BTW - I hope you enjoy my bball, volleyball, and football commentary highlights from 2008, on the feed on the website. This was my one opportunity to live this life-long dream of mine to become a TV sports announcer - I’m sure a lot of you can identify. Special thanks to Gametapes, a small company in Seattle that is no longer in business, for giving me this opportunity, it was lots of fun!!
Don’t see the connection? Well, it always seems to come back to the good ole’ city of New Orleans, and its poor team and citizens, which just can’t seem to get over the hump no matter WHAT they do. To their adoring fans, they are the “Who Dats,” a team that rises like a phoenix from the flames to pull off the most amazing and improbable victories. But to the haters and power-mongers of the NFL, they are eternally the “Aints,” a team which fumbles, bumbles and blows its way to one heart-breaking loss after another. Well, this year’s “No Call” certainly brought this whole debate to a head, and once and for all, I believe this time EVERYBODY could see the truth. This is a fantastic team that is being thwarted and cheated by an elitist, corrupt monopoly, and in the process, it’s something that practically defecates on the terms “underdog”, “team of destiny” and “Cinderella story” all at once, and that’s something people just CAN’T STAND FOR! It simply defeats and insults the very essence and beauty of sports, and the reason why 95% of kids play or dream to play in the first place with nerfoops and garbage cans in their bedrooms from the age of 5.
And now the story has reached an even further disgrace, and a new low with the revelation that the Patriots’ owner, Bob Kraft, already guilty of Deflategate, Spygate, the tuck rule fiasco, and many other unlawful acts in the world of sports, proceeded to solicit prostitutes 2 times on the day before and the day of the Saints’ and Patriots’ Championship games! Presumably, that ungodly act helped both his team, and yes, the team from Los Angeles to appear in a Super Bowl that had Saints vs. Chiefs written all over it? Is it me, or is something very wrong here? Is this disgusting and derogatory act (to which he of course pleaded not guilty to, despite actual video evidence to the contrary) the real message we want to send to our kids in this so-called wholesome, family-friendly NFL? That these are the actual heroes - the cheaters, the slimeballs, the dishonest ones, and not the respectable champions like Drew Brees and the Saints?
To top everything off, I had just lost my mother suddenly in December, just prior to this happening, just as the Saints had lost their owner, Tom Benson, earlier in the season. Clearly the NFL doesn’t do sympathy, or empathy, or anything close to it. Soullessness and heartlessness, now that’s another story. What an immeasurable cruelty that has gone into this message that has been given to so many of us our whole lives by the NFL elite, and similar entities - one that has been pounded into our heads repeatedly over time- which is basically that nothing is ever good enough, that we will always be failures, and that we will always be inferior to, and/or trampled on by, a richer, more superior class of Americans. I feel the pain echo throughout my body, and I am drenched in sadness, as I believe most true and real sports fans are. Absolutely NOBODY wants this, but it’s being forced down our throats like a bad batch of brussels sprouts at the dinner table at age 6.
Paradoxically, the same tyrannical and unjust corruption has permeated throughout my teaching career. The only Super Bowl the Saints did win was during one of the worst years of my life in Seattle, a year in which I couldn’t find a job, and was troubled by all kinds of scams stemming from the fact that I was using the computers and internet at my apartment complex, as opposed to my own internet connection. I finally figured out this mystery in the early parts of 2010, when I could finally pay for “my own” cable and ESPN at home, and it resulted in multiple ensuing titles. But deep down, ever since then, I’ve always wanted to see the Saints win a title when I was “legit” - working a good job, making a good salary, and generally doing things right in life. Especially after the injustice of Bountygate, completely disrespecting the accomplishments of the first Super Bowl title team they ever had, and other calamities that have befallen a team that probably should have won 4 super bowls by now. But “they” simply will NOT let that happen. The fact that I can’t get over the hump in my teaching career thus far, just as the Saints cannot get over the hump of the NFL’s unjustness and unfairness seems symbolic to me. It reflects what feels like a definite form of “slavery” in my life, and a true “anti-semitic” vibe, similar to what I was exposed to when I worked for the NFL.
Los Angeles is a fitting enough setting for all this failure as well, and it looks like it’s also where LeBron James has missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, but more on him later (if you’ll recall my USC/Miami Heat reference from earlier). Ironically, that is where I got my teaching degree, and where it all started. I have even managed to get a California teaching credential within the last year or two, but that is also doing little to change things. Doors are either not opening, or shutting all around me (depending on how I choose to look at it), and the NFL and the sports media, primarily ESPN, appear to be wearing the black cape in this unfortunate dramatic dance. I can feel the oppression, and all the pain that surrounds it. I hearken back to the famous line from the Woodstock ’69 concert movie insinuating that they're even manipulating the weather - “they’re seeding the clouds man!” - to make this the coldest period of time I can ever remember in the 11 years I’ve lived here in Seattle. How can we break free of these microscopes? Of this “nothing is EVER good enough” sentiment and mentality? And of this ultimate betrayal and destruction of our core being, our pride, and our sense of self worth?
Sadly, escape seems always to be the only true answer, but where does this road ultimately lead u? Because when you try, and try, and try, and you try again (reminds me of an old U2 song - try to guess which one), and you never get over that hump, never reach that mountaintop, never get to see that panoramic view where you can stop, turn, and look around at the spectacular, breathtaking view of the whole world. But instead, you just remain climbing endlessly into the vast, empty void, or the unattainable snowy and windy peak! - There is nothing left to do but reflect - is this slavery? Is it anti-semitism? Is it fascist elitism and classism in action? Quite frankly, I don’t see what else it can be. Of course it is Roger, of course it is Donald, Robert, Tom and whoever else is in charge of this circus. Of course it is. Ironically, Bono and U2 sang the halftime show in New Orleans at Super Bowl 36, the place where all this corruption began. As we can all imagine, this was supposed to be about “Elevation.” But alas, we simply MUST keep on climbing back to our rightful place on this earth.