By Steve Janoski
Growing up, I was probably one of the biggest sports fans I knew… and I knew a lot of them.
Everything was all about the games. You were judged in school by what football team you liked, and how they played on Sunday was a direct measure of the abuse you might or might not have to endure the following day.
We had all the jerseys and knew all the stats — we knew whether or not Emmitt Smith’s shoulder had dislocated in practice or Michael Irvin had been arrested over the weekend — and how it was all going to affect the next game.
And, after bleeding by your TV every Sunday for four months, getting to watch your team win the Super Bowl was a triumph of immense proportions that you knew was going to give you bragging rights over all of your friends (especially the Cowboys fans) until at least the following September.
We lived and died by the game, and it truly meant something to us.
As time progressed, however, it changed for me. No longer personally involved in football (or any sport) after high school, I found it hard to find that same fire on Sundays, and as I matured, I realized this might not be a bad thing.
Looking back I realized that for all those years, I had taken the whole thing too seriously. I got too upset when the Giants would take a beating or the Red Sox would blow a ninth-inning lead in typical Red Sox fashion, and the step back might have been a necessary one for my own sanity.
I still love watching the games, of course, and cursing a blue streak when a save is blown or a touchdown is scored against is still a common occurrence for me.
But that overwhelming stress is gone, and that empty feeling after a playoff loss or a season-ending skid has faded out along with the appeal of wearing another man’s name on the back of my shirt.
It’s important to remember that in the end, these games mean nothing in the overarching novels of our lives.
We live a short enough time as it is, and to put so much emphasis on something that we can’t control in the least is dangerous. I recently read an awe-inspiring statistic that 15 percent of men would miss the birth of their first child if their team was in the Super Bowl and they had the chance to go.
There’s nothing wrong with being a fan, of course, and even I am not jaded enough to miss the inherent beauty of certain remarkable happenings in sports such as the 2007 Super Bowl or the 2004 Red Sox-Yankees series.
But then having become more involved with boxing over the last five years and becoming more of an “active” participant in my sport of choice has also made the notion of sitting on a couch drinking beer while referring to the team I’m watching as “we” seem even more ludicrous.
I am reminded of the scene in Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams is trying to explain to Matt Damon why he gave up the chance to see Game 6 of the 1975 World Series (one of the great games in Red Sox history) for the chance to talk to a beautiful woman at a bar who would later become his wife.
“I just slid my ticket across the table and I said, ‘Sorry guys, I gotta’ see about a girl,’ Williams said.
He had his priorities straight.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/139227504_What_s_more_important_-a_game_or_your_girl_.html
Showing posts with label New York Giants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York Giants. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Tearing out the NFL's violent heart
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2012
‘At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.’
As with most awful things, it started slowly: a rule change here, an increase in the penalty yardage there.
Sure, there were reasons for some; as players began mutating from normal men to the behemoths that take the field now, the hits got harder, the injuries, more vicious and frequent.
But it seems like in the 1990s, some great movement began to occur in the NFL that started moving football away from its blue collar roots of leather helmets and open playing fields and into the white collar arena where the number of luxury boxes became far more important than who could afford the games.
More domes began to appear, sheltering players and fans alike from the elements, and a huge wildcard — the weather — was eliminated.
And the rules began to change as well to mirror this transition and, eager to protect the million-dollar players who no longer need jobs in the off-season to support their families, the NFL began instituting rules that are slowly robbing the game of the things that made it great.
Rules have been introduced stripping defensive players of their ability to go anywhere near certain offensive players, such as the infamous "roughing the passer" rule, which declares that even the slightest touch from a defensive player could shatter a fragile quarterback, a la the liquid-nitrogen frozen T-1000 in the 1991 classic "Terminator 2."
Players must watch when and where they hit, horse-collar tackles are banned (for what reason?), and four-man wedges on a kickoff are no longer allowed. Fines for plays deemed out of line are as common as a Miami rainstorm.
At this point, the league should look to rename itself the National For the Love of God Don’t Hit Me League.
Again, I understand why these things are done. They slant the game toward more explosive offenses, which is good to attract fans, and protects prized players that earn mountains of cash for the league through their endorsements and the like.
