You recollect a lot when standing in line to go through security after a holiday at a major international airport. In the seemingly endless hours in line, I came up with my first (and last) serious article.I thought about the Orange Bowl I did not get to go to but still watched on occasion and how close my prediction was to coming through.
I thought about my amazing comeback in the final four weeks of the season to beat the other 64 people in my football pool to win the year, clinching it when my team scored with no time left and missed the 2-point conversion.
I thought about which coaches would and should be fired. I thought about how much better the Gators would be if Billy Donovan was fired any time in the next two decades.
I thought about the year that had just ended and my triumphs and even a setback or two.
I thought about writing this article and having everyone think, “He’s one damn self-centered prick.”
But I then realized that it does not matter.
Who cares that my 59-10 prediction was still plausible with 5 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter? Who cares that I won my football pool, clinching it when Atlanta scored with no time left and still lost? Who cares if Billy Donovan ever is rightly fired by Florida? Who cares about my triumphs and setbacks?
In the end, what does it all matter?
That was last year or last week or last day. That was from an ancient period back when good hockey existed in the United States (if you think there is such a thing as good hockey). That was from a period that does not matter anymore. It was not real history; it was an event.
So why do we focus on the history of sports so much, a history that is not a true history? It is a recollection of events that is random and pointless.
You don’t stand in line going through security at Miami International Airport on your way home after more than a week vacation in warm weather and think about anything important (unless you actually need to do something important that you have been putting off to drink, watch football, drink, drink, eat barbecue, swim and drink, watch football, sleep, and then repeat) while waiting in line. Sports are nothing worthy of remembering.
Yet we do it anyway.
Trust me, I had no clue I would have turned this direction writing this article. I never thought I would write something serious. Trust me, it is hard to do.
But really, what do sports matter in the general scheme of things? Are they worthy of our time over the tragedies occurring over seas, whether natural or man-made? Are they worthy of our time over crises occurring right here in our backyard? Are they worthy of our time over our duties that we perform?
Now before you all call me a commie and get back to watching Princeton-Duke or whatever lame game is on, let me save myself.
These sports are an escape, as we all know, but they are more than that. They are a passion, a love, a job, even if that job is not really a job but a Sunday tradition. They are a life.
The world of sports, the secondary, less important world has become to some people their primary world. But even if that never happens, that world of sports is what drives us, keeps us going, keeps us getting up each day, knowing that in just two or three more days the week will be over and football will be on non-stop.
You recollect a lot when standing in line to go through security after a holiday at a major international airport.
It is the reasoning of what you think about while on line that really matters. I write what I think and I think about sports and I think sports rock.
So I care about sports history because it is a life, a passion, a love, a desire, a whatever. It is me. Maybe it is not you. Watching sports bring out the inner child within me and the maturity in me at the same time. It is entertainment. It is diversion. It is a job.
Sometimes you have to look past the evident logic. Sometimes you got to just forget all the rules of life. Maybe I’ll do that now.
