Leave it to me to be wide awake at 5am on a Saturday.
The thing of it is, is that I don't even have anything all that pressing on my mind. I had a nice evening at home with the gf after we completed some preliminary rental browsing in the neighborhood. I should be relaxed and sleeping right now.
So what could be keeping me up at this hour?
a) College football starts today
b) An uncontrollable craving for string cheese
c) Thoughts of soccer dancing in my head
or
d) The 10k I am attempting to run in 8 days
ANSWER: All of the above.
My beloved Ohio State Buckeyes open against Navy today in the Horseshoe (Ohio Stadium) in Columbus. I wouldn't necessarily say that the team deserves it's #6 slot in the current rankings due to it's overall inexperience and youth. However, I feel that it is one of those teams where the talent is there, but the question remains whether or not they can gel together as a TEAM. With that said, I'm cautiously optimistic.
My father served in the Navy and put his hard earned GI Bill dough towards a degree from THE Ohio State University. I typically give him a call a day prior to whenever I know that the Buckeyes are being broadcast on TV because even though he's a Buckeye at heart, doesn't waste hours on end toiling over the latest Ivan Maisel article on ESPN.com like his offspring does. So, I give him a call yesterday to give him a heads up on the game being shown via the Bristol, CT station today and he jokingly says that his loyalty "may be split." ----- I'm not even sure what the means...loyalty "split"...in regards to the Buckeyes? I have veered off the beat up path of my sports beloved to cheer for other teams before (i.e. cheered with my buddy, Fred, for his Steelers earlier this year in the Super Bowl even though I'm a Browns fan), but it's always been after the fact that my team has been completely eliminated from said competition contention. Even though my dad was joking around (I hope), it got me thinking about this "split loyalty" concept.
First of all, I do not understand it. The rules (as I understand them) are as follows: for each sport and league within said sport, a fan is to have one team to whom they are loyal to forever and ever. That's science! However, I have come across and/or am friends with this "mulit-team" fans and it boggles my mind. Ambivalence is not something I have split loyalty on whatsoever. And yet, I hear the casual fan walking down the street saying something like-
"Gee, I hope that the Seahawks and Cowboys don't play each other this year...I wouldn't know who to root for."
I love my sports and have undying loyalty. I'm the fan that throws his house slipper in disgust when Lebron and the Cavs blow a 13-point lead in the playoffs. I'm the fan that is so passionate that when I purchase the latest copy of NCAA Football for the Wii, I immediately sit down and use Ohio State to beat Michigan just to tell that Wii disc where I stand. I'm the fan that keeps hitting refresh on my phone at 10:00pm while I'm laying in bed trying to find out that my Sounders FC scored an equalizing goal in the 89th minute to tie in a U.S. Open Cup qualifier even though I will get up at 3:45am the next morning. That's the kind of fan I am.
And even though I wouldn't have it any other way in terms of my undying loyalty and will never understand "split loyalty" or sports ambivalence...I can say that I have come to appreciate its relevance in this world. If it wasn't for people like my pops, this world would literally come to a halt during times like March Madness. While I'm filling out my bracket on Yahoo for no reason other than to see if I can do better than last year when I got 56% of my picks right, people like my dad are doing grown-up things like making this world a better place. So even though I will never be wired that way, I love my dad and appreciate his sports ambivalence.
Moving on to more sports obsession- today is a HUGE World Cup qualifier for the Yanks against El Salvador in Sandy, Utah. Two things have been getting a lot of press leading up to this match, the relative struggle it has been to sell the match out in Utah and Landon Donovan. It's a shame that this match only recently sold out, but it also is not a secret that despite this past summer's Confed Cup run by the U.S. men's national team, soccer still hasn't arrived here in the States yet. It is my wholehearted belief that soccer will not hit mainstream in this nation of frontrunners until the USMNT puts together a significant run in a World Cup.
As for Donovan, I appreciate his talent and the fact that he stays in the MLS to help promote the world's game here at home. However, I still have a hard time getting over him always coming off as soft. Granted I do not have a detailed archive of LD highlights and/or lowlights, but literally the only time I have seen him step up and make a HUGE impact on the world stage was during the Confed Cup run this past summer. It's no coincidence that his performance (and wonderfully sick goal v. Brazil) spurred the USMNT onto national headlines at home. He's the catalyst. He's the key in today's match. He's also the key to that significant run in next summer's World Cup. But you know what I would like to see more than anything from LD? When excerpts from the "Beckham Experiment" book leaked about him ripping into David Beckham's lack of leadership and passion as apart of the L.A. Galaxy, after Beckham called him out for being "unprofessional"- LD backed off and apologized. Now, I agree with Beckham about LD's lack of professionalism, but I would have liked to see LD, at the very least, give a harder edged apology and show some backbone to Golden Balls and the world for that matter. I would have LOVED to see LD shoot back stating that, yes, he should have told Beckham about his opinion face to face, but that it doesn't take away from the fact that Beckham really isn't committed to the Galaxy or MLS. That if Beckham really was committed to the MLS, he wouldn't have spent his winter in Italy playing 12th man with AC Milan. As a casual fan or just an observer of that story, if I hear Donovan shoot back to Beckham like that, I would think it would have stirred up some national pride. I also think it would have shown the rest of the world that U.S. soccer isn't afraid to stand up for itself. We're a second tier nation when it comes to soccer because we don't have a passionate following from our country (i.e. this weekend's qualifier's ticket sales) and because that is the perception of the rest of the world. If the USMNT team captain would have stepped up to the world's most recognizable athlete- that would have sent a message. THAT also would have generated some passion for the USMNT and ipso facto, for soccer in the States.
So my gf and I decided we are going to run a 10k next Sunday. It's the Bank to Bay 10k in Tacoma and I am more than a little scared. I am in decent shape, but not due to running...I do other cardio to keep my girlish figure. However, when I went out for a run the other day to "gauge" where my running ability was in preparation for this run, I was given a wake up call. I got about two miles down the road and my shins were aching so much that I needed to walk a little bit. I really hope that I was just sore or tired or something other than a guy who struggles to run more than two miles. I mean, I think I'll be fine, but it does something to your psyche when stuff like that happens to you. We'll see how the 10k goes and then I'll be able to tell if I'm on the verge of being a strong 30 year old man or a...30 year old man.
Oh, I almost forgot about choice B...I just really love string cheese. My coffee is cold, my string cheese is consumed and the Buckeyes kick off in about a hour and a half. Until next time, remember....always Do The Right Thing (DTRT).
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