate for you because you don’t watch any football, just switch out the terms relating to football and replace them with parents/teenagers, or husband/wife, or employees/management and you pretty much get the same effect.

And finally, do I love the fall because I relate it with the football season, or do I love football because it happens during the best season of the year? Both are pretty spectacular. Lately, we are enjoying some pretty fine late summer weather, but with just enough football happening, it still feels like fall.

It’s the first Monday after a weekend of regular season football games and it has me thinking about my dad. I definitely developed my interest in the sport from my father. This weekend our University of Minnesota Golden Gophers opened their new stadium and I wish he were around to see it. I think he would have approved. When Dad died in 1981, I took responsibility for managing the season ticket account he had for Gopher football. That was the year they moved into the dome in Minneapolis, away from the University campus. I thought Gopher football in the dome was an awful experience. The losing caliber performance of football being offered was only part of the problem. When I finally decided one year not to renew, to just let the tickets go, the University ticket office called us to clarify that it was intentional because, I was surprised to learn, we had been buying these tickets since 1944. My only regret was that I felt my dad wouldn’t have approved.

I have no idea what opinion he would have regarding the golden uniforms they wore for the home opener, but I didn’t care for them. I also wonder what he would have thought about the new guy that the NFL Vikings picked up, Brett Favre, who played most of his carrier for our rival, the Green Bay Packers. Something tells me he would be ok with the guy, but I’m not quite sure about it. You may be able to sense that I truly do miss having him around to watch football games with me. I will always credit him with instilling the passion for enjoying watching all sports, football being chief among them.

It’s not literally accurate, but this song has always felt like it captured the essence of my dad and represents the generations enough that it fits for me…

My Old Man
by Steve Goodman

I miss my old man tonight
And I wish he was here with me
With his corny jokes and his cheap cigars
He could look you in the eye and sell you a car.
That’s not an easy thing to do,
But no one ever knew a more charming creature
On this earth than my old man.

He was a pilot in the big war in the U.S. Army Air Corps
In a C-47 with a heavy load
Full of combat cargo for the Burma road.
And after they dropped the bomb
He came home and married Mom
And not long after that
He was my old man.

And oh the fights we had
When my brother and I got him mad;
He’d get all boiled up and he’d start to shout
And I knew what was coming so I tuned him out.
And now the old man’s gone, and I’d give all I own
To hear what he said when I wasn’t listening
To my old man

I miss my old man tonite
I can almost see his face
He was always trying to watch his weight
And his heart only made it to fifty-eight.
For the first time since he died
Late last night I cried.
I wondered when I was gonna do that
For my old man.

© Copyright 1977 Big Ears Music Inc., Red Pajamas, Inc & Crackin Music Co. ASCAP.

Some things that I don’t know:

I don’t know how humans can get faster and faster in sprint competitions, continually breaking records. Won’t there be a point where it isn’t physically possible to go any faster?

I don’t know how competition in the NFL can get any more intense in terms of speed and impact. We gotta be getting close to the limit on how hard a person can get hit and still continue to play every week.

I don’t know why hockey players so often are allowed to get away with unsportsmanlike behavior, after the official blows a whistle, with no negative consequence.

I don’t know why professional cyclists continue to use banned substances even though being so thoroughly monitored by their sports governing agency.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to identify with Brett Favre as a Minnesota Viking.

I don’t know why my home teams sometimes sign world-class talent (Kevin Garnett/Joe Mauer/Randy Moss, among others) but can’t pull together to play to a level the stars deserve, you know, like the level that wins in the playoffs.

I don’t know if I will be able to stand it if the Minnesota Gopher football team becomes a Big (11) Ten power house and earns a prestigious post-season bowl game.

I don’t know why the passion for following local sports teams has stayed with me all these years, even when I’ve tried to practice some intentional disdain from time to time.

I don’t know why I would start a list like this when there is no end to what I don’t know.

I don’t know why I am quitting here. But I am.

Yes, of course I’m watching the first game of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. I was thinking about the team sports that I watch and it occurred to me that there is something that hockey, soccer, and basketball share that is not present in baseball or American football. In the latter two sports, the possession of the ball is well defined and therefore, in a way, the play lacks creativity. All the other sports share the aspect of spontaneity as the movement of the ball/puck is based on split-second decisions of the athletes and often determined by the position and movement of the defenders.

That’s a huge difference. It makes the creative sports a bit more difficult for broadcast television networks to package their barrage of advertising. You never know when the break in action will occur. Except for soccer. That one is easy because there is almost no break in action (except when the best actors/athletes display an extended anguish over their painful injuries) and they have to save their ads for halftime. Of course the advertisements are the whole reason they bother to televise the event in the first place. We’d like to think they just really, really want to show the world these sporting events and then decide to find some sponsors to finance it, but come on… Oops, is my inner skeptic showing?

I grew up under the influence of Minnesota Vikings football in my home and football easily became my favorite sport. Now that sport has become the least interesting to watch and I find myself torn because it remains the one with the most pleasant memories. There is a deep desire to reclaim all the experiences of autumn romanticized in my memory surrounding football. It just isn’t there for me anymore.

This all makes for convenient distraction from thinking about the fact that Julian’s flight home, from his study abroad semester in Stockholm, Sweden, that was supposed to arrive Saturday evening, was delayed and he is stranded overnight in Amsterdam. Not that big a deal, except for the fact he had intended to host a significant number of friends that he hasn’t seen for a long time, at our home to celebrate his return. The word did get out and we only had one visitor show up, confused to find himself the only guest.

Julian’s inherited passion for the Vikings and NFL football is the closest thing I have toward reliving my fond memories, and he’s almost home. I bet I can get him to watch some Stanley Cup games with me this week. Then, before you know it, the Vikings will be in training camp and we’ll get to share a dose of that passion of my youth.