Official United States Map, September - February.
For most of America, baseball season ends one week from today. When the Minnesota Vikings kick off against the New Orleans Saints, the attention of everyone but a handful of sports fans will turn almost exclusively to the NFL.
Who can blame them?
For Episode 5 of the HOMAGE podcast, host Greg Kissner sits down with the great Harold Block, founder of Block’s Bagels, where you can find the best bagels in town! This one’s a real treat…You’re gonna love it!
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(I know I wrote about football last week, but I just couldn’t resist. This past Friday, I saw my first high school football game in over a decade.)
I graduated from McDowell High School, a huge public school (it wasn’t that I didn’t know everyone in my class; there were kids who walked across the stage at graduation that I’d never even seen before) with a rich football tradition. In both my junior and senior years, our varsity team advanced to the Pennsylvania state semifinals, and I was on hand for nearly every game. (For many of them, I was the guy dressed in the Trojan costume running up and down the sidelines waving the flag.)
While I lived in Los Angeles, I taught at an all-girls private school that had no football team (although a few of my former basketball players lobbied for one). We had a brother school whose football team consistently ranks among the best in Southern California, but I never made it to a game. I attended a few USC games and was fortunate enough to see Ohio State down Oregon in last January’s Rose Bowl, but I didn’t see a single solitary high school football game.
Until last Friday.
School began nearly two weeks ago at Ravenscroft, my new private school in Raleigh, and the first assignment I gave my junior American literature class was to write me a letter, explaining a little bit about themselves. When nearly half of the boys mentioned football in their letters, I started getting excited about the team’s home opener.
As I walked into the stadium, I was immediately transported back to the fall of 1996 (albeit with less blue body paint). The concession stand was mobbed, kids from the lower school had their hair spray painted green, and the lights were already burning as the sun began to sink.
There was a selfish aspect to my excitement (I was watching football!) but also the sense of pride in the young men that I teach every day. The outgoing and insightful student who jokingly signed his letter “All-Star” delivered more than a few bone-crushing hits from his position in the defensive backfield. The reserved-but-astute quarterback who sits in the back of my classroom threw some razor-sharp passes downfield (where his receiving corps summarily dropped most of them, leaving him 9-for-24).
Although the opponent Louisburg got on the board first, ultimately the Ravens’ ground game prevailed, with 179 yards and five touchdowns on the ground in a 36-18 win. It was exhilarating to watch, cheer, and be a part of the action. As excited as I was for the game, I was looking forward to congratulating the players in the hallway the following Monday even more.
But not quite as excited as I am about this coming Friday, and another football game.
Columbus Crew midfielder Emilio Renteria caught an elbow to the head on Tuesday night in the Crew’s 1-0 loss to Santos Laguna down in Mexico. He left the field, bloodied by the shot, and changed into an unnumbered jersey (you’re not supposed to play in a bloody jersey). He was examined by the fourth official on the sideline and waived back onto the field of play by the referee.
Shortly after this, a cross from Renteria found Andy Iro to give the Crew a 1-0 lead. To put this in perspective, no Major League Soccer team has ever won on the road in Mexico. Ever.
“But Robert,” you might be asking yourself, “I thought you said Columbus lost 1-0?”
It’s that old familiar feeling: loading up on nylon backpacks, Trapper Keepers and colored pencils that will never, ever stay sharp. Amidst the purchasing of school supplies and Dockers, the return to schools across the country also signifies one thing: college football season is right around the corner.
For me, this has been a near-literal premise for years, as I used to teach at a high school directly across the street from UCLA, and hearing whistles from the practice field and the 20th Century Fox theme from the band became commonplace.
Now that UNC, Duke, and NC State are all within a half-hour radius of my home, it’s seemed for weeks that the upcoming football season was all anyone on local ESPN radio could talk about.
Then two stubborn old farts hijacked the airwaves for a week (Professor Favre may or may not have been kidnapped and returned to Minnesota; Professor Clemens may nor may not be heading to jail on perjury charges) and football receded into the background, at least for a few days.
The biggest story of the summer was undoubtedly the shakeups in the major BCS conferences, as some athletes are returning to campus to find that their school has switched (or is planning to switch) allegiances.
Pay attention and take notes—this information will be on the test.
At one point in June, it appeared as if we might even witness the dissolution of the BCS and a move toward four “superconferences” that would supersede the polls-and-bowls setup and stage a legitimate playoff for the national championship.
However, that wasn’t quite in the cards (at least just yet). Instead, the swapping schools only managed to muddy the waters even further, leaving conferences like the Big 12—which lost Nebraska to the Big Ten and Colorado to the Pac-10—out of balance and wondering about their futures.
The Mountain West conference saw the most change, as it lost Utah to the Pac-10 (soon to be the “new” Pac-12) but gained recent powerhouse Boise State as well as Fresno State and Nevada, who will begin Pac-12 play in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The MWC did, however, lose BYU, who will play the 2010 season (and beyond?) as an independent.
Taking all this into consideration, this season will likely play out as seasons past… some mid-major team (Boise State, TCU) will run the table against a weak schedule and complain about a poor BCS berth… a perennial power conference team will lose once (or even twice) and get a shot at the title game… President Obama will decry the state of the current system and conservatives everywhere will herald the BCS as the greatest American policy since Reaganomics.
Everybody got all that? Good. Now get to class.
