For Judy

I'm supposed to be on my way to a Labor Day barbecue. We decided to do it Sunday instead of Monday so we could stay up late if we so chose and not be tired for our return to work on Tuesday. They should make the Mondays after Super Bowl Sundays a holiday for the same reason. But I digress.

Incidentally, I've thought of renaming my blog that - "But I digress." I kinda snicker whenever I type it now. It's kind of inside joke. If you read this blog with any regularity, you know I do that alot. That is, I digress, and I type, "But I digress." It's kind of like Columbo's "Just one more thing.." But you know what? Even this paragraph is a digression. So, I'll get back to my point.

My point was that I'm supposed to be on my way to Pflugerville for a BBQ, but I'm trapped at a coffee shop. I came here to do a little writing and enjoy a decadent coffee drink (a yummy concoction of coffee, chocolate, vanilla, and coconut, iced...zowie), but literally 2 minutes before I was going to shut down my computer and head north, the sky opened up, and now it is pouring. And I don't have an umbrella. And I have to stop at the grocery store around the corner to grab meet to grill. So, you see, I'll get completely soaked running to the car, then running to the store, then running back to my car. And this is BEFORE I get to the BBQ. I don't care if I get caught in the rain after I leave an event. Who cares if I arrive home looking like drowned rat? I just want to look decent at the event. And besides, I'm wearing a white t-shirt. Who do you think I am - Britney?

So this means I have to wait for the rain to let up before I can leave the coffee shop. I've finished the writing I needed to do for the day, and I've called my host and alerted them to the situation, so they know I'm detained. That left me with some time on my hands, a computer, and a high-speed connection. That equals a blog post.

So, here it is! I think I'll quickly address the comment on my post from yesterday. Judy lamented that I changed my original post from yesterday. Yes, I did. My original post was a diatribe on the sanctity of football. I related it to the Va Tech situation - how the media now is in mad love with Va Tech - wants them to win every game, and the unenviable position that puts any of their opponents in. The rain is letting up a bit, so I'll hurry and try to remake my point.

Football is football. Football isn't a social soapbox. It isn't a political event. It isn't charity. Football is not the moment for all of us to say, "If there is a God, they will win a national championship because they had an awful thing happen to them." First of all, Va TEch would trade a national championship for the lives of the students that were lost any day of the week. As would LSU to have their city back. As would Texas A&M to have the students back who died in the bonfire collapse. As would UT to have the students back that the Tower Shooter murdered. So on and so forth.

Second of all, if you want life to return to normal, you behave normally. That means not turning every single one of their games into a retrospective of the shooting. You focus on the football. You let the students cheer. You let the players play. And (and here's the important part) you let the opponents play. If they win, you don't act like it's a disappointment and take away from those players what they've accomplished. You don't act like the other team should pull their punches. You don't act like the shooter somehow gave the Va Tech players super powers. You let them play, and you let it play out the way it would if the tragedy had never happened. That's how you give that community back its normalcy.

Football is football. It's hits, passes, tackles, penalties, scoring and running like hell on an open field to the roar of the crowd. It's rough. It's fun. It's awesome. And the emotion and passion that abound in a full stadium isn't about what happens outside the stadium. It's about what happens on the field. There are no terrorists. There are no plane crashes, mass murderers, hurricanes or race riots. There's no room for agendas. It's not a statement. It's not a sign. It's a game. For 3 glorious hours, it's a game. Let the players play. Let the fans cheer or curse or whatever is appropriate based on the action. Let them all escape what happened before they entered the stadium and what might be waiting when they get out, and let them enjoy it - whatever the outcome.

For 3 hours, just focus on the game, media. Just let football be football.

(Happy, Judy? I hope so, because I gotta go now and I don't have any time to perfect this post!)