Friday, February 04, 2005

My football team does not have to win for me to enjoy the game!

I live in Columbus, Ohio, a major league city as college football goes, and those of you who do not know, the BIG football power here has been ripped by scandal after scandal after scandal recently.
Why?
All of the scandals go back to one thing: winning! Winning is EVERYTHING! Win at all costs!
The "at all costs" business is when college football gets in trouble, as it has gotten in trouble here.
Some examples:
--The number one quarterback last season had to sit out a bowl game in San Antonio after having been found to have taken money from a fan.
--The head football coach and athletic director, both well-paid, are among the coaches getting free, yes, I said FREE automobiles to drive. They get them from an automobile dealership--that for its trouble--gets to buy tickets to football games. No one has said, but the tickets probably get the best seating in the house. That makes you wonder: what else they are getting FREE! Oh, yes, not only coaches, but their wives also get FREE, yes, FREE, cars!
--The head basketball coach was fired, let me, see, yes, I think it was last year, for giving a player money. Quite a sum of money, as I recall. Like in the several thousand dollars.
My only view of all this is that "winning" is not everything to me in football. I love to watch a good game, and even if my team loses, I still enjoy the game. Oh, I root for my team, but if it doesn't win, I know my life doesn't end. Neither does football. There's always next week or next season.
This weekend I will watch some, if not all, of the Super Bowl. I do not have a team in the game of the year (which often doesn't turn out to be THE GAME OF THE YEAR), but I like New England for the attitude of the coach, the quarterback, Tom Brady, and the coach's use of players on both sides of the line. Things like that, things out of the ordinary make football games fun.
Masters of that, making football fun, were Bud Wilkinson, the long-time ago coach for the Oklahoma Sooners and Tom Landry, the long-time Dallas Cowboy coach.
Both men had a knack for inserting a play or maybe a couple of plays into each game--that would take your breath away when you saw them. I recall once Tom Landry sending a play out that called for the offensive line and center to line up on one side of the field with a back of some sort behind it. Then a running back and a one or two other players lined up clear on the other side of the field. The play didn't work, and I never saw it again. Yet, when I saw it it was: "WOW!"
Bud Wilkinson and Landry were the Hopalong Cassidys of professional sports, the good guys no matter what.
I remember watching Bud Wilkinson's television program when growing up in Oklahoma. The sponsor was a milk company, and the thing I recall for sure about Bud Wilkinson's TV program was his telling people: "Drink your milk."
Thinking back, I bet there was a power surge in Oklahoma when he said that because everyone opened the door of their refrigerators go get themeselves a glass of milk.
My favorite play with a Wilkinson team, by the way, was the quick kick! It'd usually happen on third down and a ton of yards to go. The center would hike to ball to a half back who would catch it, stand up and punt! If he got a good kick, the other team would be backed up in its end of the field.
I still remember the BIG games the Cowboys and the Sooners played and LOST! For the Sooners, it was getting beat by Notre Dame in the late 1950s to stop a streak of games one at 47. I've never forgiven Notre Dame for that, but I will always remember all the great games Bud Wilkinson and his teams gave us, the fans.
The Cowboys GREATEST game, in my mind, was the one they lost to the Green Bay Packers in, let me see, the late 60s in Green Bay. They called it the ice bowl it was so cold. The Packers won in the last few minutes, if not seconds of the game. Great game. How I hated for the Cowboys to lose, but, my, the wonderful seasons Landry and his Cowboys gave me. I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the Cowboys. Some of you may remember they were the most watched NFL team for a while, so much watched that they were called, "America's Team."
The end of all this is the same as the beginnin: a good football game is fun to watch! Oh, yes, it's great if my team wins, but my world doesn't end if it doesn't. No one elses does, either.
Yea team!


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