Jim Kershner: Make room on Slouch’s couch
I am no sports columnist; I make no claim to be Ring Lardner, John Blanchette or even the Couch Slouch.
Nor do I claim any expertise in football. However, I am an expert in watching football on TV and listening on radio, to which I devote hours of practice. In that capacity I would like to air my Three Peeves About Football, and not just “pet” peeves. Oh, no. These are wild, undomesticated, free-range peeves.
I rank them in order of seriousness, beginning with the least:
The Tyranny of the “Official Review”: Remember what used to happen when a running back dove across the goal line?
The referee would stick both arms in the air, the crowd would erupt in hysteria and the running back would jump to his feet and perform a John-Travolta-meets- James-Brown victory dance. It was clean, satisfying and over in 10 seconds
You know what happens now? The referee walks to a little booth and covers his head. The play is re-run 37 times while a team of NASA engineers measures the position of the ball relative to the rotation of the earth. Google Earth satellite photos are gathered and analyzed by the CIA.
Radar technicians from NORAD are brought in to get a precise fix on when the guy’s knee touched the ground. GPS tracking devices are employed in an attempt to determine whether the point of the ball was on the 1 or 2 millimeter line. Fox brings in Greta van Susteren to discuss the legal implications of an appeal.
The referee finally makes his decision, but there is a further delay because now he can’t remember what down it was or even which team had the ball. A committee is formed to study the question.
Finally, the committee issues a 12-page report concluding that it was, indeed, a touchdown.
The referee raises his arms in the air, but the fans do not erupt in hysteria, because they, too, have forgotten which team had the ball. The guy who made the touchdown performs no victory dance. He like, the rest of the fans, went home 20 minutes ago.
A certain football radio man: Let me make this clear. I love Bob Robertson. I love Bud Nameck.
But sometimes, the old coach, Jim Walden, makes me want to rock back and forth in a catatonic state.
Now, I fully understand that Walden knows what he’s talking about, and the problem is in my own lack of technical football expertise. But here’s what a typical commentary by Jim Walden sounds like to my ears:
“Now, you see what happened there is that the weakside 3-man was split back wide so that it would free the Z-back to go deep along that left seam there – the one to the right. But that’s never going to work with that Panzer coverage where the upside-down back goes single on the strong zone allowing the nickel guy to get right up on the jackal back like that. Aww, that’s just too bad. That’s a bad break. Also the referees just flat missed another call. Aww, that’s just too bad.”
Also, the coach also has an unfortunate tendency to get over-excited and yell things like, “Did you see that? Did you see that play?”
Well, since it’s radio, not really.
The endless run of injuries: This is where things get a little more serious. I was watching the Denver Broncos-Buffalo Bill game last week when Bills player Kevin Everett dove in for a tackle and never got up.
As I write this, he is now in a Buffalo hospital, partially paralyzed with a spinal cord injury. The news this week has been miraculous – he may someday walk again.
Still …
A little over 18 years ago, I witnessed – in real life, not on TV – a friend suffer a serious spinal cord injury. I can still replay the entire scene precisely in my memory. I can still see the heavy farm implement falling and I can still see my friend’s back bending in a direction a person’s back should never bend.
He was partial paralyzed, yet months later he recovered sufficiently to walk again. I wish the same for Kevin Everett.
Yet, over the off-season, I’d somehow forgotten that football seems like a continual parade of knee injuries, ankle injuries, groin injuries and, yes, spinal injuries.
It gives me feel sick to my stomach – but not, apparently, sick enough to make me turn away.
I just keep watching. And that, I suppose, is my real peeve with football.