about Thanksgiving and family

Turkey baked in a bag. Mashed potatoes and green beans. Pie and whipped cream! And the Cowboys. We cook it, we eat and watch the game together. This is how Thanksgiving has been for several years: just us two. And if the game is boring or the turkey is dry—who cares? I enjoy Thanksgiving, this family holiday, because it is not Christmas. Fewer people, no presents, no long buildup, less stress, less drama. What it is is the casual closeness, the informality I used to think defined our family in the best of times.

 

something about "Paper Lion" by George Plimpton

George Plimpton was an American journalist and writer. Paper Lion describes his experience in 1963 joining the training camp of the Detroit Lions, a National Football League team. Plimpton, 36 years old at the time and not an athlete, tried out to be the team's third-string quarterback. Paper Lion expands on a two-part piece Plimpton wrote for Sports Illustrated in September 1964.

The book, published in 1966, is a widely read example of Plimpton's "participatory journalism." It followed up on a similar project, Out of My League, in which Plimpton participated in an American professional baseball all-star exhibition game. These books attempt to ask, How would the average man do in competition with professional athletes?

What comes off to me, though, is one guy who, for reasons probably having a lot to do with class, spends a lot of time among people he cannot relate to. And the prose is a language time capsule.

Overall, Paper Lion was fine. But I think the book would have worked just as well at half the length.

Note: Plimpton is the tall guy in the photo. Paper Lion was made into a movie, released in 1968 as a sports comedy, starring Alan Alda as Plimpton. Have not seen it.

something about Skip Bayless’ “God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys”

Long before he was a clicks-generator for ESPN, Skip Bayless was a well-regarded, award-winning journalist. He started at The Miami Herald, moved on to the Los Angeles Times, then, in the late 1970s, moved to Dallas to be lead sports columnist covering America’s Team during the Cowboys' peak celebrity.

In 1989, after several years' of writing Cowboys columns, Bayless tried to cash in and published God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype, and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys. The book streaks through the times and personnel behind the Cowboys’ rise to national prominence, the team’s decades-long winning run, and the organization’s disillusioning decline and cold-turkey break with legendary coach Tom Landry.

God's Coach is not flattering for Landry or the organization. Influential general manger Tex Schramm, the team's front office, and some big-name former players all get sacked in Bayless’ book. And he describes Landry—"the man in the funny hat," as was affectionately known—as a deeply religious man coaching in a corrupt organization, withholding emotionally to keep players working for his approval, and, eventually, getting passed by as the game evolved and times changed.

I enjoyed reading parts of God's Coach, including the opinions of Landry's great assistant coaches and some long-forgotten background bits on former players. Plus, Bayless' sport-column-writing style, with its dumb wit and constant motion, works well in longform here. But, overall, I found the book distasteful largely because Bayless engages in a lot of suggestion and innuendo, frequently framing accusations as questions. Bayless' premise—that Landry the man was not as good as Landry the legend—is a straw man. Did anyone in 1989 believe Landry and the Cowboys were perfect? No. But many believed that the iconic coach deserved respect.

Bayless does not know the meaning of the word.

Finding someone with a bad word to say about the Cowboys will never be a problem—especially when the team is down, like it was in '89. But Landry and the organization did not have a losing season from 1966 to 1986. And, in that time, the Cowboys won 13 division titles and made five Super Bowl appearances, winning twice.

The team owner, Bum Bright (who was losing a bundle in the savings and loan crisis at the time), sold the team to a 40-something Jerry Jones for $140 million in 1989, and Landry was fired after 29 seasons. Bayless writes that Bright and Schramm intended to fire Landry whether or not the team was sold. I do not doubt that they would have looked for a way to offer Landry a dignified exit; and I need not doubt that Jerry Jones was one key source for the book. Many Cowboys fans still associate Jones with Landry's undignified dismissal.

Hats off to Tom Landry.

Note: Landry was 6’2” and fit as hell his whole life. He wore a suit on the sidelines, but, in practice, he was poppin' in t-shirts and shorts. The man died in 2000.

about Texas sunsets in October

The sunset in Texas in October brushes us familiarly. I feel a twist in my heart as the late afternoon's gold mixes with shadows that take more and more space—much more space now than what blocks the light. And then the last rays slip over me and run fingers through the treetops.

Note: What can you do but notice the beauty of it, even during the final minutes of the football game.

 

about some little thing on local news

I watched a local TV news story in Dallas about a hotel damaged a few weeks ago during the annual Red River Showdown between Texas and Oklahoma. Some fans evidently damaged property during their stay. The hotel owner was on the news footage pointing out the damage. The next news camera shot—I'm not sure what the prompt was, maybe a question about regrets for serving rowdy fans of the football tradition—but it was the owner (he was a rough old guy) just beaming a big smile and saying, "But it's fun! I've had drama all my life!"

about a softie, a nancy boy

At the airport. This 40-year-old dad-guy in khakis drank half a beer and now he's acting like he's a man. He pulled from his luggage a little Nerf football, dropped back, and threw it toward his kids. The ball fluttered and dropped about three feet in front of his kids' toes.

In those moments, I saw him lower his inhibitions some. Fun dad came out to play for a while.

He started smiling as the idea popped into his head. "I'm gonna seize this moment and really connect with my son in front of all these people." And then to not connect on the play. Broken up by his own fear of letting go of that little, fluorescent softie; letting go too soon, not following through. Or holding on too long, as with any dream he's ever had. Hit by reality after the play was called dead. The pass falls short. He falls short.

It was the beer's fault. His wife has already discussed this with him. You can tell that she's already drawing up a demeaning play to focus his attention once again. Sportsman. Dreamer. Alcoholic. Beautiful.

