Spreading Myself ‘Thin’ This Fine Saturday Morning
October 16, 2021 at 4:05 a.m.
Spreading Myself ‘Thin’ This Fine Saturday Morning
By Chip Davenport-
I’ve spread myself thin – only figuratively - over the last 14 days, and today my thoughts are also thinly spread.
*****
John Gruden, former Las Vegas Raiders head coach resigned last Monday just before halftime of the Monday Night Football game. Gruden’s e-mails with bigoted tropes, misogynistic comments, and other epithets, per the (probably forever now) ex-coach were supposedly “…never meant to hurt anyone.”
Really? I have a big problem with his statement.
He certainly meant no harm… to those who did not stop kissing the rung. Lord have mercy on your soul if you stood in the way of his locked-in-an-awkward-time world view.
Let’s be sure we do not categorize the move to unseat Gruden as cancel culture. Amid investigating the Washington Football Team’s e-mails regarding harassment of cheerleaders, and other wrong doings in the front office, somebody in the trenches found another land mine.
Gruden canceled himself. His communiques in at least the past decade aren’t being shrugged off by people like Carl Nassib for example, one of Gruden’s starting defensive lineman who became the NFL’s first active player to come out gay. Any owner in his right mind isn’t going to keep $10-million annual outlays to a guy who would have likely “lost his locker room” for the remainder of the season from those e-mails surfacing from the 2000s to 2018.
*****
I’m hoping to be a part of the Times-Union’s effort toward increased wrestling coverage. The action photo opportunities, the stories of program building, and the strength of Wawasee’s program in addition to an assortment of quality area wrestlers are worth the coverage. I also believe the addition to the Northern Lakes Conference (NLC) of Mishawaka gave the sport a boost among the rest of the conference.
I also hope to PA announce the NLC wrestling championships even though the venue only lands in Warsaw once every eight years. It’s fun to be a part of the meet management keeping the pace of continued preliminary championships and consolation rounds moving quickly.
Announcing some sports (football, basketball) is simply conveying the results, but I have been told in last year’s championship tournament, in addition to track meets where I’ve announced, people like the pace I keep. I plan on announcing dual meets in a faster pace once the opening match’s whistle sounds.
*****
I am starting to get a look at people’s collegiate writing assignments as they realize I’m freelance sports writing. I’m flattered, but trust me, you could easily dice and slice my form, too.
I recently read a friend’s essay about holidays they loved and hated the most. I felt like even the favorite holiday she mentioned, Halloween, still had some underlying pain, much less than the rest of the holidays, though.
I missed numerous holidays with my family when I was a young, single airman at my first base in Utica-Rome, New York. I feel, however, taking a break from feeling homesick to watch televised sports put this feeling to rest for a while.
No holiday is perfect, mind you. Although I missed being at home for them at that young adult stage of my life, there was some upside to living on my own even if it meant I had to spend the holidays alone.
NFL Thanksgiving games, college football bowl season and the NBA at Christmas and New Year, and Major League Baseball All-Star game a few days after missing a July 4th trip home are the first examples fresh in my recall of those years.
I thought to myself, as I finished reading my friend’s essay, it’s too bad televised sports were not prominent part of her life. It might have taken her mind off each holiday still currently leaving bad memories for her.
*****
I’ve been too busy to take the time to figure out whether the NBA action I’ve channel-hopped through very late in the evening is regular season or preseason. I hope it’s the latter. In fact, months ago I communicated my disappointment in the NBA for electing to return to an October regular season starting period in my column.
I’m so wrapped up in football and other fall sports I was too impatient to spend time sticking to the televised NBA action to determine whether it was regular season or preseason.
*****
“Sports writers aren’t biased” is a misnomer. I’m excited for postseason high school football in Indiana. My first assignment is tentatively set, and my basis for bias against one of the combatants, an opponent not in our coverage area (you can take a deep breath now) isn’t even sports related. I’ll still give readers the straight story regardless of the outcome and give the victor its appropriately earned narrative.
