Earlier today I watched Friday Night Lights for the second time, and as a Texan and a football fan, when you watch something that “artsy” you can sometimes fall into a pretty retrospective mood. The mind starts to kick around scenarios, ideas and some things you cringe to think about. Things like special treatment for athletes and how the “Boobie Miles’” of the football world are able to gain admission to top notch schools like USC and UCLA where students who can actually read their acceptance letters are shunned. Where did this begin that athletes (more specifically football stars) were given the pathway to $100 million contracts and Lamborghinis when some of them legally can’t even buy a pack of cigarettes. And to think, something as flimsy, thin and tenuous as the Anterior Cruciate Ligament can decide whether Boobie Miles is a name we know, remember and carry with us in that obscure ‘football players’ memory bank in the back of our minds or not. A mere inch and a half of tough, fibrous tissue is the difference between a Barry Sanders and a Boobie Miles. Is it at all ironic that the alternate definition to the word ‘ligament’ is ‘A unifying or connecting tie or bond,’ when the only time you hear about it is when it has broken hopes and dreams? Of course there are some success stories. Miami’s Frank Gore, who tore two ACL’s in two consecutive years, was taken 49th overall by the San Francisco 49ers this year. But how much emphasis do we place on athletes (and coaches for that matter) to “win at all costs?” We praise men like Peter Boulware for playing in a shoulder harness for much of the 1999 season because he dislocated a shoulder… but should he receive an award for that? There are football players who go above and beyond the call of duty on and off the field (Pat Tillman comes to mind) but I’m not sure if some of the things we put value on are deserving.
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve screamed at coaches through the TV or in person for doing something I deemed as horribly stupid and not thought twice about what I was doing. Stepping back and watching the scene in Friday Night Lights after their 49-6 loss, callers were ranting and raving about how stupid the coach was for leaving Boobie in the game and were asking for his head on a silver platter, when in actuality it came down to the backup not knowing the whereabouts of his helmet. As fans, we make completely uninformed judgments about the goings-on in the front offices of our favorite teams when we are simply going off our own instincts (and unless you’re in the football business, those instincts probably aren’t as good as your coaches… probably). Heck, I was breaking things after Julius Jones was drafted and now I’m singing his praises, so I guess a little shot of humility couldn’t hurt every once in awhile, especially for Cowboys fans. We’re talking about the football team of the last decade here (I refuse to use the term ‘America’s Team). The team that brought you Michael Irvin’s second house for romantic forays with women and a showboating Defensive End in Leon Lett. The team that spread its blue and silver Cowboys jackets all over this land and in the course of only a few years picked up more bandwagon fans than you can shake a stick at (that would be a lotta shakin’!). Where have they all gone now? The players are all working the years of bodybuilding out of their systems, Michael Irvin is busy being annoying on ESPN, and the fans? Well a lot of them have trashed their Aikman jerseys for Brady ones and threw those blue and silver jackets away the second Jimmy Johnson left town on top. For the ones that stuck around to see this thing through, all I can say is, there’s beer in the fridge, the nuts are on the table and while the ‘boys don’t win every Sunday anymore, we give ‘em another chance every week to prove us couch-cushion warriors wrong. And please, no yelling at the TV…. we’re expecting Parcells to yell back any week now.
I definitely did not intend to write a whole diatribe on the state of the game, but every once in awhile I get in one of ‘those moods.’ Earlier I was comparing football to baseball, and I’d love to get some feedback on this issue, but I was trying to decide in my own mind which is better: longevity or excitement? Baseball players can usually have 15-20 solid years in them and still be considered effective, or even a ‘star’ level player. In football, you generally have give or take 10 effective years in you and maybe 6-8 ‘star-like’ years before you start falling on the depth chart. The years vary as you go to different positions, but the general idea doesn’t. Baseball is also a much easier game to just pick up and start playing. I don’t think there will be any ‘Sandlot’ movies about football, and don’t give me Little Giants because that movie was bunk. I think the ‘Field of Dreams’ ideal has been impressed upon America and football has gotten the ‘Unnecessary Roughness’ and the upcoming ‘The Longest Yard’ with Adam Sandler and the always charming Nelly. I see football as the sport for cretins and bigger than life guys (and that image goes waaay back) and baseball as the sport for the everyman, and I’m sure others do too. Is that a bad thing? Not really… it’s just a common perception I picked up on. Man, I’m musing again! I was going to make this a positional revue of the defensive line last year but I guess that will have to wait for next time.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 12:14 am Posts: 8662 Location: IL
parchy wrote:
pearljamminagain wrote:
my only comment is that Friday Night Lights sucked
that, and you're right... we always think we know more than we do
Hey I kinda liked that movie... maybe you have to be from Texas to appreciate how true to life that whole process really is
well, i've heard some thoughts on the movie from the people who it actually involved, and they said it's not very realistic or accurate... maybe they meant by the way the games and season go though... not really sure
my only comment is that Friday Night Lights sucked
that, and you're right... we always think we know more than we do
Hey I kinda liked that movie... maybe you have to be from Texas to appreciate how true to life that whole process really is
well, i've heard some thoughts on the movie from the people who it actually involved, and they said it's not very realistic or accurate... maybe they meant by the way the games and season go though... not really sure
I don't really know who you talked to, but I've met/hung out with Boobie in Mongnahans or however you spell it and he was dumb as rocks like he was in the movie... and apparently according to some guys I know he was really that obnoxious... I also have some ties to Mike Winchell and he apparently was very impressed with how Berg portrayed him and the rest of the squad in the movie... stuff like Billingsley's propensity to fumble and his father's problem with drinking, Winchells problem with smiling, Ivory's quietude and then sudden outburst during the halftime of the state championship game and Billy Bob's job as coach Gaines... from everything I've heard it's pretty realistic, and not to mention the fact that I went to a high school insanely similar to that kind of lifestyle ('gone to the game' posters up in every shop in town etc...) and it's pretty much done perfectly in the movie...
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