But this year, the league has taken it one step too far, and has truly thrown down the gauntlet with their "defenseless player" rules, which state that a foul is committed if a player "initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture."
I’ve seen this penalty called a number of times this year, mostly on defensive backs or linebackers who level some poor receiver sent over the middle on a route that he generally knows will likely have a painful ending if the ball comes his way.
As a former receiver in my younger days, I realize the genesis of this rule. Some of the hits taken while going over the middle, even in practice, were some of the most obscenely brutal because inevitably, you were looking for the ball and not the linebacker coming to lay you down.
But in that way, it was also a mark of honor. If someone said that you were "willing to go over the middle," it meant that you had stones, you could take a hit, and that most importantly, you weren’t scared. You were tough.
This rule totally nullifies the need for that toughness, and soon I expect to see all manners of players shying away from laying big hits for fear of seeing that cursed yellow rag fly through the air afterwards.
Football has always been amongst the hardest games because of the pure physicality needed to survive it; that’s what’s drawn many of us fans to it, and what keeps us watching.
At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.
There was always the chance that sometimes you’d get whacked so hard that you’d see double for a couple of minutes, or your head would hurt for a couple days, but that, simply put, was the price of admission.
Don’t like it?
Find another game where there was no hitting. There were plenty of sports for the weaker of heart.
By the time a man reaches the NFL, though, those with no heart have been weeded out already, and those that step onto that field are as hard as coffin nails.
But if this is the direction that the NFL is truly headed, where they sacrifice the integrity of the game in order to protect their investments and people’s fantasy football players, they may as well ban tackling altogether give the guys pillows to hit each other with.
Sure, they may attract a different audience then… but they’ll probably make more money. And for the NFL execs, that’ll be reason enough.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/136716073_Tearing_out_the_NFL_s_violent_heart_.html?c=y&page=1
BY STEVE JANOSKI
‘At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.’
As with most awful things, it started slowly: a rule change here, an increase in the penalty yardage there.
Sure, there were reasons for some; as players began mutating from normal men to the behemoths that take the field now, the hits got harder, the injuries, more vicious and frequent.
But it seems like in the 1990s, some great movement began to occur in the NFL that started moving football away from its blue collar roots of leather helmets and open playing fields and into the white collar arena where the number of luxury boxes became far more important than who could afford the games.
More domes began to appear, sheltering players and fans alike from the elements, and a huge wildcard — the weather — was eliminated.
And the rules began to change as well to mirror this transition and, eager to protect the million-dollar players who no longer need jobs in the off-season to support their families, the NFL began instituting rules that are slowly robbing the game of the things that made it great.
Rules have been introduced stripping defensive players of their ability to go anywhere near certain offensive players, such as the infamous "roughing the passer" rule, which declares that even the slightest touch from a defensive player could shatter a fragile quarterback, a la the liquid-nitrogen frozen T-1000 in the 1991 classic "Terminator 2."
Players must watch when and where they hit, horse-collar tackles are banned (for what reason?), and four-man wedges on a kickoff are no longer allowed. Fines for plays deemed out of line are as common as a Miami rainstorm.
At this point, the league should look to rename itself the National For the Love of God Don’t Hit Me League.
Again, I understand why these things are done. They slant the game toward more explosive offenses, which is good to attract fans, and protects prized players that earn mountains of cash for the league through their endorsements and the like.
But this year, the league has taken it one step too far, and has truly thrown down the gauntlet with their "defenseless player" rules, which state that a foul is committed if a player "initiates unnecessary contact against a player who is in a defenseless posture."
I’ve seen this penalty called a number of times this year, mostly on defensive backs or linebackers who level some poor receiver sent over the middle on a route that he generally knows will likely have a painful ending if the ball comes his way.
As a former receiver in my younger days, I realize the genesis of this rule. Some of the hits taken while going over the middle, even in practice, were some of the most obscenely brutal because inevitably, you were looking for the ball and not the linebacker coming to lay you down.
But in that way, it was also a mark of honor. If someone said that you were "willing to go over the middle," it meant that you had stones, you could take a hit, and that most importantly, you weren’t scared. You were tough.
This rule totally nullifies the need for that toughness, and soon I expect to see all manners of players shying away from laying big hits for fear of seeing that cursed yellow rag fly through the air afterwards.
