NCAA basketball season starts soon (March Madness). The NBA will start for me sometime around the second or third round of their playoff. I will pay scant attention to the boys of summer, and perhaps catch a few headlines about tennis and golf in June and July, but, in the sunny days of early autumn, my sporting life will begin again in earnest when the NFL regular season comes roaring back.
Martin Luther King famously called 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning the most segregated hour in Christian America. Lamentably, even as we acknowledge how much has changed for the better in sixty years, this observation still holds true. On the other hand, 12:00 noon (CDT) on Sundays from September through February continues to be one of the most joyously integrated and spiritually unifying moments in modern popular culture. God bless the NFL.
Super Bowl V marks the first football game I remember—and only the final seconds in which the Baltimore Colts kicked a game-winning field goal to defeat the Dallas Cowboys 16-13. That brief snippet only stands out in time because of my dad's volcanic reaction, more than mere disappointment but deep emotional pain. At six years old I think I recall in real time the triumphant kicker, Jim O'Brien, running off the field and jumping into the arms of his celebrating teammates (hard to say for sure as that iconic footage runs on an endless loop in Super Bowl memory montages). But mostly I remember my dad's high volume distress. I had been peacefully engaged and content in my own universe that did not include football, and, then, suddenly, my dad erupted. Clearly, something truly awful had happened. And, after my initial alarm, I wanted to know more.
It's a little foggy, but between that January and the opening of the 1971 season in September, I became a football fan. A Dallas Cowboys fan. I attached myself to a favorite player, all-time great defensive tackle, “Number 74,” Bob Lilly. What a propitious time for my beginning. In my awakening year Dallas won Super Bowl VI 24-3 over the Miami Dolphins. In the first quarter my hero, Lilly, “Mr. Cowboy,” pinned Miami QB Bob Griese for a 29-yard sack, which remains the longest negative play from scrimmage in Super Bowl history. The Herculean tackle for loss set the tone for the afternoon. I was suddenly a very fortunate son. My good luck. I came aboard in the year Dallas shook off a decade of misfortunes without ever really knowing one moment of frustration. Things could only get worse--and they did (but with many high times over the next fifty years).
Fathers and sons. Most importantly, I created a bond with my father that would last for the rest of our life together. Our mutual love for football (and the Cowboys and the Baylor Bears) could transcend any dislocation. “How ‘bout them Cowboys?” As Texan ex patriates in the land of sunshine and the L.A. Rams, the “Star” declared our undying fidelity to the Lone Star State. “We’ll see you chokers in the playoffs.” For more than a decade, fall Sunday afternoons as Cowboys fans defined our family. Five Super Bowl appearances during the 1970s. We reluctantly agreed to share our team with America. We worshipped the man with the hat and Captain Comeback (12 + 88 often equaled a perfect score). Hail Mary, full of grace, indeed. The Lord was with us. The Doomsday Defense, the Manster, Too Tall, and the tragic but beautiful Harvey Martin and Hollywood Henderson. Triumph and calamity. There is something uniquely American and manly about football. A thrilling and frenetic world of struggle and delight, always mixed in with heartrending loss.
Fast Forward. Super Bowl LV. Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31; Kansas City Chiefs 9.
What we learned. What the big game affirmed. A few takeaways a month out.
Patrick Mahomes is one heckuva of football player. An all-time great already. Humble. An impeccable team player. Great Texan. What a gamer! For an old fan of Roger Staubach, Mahomes is a blast from the past and a sight to behold. Unbelievable throws, uncanny sense of the pocket and a demon in the open field, and perhaps the best playmaker in my 50 years of watching the game.
Nobody Knows Anything. Perceptions are so fleeting. Does anybody remember now that K.C. rolled into this game a three point favorite and the Bucs entered as the underdog for the third playoff game in a row. So many smart guys thought this one was easy money. We all sensed Mahomes was simply too extravagantly talented to beat. The ubiquitous conventional wisdom hailed Andy Reid, with two weeks to prepare, impossible to handle. The Chiefs seemed a team of genius, destiny, and inevitable dynasty: Bieniemy, the Honey Badger, Tyreek Hill, and Travis Kelce.
But, then, of course, this is why we play the game on Sunday. No one saw 31-9 coming until it did and then the world turned on a dime. This outcome suddenly made all the sense in the world. Everything makes sense in retrospect. Hindsight 2020. In the game of life, we are all master analysts once we know the score.
In the aftermath, the talking heads repeatedly dismissed the contest as a boring game. Not me. I watch any football game with intensity. I don’t play “fantasy football,” and I don’t gamble (anymore), but I am always rooting for one team to win or one team to lose or both. Every point Tampa Bay scored thrilled me. Every yard K.C. gained scared me. “They are coming back. You cannot count out Mahomes. Here they come.” I am always doing the math. Always pondering how our momentary advantages might come undone. I didn’t exhale until the last four minutes when, finally, I allowed myself to think very quietly, “hey, we’re in pretty good shape here.” Not one bit boring.
I love Tom Brady. TB12. But not always. I was a Manning devotee for years: Archie, Peyton, and Eli. I rooted against the Pats in all those matchups, for the Manning brothers in all incarnations. But, somewhere, I came to appreciate, admire, and then love the Patriot Way. Hail Bill Belichick. For years I had his four simple precepts posted on my office bulletin board.
1. Do your job.
2. Be attentive.
3. Pay attention to details.
4. Put the team first.
Great advice for a football team. Great advice for a history department. When Clarence Thomas came to Waco, Texas, he astutely observed Americans love football so deeply because the game still represents a venue where merit counts, a venue where the best, toughest, and smartest team usually wins. Even more important, he asserted, when great players lose, they are crushed, of course, but come out after the game and immediately accept responsibility, congratulate their opponents, and quietly plot their tangled path back to the winner’s circle.
And, of course, the two great cornerstones of the Patriot Dynasty were the Coach and the QB, both considered by many the greatest of all time in their respective categories. The coach demanded intensely focused preparation and selfless dedication to the whole. And the six-foot-four “golden boy” (married to the supermodel) proved the toughest, most selfless “grinder” of the bunch.
Brady, always with the chip on his shoulder, keeps on coming, keeps on keeping on. Inspiring in his work ethic and also in his determination and discipline, his example exhorts us to hold on and press forward. Why not the best? Why not absolute excellence in our professional lives? Why not take another shot at returning to peak condition at 56? Why let anybody else define you?
The Brady Way. Put in the extra work. Determine your own destiny. Make those around you better with the way you approach the game. Smile the Brady smile, lift the trophy high in the air, with what one great coach and teacher called "the peace of mind and satisfaction of knowing you made every effort to become the best of which you are capable."
I love this game.