As I SEE It

By Thom Gossom Jr

Morning Blues!

I wake up on full go! Ready for the day’s adventure. Six decades into my existence, I still hold on to that childlike anticipation of what adventures a given day might bring. I’ve been lucky like that. Choosing professions that are fun to do on a daily basis and careers I’d do for free and have.

My wife has always been astonished that I wake up ready to talk, walk, go bike riding, and literally express idea after idea that somehow crept into my head while I’m supposed to be sleeping. Life has always been amazing to me and still is.

But then, like in the movies, things come to a screeeeching….. halt…..when I feed my addiction for reading the morning newspaper. Lord!!! What a come down!

Penn State scandal holds lessons for adults.

Local graduate killed in Afghanistan!

Man charged in fatal shooting.

And that’s just page one!

Growing up in a home where we all, Dad, Mom, and us three children religiously read the newspaper, it is a habit I have not shaken but admittedly I have gotten less dedicated to it. It’s ugly and getting uglier, a daily assault on feeling good, common sense and a day-by-day dosage of business and political propaganda. Have I mistakenly subscribed to The Enquirer?

Man injured in Nov 3 wreck dies.

6 exposed to chemicals used for meth lab in car

Dear Abby: Bride to be is feeling blue because fiancé hates orange.

Why that corporate cash pile isn’t so impressive

And take citizen journalists. Please! Never having had a journalism class in their lives but through the miracle of the Internet and the mask of anonymity, these “writers” can spit

venom and simplistic solutions at very complex situations. You disagree and you’re Un-American.

They want to take the country back. From whom? Anyway, whatever happened to those WWJD (What Would Jesus do) bracelets?

Sports? I grew up on the sports pages. Relished them. Before ESPN, newspapers were the major information source. Newspapers distinguished themselves with investigatory facts and features you couldn’t get anywhere else. Today professional ball is about contracts, lockouts and holdouts. Major college ball with its own scandals, continues to hide behind the cloak of amateurism.

Astros sold: Will move to American League in 2013

NBA owners hold conference call

Penn State Trustees hire law firm in abuse scandal.

Okay enough already! The sun is shining. It’s a new day! Forget the Oh woe is me, Divisiveness and Greed, Watch out for Iran, Drill Baby Drill, nature of today’s newspapers and media.

I’ve got positive things to do; the normal work chores of reading or writing a script, a story, prepping for an audition or television role, collaborating with a business client on a marketing project, or, assisting my alma maters with a fundraising idea.

There’s also time to enjoy my wife, call my Dad, ride my bike, call Manuel, Michael O, or Ford for a good gut-wrenching laugh. After all it’s a beautiful day and I don’t have to read the newspaper again until tomorrow morning.

I Know Too Much

I know too much!

I grew up dreary eyed, stumbling, in search of the morning newspaper, hungry for news of ball scores, won-loss records, knockouts administered by boxing heroes, and track records set by the “world’s fastest men.” Today I can take it or leave it. My flicker of a sports passion is dying a slow, agonizing but somewhat relieved death. The Thrill of Victory and The Agony of Defeat no longer get me amped up.

Why? That’s easy enough. It’s not the same.

Okay, admittedly, I’m into late-middle age and know more than I should. I know that sports have always included cheaters. I know that fat cat jock-sniffers were giving money to “amateur” players before there were even scholarships. I know that owners aren’t great sportsmen but businessmen negotiating with cities, for their last dimes. I know that heroes have always been flawed, not because they were bad people but because they are human.

Shall I continue?

I know that 24 hour around-the-clock sports news includes as much legal and crime news as it does ball scores. I know young boys today can get as excited about playing a sports video game or building a “fantasy sports league as my generation did actually organizing a game, and playing our own Super Bowl in somebody’s backyard. I recognize professional sports when I see it regardless of whether the “amateur” players are paid or not. It’s all business all the time.

Check out some headlines from the sports section of an April 2011 issue of USA TODAY.

BCS Critics want more Fiesta Type scrutiny

BCS Criticism mounts

Lockout raises draft stakes

Dodger can win under MLB control, GM told

Question: Is MLB takeover of Dodgers good or bad?

