It's Only Been a Couple Days, And We've Already Got The Game Of The Year
I just wanted to post about what happened yesterday... last night, actually.
It's hard to explain to non-sports people why sports people love sports so much. A great sporting event can get my endorphins running like nothing else... well, almost nothing else. For me, truly great games are something to be treasured, to be looked back on and remembered and loved. A great game is like great literature, coming together through chance and fate and strategy and skill. Baseball and Football are my favorites. Baseball because as a game it seems to me to be nearly perfect, almost serene in its beauty. Football because I enjoy to fast-paced strategy, like a chess game with options increased exponentially and the human element introduced. There's a strange sort of gravity to important games. Nothing is truly at stake, the losers won't be taken out and shot, but at the same time, glory and history is enough. There is both nothing and everything on the line.
One of my earliest coherent memories is the end of the 1990 Super Bowl, of the moment when Norwood's kick sailed wide and the Giants won.
After the Indians blew that Game 7 of the World Series in 1997, I threw up. But I still remember Charles Nagy flailing with his glove as Edgar Renteria's single sailed by him and into center field.
I can almost recite the 2000 Super Bowl back to you blow for blow. The one where Kurt Warner rose from obscurity stocking grocery shelves in Iowa to lead the St. Louis Rams to a Championship on the strength of his arm and a wide open offensive scheme nicknamed "The Greatest Show On Turf". But what I remember most is Steve McNair leading his Titans on one last, desperate drive, somehow escaping three defenders to get within striking distance of the goal line, with only enough time left for one more play... and then that image, where Kevin Dyson catches the ball and is tackled one yard short of the end zone as time expires. I remember how he reached out with the ball, still clawing for the goal line even though he must have known it was over. I honestly remember that moment much more vividly than, say, my own high school graduation.
The Fiesta Bowl last night was the best game I've seen in, well, a long time. The final score alone is worthy of note: Boise State (yes, Boise State) 43-Oklahoma 42. Oklahoma is a powerhouse program with a long, storied history, and a national title within the last decade. Boise State was an upstart, filled with players who were deemed not good enough by the big west coast schools, who exploited the cursory loophole designed to make smaller schools feel like they had a shot in College Football to make it into the game. But it's not the score that made this game one of those that I will always remember. It was the way it happened. It wasn't just one play, it was a series. I will always remember Jared Zabransky faking towards his triple receiver set on the right side and then handing the ball off behind his back to Ian Johnson, and everyone, even me, screaming when they realized there was no one between Johnson and the end zone, long after I've forgotten the names and faces of my college classmates.
Call me strange, call me shallow, but I'm still a little high.