Virtual Mortality

Beautiful day, typical Colorado gem.  I love living here, would gladly travel anywhere, but certain that I would end up here.  I've never lived more than 30 miles from right here, my parents, ditto, my kids the same.  Having roots is mostly a blessing.  If those roots keep you firmly and comfortably planted in a nurturing and comfortable place, you're lucky.  Some people are smothered and overwhelmed by their surroundings and never seem to grow, always seeming to spend life in the shadows.  Or, they wander from place to place like nomads looking for the next oasis.  I am fortunate to know a lot of folks who, like me, have been around these parts for a long time.  I'm not saying that I'm unlucky to also know people who aren't from 'round here, just that it's so good to share communion with friends that you have known your whole life.  I am reminded of this because I have attended numerous gatherings recently to celebrate the life, and to mourn the passing of a friend.  Each life is a unique and precious mosaic of experience and affect.  I shall not dwell here too long on the meaning of life and death, except to say that if we expressed our feelings for someone while they are alive, instead of waiting until they are gone, we'd all be happier for it.  Ah, but I guess that's all part of human nature.

Another facet of modern human nature, is the awesome (not necessarily in a good way) urge that many have to project their thoughts and feelings out there to the world in an instantaneous manner.  It's a lot like farting for a large audience.  I'm referring to the technologies of Twitter/Tweet, Facebook, MySpace, IM, MMS, etc.  News, and garbage, fly across the globe instantly, as it is happening.  In some ways, this is a good thing.  In my opinion, in most ways, it is over-kill.  So much time and energy is consumed by present perceptions, that too many people cannot literally see the forest for the trees.  Political process, sports news, tragic accidents, gossip, vanity ........ nothing is sacred.  Jay Cutler was on the bench two minutes into the second half, and thousands of people world-wide were castrating him for being a quitter.  The sentiment spread like wildfire, and before the game was over, even fellow professional football players were labeling poor Jay as a lily-livered, yellow-bellied, chicken-hearted, thumb-sucking baby of a quarterback.  Combined with the relative lack of coherent action and post-game comments by the Chicago Bears' coaching and medical staff, the criticisms escalated.  High-profile commentators like Michael Irvin, Marshall Faulk, Mark Schlereth, Warren Sapp went on the air and said that Cutler should have tried harder to play in such an important game.  But, this is more about the manner in which Jay Cutler was perceived BEFORE the game against the Packers last Sunday.  He has exhibited a detached, arrogant, surly and aloof manner consistently, ever since he came into the public eye.  And I can sort of understand how difficult it must be to be under the microscope constantly.  To my estimation and observation, he has not made many friends with his personality and exhibition of character.  Present and past teammates and coaches seem to be indifferent in their praise of him, while being very effusive about his talent.  So, it's easy to dismiss him as one of those "million-dollar arm, with a fifty-cent brain" types.  Especially since there are so many athletes that are admired for their class and character.  And, if you were to believe the 'experts', why, sitting out a championship football game with an injured knee is MUCH MUCH worse than admitting to the sexual assault of a woman (Roethlisberger).  Deferring to a medical opinion that your leg cannot allow you to play football effectively is WAY more atrocious than getting caught using crack cocaine and paying for prostitutes (Irvin).  I'm just sayin'.

Life is a fragile phenomenon.  Human nature lets us almost ignore the delicate balance between living and not.  One minute you are, the next you're not.  It's there for all of us, and yet we have the insular ability to proceed each and every day as if we shall live forever.  That's a good thing, not to be cowered by the certainty of our mortality.  We all need to forge ahead mindful that we are not alone in our journey, and allow others to touch and be touched (no, not that way Ben!).  Be mindful of the others around you and conduct your life as if there's somebody following you around tweeting your every move.  Because, you never know, lots of people are on the prowl for that special YouTube moment, and it wouldn't be cool to be remembered forever for farting in the church of cyberspace.

Good Luck, John Elway !!

The Duke of Denver has returned!!  John Elway is officially the newly anointed savior of a crumbling, but once-proud franchise.  He's got a lot of work to get done.  There's been a lot of talk about the Broncos' needs, their mistakes and their storied past.  The Denver Broncos are an original American Football League franchise.  The AFL (the more recent one, not the one that existed in 1926, briefly) was begat in the late 1950's when a number of rich guys all attempted to buy a struggling Chicago professional football team in the National Football League.  That would be the Chicago Cardinals, not the Bears.  When first Lamar Hunt, then Bud Adams, Bob Howsam and Max Winter were rebuffed in their attempts to buy controlling interest in the Cardinals, they met and approached the commissioner of the NFL to discuss obtaining expansion franchises.  When the Commish, Bert Bell, said "No, we're fine, no expansion for you!", Hunt and Adams decided to start their own social network, with a geographically-friendly natural rivalry, Hunt's team in Dallas, Adams' franchise in Houston.  Howsam was invited, so Denver became an original, the Winters and his partner agreed to field a team in Minneapolis, so the Original Four were the Dallas Texans, Houston Oilers, Denver Broncos and the Minnesota Vikings.  Word spread, and then, a whole bunch of rich guys jumped on the bandwagon, and at the first charter meeting, franchises were awarded to the original four, plus New York and Los Angeles.  That was 1959.  Then, the NFL, to undermine the fledgling league, offered a real NFL expansion bid to the Minnesota guys, who then jumped ship.  Further, NFL expansion franchises were awarded to Dallas and Houston, though the Houston NFL gig never got off the ground.