McCourt tarnishing Dodger tradition

Game-fixing probe spreads

Tree poisoning suspect back on radio

Had enough? It continues. College football spring intrasquad games are nationally televised. It’s a scrimmage for crying out loud! High schools travel for matchups with “football” schools from neighboring states, paid for by corporate sponsors.

And it’s all day, all the time, 24 and 7 brought to you by, talking heads and paid for by sponsors.

Who cares?

I do, really. I still love the game. It’s the game that gets my juices flowing. Between the lines, sixty minutes of action, the two-minute warning, fourth and goal, mano vs mano. Yes!

The talking heads I can take or leave. Former players posing as hard-core analysts, “When I played… ”

It’s nauseating.

I miss the innocence of a pickup game in the street between the up hill guys and the down hill guys. I miss the mystery of rushing to open the sports section and discovering the scores from the night before. I miss identifying with a team because the players stayed there long enough to remember them from year to year. I miss the Wide World Of Sports. I miss big college games in the middle of the season, pitting two of the nations best teams against one another and the loser not having to worry about the silly BCS.

My sports passion is dying. I miss it.

THE WAR EAGLE NATION GOT ITS DUE

As I SEE It

by

Thom Gossom Jr.

The War Eagle Nation got its due, 22-19. It could have been more. It should have been more but, after so many shoulda, woulda, coulda, almost, damn near but not quite years of great Auburn football, the 2010 version of The Auburn Tigers got er done in early 2011. In the bright lights of the Arizona desert, the boys brought home the crystal football that shines so brightly in the light of a national championship. Auburn Football is the best in the land. No doubt. No more do we have to sing that familiar litany, if only such and such would have so and soed, we would have won, but we’ll get them next year. Never again.

We won it once before. So we’ll behave like it. Coach Ralph Shug Jordan taught those of us lucky enough to be one of “Shug’s boys” to act like a champion, win or lose. He won The National Championship fifty-four years ago, before two generations of today’s Auburn Nation was born. College football’s bright lights didn’t shine as brightly then and the stakes were not quite as high.

Cam, Nick, Michael, Lee, Antoine, Zack, Josh and hero after hero after hero delivered us to the Promise Land of a 21st century National Championship. We’re still drinking from the cup. Cheers to those young men with hearts of champions beating inside them. They reign at the top of the greatest lists of AU football. The teams from 2004, 1993, 1983, 1972, 1957 all have to move over at the top of the pedestal called bragging rights and make a place at the peak for this group. They earned it. Along the way they’ve created new memories for former Auburn players who labored on teams that were on the wrong side of 35-0 scores and promises of wait until next year. Yep, they’re at the top. I’m getting out of the way. Moving over, fast.

This Auburn coaching staff coaches its ass off. They are one of the finest to walk a Jordan Hare sideline. First and ten with the opportunity of a lifetime, they scored and danced in the end zone, the scoreboard of opportunity flashing brilliant high definition color in television sets all over America.

The phone calls and texts began with the final kick, 00:00 on the clock and the Auburn nation became inebriated on the elixer of a championship and other worldly juices. Old teammates, cried with joy and professed to me, “I love you.” Ralph, who played basketball at Birmingham Southern College, texted “War Eagle Baby.” Terry, my Hollywood actor friend, a native of Oregon, left a voice message, “You guys are the best.” Joe, a writer from Los Angeles, a Texas grad, whose wife died of stomach cancer, last year e-mailed “So happy for you. What a great game.” An anonymous writer texted, “War Damn Eagle.”

Closer to home, my next-door neighbor, an Auburn grad, enthusiastically garbled something inaudible over the Arizona desert cell phone lines, but I got the message. My other next-door neighbor, the Alabama grad, turned off his lights while Auburn celebrated The National Championship in the desert and pretended he could sleep.

The Auburn Nation stands taller today. As football National Champions, (Can you ever say that enough?) there will be more scoring opportunities for the University. Academic growth, gifts and donations, business development, and marketing of the University will be ratcheted up. Auburn’s administration with Dr. Jay Gogue calling the plays continues to grow fiscally, academically and internationally. Athletic Director Jay Jacobs guides athletics with class.

The Auburn Nation today is larger, and more relevant on the world stage. We’re here we’re there. We’re everywhere.

Oh yeah. Did I mention we’re the college football national champions?

Let’s do it again!