Football has always been amongst the hardest games because of the pure physicality needed to survive it; that’s what’s drawn many of us fans to it, and what keeps us watching.
At the very heart of that physicality is the savage hitting that goes on, and those of us that played at any level knew exactly what we were getting into.
There was always the chance that sometimes you’d get whacked so hard that you’d see double for a couple of minutes, or your head would hurt for a couple days, but that, simply put, was the price of admission.
Don’t like it?
Find another game where there was no hitting. There were plenty of sports for the weaker of heart.
By the time a man reaches the NFL, though, those with no heart have been weeded out already, and those that step onto that field are as hard as coffin nails.
But if this is the direction that the NFL is truly headed, where they sacrifice the integrity of the game in order to protect their investments and people’s fantasy football players, they may as well ban tackling altogether give the guys pillows to hit each other with.
Sure, they may attract a different audience then… but they’ll probably make more money. And for the NFL execs, that’ll be reason enough.
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/136716073_Tearing_out_the_NFL_s_violent_heart_.html?c=y&page=1
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
The empty lives of fantasy football junkies
BY STEVE JANOSKI
Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010
We all know a guy like him. He’s been a Giants’ fan since you were in first grade together, but all of a sudden, he comes into the bar with a Maurice Jones-Drew jersey on a Sunday afternoon.
His opening comment is likely going to be along the lines of, “Bro, you’ll never guess who I got on my fantasy team— we’re gonna’ be siiiiick this year.” Clearly, he had the first pick in his fantasy football draft…and then he went out and bought the jersey of the guy he drafted.
Shortly after, he begins listing all the players he chose, and you stop listening and tip your pint glass back in the attempt to stop your ears from bleeding because really, who cares who anybody else has on their fantasy team?
Such is what the first weeks of the football season have become.
Long ago, we used to root for the team we actually liked— now, pretending to be the Jerry Jones of our very own football team has us rooting for players we hate on teams we despise.
I was guilty of this last year when I picked Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber to be on my team, “The Bayshore Yagabawms.”
I should have known better, because as a lifelong Giants fan, nobody has hated the Cowboys organization with more vigor than I.
Regardless, in a move that rivaled Benedict Arnold’s treason, I still picked Barber.
I realized the trappings of fantasy football during the Giants- Cowboys game last year as I watched Barber rip off run after run, killing my team but earning my fake team points.
On one play, he tore through the line and sprung for a 20 or 30 yard run, causing me to curse vehemently at the TV all the while being quietly semi-happy that I was getting fantasy points for it, only to end the play cursing and swearing again when Barber gimped off the field clutching his hamstring seconds later (an injury that put the Yagabawms in the cellar for the rest of the year.)
Fantasy football had turned me into an indecisive, blithering idiot in a matter of seconds, and I felt guilty, dirty even, for having rooted for Barber against my boys for even a second.
This year, although I refused to draft any Cowboys, I made the mistake of trying to manage four different teams simultaneously. What I didn’t realize is that running multiple teams is like trying to date more than one woman at a time— if you think you’re handling it smoothly and things are going well, you’re probably about one step away from a horrific, Chernobyl-style disaster that will leave bodies in the streets and cities destroyed.
Some guys, I’ve heard, have gone as far as managing 10 or 15 leagues at a time.
I don’t know where they find the time to actually watch the games in between managing their mythical teams, but it’s a safe bet that they don’t have to worry about things like dating.
On the other hand, fantasy football does give me a reason to watch games that the Giants aren’t playing in, and offers me someone to root for because, in a roundabout way, I’ve got money on them.
It’s also been adept at getting the general public more into football—one rookie fan I know was overheard during a draft whispering, “What’s a ‘bye week?’”
Now, this Don Quixote of the football world is welded to the TVs at the local dives every Sunday, alternating between fits of joy and despair as the scores tumble and rise—it’s like sitting at a craps table, except the drinks aren’t free and nobody cares when you win.
The NFL has scored huge with fantasy football, and as the game tightens its narcotic grip on the hearts and minds of the young males of this country, one wonders whether “Draft Day” will eventually become a holiday, like some say the day after the Super Bowl should be.
If it does, I’m taking that whole week off, because I don’t want to hear who everybody picked.
Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010
We all know a guy like him. He’s been a Giants’ fan since you were in first grade together, but all of a sudden, he comes into the bar with a Maurice Jones-Drew jersey on a Sunday afternoon.
His opening comment is likely going to be along the lines of, “Bro, you’ll never guess who I got on my fantasy team— we’re gonna’ be siiiiick this year.” Clearly, he had the first pick in his fantasy football draft…and then he went out and bought the jersey of the guy he drafted.
Shortly after, he begins listing all the players he chose, and you stop listening and tip your pint glass back in the attempt to stop your ears from bleeding because really, who cares who anybody else has on their fantasy team?
Such is what the first weeks of the football season have become.
Long ago, we used to root for the team we actually liked— now, pretending to be the Jerry Jones of our very own football team has us rooting for players we hate on teams we despise.
I was guilty of this last year when I picked Dallas Cowboys running back Marion Barber to be on my team, “The Bayshore Yagabawms.”
I should have known better, because as a lifelong Giants fan, nobody has hated the Cowboys organization with more vigor than I.
Regardless, in a move that rivaled Benedict Arnold’s treason, I still picked Barber.
I realized the trappings of fantasy football during the Giants- Cowboys game last year as I watched Barber rip off run after run, killing my team but earning my fake team points.
On one play, he tore through the line and sprung for a 20 or 30 yard run, causing me to curse vehemently at the TV all the while being quietly semi-happy that I was getting fantasy points for it, only to end the play cursing and swearing again when Barber gimped off the field clutching his hamstring seconds later (an injury that put the Yagabawms in the cellar for the rest of the year.)
Fantasy football had turned me into an indecisive, blithering idiot in a matter of seconds, and I felt guilty, dirty even, for having rooted for Barber against my boys for even a second.
This year, although I refused to draft any Cowboys, I made the mistake of trying to manage four different teams simultaneously. What I didn’t realize is that running multiple teams is like trying to date more than one woman at a time— if you think you’re handling it smoothly and things are going well, you’re probably about one step away from a horrific, Chernobyl-style disaster that will leave bodies in the streets and cities destroyed.
Some guys, I’ve heard, have gone as far as managing 10 or 15 leagues at a time.
I don’t know where they find the time to actually watch the games in between managing their mythical teams, but it’s a safe bet that they don’t have to worry about things like dating.
On the other hand, fantasy football does give me a reason to watch games that the Giants aren’t playing in, and offers me someone to root for because, in a roundabout way, I’ve got money on them.
It’s also been adept at getting the general public more into football—one rookie fan I know was overheard during a draft whispering, “What’s a ‘bye week?’”
Now, this Don Quixote of the football world is welded to the TVs at the local dives every Sunday, alternating between fits of joy and despair as the scores tumble and rise—it’s like sitting at a craps table, except the drinks aren’t free and nobody cares when you win.
The NFL has scored huge with fantasy football, and as the game tightens its narcotic grip on the hearts and minds of the young males of this country, one wonders whether “Draft Day” will eventually become a holiday, like some say the day after the Super Bowl should be.
If it does, I’m taking that whole week off, because I don’t want to hear who everybody picked.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Meadowlands Redemption
BY STEVE JANOSKI
It’s hour two of my incarceration.
I am lodged in a tight seat barely built to accommodate my 5 foot 7 inch frame, with my knees tucked close to avoid kicking the back of the head of the person sitting in front of me; how a larger man could sit for four hours in this diminutive folding chair was beyond me.
Whenever I stand to leave, an audible growl arises from my peers. The people sitting next to me stand on their chairs and breathe in deeply to allow me to pass, grumbling under their breath with lowered heads.
I get out of the aisle, and into the heart of the building. The walls are a frigid cinder-block gray, and every 15 feet is another state trooper clad in their Schutzstaffel-esque winter uniform, replete with Sam Browne belts and saucer hats.
Some of them hold German shepherds tight to their sides; the dogs eye every person with tempered suspicion.
I head toward the bathroom, and stand in line like a cow heading to slaughter for my turn in the cramped, disgusting quarters.
A helicopter hovers incessantly over the parking lot outside; its maddening hum can be heard throughout the halls.