Stretching out, trying to break the plane. At the airport. Secretly hoping this plane is the one that finally crashes.


Note: Co-written by my best bud.

Make sure you hear the national anthem.

“When you're good at something, you'll tell everyone. When you're great at something, they'll tell you.”
    ―Walter Payton

(coming from behind in the Super Bowl)

Michael Jordan might be a jerk and competitive to a fault, but the man knows greatness, and he knows how time distorts the collective memory of greatness. Here is a wonderful excerpt from a new ESPN "Outside the Lines" profile of professional basketball's greatest ever at age 50:

Over the next seven hours, all of it spent watching one basketball game after another, he's (Jordan) again pulled inward, on a Tilt-a-Whirl of emotion, mostly shades of anger, from active screaming to a slow, silent burn. He transforms from a businessman returning from the office -- Honey, I'm home! -- to a man on fire. The first sparks come from a "SportsCenter" debate, one of those impossible, vaguely ridiculous arguments that can, of course, never be won: Who's a better quarterback, Joe Montana or Tom Brady?

"I can't wait to hear this conversation," he says.

He stretches his legs out on the ottoman, wearing sweats and socks, and as one of the guys on television argues for Brady, Jordan laughs.

"They're gonna say Brady because they don't remember Montana," he says. "Isn't that amazing?"

Aging means losing things, and not just eyesight and flexibility. It means watching the accomplishments of your youth be diminished, maybe in your own eyes through perspective, maybe in the eyes of others through cultural amnesia. Most people live anonymous lives, and when they grow old and die, any record of their existence is blown away. They're forgotten, some more slowly than others, but eventually it happens to virtually everyone. Yet for the few people in each generation who reach the very pinnacle of fame and achievement, a mirage flickers: immortality. They come to believe in it. Even after Jordan is gone, he knows people will remember him. Here lies the greatest basketball player of all time. That's his epitaph. When he walked off the court for the last time, he must have believed that nothing could ever diminish what he'd done. That knowledge would be his shield against aging.

There's a fable about returning Roman generals who rode in victory parades through the streets of the capital; a slave stood behind them, whispering in their ears, "All glory is fleeting." Nobody does that for professional athletes. Jordan couldn't have known that the closest he'd get to immortality was during that final walk off the court, the one symbolically preserved in the print in his office. All that can happen in the days and years that follow is for the shining monument he built to be chipped away, eroded. Maybe he realizes that now. Maybe he doesn't. But when he sees Joe Montana joined on the mountaintop by the next generation, he has to realize that someday his picture will be on a screen next to LeBron James as people argue about who was better.

The debaters announce the results of an Internet poll, and 925,000 people voted. There was a tie: 50 percent said Montana and 50 percent said Brady. It doesn't matter that Montana never lost a Super Bowl or that, unlike Brady, he never faded on the biggest stage. Questions of legacy, of greatness, are weighted in favor of youth. Time itself is on Brady's side, for now.

Jordan shakes his head.

"That doesn't make any sense," he says.

That's good writing, and a compelling anecdote, considering it's about a guy sitting, watching TV. And what it says is so Goddamn true.


Notes:

Speaking of basketball and greatness, as the annual stupid NBA All-Star game approaches, let's remember the only rendition of the national anthem that ever mattered: Marvin Gaye at the 1983 game:

how they missed Joe

Note:
But Frank Gore did throw the awesomest stiff-arm:

49ers in the Super Bowl

The soap opera continues, has only just begun

Last night Dallas Morning News staff photographer Michael Ainsworth captured an anguished Tony Romo pacing the sideline after throwing an interception. This picture is brilliant. Not only does it speak volumes about one man and his pain and feelings of inferiority, but it emphasizes the wonderful drama of sports. The action and athleticism are great but they're icing on the cake. The collective and personal drama is what keeps fans coming back for more, even after their team blows it on the big stage (yet again). The struggle, the triumph, and, here, the tragedy.

Look closely at this picture. That is a tortured look on his face.


Notes:

• Faith: You don't believe in a proven quarterback--you rely on him; so it is only now that I know he felt loss so acutely, knows loss so intimately, that I can believe in Tony Romo. The team will be worse next year, looks like. But, nevertheless.

49ers 27 - Dolphins 13

2011 Prediction: Dallas Cowboys (6-10)

• at NY Jets              L, 30-16
• at SF 49ers             L, 17-21
• Redskins                W, 20-12
• Lions                       W, 17-16
• at NE Patriots         L, 34-9
• Rams                       W, 16-12
• at Philly Eagles       L, 41-20
• Seahawks                W, 24-13
• Bills                          L, 18-14
• at Wash Redskins   L, 21-17
• Dolphins                 W, 20-17
• at Ariz Cardinals    L, 24-15
• Giants                       L, 16-12
• at TB Buccaneers   L, 20-10
• Eagles                      L, 31-13
• at NY Giants          W, 17-13

2011 Predictions: San Francisco 49ers (7-9)

• Seahawks                      W, 23-13
• Cowboys                        W, 21-17
• at Cincy Bengals          W, 20-6
• at Philly Eagles             L, 35-13
• Buccaneers                    L, 20-18
• at Det Lions                   L, 24-16
• Browns                           W, 27-20
• at Wash Redskins         L, 18-13
• Giants                             W, 17-13
• Cardinals                       L, 23-13
• at Bal Ravens                L, 30-9
• Rams                              W, 20-12
• at Ariz Cardinals           L, 21-16
• Steelers                           L, 36-15
• at Seattle Seahawks      L, 20-17
• at SL Rams                    W, 16-10