Many years ago I was watching an interview on television with Don Meredith, former quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and then a commentator and entertainer on national television. I don’t remember the program but I do remember someone asking him to comment on a complaint by a young woman that her husband watched sports, particularly football, all the time and had very little time for or interest in her. “What should she do?” asked the interviewer. Without hesitation Meredith suggested she get some books on football and try to learn more about the game so she could enjoy it with her husband.
That bit of advice was about as shallow as anything that could have been said at the time. It included no responsibility whatsoever for the husband to get his priorities straight. I remember thinking at the time this would have been a perfect time for someone as popular as “Dandy Don” to make a statement about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of putting your partner in marriage first in your life. The husband in question could have made a deal with his wife that he would not watch quite so much, show a little more interest in his wife, for which she would have been grateful, and she in return would not interfere with his sports’ time which would have been less than he presently demanded. They would have both been giving in a little and they would have both been receiving a little from the other. But that was not the direction in which the response by Meredith was directed. He simply advised the wife to accept her husband’s skewed priorities and join him if she wanted a little more of his time.
I did not grow up in a family heavily involved in sports. My family was heavily involved in family. I used to watch sports news on television, before ESPN, and wondered what this sportscaster was going to say to his grandchildren when he was an old man. When they crawled up in his lap and asked, “Grandad, what did you do in life?” “Well, kids,” he would reply, “I told people who won what game. I told them the scores each night.” I couldn’t help but think how pitiful that man’s life was if that was all he had to say for what he did for the good of human-kind after a lifetime of work.
How wrong I was. I had no idea how sports would grow. In the last 25 years sports have grown to become a major industry in American life and productivity. Sports, not participation but viewing, has come to dominate all phases of life. Schools cannot ignore the significance of organized sports. Communities, churches, schools and even families have all had to adjust their lives, their existence, to accommodate sports. I never imagined it would grow to this extent. And I grew right along with it.
It reached the point that I could not miss certain football and basketball games. Losing interest in baseball when it went on strike a few years back and never really getting into track and field except for the Olympics, football and basketball would demand a lot of my interest and activity. I loved the Dallas Cowboys, all teams playing for the University of Oklahoma and certain NBA basketball teams. I watched the Cowboys during the years of their greatness. I watched Oklahoma win national championships in football, amazed when I considered how difficult that feat is. I was fortunate enough to be watching NBA games when Michael Jordan was playing, a golden age perhaps as he was not the only great player in the game, just the greatest.
A couple of things have helped me get over this devotion to sports, both of which came along at a time I was getting older and was learning again how to prioritize the things which were and are really important in life.
The first thing that dampened my enthusiasm was Jerry Jones’ purchase of the Dallas Cowboys. Not that I really care who owns them. But, his ignominious firing of Tom Landry as the coach of the team was something I would never forget. Certainly Jones had the right to fire him and hire anyone in his place he wanted. It was, after all, his team. The team had been going down hill for several years before Jones bought it. It probably did need new blood to bring it back to a level it had once enjoyed. The problem I had with the firing was that Tom Landry was a good man and had been coach there for a long time and he deserved to go out with a little more dignity and honor than he was allowed. How difficult would it have been for Jones to keep Landry on for another year with the expressed announcements that that would be Landry’s last year and that at the end of the year his replacement would be named/elevated to take his place? It wasn’t going to make any difference in the record for the team in that first year of Jones’ ownership. When that was done, I was through with the Cowboys. I still have a little interest in them. In the back of my mind there is always the gnawing fact that Jones owns the team.
The second thing was something that happened on a hot Saturday afternoon while watching an Oklahoma football game. I don’t remember the game at all. All I remember is that it was hot, miserably hot, dangerously hot. I have sat through OU football games in all sorts of inclement weather. Snow, freezing rain, sleet and heat in the other extreme. I have sat through adversity and cheered my team on like the university, the coaching staff and the team cared whether I was there or not. I have made myself sick by sitting in cold, wet games supporting my team. I have had to leave the stadium to lie on the grass under a shade tree when I was so hot I was concerned about having a heat stroke. I loved OU football that much.
