The nightmares were terrible. Images flashed. I could see a dank room, pressed uniform and bare skin. As I walked out of my house the morning after, the sun was blinding, as if I’d never seen the light of day, never truly opened my eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
My co-worker consoled me.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I had nothing to say in reply. My world was in shambles, with only a naked women and Terrell Owens to thank.
Colts’ coach Tony Dungy offered words of comfort, vilifying ABC’s gratuitous advertisement for poisoning America’s youth.
When I was a kid, “Monday Night Football” was Al Michaels and Hank Williams Jr. Now the two icons team up weekly with John Madden and immorality.
When that towel hit the floor, my world froze.
Dungy and I will stand together and fight, but it might not be enough. It’s a chain reaction. One Janet Jackson boob, a dropped towel and suddenly this country’s one big brothel.
I remember the days when football was Joe Namath in pantyhose. The athlete wasn’t a corporate pawn, but an emblem of physical performance.
Pornography might just be a mouse-click away for any child, but football’s sacred ground, one step away from the pew. Blonde twins with tied-up T-shirts and silicon enhancements can juggle pom-poms on the sidelines in Coors commercials, but this is football.
To some, ABC’s stunt was just an advertising ploy, a notch above the commonplace gore and violence rampant on TV. But this wasn’t a Fox reality show about stranding couples and tempting them toward infidelity with booze and bikinis, this was a bare back and this was football.
My breath’s short every time I think of it. TO’s meat-hooks wrapped around her soft, willing flesh.
It’s not a question of right or wrong, it’s a question of family. “Desperate Housewives” is reserved for Sundays, a day for immorality. But to tarnish Monday, that’s a time to sit with your eight kids and a barrel of KFC and enjoy men displaying the spirit and courage that sculpt this country.
Football was once “Mean” Joe Green offering a kid a Coke, but now that little boy’s been replaced by a naked woman. This country’s youth is hanging in the balance, sucked into a world that would otherwise remain clothed.
The future’s uncertain, each corner turned, one step closer to the unknown. I opened my car door yesterday and a puddle awaited my foot. Before it may have just been bad luck, but now, it was much, much more, it was reality. A cold, dark and disturbed reality where everything’s exposed.
I’m not sure I believe the racial argument. As much as Dungy’s my partner in social cleansing, I don’t care if a white woman wants to be with a black man.
It’s an issue of putting people before profits; it’s Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Phil.
As I contemplate this over an episode of “Wife Swap,” placing the past behind me and accepting the world with one window open is key. It’s not a revolution being televised, it’s not bra burning.
ABC put a lamb to the slaughter and innocence, family values and Tony Dungy fell victim.
But this country was built around the Pilgrims and football. Tomorrow I can wake without memory of TO’s thirsty eyes.
And for that, I’ll rest in peace.