An open letter to the Indianapolis Colts

First appeared on September 30th, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Dear Indianapolis Colts,

I just wanted to drop you a line to say thanks. Thank you Jim Irsay for not coming out of the stands at halftime Sunday in Nashville to fire Chuck Pagano, despite the fact every single Colt Fan, and probably a few who’ve spent time at a Pagano family reunion, fully expected you to do so.

Thank you Andrew Luck for deciding at some point in the Fourth Quarter that "spreading the ball around" doesn't mean sharing it with the other team. And while I’ve got your ear, rumor has it you were one pick away from Fans starting a movement to sign Out of Control Beard Andrew Luck to the roster. This means I’ll need you to keep hitting your targets, because Out of Control Beard Andrew Luck is so creepy a cheesy commercial is the only place I ever want to see him.

Thank you coaches for drafting Phillip Dorsett to electrify the return game only to make the decision to play Griff Whalen in front of him. I understand it’s common practice for rookies to learn from vets, but I’m fairly certain taking a knee and fair catching a football are both things Phillip learned at a very young age.

Thank you front office, coaches and players for not squelching the talk of dysfunction within the brass of the franchise. For, if you were in fact planning to go 0-16 before Sunday, at least those lonely, tortured and completely inadequate souls in the part-time-pretend sports media would have something interesting to write about.

Thank you offensive line for mixing up your strategies of drawing a holding penalty on any play that garners more than five yards with blocking absolutely no one. We understand this is a delicate balance and hats off to you for maintaining it for a full 60 minutes.

Thank you Pat McAfee for both being Pat McAfee as well as taking a chance on Sunday when everything was going completely wrong. And while your converted fake punt was almost immediately rendered irrelevant by another Luck interception, we still applaud anyone willing to stick their neck out while everyone around is busy shoving their heads in the sand.

Thank you Robert Mathis for enduring 10 surgeries and a grueling rehab schedule just to get back on the field. For even when all I had hoped for was crumbling down around me in a fury of turnovers, missed tackles and holding penalties, just seeing 98 getting after the quarterback again was enough to give me a spark of hope.

Thank you Dwight Lowery for being the only defensive player to actually get off the bus before the Fourth Quarter on Sunday. Your Pick six fooled me into believing my old team was back and then, upon returning to the belief my old team was in fact still enjoying quiet time in a lounge chair on a private Mexican beach, you intercepted another pass and saved me.

Finally, thank you to all the Colts. Despite waiting until the fourth quarter to do so, thank you for finally showing the fight, toughness, grit, execution and emotion I’d been expecting to see from you in the first two games. And while it remains unclear how people will remember me, one thing’s for sure, because of your efforts Sunday nobody has given up on me yet.

Thanks Again

Your Season


© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Colts Season off to Inharmonious Start

First appeared on September 17, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

Abraham Lincoln once said “a house divided against itself cannot stand”. And while that crusty old history teacher, the weird one whose short in the leg slacks were funnier than his jokes, told you Honest Abe was speaking about the unraveling of the United States, for all we know he could have been talking about the Republican Party in 2016 or Caitlyn Jenner’s closet.

Those in the non-part-time pretend media would argue Lincoln was editorializing about the Indianapolis Colts Front Office. And as rumors swirl over West 56th, the little people get wind that Grigson hates Pagano and Pagano loathes Grigson while, at some point, Jim Irsay sets his pail down long enough to tweet “all is well” from his flooding deck.

Yet, here in the cheap seats, we’re left struggling to understand why it really matters if Pagano and Grigson hate each other, neither one of them catch, throw or run with the ball after all. It would seem we’re beating the bushes for someone to blame, some underlying issue or the dreaded “circumstances beyond our control”. Something to explain why those things we want most from life continue to elude us, for an American life is not complete without a handful of convenient excuses.

Unfortunately for fans of the Horseshoe, harmony isn’t available online, even for Amazon Prime members. Harmony is a warm summer evening, standing bare footed in cool grass, spraying the petunias and coneflowers as the soft sounds of Wheel of Fortune drift through an open window. And beyond fluttering lace curtains, the wife ponders a tricky crossword as the children share space, shoulder to shoulder on the couch, each completely absorbed by some non-electronic form of entertainment; perhaps Jenga, a deck of cards or maybe even a book, if those even exist anymore.