At this particular game I went down to buy a bottle of water. Back in the stands I did some math and said to my wife, “I just paid $19 per gallon for this water.” That’s shameful. At the time I paid about $2.00 for a gallon of gasoline and just over $2.00 for a gallon of milk. I could remember buying bottled Cokes for a nickel, two dips of ice cream for a nickel. Even after I had become an adult I saw a quarter-section (160 acres) of land sell for $7,500 and I had paid $40,000 for a home 40 years earlier. It wasn’t much perhaps, but it was adequate and if I still had it, it would be long paid for. I just can’t feel good about paying $19 per gallon for water which I needed to stave off the effects of sun and high temperatures.
I clearly understand that it takes a lot of money to run a big time football program these days. And one of the benefits of a successful football program is that it brings favorable attention to the school. (Unless it is disgraced by breaking the law or the rules of the NCAA, at which time the entire university will suffer a black eye, not just the football program.) I understood too that the coach that year had contracted to be paid $3 million per year for his services, with built in incentives which would increase his compensation each year. No wonder I had to pay $19 per gallon for water.
This compensation package was shocking to me. I understand that he is going to receive and is receiving what the market will bear. I certainly didn’t want to lose him as a coach and if we weren’t going to pay him that someone else would. But even if that is the going rate for a top class college football program, it is so out of range for the people of this state that it is, if not offensive, at least an unhealthy sign of our skewed priorities. Oklahoma is a poor state, our teachers are underpaid, people are trying hard to make ends meet and we invest huge sums in sports.
Then there is the growing unfriendly attitude toward the fans that the university has adopted and continues to promulgate. I remember when the games were “fan friendly”, they were encouraged in their support of the team regardless of record, weather, adverse conditions or anything other circumstance. The fans were appreciated. We could carry a sandwich into the stadium and a drink. That was not all that long ago. But now there is a total ban on anything from outside the stadium. Women are forced to open their purses to allow a cursory inspection. The purse may not be larger than 10 inch square. I have seen a woman who was told she could not wear a fanny pack into the stadium, they are not allowed, and when she took it off and threw it over her shoulder, which is how she would have carried a purse, she was told she could not bring it in because it was still a fanny pack.
All of this was happening while I could have carried anything into the stadium I wanted to under my jacket or coat. However, the last game I attended I was wearing a hat. The young woman taking my ticket asked me to remove my hat. “What the hell for,” I said. She had no explanation, she just repeated the request. I lifted my hat and she let me in. Either she satisfied herself I didn’t have contraband under there that might cut into the revenue of the university or she has a fetish for bald heads or she and the university was satisfied that they had demonstrated their power over me, the fan, and sent the message that they are important and can set up any hoop they want and I will jump through it. I suspect the latter. They need to remind me every so often that I am unimportant because there are people standing in line wanting my ticket.
The university has bent over backward to kill the spirit of the fan. Messages are continually sent that they may not do things that we had always taken for granted before. “Stay off the field,” the system shouts over the speaker system. But we had earlier been allowed to walk on the field after the game, mingle with the players, the band and other fans. “Don’t say negative things toward the other team!” Sure, like other fans in other places are always nice to our team and fans. “Don’t yell ‘SOONERS’ at the end of the National Anthem! It disrespects the military!” My God, with that attitude I wish the university administration would come to my house where I have a lot of mole hills, I’ve always wanted to live in the mountains.
A good thing about all this is that it has helped me put sports in proper perspective again. Sports will always be here. They’ve been around since the games on Olympia and probably before. They’re fun. I enjoy them. Those kids on the field can run faster than I ever could, jump higher than I could ever jump and perform feats of athleticism that I could never even imagine. But there are more important things for me and my family, namely, me and my family. I have come full circle from where I was when I heard Don Meredith make that statement as a solution to the young husband spending too much time with sports and not enough with his wife. She needs to learn more about sports so she can enjoy them with her husband, Don suggested. He needs to figure out what is more important, his watching sports or his marriage and his family, I thought. I have been where that young man was and now I am back again. Sports are fine but we must keep them in perspective. They are not as important as family.
