Friday, November 12, 2004
I met Ralph Klein today
But I'm not going to blog about it. At least not right now. Suffice it to say that I now know the answer ("yes") to the age old question of whether Steve West is really the asshole he's purported to be.
What I am going to blog about - a departure from my normal diet of politics, politics, pithy observations, politics, and stories about me appearing nude in public - is football. Eskimos football. Eskimos football and Tom Higgins.
I don't know as much about football as some others I might mention, but I know a certain amount. I even had a playing career of my own once, back in the 1994 season, when, as an offensive lineman for the St. Albert Bengals - and I don't wish to toot my own horn, here - I managed to take illegal procedure calls on two consecutive plays (the Bengals only won one game that year, that being the one I missed. I'm pretty sure that was a coincidence.). Anyway, this interest in football leads me to read the Journal's coverage, including its story on Mr. Higgins' decision to resign his post as head coach. Towards the end of that story, he made reference to a tough conversation around the dinner table, and to how hard this has been on his three University-aged daughters, the oldest of whom, Holly, had been so upset that she was unable to finish a paper for school.
Now, this has a certain amount of resonnance, because I know Holly Higgins - not well, certainly, and I probably haven't seen her in close to a year now, but well enough that if I saw her on campus I'd say hi, a gesture that I daresay would be returned. And she is, by all accounts (including my own) one of the nicest people you're ever likely to meet. Last year, not long after Mr. Higgins had won the CFL'c coach of the year award, Holly, with obvious pride, introduced her father to a crowd of high school students and University-aged volunteers as the keynote speaker for the S.U.'s High School Leadership Conference. The love in her voice and on her face as she did so came back to me whenever I read any quotes from Eskimos fans calling for his head, and I'd wonder why we do this to sports figures.
You could ask why we (and I do mean "we", being far from exempt on this count) do it to politicians, too, but at least there are truly lofty issues - sometimes people's lives - at stake, so it makes sense that emotions should run a little strong. But football coaches? Are they such public figures that it's excusable to demand their dismissal from our armchairs? Isn't there enough dischord in our world without demonizing good men who are trying to be as successful as they can in that life or death field football? I mean, really, what the hell is wrong with us?
And while we're asking the tough questions, what kind of call is a fake punt on third and nineteen late in the first half in your own zone while you're up six nothing?
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But I'm not going to blog about it. At least not right now. Suffice it to say that I now know the answer ("yes") to the age old question of whether Steve West is really the asshole he's purported to be.
What I am going to blog about - a departure from my normal diet of politics, politics, pithy observations, politics, and stories about me appearing nude in public - is football. Eskimos football. Eskimos football and Tom Higgins.
I don't know as much about football as some others I might mention, but I know a certain amount. I even had a playing career of my own once, back in the 1994 season, when, as an offensive lineman for the St. Albert Bengals - and I don't wish to toot my own horn, here - I managed to take illegal procedure calls on two consecutive plays (the Bengals only won one game that year, that being the one I missed. I'm pretty sure that was a coincidence.). Anyway, this interest in football leads me to read the Journal's coverage, including its story on Mr. Higgins' decision to resign his post as head coach. Towards the end of that story, he made reference to a tough conversation around the dinner table, and to how hard this has been on his three University-aged daughters, the oldest of whom, Holly, had been so upset that she was unable to finish a paper for school.
Now, this has a certain amount of resonnance, because I know Holly Higgins - not well, certainly, and I probably haven't seen her in close to a year now, but well enough that if I saw her on campus I'd say hi, a gesture that I daresay would be returned. And she is, by all accounts (including my own) one of the nicest people you're ever likely to meet. Last year, not long after Mr. Higgins had won the CFL'c coach of the year award, Holly, with obvious pride, introduced her father to a crowd of high school students and University-aged volunteers as the keynote speaker for the S.U.'s High School Leadership Conference. The love in her voice and on her face as she did so came back to me whenever I read any quotes from Eskimos fans calling for his head, and I'd wonder why we do this to sports figures.
You could ask why we (and I do mean "we", being far from exempt on this count) do it to politicians, too, but at least there are truly lofty issues - sometimes people's lives - at stake, so it makes sense that emotions should run a little strong. But football coaches? Are they such public figures that it's excusable to demand their dismissal from our armchairs? Isn't there enough dischord in our world without demonizing good men who are trying to be as successful as they can in that life or death field football? I mean, really, what the hell is wrong with us?
And while we're asking the tough questions, what kind of call is a fake punt on third and nineteen late in the first half in your own zone while you're up six nothing?