And for every flower sprinkler out there, there are a half dozen or more tossing cups out their window in a parking lot, mean faced monsters screaming profanities across an interstate lane or mocking a strict teacher in front of their children. Harmony isn’t free and it isn’t cheap and it isn’t easy to find, which is why most Americans are of the belief it doesn’t exist.

Harmony doesn’t win Championships and it doesn’t help nail that interview. The power of harmony should never find itself in question however. Harmony is greater than the rush of a new speedboat and more welcoming than a vacation home, and yet for most of us it lingers in the shadows, just beyond our reach.

Rex the big Royal Blue Dinosaur doesn’t exactly exude harmony but he does win football games. Sunday was an unfortunate witch’s brew of Luck’s inability to perform in season openers, the energy of Rex Ryan’s first game as Buffalo Head Coach and a dash of Pagano’s teams always laying an egg once or twice a season.

As for front office chasms, if a rift between the Colts Head Coach and General Manager is only a myth, the good news is Jim Irsay will likely tweet about it just to let everyone know and, if a rift does in fact exist, the good news is Jim Irsay will likely tweet about it just to let everyone know.

Yet they say where there’s smoke, there’s likely fire. And anytime your performance is best compared to that of a team that has never played the sport before, there will always be questions. Questions like “Who taught the Colts’ secondary to tackle?” and “If Lincoln was so important, why did we put him on the least valuable coin?” And even Honest Abe, who boasts being the tallest president, would have been unable see what the end of this season will bring; though he probably could have done a better job tackling and fielding punts.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Harbaugh for President

First appeared on September 3rd, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

If Jim Harbaugh had been your First Grade teacher he would have told you to stop crying and get back to work. At recess he would have told everyone Billy can cross the Monkey Bars faster than you and at lunch he’d have made it perfectly clear trading your corn for another No Bake Cookie will only make you fat. His is a world devoid of Band-Aids and hugs.

And far away from the bright lights of Ann Arbor, a line forms before a weary coach, plastic smile pasted on. He shakes every hand of his little team, congratulating them on their 13-0 loss. Later, somewhere beyond left field, a Mini-Van Mom passes out juice boxes and treats she put together with love. Individual Ziplock baggies, each labeled in Sharpie because Tommee doesn’t like pretzels and Earin likes extra trail mix and don’t forget Mikel has a wheat allergy so he’ll most likely need a block of cheese or maybe a coloring book.

And as the little warriors inhale their snack, the coach mumbles something about growth and how proud he is of the effort they gave despite losing every game. All this before doling out the exact same trophy to everyone, including Rico who was the only kid to reach base or record an out or show any tangible signs of improvement all season.

If Jim Harbaugh were that Pee-Wee coach he would have told everyone to take a long hard look at Rico. “If you want to win games you need to work as hard as Rico. If you want to win games you’ll put down the game controller and play catch with your dad. And if you don’t have a dad, you’ll throw a ball off the roof of your house and catch it. And if you don’t have a house then you’ll ask one of the people living under the bridge with you to play catch.”

Jim Harbaugh would blast his team for losing. Blast them for not being better, not working hard enough. And he would do this because he knows every second grader in India and China wants to bury the U.S. and the more we hand out trophies and pat people on the back for losing, the faster it will happen. That’s why I’m asking Harbaugh to resign his position at Michigan and run for President.

What this country needs is more honesty. We need to be able to look others in the eye and tell them exactly how we feel and, when necessary, tell them maybe they can find a little room for improvement after all. And this includes everyone from your seven year old to the guy pretending to be a sports columnist in the local paper.

I’m no expert on motivation, just ask my wife, my boss, my parents or my kids. Still, it doesn’t take a professor boasting hours of research, countless articles published and dozens of agonizingly dry speeches given to recognize if you constantly tell someone how great they are, they tend to see no reason for improvement.

As President, Harbaugh would make loyalty, hard work and discipline the foundation of every child’s education. Anyone caught whining about political correctness or asking why their daughter only got one smiley face on her paper when Johnny got four would be given a pair of Dockers and a one way ticket to Siberia.