That bit of advice was about as shallow as anything that could have been said at the time. It included no responsibility whatsoever for the husband to get his priorities straight. I remember thinking at the time this would have been a perfect time for someone as popular as “Dandy Don” to make a statement about the sanctity of marriage and the importance of putting your partner in marriage first in your life. The husband in question could have made a deal with his wife that he would not watch quite so much, show a little more interest in his wife, for which she would have been grateful, and she in return would not interfere with his sports’ time which would have been less than he presently demanded. They would have both been giving in a little and they would have both been receiving a little from the other. But that was not the direction in which the response by Meredith was directed. He simply advised the wife to accept her husband’s skewed priorities and join him if she wanted a little more of his time.
I did not grow up in a family heavily involved in sports. My family was heavily involved in family. I used to watch sports news on television, before ESPN, and wondered what this sportscaster was going to say to his grandchildren when he was an old man. When they crawled up in his lap and asked, “Grandad, what did you do in life?” “Well, kids,” he would reply, “I told people who won what game. I told them the scores each night.” I couldn’t help but think how pitiful that man’s life was if that was all he had to say for what he did for the good of human-kind after a lifetime of work.
How wrong I was. I had no idea how sports would grow. In the last 25 years sports have grown to become a major industry in American life and productivity. Sports, not participation but viewing, has come to dominate all phases of life. Schools cannot ignore the significance of organized sports. Communities, churches, schools and even families have all had to adjust their lives, their existence, to accommodate sports. I never imagined it would grow to this extent. And I grew right along with it.
It reached the point that I could not miss certain football and basketball games. Losing interest in baseball when it went on strike a few years back and never really getting into track and field except for the Olympics, football and basketball would demand a lot of my interest and activity. I loved the Dallas Cowboys, all teams playing for the University of Oklahoma and certain NBA basketball teams. I watched the Cowboys during the years of their greatness. I watched Oklahoma win national championships in football, amazed when I considered how difficult that feat is. I was fortunate enough to be watching NBA games when Michael Jordan was playing, a golden age perhaps as he was not the only great player in the game, just the greatest.
A couple of things have helped me get over this devotion to sports, both of which came along at a time I was getting older and was learning again how to prioritize the things which were and are really important in life.
The first thing that dampened my enthusiasm was Jerry Jones’ purchase of the Dallas Cowboys. Not that I really care who owns them. But, his ignominious firing of Tom Landry as the coach of the team was something I would never forget. Certainly Jones had the right to fire him and hire anyone in his place he wanted. It was, after all, his team. The team had been going down hill for several years before Jones bought it. It probably did need new blood to bring it back to a level it had once enjoyed. The problem I had with the firing was that Tom Landry was a good man and had been coach there for a long time and he deserved to go out with a little more dignity and honor than he was allowed. How difficult would it have been for Jones to keep Landry on for another year with the expressed announcements that that would be Landry’s last year and that at the end of the year his replacement would be named/elevated to take his place? It wasn’t going to make any difference in the record for the team in that first year of Jones’ ownership. When that was done, I was through with the Cowboys. I still have a little interest in them. In the back of my mind there is always the gnawing fact that Jones owns the team.
The second thing was something that happened on a hot Saturday afternoon while watching an Oklahoma football game. I don’t remember the game at all. All I remember is that it was hot, miserably hot, dangerously hot. I have sat through OU football games in all sorts of inclement weather. Snow, freezing rain, sleet and heat in the other extreme. I have sat through adversity and cheered my team on like the university, the coaching staff and the team cared whether I was there or not. I have made myself sick by sitting in cold, wet games supporting my team. I have had to leave the stadium to lie on the grass under a shade tree when I was so hot I was concerned about having a heat stroke. I loved OU football that much.