I thank god that I’ve quit smoking; there may be snipers on the roof, and I fear that if I moved too fast for the exit, I’d catch a bullet in the back.
Freedom lies beyond those concrete walls, but I’ve paid too much money to skip out now. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.
In the far distance I can see the other great building, the place that nearly 137 years ago, they said would one day be a mall.
It is still unfinished though, and its ugly loading dock façade rises like a great wart on the meadows, a heaping monstrosity that’s a shining example of all that’s wrong with New Jersey.
It’s not time to think on that now though.
I walk up to a beer vendor, but they tell me that because the second half has started, there will be no more alcohol served to ease my suffering.
I curse silently, and realize that I should probably go to the bathroom again before I go sit down because once I am there, I am there.
Before returning though, I go buy a pretzel for a friend. It costs $8.75— and it uses up the last of my commissary. It is neither the best pretzel in the history of the world, nor made of gold.
They conned me in here. They said that my favorite team was playing, but my favorite team doesn’t actually play so much as gimp and bound around the field underneath the vivid lights of a losing scoreboard.
This day is different— they’re winning against another hapless punching bag of a team, but it doesn’t lessen the strain.
I head back toward my seat, dejected and beerless with an inferior pretzel in my hand and the lonely hope for a Miller Lite in my heart.
I can already tell that I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again in 20 minutes due to four hours of tailgating, and I rue my constant lack of planning.
I stop at the entrance of the aisle, and the angry groans rise again as the people begin shifting and shuttling around in their seats in a vain attempt to make room for me.
My odyssey complete, I cram myself back into the seat.
"Where’s the beer?" she asks me.
"Rehabilitated?" I ask. "Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."
She looks at me.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Never mind," I say, shaking my head.
You know, for $1.6 billion, they could have put a space shuttle in the parking lot of the old Giants Stadium and left it how it was. It would have been way cooler.
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/111574809_The_Meadowlands_Redemption.html?c=y&page=1
It’s hour two of my incarceration.
I am lodged in a tight seat barely built to accommodate my 5 foot 7 inch frame, with my knees tucked close to avoid kicking the back of the head of the person sitting in front of me; how a larger man could sit for four hours in this diminutive folding chair was beyond me.
Whenever I stand to leave, an audible growl arises from my peers. The people sitting next to me stand on their chairs and breathe in deeply to allow me to pass, grumbling under their breath with lowered heads.
I get out of the aisle, and into the heart of the building. The walls are a frigid cinder-block gray, and every 15 feet is another state trooper clad in their Schutzstaffel-esque winter uniform, replete with Sam Browne belts and saucer hats.
Some of them hold German shepherds tight to their sides; the dogs eye every person with tempered suspicion.
I head toward the bathroom, and stand in line like a cow heading to slaughter for my turn in the cramped, disgusting quarters.
A helicopter hovers incessantly over the parking lot outside; its maddening hum can be heard throughout the halls.
I thank god that I’ve quit smoking; there may be snipers on the roof, and I fear that if I moved too fast for the exit, I’d catch a bullet in the back.
Freedom lies beyond those concrete walls, but I’ve paid too much money to skip out now. These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them.
In the far distance I can see the other great building, the place that nearly 137 years ago, they said would one day be a mall.
It is still unfinished though, and its ugly loading dock façade rises like a great wart on the meadows, a heaping monstrosity that’s a shining example of all that’s wrong with New Jersey.
It’s not time to think on that now though.
I walk up to a beer vendor, but they tell me that because the second half has started, there will be no more alcohol served to ease my suffering.
I curse silently, and realize that I should probably go to the bathroom again before I go sit down because once I am there, I am there.
Before returning though, I go buy a pretzel for a friend. It costs $8.75— and it uses up the last of my commissary. It is neither the best pretzel in the history of the world, nor made of gold.
They conned me in here. They said that my favorite team was playing, but my favorite team doesn’t actually play so much as gimp and bound around the field underneath the vivid lights of a losing scoreboard.
This day is different— they’re winning against another hapless punching bag of a team, but it doesn’t lessen the strain.
I head back toward my seat, dejected and beerless with an inferior pretzel in my hand and the lonely hope for a Miller Lite in my heart.
