Tag: football (Page 2 of 5)

Blast from the Past: Why Every Sports Fan Needs to Make Their Way to Canton

8 August, 2009 / Kat

This is a special Pro Football Hall of Fame weekend for Buffalo Bills fans, with both Bruce Smith and Ralph Wilson being inducted. So I couldn’t help but recalling my own trip to Canton, Ohio to partake in Enshrinement Weekend back in 2005.

As any early reader of this blog might have discerned, I may have been a giant Bills fan as a youngster, but in addition, I was a giant Steve Young fan. After Young won Super Bowl XXIX in 1995, thirteen year-old me asked my father if he thought Young would make the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Maybe. It really depends what else he does,” said my father.

“Well, if he does, can we go to Canton to see the ceremony?” I asked.

My father, knowing that this was several years down the road at that point, if it happened at all, nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

I’m sure he thought I had forgotten his promise, until I called him on a Monday morning in February of 2005 – ten years later – to tell him I had four tickets to the Enshrinement Ceremony, and that we were going to see Steve Young get inducted.

Being in Canton during Enshrinement Weekend was one of my favorite experiences as a sports fan. It is a true celebration of the sport of football, one that even the most marginal of football fans will appreciate. To read about our trip to Canton in 2005 – the first family vacation my immediate family had ever taken – read the following blog post: “Earning the Fabiola.”

I plan on returning to Canton at some point – hopefully for a 2010 induction of Jerry Rice and Steve Tasker? Rice is next year’s shoo-in, and as evidenced by both Wilson’s and Smith’s speeches this evening, Tasker greatly deserves the honor, but he’s been overlooked by voters for a few years now. Maybe his continued broadcasting career will help him in securing spots in the voters’ minds. All I know is that if I was choked up watching Smith’s induction speech on NFL Network tonight, I would just bawl through Tasker’s.

Either Ralph Wilson Actually Has a Pulse, or Someone Has Finally Obtained Power of Attorney (3 Takes on T.O. to the Bills)

9 March, 2009 / Kat

Saturday night, my fiance fired up the computer to listen to the Northeastern – Boston College hockey game online on ESPN890. (ESPN890 doesn’t come in well on the North Shore. Scratch that – ESPN890 doesn’t come in well period.) The ESPN890 website has a convenient-in-theory-but-memory-hogging-in-reality sports-ticker on the bottom of its website at all times. As we were waiting for the audio to load, we were discussing how much we expected Northeastern to win that evening to cheat us BU fans out of a possible Hockey East regular season championship. While talking, I glanced over to the ticker on the webpage.

“T.O. signs with Buffalo,” it read.

“What?!” I yelled, interrupting my fiance’s rant on Northeastern coach Greg Cronin and his hobby of throwing sticks onto the ice when incensed. “T.O. is a Buffalo Bill?!”

My fiance laughed, not looking at the screen. “Stop changing the subject. That would never happen.”

“He signed with Buffalo. Look at the screen.”

In the nearly four years we’ve been dating, I have never seen the guy’s big brown eyes bug out of his head as much as they did when he looked at the screen. “What?!” He immediately opened another tab on the browser and typed in ESPN.com. There it was, the main story: Two days after being cut by the Dallas Cowboys, Terrell Owens had been signed by the most improbable team ever, the Buffalo “We Don’t Spend” Bills. The team who spends less money than me at the last week of every month as I try to make my ridiculous Boston rent.

“It’s not April Fools Day,” he said.

A day I never thought I'd see: T.O. with the Bills

I shook my head. “Did Ralph Wilson pass away? How did this happen?”

We set about reading the article. I quickly glanced through it, read enough to realize that yes, this was true, Owens had actually signed a legitimate contract with the Buffalo Bills, a sense of euphoria came upon me.

I looked at my Patriot fan fiance, who was still reading, who probably hadn’t digested the idea of Owens ever playing in his own conference, let alone for my favorite team no less.

“In your face!” I exclaimed. “You try to beat us with your bum-kneeed Brady now!”

As I did a happy circle dance in my place next to him, which involved me hopping around in a circle to a tune I was making up on the spot that had to do with Edwards passing to Owens, TD, AFC East Champions, Super Bowls, and whatever came to mind, I heard him say, “I have to put up with this all off-season now?”

It’ll be okay. At least you’re not a Bills fan.

7 January, 2009 / Kat

My favorite Dolph-fan called me Monday evening. (You may remember him from that entry about the NFL Draft a while back.) He was distraught. Over twenty-four hours after the Miami Dolphins lost to the rookie quarterback led Baltimore Ravens in the wild-card playoffs, and he still wasn’t okay with how his season ended.