At this particular game I went down to buy a bottle of water. Back in the stands I did some math and said to my wife, “I just paid $19 per gallon for this water.” That’s shameful. At the time I paid about $2.00 for a gallon of gasoline and just over $2.00 for a gallon of milk. I could remember buying bottled Cokes for a nickel, two dips of ice cream for a nickel. Even after I had become an adult I saw a quarter-section (160 acres) of land sell for $7,500 and I had paid $40,000 for a home 40 years earlier. It wasn’t much perhaps, but it was adequate and if I still had it, it would be long paid for. I just can’t feel good about paying $19 per gallon for water which I needed to stave off the effects of sun and high temperatures.
I clearly understand that it takes a lot of money to run a big time football program these days. And one of the benefits of a successful football program is that it brings favorable attention to the school. (Unless it is disgraced by breaking the law or the rules of the NCAA, at which time the entire university will suffer a black eye, not just the football program.) I understood too that the coach that year had contracted to be paid $3 million per year for his services, with built in incentives which would increase his compensation each year. No wonder I had to pay $19 per gallon for water.
This compensation package was shocking to me. I understand that he is going to receive and is receiving what the market will bear. I certainly didn’t want to lose him as a coach and if we weren’t going to pay him that someone else would. But even if that is the going rate for a top class college football program, it is so out of range for the people of this state that it is, if not offensive, at least an unhealthy sign of our skewed priorities. Oklahoma is a poor state, our teachers are underpaid, people are trying hard to make ends meet and we invest huge sums in sports.
Then there is the growing unfriendly attitude toward the fans that the university has adopted and continues to promulgate. I remember when the games were “fan friendly”, they were encouraged in their support of the team regardless of record, weather, adverse conditions or anything other circumstance. The fans were appreciated. We could carry a sandwich into the stadium and a drink. That was not all that long ago. But now there is a total ban on anything from outside the stadium. Women are forced to open their purses to allow a cursory inspection. The purse may not be larger than 10 inch square. I have seen a woman who was told she could not wear a fanny pack into the stadium, they are not allowed, and when she took it off and threw it over her shoulder, which is how she would have carried a purse, she was told she could not bring it in because it was still a fanny pack.
All of this was happening while I could have carried anything into the stadium I wanted to under my jacket or coat. However, the last game I attended I was wearing a hat. The young woman taking my ticket asked me to remove my hat. “What the hell for,” I said. She had no explanation, she just repeated the request. I lifted my hat and she let me in. Either she satisfied herself I didn’t have contraband under there that might cut into the revenue of the university or she has a fetish for bald heads or she and the university was satisfied that they had demonstrated their power over me, the fan, and sent the message that they are important and can set up any hoop they want and I will jump through it. I suspect the latter. They need to remind me every so often that I am unimportant because there are people standing in line wanting my ticket.
The university has bent over backward to kill the spirit of the fan. Messages are continually sent that they may not do things that we had always taken for granted before. “Stay off the field,” the system shouts over the speaker system. But we had earlier been allowed to walk on the field after the game, mingle with the players, the band and other fans. “Don’t say negative things toward the other team!” Sure, like other fans in other places are always nice to our team and fans. “Don’t yell ‘SOONERS’ at the end of the National Anthem! It disrespects the military!” My God, with that attitude I wish the university administration would come to my house where I have a lot of mole hills, I’ve always wanted to live in the mountains.
A good thing about all this is that it has helped me put sports in proper perspective again. Sports will always be here. They’ve been around since the games on Olympia and probably before. They’re fun. I enjoy them. Those kids on the field can run faster than I ever could, jump higher than I could ever jump and perform feats of athleticism that I could never even imagine. But there are more important things for me and my family, namely, me and my family. I have come full circle from where I was when I heard Don Meredith make that statement as a solution to the young husband spending too much time with sports and not enough with his wife. She needs to learn more about sports so she can enjoy them with her husband, Don suggested. He needs to figure out what is more important, his watching sports or his marriage and his family, I thought. I have been where that young man was and now I am back again. Sports are fine but we must keep them in perspective. They are not as important as family.
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