I can already tell that I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again in 20 minutes due to four hours of tailgating, and I rue my constant lack of planning.
I stop at the entrance of the aisle, and the angry groans rise again as the people begin shifting and shuttling around in their seats in a vain attempt to make room for me.
My odyssey complete, I cram myself back into the seat.
"Where’s the beer?" she asks me.
"Rehabilitated?" I ask. "Well, now let me see. You know, I don't have any idea what that means."
She looks at me.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Never mind," I say, shaking my head.
You know, for $1.6 billion, they could have put a space shuttle in the parking lot of the old Giants Stadium and left it how it was. It would have been way cooler.
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/111574809_The_Meadowlands_Redemption.html?c=y&page=1
Monday, November 15, 2010
Friday night lights are brighter then ever
BY STEVE JANOSKI
As a vicious hater of the winter season, I can't pretend that I'm happy the temperatures are cooling off. Fishing season's over, working out outdoors is more brutal, and baseball season winds down (although being a Red Sox fan, one might call that a blessing this year.)
One of the only good things about the death of summer is that it means that football season begins. It's been my favorite sport since I was a kid, and though its recently been usurped by boxing, it still has a strong place in my heart.
A lifelong Giants fan, I'd wake up early and watch all of the NFL shows on the sports networks when I was young, and curse them all when they picked the Giants to lose during the dark days of the early 90s (as they invariably did).
I read all of the magazines and every article in the papers that even mentioned the team, and knew their roster inside and out along with the strengths and weaknesses of each player.
I put a lot on that team back then, but that changed.
I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I learned the lesson early that you never put too much on something you can't control, like a sports team, and once I began working on Sundays, I rarely got to watch the team with any regularity.
It's also been disheartening in the past two decades to watch the impact that things like free agency have had on football- in an era when players sometimes play for a team for only a year or two before departing, you find yourself rooting more for a uniform color than for a team.
But New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan said something during the last episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks" series that struck me.
The show, which follows the Jets through their preseason training camp, gives an inside look at all of the trials and tribulations of the prima donnas that are so often found littered on the football fields these days, and while it is intensely interesting, it's often disappointing to see some of the attitudes of professional players.
When you've got enough money to fill a swimming pool and an entourage of nobodies telling you how spectacular you are, I guess it's easy to get a little… "self-important."
But when Ryan's son's high school team came to the Jets camp, he began to talk to one of the other coaches about how seeing high school players always "brings him back," and that no matter how far up he goes, he always looks at the young kids and thinks that once, "that was us."
"Look how far we've come…" he said.
As a former high school football player and as a reporter who spends many cool autumn nights on the sidelines of various teams from our local area, I can tell you that Ryan really gets it.
I never went anywhere playing football, but being on those sidelines brings back a slew of memories myself. The bright lights, the electricity in the air before a big game, the coaches walking through the lines as their players stretch, shaking hands and talking to the key guys.
Because the sport is taken very seriously by those that play, it's sometimes easy to forget that for many of them, this will be the last time that they're playing football…just because.
Most will never play again. They're not good enough, or they'll get hurt, or they'll have other responsibilities that will take over their lives.
The ones that do go on to play in college, or to the pros, might accomplish the world…but the world is watching. It's not just "for fun" anymore. It's for contracts, for money, for status, for fame; all of those things that lead men to their downfall.
But for a few years, when they're very young, it's not a whole lot different than playing out in the fields around their elementary schools.
And those years, that's when the football is worth watching- when they've got their hearts and souls in it with nothing to gain except victory, and it's still some time before they'll be ruined by the flashing lights of this greedy world.
So do yourself a favor this weekend, football fans. Turn off the TV, and don't worry about how the pros are doing. Go down to your local high school, and watch those kids beat the hell out of each other on the gridiron.
The pros don't care whether you go to the game or not, whether you watch or not. But the kids will notice that there's more people, and they'll play harder for it, appreciate it.
And to watch that kind of purity in a sport these days… that's something that's worth paying the price of admission for.
As a vicious hater of the winter season, I can't pretend that I'm happy the temperatures are cooling off. Fishing season's over, working out outdoors is more brutal, and baseball season winds down (although being a Red Sox fan, one might call that a blessing this year.)
