.. For us fans of sports teams with the surname Carolina this week-end was a “weak-end”. Athletes always say they grew up imagining heroic performances in big games. Growing up in Breaux Bridge Louisiana a young Jake Delhomme never imagined this past Saturday. ….. meanwhile Ol’ Roy’s least favorite song for 2009 is “Never On Sunday”.
My mantra for dealing with unpleasant results has become “that’s just the way it is”. Pragmatism in the aftermath of disappointment comes easier for us Republicans these days. We can lament. We can say “that just ain’t right”. We can gnash our teeth. When all is said and done, “that’s just the way it is”. On this Monday morning, “it’s just the way it is”. Damn!
Competion IS about winning and losing. Not everything in life is “about winning and losing”; but competitive sports beyond Pee Wee League is. The silliness about removing “competing” from competition, wth due disrespect to the nitwits who trumpet such foolishness, is foolishness.
Such altruism is fine at The Special Olympics and for toddlers at Gym-boree, but for any activity with a scoreboard, its there for a reason. The Great American Workplace has a scoreboard too. Lawyers lose cases, doctors toetag patients, and salesmen lose sales. But there aren’t millions of couch potatoes passing judgment on those guys when they fail.
It’s a running joke at our house when a “big game” is over and the camera invades the dejection of players and fans of losing teams. Missus empathizes for the losers …. unless its Kansas of course. You can take the girl outta Mizzou but you can’t take “hatin the damn Jayhawks” outta the girl.
“The thrill of victory” beats the bejebbers outta the “agony of defeat”. It was so for nekkid javelin throwers in the first Olympiad and it was so for Jake, Eli, Roy, Tyler, et al this past week-end.
In the case of Jake Delhomme ….. he makes millions of dollars as QB of the Panthers affording Jake and his family a comfortable lifestyle that 99% of us can only imagine. Assuming Jake is not a client of Bernie Madoff, he should be set for life. I rather doubt that matters for now.
A handsome pro athlete with the obligatory pretty wife and Hallmark card family. It should “be good to be Jake”. You want to trade places with Jake today?
If you haven’t heard or didn’t watch, Jake Delhomme had “a Tony Romo” …. arguably, as bad a game as humanly possible before a packed stadium and a national TV audience. To say Jake stunk up the joint would be saying “The Titanic had a rocky maiden voyage”.
Disconsolate Panther fans are saying “Forget the heart replacement Jerry (Richardson). Replace the freakin’ quarterback.” Jake …. Crawl in a hole, grow a beard, don’t answer the phone of check your e-mail and hire an intern to start your car ignition.
For all the pissed off couch potatoes across “the Carolinas”, no one feels worse than Jake. OK, maybe Sir Purr. Mascots live life on an emotional ledge.
Like UNC’s earth-shattering loss to KU last April, it was a season-ending kick in the teeth for all concerned. “That’s just the way it is”.
Sequeing deftly to “that other Carolina team” that played this past weak-end.
The haunting tune from that 1960s movie classic “Never On Sunday” plays in the background. Based on the empirical data ….. “Maybe the greatest team in Carolina history” will NEVER win a basketball game on Sunday in 2009 because they never have. Oh for two Sundays in ‘09. As a cardcarrying Christian alumnus of an institution that now prides itself on its overt atheism, have my Tar Heels become “the Chick-fil-A of college basketball” ….. they don’t work on Sundays. ….. ouch …. (that one’s for my C-f-A buddy Sammy at University Mall)
Unlike Jake The Panther with no chance for redemption in the foreseeable future ….. Roy’s Boyz can still rebound (hopefully better than last night) and finish the season in a net-cutting blaze of glory in April. All will be almost forgiven and almost forgotten. Sports loonies NEVER completely forgive and absolutely never forget.
Ol’ Huckleberry has been in this situation before. He has his way of dealing with the vagarities of his profession. Roy’s personal pragmatism gets him thru the highs and the lows. I do admire that about the fella.
His inner circle staff is rock-solid and will follow him thru Lawrence Joel, Cameron Indoor, Littlejohn, RBC and assorted other fiery gates of hell and back. Hall of Famers like Roy keep their inner circle small. When the lightning strikes and the thunder rolls there’s only so much room in the storm cellar.
Maybe the Boyz in C-Blue buckle down and bounce back. Maybe not. Any game with a ball is subject to its bounces.
Dino’s Deacons celebrated a well-earned victory, LJVMC reasserted itself as THE best building in The ACC combining decent size and fan craziness. Missus kept noting that the big McFarland kid “looks like a goober”. I reminded her he has a mamma who loves him. She didn’t seem to care. (NOTE: Missus never saw Kris Lang, Lee Dedmon or Reynaldo Lovisa.)
That’s “the way it was” on a dismal Carolina Weak-end.
Stumper Answer: Dick Crum compared UNC to Harvard and Oklahoma both of which currently have Duke alums as their BB coaches.
New Stumper: Sticking with “Great Thoughts from Dick Crum” …. Besides “how to coach football” what other universal expertise did Crum say all men possess?
