The Big Lessons behind Tom Brady's Smallish Hands

First appeared on May 21, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

So Tom Brady has little hands. Or maybe the Patriot equipment managers have metric pressure gauges. They can spin it all they want but nothing will change the fact 95% of football fans, and nearly every person outside a 2 hour radius of the Metro Boston area, consider the Patriots dirty.

This just in, Robert Kraft has another Title, Brady another ring and the NFL is happy because it’s almost June and people are still talking Football. The real issue in Deflategate has been lost amongst the noise, overshadowed by the shock jocks and buried in the claptrap. This isn’t about whether a few underinflated footballs could have made any difference in the outcome of an incredibly lopsided AFC Championship game. The real issue is the message being sent to young people everywhere.

Cheating is no longer reserved for American politicians or the East German Olympic team. Like it or not, cheating is in vogue. Steroids, Spygate, cutting a baseball, greasing your jersey, corking your bat, none of it matters as long as you can hide it and ride it to the top. What we’ve really learned here is that a guy can cheat in front of millions and millions will still buy his jersey, name their first born for him and plaster his Fathead on their walls.

So you sit your seven year old down to explain that copying answers from Sally’s spelling test is called cheating and cheating is a very bad thing we shouldn’t do. “The American Dream was built on the backs of hard working people who didn’t take short cuts.” You explain as he sits quietly, wide eyed and longing for more, “Men who built barns out of logs hewn from trees they fell by hand. Men who didn’t cut corners because cutting corners only created more work in the long run. These were real men, men who didn’t wear protective padding and didn’t have time to waste doing interviews or hocking glorified Kool-Aid.” And he shakes his head as if he were thinking the exact same thing and you pat him on the back, feeling satisfied by your Clark Griswold-“Good talk son” moment.

But then, breaking news hits the TV screen. A shot of Tom Brady backing an SUV from a garage larger than the Governor of North Dakota’s mansion. His Supermodel wife waves through a tinted window as they head off on their six week hiatus in Tahiti. And all this, the images of private jets and Gucci suits, lavish estates and Lombardi Trophies, flash across the screen above a banner reading “Deflategate: NFL says Brady cheated”

We all want our children to achieve great things, to go farther than we did. And the beauty of being an American is the fact they will have every opportunity to do so. Yet amidst all the compassionate pushing and prodding, it becomes so easy for a parent to get bogged down and lose their bearings.

A well rounded kid will become their own toughest critic. For when the crowds fall silent and the stands empty out, they will be left alone with their thoughts. Forget the Little League trophies, job titles and bank statements, when it’s all said and done, we’ve failed as parents if our children don’t like the person looking back at them in the mirror. So the NFL cries foul, fingers get pointed and time marches on and you are left to watch your son grab his bat and head for the on deck circle; all the while hoping the values you’ve worked so hard to instill follow along.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Ready or Not, the NBA Playoffs are Here

First appeared on April 29, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Like it or not the NBA Playoffs are here. An epically all too long crescendo to a painfully all too long regular season. Unfortunately for you the Playoffs are like a really bad movie you paid forty bucks to see in a drafty theatre dotted with unhappy toddlers and one gravel throated chain-smoker hacking up a lung. The hormones in the teenager behind you are telling him “must kick hole in back of seat” as a couple nearby snickers their way through a very dark and ultimately critical scene.

Still you hang on, through the four game sweeps, twenty point blowouts and inconsistent officiating, the predictable plot twists and token kiss between main characters who never saw themselves together. Others walk out when an unforeseen plot twist turns out to be a dream, but not you, you have invested so much time and money that even the great Chicago Fire wouldn't keep you from seeing the end.

You find no tangible reason for watching other than sports have a way of washing the stink of the real world off us; that and the latest season of “The Bachelor” is over. You fail at explaining to your wife that the Playoffs are a necessary evil because they’re the only truly reliable way of crowning a champion. Still, outside of elimination games, the NBA Playoffs fall well short of installing the heart pounding drama of March Madness.

The totality of the NCAA Tournament’s allure lies in its ability to capture those game seven moments in dozens of match ups spread out over a month’s time. Compare this to the NBA Playoffs which have you wading through two months or more of stagnant basketball peppered with small traces of suspense (see: the last two minutes of the Fourth Quarter). Still, it’s just enough to keep a sucker like you coming back time and time again.

March Madness plays well to Americans for its all you can eat qualities. It’s a buffet of basketball, a cornucopia of competition. And so you sit as only an American can, three day beard, pants unsnapped, gorging yourself until your hollow leg explodes and it looks like a freight train has hit a food truck in your living room. And then your wife suggests getting off the couch to spend more time with your son because when his teacher asked what his parents do for a living yesterday little Johnny stood up and told the class that his daddy watches basketball.

That’s what March Madness is. It’s death by basketball and the NBA Playoffs simply can’t stand next to it. Sure they dress the Playoffs up. Pipe in louder dance music and give out free tee-shirts; an adult large that won’t fit your three year old after one wash.

But there simply isn’t enough lipstick in a Macy’s warehouse to spice these things up. The NBA would be smart to offer a mid-season tournament. A single elimination affair set up exactly like the NCAA Tournament without openly admitting they’re trying to create something exactly like the NCAA Tournament.

They could call it the “February Frenzy” and sell millions in advertising. Instead of “One Shining Moment” they could offer fans “One Really Bright Moment”. Give the winner a first round bye in the Playoffs or the overall number one seed should they make it. For those that don’t, maybe an all expense paid trip to the Final Four would make sense, or at the very least a tee-shirt that fits.

In the meantime tuning into the Playoffs will remain just like a trip to the movies. There are absolutely no guarantees and no chance of getting your money back.


© 2015 Eric Walker Williams