Don’t call it a comeback. Like Zombie Shane in “The Walking Dead,” I’ve returned much to your surprise and probably horror. But the current Signal staff has been either nice or foolish enough to allow me to invade the pages one more time.
So how is life going for the Goose post-grad? I’ll sum it up the best way I know how.The first lesson I learned after I got out of school is life doesn’t hand you what you want.
My feelings about the Miami Heat were well documented in my time at this paper. I don’t like them; in fact you could say I despise them. The assembling of a team of that magnitude in a city like Miami is the biggest waste in sports.
Their fans don’t bother to show up to games until April and when they do they’re constantly checking their watches to make sure they don’t leave too late in the third quarter so they won’t be tardy for their next cocktail party.
So you can imagine my displeasure when LeBron James finally got his first championship beating Oklahoma City.
I wanted the small market to emerge victorious over the Evil Empire, have Kevin Durant prove that you don’t need to make a super-team to win the big one. I didn’t want the Heat to win the Finals by buying it.
“Too bad,” LeBron said. “Sit on your couch and deal with it.” (I may be paraphrasing slightly.)
When I graduated I thought I wouldn’t have any trouble finding a media job. “I was among the best Mass Comm graduates this year,” I thought to myself, “surely someone will recognize this and give me a fantastic job where I write or broadcast all day and life is just peaches and cream.”
I had wanted it bad enough in college to work my rear off, why wouldn’t newspapers and radio stations want to hire me?
Fast forward a couple of weeks: “Hey Townsend! Graduated college, eh? What are you up to these days?”
“Oh you know, working as a lifeguard for now…hopefully something works out soon.”
As summer progressed, I experienced life ripping something right out from under your feet.
The Rangers, after having been in first place for 161 games this season, lost the division to the Oakland A’s in their final regular season game.
The embarrassment effectively ended an underwhelming season that was consumed with Josh Hamilton’s increasingly tiresome drama; either beating himself up over dip or laughing at Ron Washington after his manager chewed him out for dropping a routine fly.
Maybe he was laughing at the fact Wash refused to play stud prospect Jurickson Profar so Michael Young could continue to swing at pitches headed for his shoes.
They were cruising, for five months they had a chokehold on the division. And in one day it got snatched away from them.
All the hard work, all the sacrifice, the previous 161 games where they were the team to beat, it was all just gone.
A couple of weeks after I got over the post-Bubble depression, I applied and got accepted to write for a sports website. I figured it would just be something to keep me busy and from my writing getting rusty.
After a week, they told me they wanted to advance me to a Featured Columnist trial. It would be a four to six week evaluation period and if I did well, I would be among a select few the website chose from among their best writers.
I got an email from the website after I had been contributing for three months: “Mr. Keller, We’re sorry to inform you we cannot offer you a Featured Columnist position…”
Next, I learned you’re never as good as you think you’re going to be.
Football season came around and I thought it was going to be my year. The Chiefs were coming back stronger than ever. Jamaal Charles and Eric Berry were back from ACL injuries, Romeo Crennel had whipped the defense into potentially elite status and the Conway Cannonball, Peyton Hillis, was going to give our offense a whole new dimension.
Then they got blown out by Atlanta, then Buffalo, then San Diego, then Baltimore, then Tampa Bay, then Oakland.
They’ve gone more than 30 offensive drives without a touchdown and the defense is allowing almost 30 points per game. The starting quarterback, Matt Cassel, is rated 33rd in a 32-team league.
My team hasn’t held a lead in a single second of play in seven games. The season is almost halfway over and not once have they had more points than their opponent during regulation.
How historically ham-fisted is this? The last time an NFL team “accomplished” a feat like this new cars cost about $800. John McCain was four years old and a gallon of gas was 11 cents. The Brooklyn Dodgers were an NFL team and the Pittsburgh Pirates renamed themselves the Steelers.
When was this? 1940. FDR and Churchill. Abbot and Costello. It’s been awhile.
Meanwhile, I managed to get a freelance gig covering high school football for the newspaper I interned for in college.
I mostly cover my hometown team, so I essentially get paid to watch my little brother play football. Life finally seemed to be moving in a positive direction and I had at least a portion of my life figured out. My writing was still my wheelhouse.
Then one night after I turn in my story the phone rings. It’s my editor: “Hey man, you need to work on implementing the inverted pyramid. This story buries the lead. We appreciate the work and we’re going to use it, but it’s a really dry write-up.”
Finally, I’ve learned everything can change in a single instant.
If you watched college football this past weekend, you probably witnessed one of the most horrific sights you can ever see on national television without tuning in to “Two Broke Girls.”
South Carolina-Tennessee wasn’t supposed to be a particularly relevant matchup. The Gamecocks still can’t seem to put themselves in the elite class of the SEC and Derek Dooley’s Vols are like a ball in tall grass….lost.
Marcus Lattimore has been one of the premiere backs in college and the only dominant playmaker South Carolina had on offense since the departure of Alshon Jeffrey to the NFL. He was almost guaranteed to be drafted in the first round of the NFL Draft in the spring and be set for life, the world was his fame -and-money-filled oyster.
And then his leg bent in a way no human limb should ever bend. With one tackler already draped on him, another slammed into his legs and his right knee bent backwards and hit the turf.
It was horrifying, and impossible to watch without having to consciously keep your lunch down. It would be a miracle if his knee wasn’t completely destroyed. An injury of that severity threw his ability to run around with his kids and walk normally into question, much less touch a football field again.
One instant and his future as a pro athlete is gone, it’s the worst sports has to offer. It was followed by the best display of sportsmanship any game could offer.
As Lattimore lay on the field in agony, the South Carolina bench cleared to gather around him. Then the entire Tennessee sideline made their way to Lattimore and joined their opponents in supporting their fallen comrade.
As the injured back left the field on a cart, both teams applauded the heartbroken young man. It was the kind of display that restores your faith in the decency of people.
One instant and Lattimore never plays football again.
Another instant, hope is restored. We can only imagine the kind of relief the young man felt when he heard the diagnosis of his grisly ordeal: a dislocated right knee and ligament damage, but miraculously no broken bones or fractures. With a medical redshirt year, Lattimore could play football again in 2014.
What I’ve experienced through sports and life my first few months out in the cold, cold world has been invaluable and is perfectly applicable to you at Ouachita.
Life doesn’t always give you what you want, but when it does be thankful. Sometimes things get ripped right out from under you, but it could be for a very good reason. You’re never as good as you think you are, but you’re never as bad as you think either.
And everything can change in one, single instant. Hold on, email.
“Dear Mr. Keller, Earlier this month you applied for a reporting position with the Jamestown Sun. I’d like to know if you’re still interested in a job with us.”
Jamestown, North Dakota, huh? Where’s my heavy coat?