I’ve spread myself thinly enough this morning.
I’ve spread myself thin – only figuratively - over the last 14 days, and today my thoughts are also thinly spread.
*****
John Gruden, former Las Vegas Raiders head coach resigned last Monday just before halftime of the Monday Night Football game. Gruden’s e-mails with bigoted tropes, misogynistic comments, and other epithets, per the (probably forever now) ex-coach were supposedly “…never meant to hurt anyone.”
Really? I have a big problem with his statement.
He certainly meant no harm… to those who did not stop kissing the rung. Lord have mercy on your soul if you stood in the way of his locked-in-an-awkward-time world view.
Let’s be sure we do not categorize the move to unseat Gruden as cancel culture. Amid investigating the Washington Football Team’s e-mails regarding harassment of cheerleaders, and other wrong doings in the front office, somebody in the trenches found another land mine.
Gruden canceled himself. His communiques in at least the past decade aren’t being shrugged off by people like Carl Nassib for example, one of Gruden’s starting defensive lineman who became the NFL’s first active player to come out gay. Any owner in his right mind isn’t going to keep $10-million annual outlays to a guy who would have likely “lost his locker room” for the remainder of the season from those e-mails surfacing from the 2000s to 2018.
*****
I’m hoping to be a part of the Times-Union’s effort toward increased wrestling coverage. The action photo opportunities, the stories of program building, and the strength of Wawasee’s program in addition to an assortment of quality area wrestlers are worth the coverage. I also believe the addition to the Northern Lakes Conference (NLC) of Mishawaka gave the sport a boost among the rest of the conference.
I also hope to PA announce the NLC wrestling championships even though the venue only lands in Warsaw once every eight years. It’s fun to be a part of the meet management keeping the pace of continued preliminary championships and consolation rounds moving quickly.
Announcing some sports (football, basketball) is simply conveying the results, but I have been told in last year’s championship tournament, in addition to track meets where I’ve announced, people like the pace I keep. I plan on announcing dual meets in a faster pace once the opening match’s whistle sounds.
*****
I am starting to get a look at people’s collegiate writing assignments as they realize I’m freelance sports writing. I’m flattered, but trust me, you could easily dice and slice my form, too.
I recently read a friend’s essay about holidays they loved and hated the most. I felt like even the favorite holiday she mentioned, Halloween, still had some underlying pain, much less than the rest of the holidays, though.
I missed numerous holidays with my family when I was a young, single airman at my first base in Utica-Rome, New York. I feel, however, taking a break from feeling homesick to watch televised sports put this feeling to rest for a while.
No holiday is perfect, mind you. Although I missed being at home for them at that young adult stage of my life, there was some upside to living on my own even if it meant I had to spend the holidays alone.
NFL Thanksgiving games, college football bowl season and the NBA at Christmas and New Year, and Major League Baseball All-Star game a few days after missing a July 4th trip home are the first examples fresh in my recall of those years.
I thought to myself, as I finished reading my friend’s essay, it’s too bad televised sports were not prominent part of her life. It might have taken her mind off each holiday still currently leaving bad memories for her.
*****
I’ve been too busy to take the time to figure out whether the NBA action I’ve channel-hopped through very late in the evening is regular season or preseason. I hope it’s the latter. In fact, months ago I communicated my disappointment in the NBA for electing to return to an October regular season starting period in my column.
I’m so wrapped up in football and other fall sports I was too impatient to spend time sticking to the televised NBA action to determine whether it was regular season or preseason.
*****
“Sports writers aren’t biased” is a misnomer. I’m excited for postseason high school football in Indiana. My first assignment is tentatively set, and my basis for bias against one of the combatants, an opponent not in our coverage area (you can take a deep breath now) isn’t even sports related. I’ll still give readers the straight story regardless of the outcome and give the victor its appropriately earned narrative.
I’ve spread myself thinly enough this morning.
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