A history of demanding perfection and grinding on those around him will follow Harbaugh to Ann Arbor. And often, despite success, that history has a history of leading to his demise (see 49ers, San Francisco). So while Harbaugh appears ready for Ann Arbor, the million dollar question remains, is Ann Arbor ready for Harbaugh?

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

As the Cubs tempt fate, fans brace for the inevitable

First appeared on August 18, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

With Donald Trump still leading in the polls, Hillary forwarding Top Secret emails and the Cubs winners in ten of their last eleven; its official, the end of the world is upon us.

Turns out that uncle, the one with the ‘Licensed Sasquatch Hunter’ bumper sticker, was right all along. The world will end before Washington starts making sense. For years he took you out to the woods and showed you how to hunt and fish, claiming when the end comes, only the strong, those who can build fires, find fresh meat and tie a barrel hitch, will survive.

By firelight he told you how the moon landing was filmed in a California basement. A two-bedroom ranch owned by the Night Manager of a Denny’s in the San Fernando Valley. “Surprisingly huge basement for a Ranch.”

He swore the Soviets killed Elvis because there was a hidden capitalistic agenda in his lyrics and that cheeseburgers in American schools are green because the FDA was injecting them with human growth hormones. “Reagan was tired of losing to East Germany in the Olympics.”

But that was thirty years ago and not only are you older now, you are also wiser. You know the world most likely isn’t going to end anytime soon. You are also smart enough to realize the Cubs can’t win the World Series this year because this is the year of the sheep, which is basically a goat, and we all know how that’s worked out so far.

Still, the Northsiders are stirring the hearts and minds of this great nation and that’s the part the rest of baseball loves most. The rest of baseball, lounging in their monogramed Turkish bathrobes, sipping Arnold Palmer’s while leafing through dog-eared copies of an ‘Idiots Guide to Dealing with Post-season Success.’

And there they linger, in only the way they can, pretending to read but all the while waiting. Waiting with baited breath for that priceless moment the Cubs fall apart, crushing the hearts of millions, the eternally downtrodden, yet again. A train wreck indeed.

Meaningful baseball has become an oxymoron for Cubs fans, a mythical figure most have spent the better part of a lifetime searching for. There have been glimpses. Grainy images of a foul ball being prematurely snatched up from the stands and a black cat scurrying across an infield. For generations it has loomed on the horizon, just close enough to tease, yet somehow always gone by September.

It’s been over 100 years since a championship last came to the Northside. That magical run was witnessed by then U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. You know Teddy, the Rough Rider who charged up San Juan Hill, a feat so lasting he remains the answer to the most popular question posed to every Ranger stationed at Mount Rushmore. Exhausted families, sunblock pasted faces, herded together in khaki shorts and loud print shirts, cajoling their restless young ones to take in the powerful artistry that is Rushmore, all the while wondering aloud, “Who’s the one next to Jefferson again?”

But despite the Cubs’ newfound fortunes, don’t expect to find the four horsemen galloping down your street anytime soon, it is after all only the third week of August. There is still plenty of time for a full-blown collapse. One so monumental it triggers widespread earthquakes. Cataclysmic tremors that move mountains and cause rocks to fall down upon those hiding amongst them.

And while you’re thinking we’re in trouble either way, just remember the Cardinals are so far ahead of the rest of the National League they could take a couple weeks off and still wake up in first place. This means, Armageddon or not, the Cubs are once again destined to leave fans feeling undeniably inadequate.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

America's Pastime and her grand search for emotion

First appeared on August 4, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

When Wilmer Flores took the field before 50,000 screaming fans, he wept. He wasn’t a World Champion and he hadn’t just thrown a No Hitter and his wife hadn’t yelled “It’s a boy!” from the stands. The uncomfortable scene was begat by Social Media.

Twitter, Facebook, push notifications, text messages flying furiously through the air, invisible yet infinitely powerful. Word on the street was Flores had been traded, jettisoned like space trash from the only Major League team he’d ever played for.

