That is all.
Good Night.
Monday, October 7, 2013
J E T S...Jets? Jets! Jets.
As of 11:34 on Monday, October 7, 2013 Rex Ryan and the New York Jets are the best example I could offer as to the triumph of hope over experience.
Katrina, The Saints, Lou Gehrig's Disease and Fatherhood
I married a New Orleans gal. In the process of falling in love with her, I fell in love with her city. I watched in horror as Hurricane Katrina robbed her family of a home and turned her city into a broken place. A slab and the ghost of yesterday now stand where my New Orleans gal's childhood home once did.
I am also someone who grew up with an adoptive father who lovingly raised me. Later, I experienced the gift of reconnecting in a very meaningul way with my biological father who I had not seen in over 20 years.
Both of these facts resurfaced for me in an emotional way this weekend while watching ESPN's NFL Countdown coverage.
Hurricane Katrina was a nightmare. From panicked phone conversations with my wife's grandfather who was trapped in his attic as the flood waters rose, to ten days of not knowing if my in-laws made it to safety or were lost, to telephone conversations with my wife's best friend while she was trying to make sense of her duty as a National Guard Reservist serving in the Superdome during and immediately after the storm. And, there was the complete and utterly devastating loss of every material possesion imaginable for so many of my friends and family in NOLA.
Here's what that looked like through our lenses
If you watched these events from afar, you have no idea how badly these people needed release...and how that need for release created one of the most electifying moments in American sports history.
That release came in a special team play on a Monday night during the Saints return to the Superdome when Steve Gleason blocked a Falcons punt.
Seven points later demons were exorcised.
And the earth shook.
And, the long arm of Katrina couldn't hurt anyone for a few beautiful minutes.
In that moment Who Dat Nation was reborn. In that moment, Steve Gleason was the center of the universe.
Then the moment passed. The unhealed wounds of Katrina reminded us that there was still a long row to hoe. But still, Gleason allowed us to hope we'd get there in the end.
Life is not fair. While NOLA healed, Steve got sick.
Steve Gleason's gridiron battles have given way to a new fight. One that will one day claim his life.
He is battling ALS, which is better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. There is no cure. ALS will be his final battle.
I know that there is an army of sports fans who consistently look for opportunities to bash ESPN's monopoly on the sports entertainment industry. The wordwide leader might be deserving of that in some areas, but as it pertains to the incredibly inspirational story that Gleason's fight with ALS has become, they are above reproach.
This all hit home for me on a Sunday in my garage while I geared up for another NFL weekend. While I worked on honey-do's and peaked in on pre-game coverage, I was stopped in my tracks by the latest installment of the Gleason story.
As Gleason spoke openly and vulnerably, as only a man who knows he is on borrowed time can, with Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder about fatherhood...
Tears ensued. Tears that know the desperate need for a father's love. My tears.
I subscribe to the notion that the human experience is defined by our inate and inextricable ability to perceive how we relate to everything and everyone around us. Indeed, I think our ability to discern right and wrong relationship is the essence of what we are. That our interactions based on that ability to relate are what life is all about.
This is the measure of a man.
As someone who has spent a lifetime exploring the father-child relationship, I have come to the conclusion that we are programmed to desire, more than just about anything, to experience the gift of right relationship with a loving father. To know that our Dad loves us and is proud of who we are. Popular culture goes out of it's way to prove my theory, albeit unwittingly.
More on that here.
Certainly, intellegent minds can and will argue the simplicity of my supposition, but I would invite all who would disagree with my thesis to try....as hard as you can...to watch the father that Steve Gleason is trying to be in the face of certain death, and hear Eddie Vedder's wish to know that the father he never met loved him.
Then try...as hard as you can...to not want to call your Dad...
...after your tears subside.
I am also someone who grew up with an adoptive father who lovingly raised me. Later, I experienced the gift of reconnecting in a very meaningul way with my biological father who I had not seen in over 20 years.
Both of these facts resurfaced for me in an emotional way this weekend while watching ESPN's NFL Countdown coverage.
Hurricane Katrina was a nightmare. From panicked phone conversations with my wife's grandfather who was trapped in his attic as the flood waters rose, to ten days of not knowing if my in-laws made it to safety or were lost, to telephone conversations with my wife's best friend while she was trying to make sense of her duty as a National Guard Reservist serving in the Superdome during and immediately after the storm. And, there was the complete and utterly devastating loss of every material possesion imaginable for so many of my friends and family in NOLA.
Here's what that looked like through our lenses
If you watched these events from afar, you have no idea how badly these people needed release...and how that need for release created one of the most electifying moments in American sports history.
That release came in a special team play on a Monday night during the Saints return to the Superdome when Steve Gleason blocked a Falcons punt.
Seven points later demons were exorcised.
And the earth shook.
And, the long arm of Katrina couldn't hurt anyone for a few beautiful minutes.
In that moment Who Dat Nation was reborn. In that moment, Steve Gleason was the center of the universe.
Then the moment passed. The unhealed wounds of Katrina reminded us that there was still a long row to hoe. But still, Gleason allowed us to hope we'd get there in the end.
Life is not fair. While NOLA healed, Steve got sick.
Steve Gleason's gridiron battles have given way to a new fight. One that will one day claim his life.
He is battling ALS, which is better known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. There is no cure. ALS will be his final battle.
I know that there is an army of sports fans who consistently look for opportunities to bash ESPN's monopoly on the sports entertainment industry. The wordwide leader might be deserving of that in some areas, but as it pertains to the incredibly inspirational story that Gleason's fight with ALS has become, they are above reproach.
This all hit home for me on a Sunday in my garage while I geared up for another NFL weekend. While I worked on honey-do's and peaked in on pre-game coverage, I was stopped in my tracks by the latest installment of the Gleason story.
As Gleason spoke openly and vulnerably, as only a man who knows he is on borrowed time can, with Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder about fatherhood...
Tears ensued. Tears that know the desperate need for a father's love. My tears.
I subscribe to the notion that the human experience is defined by our inate and inextricable ability to perceive how we relate to everything and everyone around us. Indeed, I think our ability to discern right and wrong relationship is the essence of what we are. That our interactions based on that ability to relate are what life is all about.
This is the measure of a man.
As someone who has spent a lifetime exploring the father-child relationship, I have come to the conclusion that we are programmed to desire, more than just about anything, to experience the gift of right relationship with a loving father. To know that our Dad loves us and is proud of who we are. Popular culture goes out of it's way to prove my theory, albeit unwittingly.
More on that here.
Certainly, intellegent minds can and will argue the simplicity of my supposition, but I would invite all who would disagree with my thesis to try....as hard as you can...to watch the father that Steve Gleason is trying to be in the face of certain death, and hear Eddie Vedder's wish to know that the father he never met loved him.
Then try...as hard as you can...to not want to call your Dad...
...after your tears subside.
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