One of the only good things about the death of summer is that it means that football season begins. It's been my favorite sport since I was a kid, and though its recently been usurped by boxing, it still has a strong place in my heart.
A lifelong Giants fan, I'd wake up early and watch all of the NFL shows on the sports networks when I was young, and curse them all when they picked the Giants to lose during the dark days of the early 90s (as they invariably did).
I read all of the magazines and every article in the papers that even mentioned the team, and knew their roster inside and out along with the strengths and weaknesses of each player.
I put a lot on that team back then, but that changed.
I'm not sure what happened. Maybe I learned the lesson early that you never put too much on something you can't control, like a sports team, and once I began working on Sundays, I rarely got to watch the team with any regularity.
It's also been disheartening in the past two decades to watch the impact that things like free agency have had on football- in an era when players sometimes play for a team for only a year or two before departing, you find yourself rooting more for a uniform color than for a team.
But New York Jets Coach Rex Ryan said something during the last episode of HBO's "Hard Knocks" series that struck me.
The show, which follows the Jets through their preseason training camp, gives an inside look at all of the trials and tribulations of the prima donnas that are so often found littered on the football fields these days, and while it is intensely interesting, it's often disappointing to see some of the attitudes of professional players.
When you've got enough money to fill a swimming pool and an entourage of nobodies telling you how spectacular you are, I guess it's easy to get a little… "self-important."
But when Ryan's son's high school team came to the Jets camp, he began to talk to one of the other coaches about how seeing high school players always "brings him back," and that no matter how far up he goes, he always looks at the young kids and thinks that once, "that was us."
"Look how far we've come…" he said.
As a former high school football player and as a reporter who spends many cool autumn nights on the sidelines of various teams from our local area, I can tell you that Ryan really gets it.
I never went anywhere playing football, but being on those sidelines brings back a slew of memories myself. The bright lights, the electricity in the air before a big game, the coaches walking through the lines as their players stretch, shaking hands and talking to the key guys.
Because the sport is taken very seriously by those that play, it's sometimes easy to forget that for many of them, this will be the last time that they're playing football…just because.
Most will never play again. They're not good enough, or they'll get hurt, or they'll have other responsibilities that will take over their lives.
The ones that do go on to play in college, or to the pros, might accomplish the world…but the world is watching. It's not just "for fun" anymore. It's for contracts, for money, for status, for fame; all of those things that lead men to their downfall.
But for a few years, when they're very young, it's not a whole lot different than playing out in the fields around their elementary schools.
And those years, that's when the football is worth watching- when they've got their hearts and souls in it with nothing to gain except victory, and it's still some time before they'll be ruined by the flashing lights of this greedy world.
So do yourself a favor this weekend, football fans. Turn off the TV, and don't worry about how the pros are doing. Go down to your local high school, and watch those kids beat the hell out of each other on the gridiron.
The pros don't care whether you go to the game or not, whether you watch or not. But the kids will notice that there's more people, and they'll play harder for it, appreciate it.
And to watch that kind of purity in a sport these days… that's something that's worth paying the price of admission for.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
New York crashes Jersey’s Giant party
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
BY STEVE JANOSKI
I’ve heard it on the radio waves, on TV, and seen the excited announcements on Facebook for the past week— our very own Giants Stadium is finally going to get the Super Bowl in 2014.
This is a good thing for both the area and the NFL. It’ll bring business to the state, and it will also be nice to see football being played once again as the real men used to play it—outside in the brutal elements, come snow, sleet, or rain.
With the right weather conditions (or the wrong ones, if you’re playing), we might even have a repeat of the legendary Ice Bowl—the 1967 NFL title game played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the temperature was a balmy negative 13 degrees at game time and the referees couldn’t use their whistles because they froze to their lips on contact.
That’s some manly stuff right there.
Of course, even with all of the excitement over the game, there’s one thing that bothers me—people, it seems, need a geography lesson on where exactly Giants Stadium is.
Say it with me boys, all you announcers and pundits and sportswriters across this great land—it’s in "New Jersey."
I know you want to forget about us except when making your poor jokes about the shore or big hair or any of the other…stuff…that has floated around about us over the years, but now, you’ve got to acknowledge us.