A passing glance across a crowded room, a friendly wave, two people sharing a look that says far more than just hello. Emotion is glaring. It is unmistakable and powerful and can make you seem qualified for a job you have absolutely no business getting. It’s also noticeably missing from Baseball.

Like an image of a great mastodon stomping across the frozen tundra, his burly frame and impressive tusks the definition of raw power, we see a video of Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse at home plate and think “who would do such a thing?”

Today’s stars play hard, they play to win but despite some exciting young talent and the sudden rise of the greatest franchise in professional sports (we’re talking about the Cubs here in case your Google search returns something different), real emotion remains Baseball’s Ivory Billed Woodpecker.

Of course George Washington bears the brunt of the blame. With the size of today’s contracts, it doesn’t take a baseball insider to explain to we little people why playing with pure emotion and worrying over a career ending injury are by nature mutually exclusive.

Your scoutmaster said you wouldn’t get anywhere without a little emotion but you didn’t believe him because he smelled of stale beer and wore a really bad hair-hat your best friend said looked like the tail of a Pomeranian and he couldn’t even get the fire started for crissakes!

So you drifted after crossing that stage in High School and waited for the hand of fate to reach out and give you something to validate your existence, meanwhile that cousin, the one your mother always dotes on at Christmas, got that promotion in Milwaukee and there’s a lion loose in Milwaukee and a not so small part of you is rooting for that big cat to hunt your cousin down and gnaw his face off. That’s what emotion is. Sometimes it takes a successful cousin to give you a little kick in the pants.

In the end Flores wasn’t traded. Turns out 50,000 Woodward and Bernsteins could be wrong. But it's too late for Flores, thanks to our instant gratification-"hey look at this" world, Flores could hit a Grand Slam to win the World Series and pull a pregnant lady from a burning car on his way to home plate, and he will still always be the guy who cried at shortstop.

And while the real, not part-time-pretend media, is busy blasting the Mets for leaking a trade that hadn’t been fully consummated, we are once again missing the trees for the forest. Flores cares.

He’s not a machine powered by million dollar paychecks. He’s not a mindless robot detached from those dedicated to him most. He is a human being who loves his job and efforts to give something special to the fans every night. Something to the Construction Workers and Policemen, the Sailors and Cowboys and Indian Chiefs who pay their hard earned money to watch him. That’s why Flores cried.

And for that we should stand and applaud, for he is a great American, though your mother would probably argue not as great as your cousin from Milwaukee.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

Surviving the British Open

First appeared on July 22, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

As a young boy I remember watching the British Open with my father. The driving rain sweeping down over a lifeless moonscape, hurricane force winds ripping at the flagsticks and forty degree temperatures in July, all foretold of a bleak existence and instilled in me early on a fierce determination never to visit.

England, where the beer flows warm and shirty people tell you to buck up when its monkey’s outside. A Fantasy Island for the downtrodden where, instead of Mai-tai’s and leis, the women greeting you hand out cricket bats and ponchos.

From the comfort of his chair, my father slipped peanuts into his Coke while miserable men in flapping rain gear braced themselves against a treacherous wind, a howling fury battering every shot. All this as I caught myself taking in the warmth and comfort surrounding me, wondering why I would ever even leave the room.

This is of course what we Americans are. For ending the Big One and giving the world a cheap automobile and airplanes, we deserve a little pampering. We make cars with heated steering wheels and we want extra fries with that and faster Internet service and somebody to put our shopping cart away at Wal-Mart once the car is loaded.

We see St. Andrews on the telly and cringe, thinking Scotland as a vacation destination could only appeal to a grizzled Polar Explorer or the English. An angry sea throwing itself against the rocky shore sending giant curtains of mist exploding into the air. A sky the color of concrete under which jaded locals with ashen faces huddle, the collars of their Pea coats turned up, speaking fondly of that magical Thursday when they were school children and a strange round object filled the sky and warmed their world, if but for a short time.

Every year at this time the golf world descends upon this barren rock in the North Atlantic, a place so forbidding that more than 300 years ago our forefathers packed up all they had and ran for the hills. Embarking on a trip where, compared to the near constant dreariness of England, they were willing to brave small pox, scurvy, a dangerous sea voyage into the unknown and a mob of angry natives armed with bows and arrows and hatchets carved from stone fixed to sticks using the hide of the deer, an instrument of death so skilled with were they that it could be thrown from great distances and still split the hairs upon your head.

