Monday, May 24, 2004

GET OVER IT

This week included something that felt similar for me to the so-called grieving process.  After we didn't win I was upset, somewhat despondent, and dismayed.  All the negative emotions that come with abandonment and the finality of it all surfaced.  As the week wore on, I became angrier, especially as I looked at a few of the attitudes following the game.  Finally I am feeling less grief-induced emotions, replacing them more with philosophical observations about it all. 

Hopefully I will get over it sometime this decade.

THE NATURAL

I have thought about a scene from "The Natural" several times this past week.  This is a great, albeit sappy sports movie about baseball, and its love affair with American culture in the 1930's. It is a treatise on what one man's passion for the game cost him, and also what it ultimately gave him.  The movie has a happy ending.  The book, written in the early 1960's, sadly does not.

Near the end of the film, there is a scene where "The Natural" talks to the manager. It takes place after he (Roy Hobbs), who had been in the hospital in a coma for a few days (poisoned by the evil owner with the help of a pretty girl), shows up to play in the last game. Roy is an aging baseball wonderkid who didn't get into the "Bigs" until he was in his later thirties (long story). Now he had led this incredible summer surge toward the pennant for the lowly Knights.  The owner did not want his own team to win because he had bet big on them to lose. 

So Roy gets out of his deathbed to play in this one game playoff with the Pittsburgh Pirates for the pennant and the shot at a trip to the World Series for these new New York Knights.  Roy (Robert Redford) appears in the clubhouse as everyone is dressing for the game, and he and the old manager start to chit chat while the manager (Wilfred Brimley) shaves.  The manager doesn't know about the bet.  He just knows he can't win without Roy Hobbs in the lineup.  Roy knows about the bet. You see them both reflected in a mirror.  It is a great scene. 

Anyway, at one point in the conversation the manager blurts out in frustration, "You think I could have won it (pennant) just once".  Then he goes on to say, "I wouldn't care nuthin' about the series" (presumably because they would have had to play the Yankees in whatever year it might have been).  Well, that is so not me.  I wouldn't care nuthin' about anything BUT the Series. Also, once can never be enough, because if you can do it once you can do it twice in my mind.  As for the just getting there part being good enough, ditto.  That's (in my opinion) a thought for losers, and it came from the lips of a man who had spent his lifetime losing.

Hopefully I will get over it sometime this century.

CULTURAL ADVANCEMENT – THE SUPER BOWL MENTALITY

There is no doubt in my mind that we live in a culture where it is somehow far better to get blown out in the quarter-finals than to get "there" and lose.  Lost opportunity is a greater crime than not being good enough.  I think I get it.  I certainly feel like a loser right now.

Besides, the only thing anyone will remember about the 2004 Superbowl is that there was a wardrobe malfunction. They won't remember who played.

Hopefully I will get over it sometime this millennium.

YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW

I have now lost as many championship games as I have won.  After the first two (losses in championship games) I felt like we weren't good enough, and it was "back to the drawing board".  Those two hurt, but this one is more agonizing because I absolutely know we were good enough, and good enough in spite of the "endless season" I subjected them to.

I am good with holding UCSB to 8 goals. Only one of their very talented group of players had two goals, and he was one who was not normally their high scorer.  We only allowed two goals in the second half.  It easily could have been zero.  I have no problem with what we did on defense. 

Ultimately, and in my humble opinion, it was our inability to be patient on offense down the stretch that cost us the game with Santa Barbara.  I was unable to get my message across, and ultimately that falls on me. In retrospect, I had seven attackmen, which was nice, but what I needed and didn't make was one Quarterback, someone who can dictate tempo during the game.   We could not or would not be more thoughtful on the field at critical moments.  Next year I think finding a quarterback will be Offensive Job One.

Maybe I'll get over it sometime before the next geologic time period.

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