Serenity

 I'll warn you now: This will be another one of those blogs about sports. 

Still here? Thank you for your patience and forbearance. Over the past few months I confess that I have retreated a bit into my spectator sports persona, and while I wish that I could tell you that it has brought me some solace, football season hasn't brought me much comfort. 

At all. 

There was that moment when, in the midst of losing every other game this season the Colorado Buffaloes posted their only win against California. In overtime. On the day their biggest fan, my mother, went to the cheap seats in the sky. Most of the rest of the football news emanating from the Centennial State has been pretty bleak. 

I'm addressing the ugly reality of the Denver Broncos' season. Bringing it all back around to my mother, who was also a fan of the local NFL franchise: The last conversation I had with my mom was reflecting on the Broncos' miserable loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. Less than a week later, she was gone. 

I was struck by a memory of the seminal bromance TV movie, Brian's Song. Spoiler alert, Brian dies at the end. I kicked the lid off that can of "What?" in order to relate the following: Toward the end of the film, as James Caan's Brian Piccolo is fading fast, Billy Dee Williams' Gale Sayers urges his Chicago Bears teammates to win just one for "Pic." The Bears lost that game 24 to 21. Which is essentially a reminder to us all that all that pointing to the sky after a touchdown and pregame prayers don't take into account the other team having a relationship with god as well. 

Which is to say that this football season hasn't been exactly a tribute to anything but the patience of fans everywhere, particularly the ones wearing orange and blue horses on their t-shirts and bedroom slippers. On Christmas Day, I watched "my team" get dismantled by another struggling team, the Los Angeles Rams. The Denver Broncos helped the Rams feel better about themselves by collapsing in front of them to the score of 51 to 14. Those fourteen points were the result of two pretty long field goals and a consolation touchdown and a two-point conversion made against the second string defense long after the competitive phase of the game had been played. 

The next morning, the Denver Broncos fired their head coach. A lot of sport was made of the last name of the now-unemployed Nathaniel Hackett, as in "he couldn't Hack-it." This didn't bring me any particular joy, since I don't attribute any specific ill will on the coach's part, just like I imagine that there is a core of professional athletes caught up in a series of bad decisions and coincidence that created the kind of thing on which real sportswriters get paid to sharpen their axes. It may take another dozen or more years for a return to prominence for football in Colorado. This is fine with me, ultimately, because it reminds me of the fickle and tired nature of so much of what happens to us all. 

Hence, the Serenity Prayer: "Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other." No matter what the score.