The Football Brainiacs

Two nights ago I sat here in my living room and watched, what I believe to be, the best baseball game I have ever seen.  If you didn’t know, the Kansas City Royals haven’t been in the playoffs since 1985.  So it had been 29 years since they had sniffed the post season, which is in stark contrast to what we’re used to with our Sooners in the world of college football.  I was 9 years old when I gained what I like to call my sports consciousness.  In 1985 the Royals won the World Series, the Sooners beat Penn State to win our 6th National Championship, and the Celtics & Lakers were going at it with ferocity and frequency in the NBA.  The teams I adopted at that time, who I’ve stuck with over the years, have been KC in Baseball (I also root for the Cubs), the Celtics (and Chicago Bulls) and the Oklahoma Sooners in college sports.  My Grandpa was a guy who really liked how George Brett (KC) and Larry Bird (Celtics) played the game, so it was natural for me to root for those teams as well.  They were tough, gritty and while it wasn’t always pretty, they got it done…somehow.

Fast forward 29 years.  It’s now 2014.  The Royals and Cubs have consistently been loveable losers with glimmers of hope here and there.  You guys all know the story as it pertains to our Sooners.  The down years of the 90’s, Stoops and company coming in that 1999 season taking college football by storm and then winning it all in 2000.  As I graduated college about the same time and got a real job, I spent most of that decade being young and being a Sooner fan.  I went to a lot of games home and away, several bowl games, and saw a couple of games in person I’d rather forget.  I met my wife in 2007 and oddly enough, she is from KC. Naturally she and her father are big time Chiefs and Royals fans.  Her Dad has carried season tickets for both of them for a long time.  Over the years I’ve kind of adopted Kansas City as my home since I’ve lived most of my adult life there.  So to see what took place Tuesday night, with the Royals winning a game that many think that they had no business winning, was something special.  It was special because I know how much it meant to the people I’ve grown to care about so much.

When I watch sports highlights, I like to look at the sideline reactions and the stands to see the different emotions people go through.  Those emotions are, after all, why you play the game.  Herm Edwards is famous for saying “you play to win the game.”  He’s right.  There’s a joy that can’t be described when you win.  It’s really special when you find out how to win the game within the game.  When you start to learn how to steal wins from the other team.  When you’re outmatched, but scrap, scratch, claw, fight and find a way to win.

Last October, we got curb-stomped in Waco, Texas getting blown out to Baylor.  For us long timers, losing like we did to Baylor was hard to stomach.  I’ll be honest with you, the aftertaste, which was none too pleasant, still lingers.  Most had written us off at that point.  We still had road games at K-State and Oklahoma State coming and to hear most tell it…hell, we might as well fold the tents….but we didn’t.  There was something in that team last year that didn’t care what everyone else thought.  There was something in that team that went on the road to Manhattan, KS and dominated a tough K-State team.  There was something in that team that went up to Stillwater on an ice cold day in December and found a way to win.   Despite not scoring an offensive touchdown until Blake Bell dropped a dime to Jalen Saunders to put us up for good, that team scored on a fake field goal, punt return, two field goals, and a defensive score as time expired.

I wrote about it last year after that game that I thought we had something special.  We at TFB actually had the Sooners picked to upset Alabama, and then they did it.  Man-for-man it’s debatable that the Crimson Tide had more talent.  They definitely had higher draft picks.  But after being around the game so long, you start to recognize when people have that dog in ’em.  When they got that shat in ’em.  To me the most talented people and the most talented teams don’t care about what anybody else thinks.  They don’t care what anyone else says.  They don’t care what anyone else does.  No matter what the circumstance.  No matter who the opponent, they truly believe deep down that they’re going to win.  Not because of talent, but because they believe they’re going to do the things that are going to add up to overcoming anyone or anything they’re up against.

I don’t believe in omens.  I don’t believe in jinxes.  But I have believed in this Sooner squad we have since we got it done in Stillwater last year.  Guys like Eric Striker, Blake Bell, Trevor Knight, and I could go on and on that just don’t give a flip (edited).  Watching those Royals this past Tuesday night steal seven bases and sacrifice bunt five times is something you just don’t see.  Mind you, in a day and age where home runs are all the rage.  I saw some grown ass men play within the rules of the game to get from base to base and lean on each other to get it done.  I know this is a football site, but I saw those same things I love about this Sooner squad in those Royals on Tuesday night.  I’m having a hard time describing it, because it’s hard to describe what IT actually is, but I do know that we have it.

Deep down I don’t believe that anyone’s going to beat us this year.  Not because of speed.  Not because of size, or strength.  I believe it because of all of those buzz words you hear about.  Grit, desire, effort, toughness.