GimmeTheBall!
Junior College Transfer
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In John Facenda voce:
In the playing fields of summer, young boys heave the sanctified mass of pigskin and heave it into the air of humid days and dried turf. They snap the ball and tackle the pretend gladiators in places known as Mobile, San Angelo, Longview, Luling, Roswell and Lawton.
These boys of summer, those who play for the fun of it, the sheer exhilaration of bringing home a 10-yard pass across the bumper of a car (goal line) or tackle a brethren at the fire hydrant (50-yard line) don't play for money. They don't play for celebrity or for endorsements or for the opportunity to prance and showcase themselves in impromptu dances before 60,000 fans.
These are kids, the small shadows of the countless playing fields of summer. Then in the bitter cold of winter when the lengthening shadows protend a new season in which Uncle Ned or Aunt Maria will work all week and then spend their hard-earning money traveling to the pantheons of the NFL throughout the land. And we, too, just like the kids of summer, cling to our football-playing hopes and fantasies.
All these leaps of fantasy by our fellow Americans, in the empty lots and pastures and streets of America are fueled by love of the game. A slight diversion from the withering onslaughts of modern life, the financial bumps on the road . . . . the bitter incidences of life.
Now, in the deepening bleakness of a December Sunday, America's team goes to do battle in New Orleans.
We will thrill to the shiny uniforms of America's Team and the ones from the Big Easy. We will crowd around the TVs of Texas and Florida and New Jersey and Arizona, they -- the unjaded and hero-worshipping denizens of America who seek only a diversion of a Saturday night game. A hope to slay the titans of the NFL.
Shadows of 60-pound kids playing professional football, in their dreams, across the fields of fantasy and dreams that once held promise for America's team and now cast a gloomy and hard surface for our heroes to land on and, at times, injure themselves upon.
It is not lost upon we, these millions of fans, whose lineage includes the comfortable and the not so comfortable, and yes, the fringe people of our society, that we hold onto our dreams of football glory with the hardheadedness of a Sisyphous going uphill our entire lives.
We all gather to watch. To hope. To exhult. To figuratively carry our heroes on our battle shields into the Colloseums of our santified places in our hearts.
These Cowboys began with such hope.
Three magnificent backs: The three horsemen of Bam, Slam and Ram.
Our mighty QB whose background gave hope to every little boy and every student in a now-forgotten junior college in Missouri.
Our O line: No one in the land was more powerful than Big and Colombo. No one with as much experience as the man child called Flozell.
Our kickers supreme.
Our D line ready to rip into QBs with the likes of Ware, Spencer et. al
Our special teams as very special
Our young and fleet receivers. A mountain of riches in the land of potential.
Our HC, steady and a good man and ready for a breakout season.
Noooowwww, in the dark and gloomy days of December we reassess our team. America's team. And we hope and we pray.
A team filled with supremely talented men from the plains, the urban corners, the coasts and the mountains of an America ever hopeful of Lombardi trophies and glory.
A team that wears the star and ostensibly pays homage to the Landry and Johnson years when unknowns grew to be All Pros and marquee players grew into the Hall of Fame.
As that kid down the block kicks the ball or his sibling makes the catch and looks in a furtive, sideways glance for a father's approval, we take a minute to reflect on our hopes.
A hope that burns bright in the summer playing fields when we mimic Meredith and Hayes and Irvin. A hope that is with us when the last rays of the summer sun takes us to the first week of the NFL season. When hope was as high as a Texas woman's hairdo. Hope as deep as Jerra's football-loving soul.
Now we look upon our heroes in the dark days of December.
And we hope for better ends to our never-ending optimism born in the summer when sprinklers run us off of our playing fields and our mamas call us in. Young kids (like us) who hope and pray. In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, saving their money, dreaming of glory.
And someday, they will, showcase their skills in the frozen tundra of the north or the lush playing fields of Texas.
Because we and they have to cling to our dreams.
End John Facenda voce