Too long have we taken the back seat to that shining city across the Hudson, and this latest affront on the part of the national media in referring to it as a "New York Super Bowl" is recklessly belligerent toward our state.
This won’t be a "New York Super Bowl" any more than the Knicks are a New Jersey disgrace—we will be dealing with the traffic, we’ll be putting up with the tourists, and most importantly, we’ll be bringing in the cash from it.
And rightfully so.
New York has long claimed the Giants as their own, even though the team played in three different states at various times before finally settling in the Meadowlands in 1976; while East Rutherford is only 7 miles from Times Square, you’ve still got to cross one big state line to get there.
Although I can only talk as a Giants fan, even the New York Jets, by far a more "New York" team, have played at the Meadowlands for 26 years after hustling out of Shea Stadium.
What’s that say about the city and football?
What says even more is that in all of the Giants games I’ve ever been to, I have yet to hear any kind of New York accent or talk to any fancy folks from Manhattan or Queens who made the trek out to the swamps to come see "their" team play.
It’s folks from Wayne or West Caldwell, Bayonne or Belleville, that go the games, pay the exorbitant parking fees, and trade their less-used appendages for the $10 beers.
I’ve accepted that the team that plays in New Jersey in the stadium built for no other purpose than to house them still has that damned "NY" on their helmets—some things just aren’t going to change.
But at least for the next four years, I want it tattooed on these announcers’ foreheads that East Rutherford isn’t New York, and that this game will be among New Jersey’s shining moments whether they like it or not.
So no more "New York Super Bowl."
No more "NY/NJ Super Bowl."
No more "New York Area Super Bowl."
With the right weather conditions (or the wrong ones, if you’re playing), we might even have a repeat of the legendary Ice Bowl—the 1967 NFL title game played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the temperature was a balmy negative 13 degrees at game time and the referees couldn’t use their whistles because they froze to their lips on contact.
That’s some manly stuff right there.
Of course, even with all of the excitement over the game, there’s one thing that bothers me—people, it seems, need a geography lesson on where exactly Giants Stadium is.
Say it with me boys, all you announcers and pundits and sportswriters across this great land—it’s in "New Jersey."
I know you want to forget about us except when making your poor jokes about the shore or big hair or any of the other…stuff…that has floated around about us over the years, but now, you’ve got to acknowledge us.
Too long have we taken the back seat to that shining city across the Hudson, and this latest affront on the part of the national media in referring to it as a "New York Super Bowl" is recklessly belligerent toward our state.
This won’t be a "New York Super Bowl" any more than the Knicks are a New Jersey disgrace—we will be dealing with the traffic, we’ll be putting up with the tourists, and most importantly, we’ll be bringing in the cash from it.
And rightfully so.
New York has long claimed the Giants as their own, even though the team played in three different states at various times before finally settling in the Meadowlands in 1976; while East Rutherford is only 7 miles from Times Square, you’ve still got to cross one big state line to get there.
Although I can only talk as a Giants fan, even the New York Jets, by far a more "New York" team, have played at the Meadowlands for 26 years after hustling out of Shea Stadium.
What’s that say about the city and football?
What says even more is that in all of the Giants games I’ve ever been to, I have yet to hear any kind of New York accent or talk to any fancy folks from Manhattan or Queens who made the trek out to the swamps to come see "their" team play.
It’s folks from Wayne or West Caldwell, Bayonne or Belleville, that go the games, pay the exorbitant parking fees, and trade their less-used appendages for the $10 beers.
I’ve accepted that the team that plays in New Jersey in the stadium built for no other purpose than to house them still has that damned "NY" on their helmets—some things just aren’t going to change.
But at least for the next four years, I want it tattooed on these announcers’ foreheads that East Rutherford isn’t New York, and that this game will be among New Jersey’s shining moments whether they like it or not.
So no more "New York Super Bowl."
No more "NY/NJ Super Bowl."
No more "New York Area Super Bowl."
It’s New Jersey. Get it right, especially you New Yorkers.
Otherwise, I might just have to start confusing Manhattan and Long Island…and we all know how much you’ll like that.
"Manhattan? Mastic? It’s all the same to me."
http://www.northjersey.com/sports/pro_sports/95480194_New_York_crashes_Jersey_s_Giant_party.html
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