A sad Dolph-fan after Sunday's game. (Photo from Yahoo Sports)

After a few minutes of him telling me about a play in the third quarter that had gone awry, one that could have definitely changed the tempo of the game, he paused, looking for an encouraging word. I didn’t know what to tell him. I’ve been there before – as a Steve Young fan in the late 1990s, there were many early playoff exits that I just wasn’t okay with, and nothing anyone tried to console me with in the days following would make me better. I usually didn’t recover until I would go on my self-imposed Steve Young hiatus for Lent in mid-February. (This did include me thumb-tacking a sheet over my bedroom wall shrine to Young. To adolescent me, this was more of a sacrifice than giving up anything else – giving up my lust of a Mormon quarterback to fulfill my Catholic religious obligations.)

So what was I going to tell the Dolph-fan? “Give up Chad Pennington for Lent?” The Dolphins shouldn’t be hanging their heads. They went from finishing the 2007 season 1-15 to winning the AFC East the next. Sure, having Bill Parcells on your side never hurts – I’m convinced that he could lead a Pop Warner team to beat an NFL team in the Super Bowl just merely by being involved. But Dolph-fans shouldn’t stay crushed and depressed. So much progress was made, and if they hadn’t suffered some very key injuries at wide-out the last half of the season, I am sure we would have seen a different result this past Sunday.

Thus, there was only one point of solace I could share that would somewhat console the Dolph-fan.

Please Don’t Touch Mr. Young. It Makes Me Sad.

10 December, 2008 / Kat

I just read on Awful Announcing that Steve Young was in rare form Monday evening during Monday Night Countdown and the post-game show.

steve-young-smile First off, he called ESPN “dumb.” Oh Steve, for all of your smarts, you can sure put your foot in your mouth sometimes. Like the time you called out Phil Simms on national television. I despise Simms as well, and think he was wicked overrated as a quarterback (just like his son), but I’d never call him out on it on national television.

Hmm…maybe I would, but I would do it under a pseudonym and hide for a few weeks following.

Steve, I’ll offer you the same piece of advice I offered Bill Simmons a few months ago. Don’t publicly “dis” your employer. Don’t blog on a underground Blogger account about how ESPN is the man and how they don’t let you post every 7,000 word tomb you write, even if you have a legitimate point. Don’t call out ESPN on ESPN, even if you have pent up anger about having to do a show with Emmitt “I Have Never Heard of Subject-Verb Agreement” Smith and Stuart “Boo-yah!” Scott. Both are examples of burning bridges. I tell my students all the time not to burn bridges, especially with employers, potential employers, and the like. If you ever want a job, it probably isn’t a good idea to burn bridges.

Steve and Bill, you need a career counselor to give you the counseling you obviously didn’t receive at Brigham Young and Holy Cross, respectively. I volunteer. Email me. I’ll help you.

Secondly, in the most egregious assault of one of my favorite athletes since Saturday night’s BU-BC game, a Carolina Panthers fan threw a beer cup at Steve Young. Fortunately, he missed. Steve stayed calm and professional throughout the incident, which does not surprise me. Think about it. For one, he’s a lawyer. Lawyers get stuff thrown at them all the time. (Well, I mean, not all the time. But they are the recipients of a lot of vile comments and hate, which are metaphorically thrown at them. Right?) Additionally, Steve Young has like five children under the age of 10. He has toys, clothes, diapers and cut-up-bits of food thrown at him every single minute of his waking life.

Therefore, having a empty beer cup thrown at him was not going to phase Steve Young. Nothing phases Steve, except for sharing a show with Emmitt Smith or Michael Irvin. But then again, wouldn’t that bug you too?

The Sports Funk

3 December, 2008 / Kat

I am in the midst of a heavy duty, foggy, cloudy, “I don’t know why I even pay attention to sports” sports funk. In the span of 48 hours this weekend, the following things happened:

-Everyone’s Favorite Goalie (aka John Curry) lost his first NHL start for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday against the Buffalo Sabres. Despite the Pittsburgh announcers practically blowing out their microphones with the calls of his crazy contortionist saves in the third period, the Penguins defense neglected to play, and he was defenseless against four goals. I was able to view the FSN Pittsburgh coverage online, and on the bright side, the announcers and commentators did seem quite fond of Curry, and very pleased with his performance. It just would have been nicer if Sidney Crosby’s hat trick from Saturday had occurred one day earlier to help Curry out. Continue reading