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 Excuse Me, Sir, Where's The Hype?My buddy Pony Boy got to watch a scrimmage last weekend in Gainesville, Florida. A scrimmage! The good news, says Pony Boy, is that Chris Leak is all he's said to be. The bad news is that the defense dominated the scrimmage, and the defense isn't supposed to be particularly good. It was a less than optimistic scouting report, and I let him know in no uncertain terms that I was not in the mood for a less than optimistic scouting report. And then I realized, hey there, I'm on the moon. I am on the moon. I am orbiting the earth, 240,000 miles away, peering down at the green-blue globe streaked with white clouds and I wonder, do they play football down there? It's not that they don't talk football here. They do. The local sports guy adores college football, and they do a great job covering Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Washington State. So the news is out there. But this feeling of being on a different planet than Pony Boy comes less from my sense of my environment than my internal sense. See, it isn't football season for me yet. It will be, sure, certainly by the time September 6 rolls around and Florida is playing at Miami. But that's not the point. The point is, it is August 18, and it should be football season for me. When I was in Gainesville, football season began the moment basketball season ended. All there was was the look-ahead to next year. August was a waste of time: it just got in the way of September. I miss that feeling, that can't wait feeling. College football should be a way of life, but it is starting to feel like just a sport. We can't have that, now can we? |
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