So from near and far they journeyed to the Old Course in St. Andrews Scotland, which is not England you say. And this is true, if you are also willing to argue that Illinois is not Nebraska. Even ESPN, whose power is so great a SportsCenter commercial with Putin and the San Diego Chicken sharing an elevator would surprise no one, couldn’t dress Scotland up for, despite filming in HD, she still came through your television appearing black and white.

The American spirit, albeit portly and somewhat self-serving, is no stranger to the Open having won half of them since 1990. In the end two Americans found themselves in contention late as their countrymen could only watch from the comfort of their living rooms while St. Andrews gnashed her terrible teeth and rolled her terrible eyes and showed her terrible claws.

Ultimately, the award for hanging on the longest in the 144th Open Championship went to Zach Johnson, who seems bright, talented and well spoken, though we’ve no way of knowing if he corrals his own shopping cart at Wal-Mart.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams

"Progress" comes to Clark and Addison

First appeared on July 11, 2015
in The Lebanon Reporter

A day spent at Wrigley is a day well spent. Forget Florida and its meandering rivers of traffic, or the great outdoors and its fabled tranquility, mosquitoes and near constant threat of bear attacks. Wrigley Field is another world, one you long to visit more and wish others knew less knew about.

So you stand shoulder to shoulder, sharing a prolonged silence with this mass of humanity fate has thrown together in a steel Velveeta box on rails. You avoid eye contact, conversation and interaction of any kind, best not to invite the one you suspect is seriously considering jabbing you in the stomach for your wallet.

Meanwhile the El goes on, listing from side to side while clacking down its tracks. As if you’ve traded an Abraham Lincoln for a ticket back in time, the alleyways and fire escapes of the Brownstones roll past. The homes huddling together and muscle of the trestle that splits them are ripped from a Sinclair novel. Your mind is busy tucking all these images away for later, as your nose has serious questions about the availability of warm water and soap in the Windy City.

For you, this is more than a train ride. It’s therapy. For nothing takes the sting out of a rant from your boss like reminiscing about Wrigley. Forget the overpriced vendors, long lines at the John and warm beer, the only souvenirs you’ll take home are the nostalgic sights and sounds. Lasting images such as the silhouette of downtown cast against an ocean blue sky, or a young father teaching his daughter how to jump a turnstile.

And when your stop arrives and the doors shoosh open, you turn to embrace a scene you didn’t want to leave in the first place. However, instead of an old friends smile or slice of Grannie’s Apple Pie, you’re greeted with something from a Third World Country racked by devastation.

Dump trucks lumber back and forth, navigating a minefield of port-a-potties. With all the synchronicity of a Broadway show, construction workers move seamlessly around each other. It’s the scourge of renovation. A cancer that threatens all you hold dear.

No matter the form, we as humans struggle with change. It’s in our DNA, just ask the boys over at Coca-Cola. Our lives become so choreographed and photocopied that change has a way of reaching out and slapping us every time. A flag goes up, a flag comes down. A presidential candidate who doesn’t tell us what we expect to hear. Renovating Wrigley is like putting lipstick on the Mona Lisa grumbles the old timer behind you.

For whatever reason, your mind is drawn to Millard Fillmore. A stuffed shirt who did little of consequence aside from sleep in the White House for four years, old Mill’s on record as saying one shouldn’t accept change as progress. And as you bask in the glow of the jumbo-tron that now towers over left-center, you know that no truer words have ever been spoken.

Your eyes used to marvel at the hand-operated scoreboard or wander along the bricks until they got lost in the Ivy. Now they’re blinded by 3900 square feet of LED. If this is progress, they can have it. You have satellite TV, microwaveable meals and a one-car detached waiting for you at home.

Not unlike a bad sunburn, we’re often reminded that progress for some is a kick in the shin for others. And yet, it remains our destiny. In the end you’re left to realize that perhaps, not unlike beauty, progress too lies in the eye of the beholder.

© 2015 Eric Walker Williams