The American Football League began play in September 1960 with eight teams in the league — the Boston Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Dallas Texans, Denver Broncos, Houston Oilers, Los Angeles Chargers, New York Titans, and Oakland Raiders.  In the first pre-season contest (they actually called them exhibition games back then) the Boston Patriots (without Bill Belichick) defeated the Buffalo Bills.  The very first regular season tilt featured our very own Denver Broncos beating the Boston Patriots, 13-10.  The very first touchdown pass in the history of the AFL was a 59-yard toss from Frank Tripucka to Al Carmichael.  But, the Broncos were not very good for a long time, and it took drafting and signing their very first superstar, Floyd Little in 1967, to even be able to keep the franchise in Denver.  Our Broncs were the only original AFL team to never play in a championship game in the AFL's history.  The first league title went to the Houston Oilers who beat the Los Angeles Chargers 24-16 on New Year's Day 1961.  The Chargers moved to San Diego, Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson loaned money to the Oakland franchise to keep it afloat and the league survived its first year.  Then, to build up interest, the AFL decided to challenge the Canadian Football League to an exhibition game.  The first big embarassment for the Buffalo Bills, they lost to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in August of 1961.  Competition and confrontation between the NFL and the AFL escalated through the years, when draft choices and quarterbacks coveted by both leagues began to inhabit AFL rosters and popularity grew for the fledgling league.  Then, the first exhibition game ever to be played between two teams from the rival leagues was held at the old Denver University Stadium on August 5th, 1967.  Alex Karras, star defensive end for the Detroit Lions, vowed before the game that, "if them fuckin' Broncos beat us, I'll fuckin' walk back to Detroit."  Well, Denver won the tilt 13-7, but Mongo walked only as far as the team plane when it returned to Michigan.

The Broncos never really enjoyed any team success until the Orange Crush years, after the team mutinied and had coach John Ralston ousted in favor of Red Miller.  His first year, the Broncos went all the way to Super Bowl, losing to the Dallas Cowboys 27-10.  Denver had only 8 pass completions that game, with 8 turnovers, but passion had been ignited in Denver and the entire Front Range.  The Orange Crush Defense, Edgar Kaiser, Pat Bowlen, Terrell Davis and John Elway escalated the fever to dizzying heights over the next 30+ years culminating in back-to-back Super Bowl victories in 1998 and 1999.  In the subsequent dozen years, the franchise has suffered from bad decisions, bad drafts, bad quarterbacking and bad coaching.  John Elway has got his hands full, for the future of Pat Bowlen's legacy rests on his shoulders.  The next head coaching position will be a tough one, one that requires a tough-minded coach, one that can create and attract a strong defensive philosophy.  The personnel decisions will be critical to long-term success, even short-term to establish a tough mentality.  With a handy (and deserving) scapegoat out of the way (Josh McDaniels), the pressure's on Brian Xanders and Joe Ellis to assist and enable Elway in getting the right coaches and players here in Denver.  I have my doubts, who are the real football minds here in this organization?  Is John really astute in the player evaluation department?  The men who were around, maybe not totally responsible for, but around in positions of authority, Xanders and Ellis, are the only ones still around.  Is that a good thing?  I guess we shall see.  At least Mr. Elway's hiring has breathed fresh enthusiasm into Bronco Nation.  Good luck to him and all of us Bronco fans.

Spring Training starts in 40 days!

What is Right With Sports

Gleefully enjoying the news coming out that Carlos Gonzalez is following suit with Troy Tulowitzki and signing long-term with our Colorado Rockies.  Against all odds, in that the hated Scott Boras is CarGo's agent, and we just know that Mr. Boras strongly advises his clients to never let a team control you for too long, or for too little.  But, how much is enough?  Carlos and Troy and Ubaldo traded semi-mega-wealthy for super-duper-wealthy in return for guaranteed financial security, and the opportunity to be the focal point of something really special here on the Rocky Mountain sports scene.  Following any sport gives us all a venue to involve ourselves vicariously and vigorously in analytical and conjectural exercises.  We formulate our own opinions based on what we glean from news accounts, statistics, conversations, television or from personal experience.  We discuss and postulate with each other more about sports than we do about our families, or jobs.  At least the people I talk to and relate to on a regular basis.  Maybe that's why - birds of a feather (as long as you're not a bird in Arkansas).  The point is, it's nice when sports personalities are individuals that, outwardly at least, appear to be upstanding, honorable examples of good citizens that do not flaunt their status and act like spoiled and entitled assholes.  The latter category is rife with examples of celebrity/athletes/entertainers that are famous and rich because they're famous and rich.  My son's a teacher, a first-year rookie middle-school teacher.  Now wouldn't it be nice if there was a draft, and first-year salary slot for rookies, and agents could negotiate multi-thousand dollar (who's kidding who, multi-millions is out of the question) contracts for their clients based on what school best fits the talents of the teacher/draft choice, and what types of incentive-laden inducements are written into the contracts, no-trade clauses, free-agency contingencies, on and on.  But, alas, SCHOOL is not a direct revenue-generating consortium such as are sports teams or movies or TV shows.  Owners of sports teams are like Carnegie Steel or General Motors.  I understand why there are players' unions, formed to deal with owners that used to control athletes' livelihood much as plantation owners controlled their slaves.  The added leverage that sports teams' owners have is that they can extort cities or regions into paying for their lovely stadiums or they'll leave to go to another city that will promise taxpayer-built stadiums or arenas.  The players' unions want the owners to "open the books" and share the wealth.  The owners want to protect what the have.  Now, there's a threat of the NFL not having football next year in a gigantic game of chicken being conducted by the two sides.  It's happened in baseball, hockey, air traffic control, coal mining, steel production, even in the teaching profession.