You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2007.
THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY
Writing in the Dust
By Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard
There is a tiny village in Southern Sudan that is experiencing a renaissance. Out of the surrounding clay a school is rising, brick by brick.
Wunlang is just south of South Darfur in Africa. As you may know, the people of Sudan have long suffered from war, poverty and injustice. In 1998 one of Wunlang’s own, Franco Majok, came to America to begin a new life. But his long journey really began more than a decade earlier.
Franco became a refugee in 1983 when civil war erupted between the northern Sudanese Government and the south. At that time all high schools were closed and their students became targets of government troops. Franco was among them, one of the few children from his village to have attended school. (His schooling was a result of his father’s foresight—his father had learned the value of education when he worked for the British after their arrival in Sudan in 1921.)
In fact, Franco attributes his very survival to his education. After leaving his village, Franco used his precious reading skills to read maps and directions in order to make his way North. There, he settled in the city of Khartoum, working in a factory by day and finishing his high school
coursework by night. Then, when Khartoum itself became too dangerous—with his education—Franco was able to apply for a visa to travel to Egypt.
Franco’s education proved invaluable again in 1997 when he applied for refugee resettlement through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). When the United States approved his application he moved his wife, first child and four relatives to the Boston area.
Settling in Lynn, Franco worked a couple different jobs from 1998 until 2000 when the “Lost Boys of Sudan” began to arrive here in the U.S. (The plight of these displaced, traumetized children during the Second Sudanese War [1984-2005] has been chronicled online, in books, movies and television.) Compelled to help, Franco applied for- and was hired as a bi-lingual, bi-cultural Case Manager through Lutheran Community Services to aid these refugees in their transition.
In 2005 Franco received his U.S. citizenship, a prerequisite for acquiring a U.S. passport and the ability to travel abroad. He was soon able to make plans to return safely to his homeland when, that very same year, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between the Government of Sudan in Khartoum and the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement. For the first time in 23 years, Franco could “go home.”
After a grueling 26-and-a-half hour trip (20 ½ via plane and car, 6 by bicycle) he found that his home village of Wunlang was a community attempting to rebuild following the war, but hampered by lack of funds and infrastructure. There was little food or education available.
Particularly striking to Franco, considering his personal belief in the power of education, was that the village’s “school” consisted only of a patch of dirt under a tree. Literally. A tree served as a fair-weather shelter, sticks and dirt its only paper and pencils. As Franco saw firsthand, the children of Wunlang practiced their letters by writing in the dust. To this day, when it’s either raining, or when it’s very hot, school cannot be held at all under the tree.
Franco recalls his first experience with the village’s children back in 2005: “In my first visit to Wunlang I asked them questions in English. The 3 boys [I] asked repeated to me the same thing. They said, ‘We need blackboard, we need books.’ They also said to me: ‘We want our brother in America to help us.’”
Of primary importance in lifting up the next generation, Franco knew, would be the building of a proper school to educate the children of Wunlang. The school that Franco envisioned would be more than a building in which to learn, however, it would furthermore serve as a springboard for the whole village.
As concrete evidence of the dedication of the community to its future, a brick school with two latrines would qualify Wunlang for the U.N.’s school-lunch program—allowing hungry children to receive a meal and better focus on their studies. Furthermore, a school compound would serve as the perfect space for a health clinic, a catalyst for planting a garden and building a small cattle enclosure; eventually, if the school had foot-powered sewing machines, the children could have school uniforms, and the village would even be able to start an income-producing sewing business. In short, the school would be the first step in creating a self-sustaining village.
Right now, very few Wunlang villagers have an education, and almost none among its mothers and grandmothers. The current teachers in Wunlang represent some of the best-educated members of the village; they have the equivalent of a fifth- or sixth-grade education. Currently, they volunteer their services to the school. With financial aid, the teachers could receive further training and salaries. With support, the school could further expand its adult literacy programs. As Franco reports, the Wunlang children already understand the importance of education. “A few children told me that they want to be teachers.”
At present, the Wunlang villagers are busy making bricks in anticipation of the school building’s construction. With the funds Franco has been able to raise thus far, they have fixed the village’s broken water pump and drilled one bore-hole. These are excellent signs of progress.
Already, the only two-year-old Wunlang Project has become a role-model within the Sudanese countryside. Indeed, many local people see the momentum in Wunlang and find the hope to start their own similar projects. Franco’s past contacts from the former “Lost Boys and Girls”—now young adults who desire to give back to their homeland—are anxious to invest their time and energies into this revitalization. Looking ahead, there has already been discussion of expanding pilot adult literacy programs to nearby groups.
The refashioning of this one African village is therefore creating a splendid domino effect. News of Wunlang’s successes is spreading in the area, and now refugees are returning in large numbers. This means that even more support will be needed to accommodate them.
From refugee to reformer, Franco is now a respected voice for his people, a village elder, their “brother in America.” Franco’s passion and vision have moved many in both Africa and America; he and his colleagues have incorporated a dedicated relief organization for Wunlang: “Village Help for South Sudan, Inc.” Much more information on Franco’s efforts is available online, including a blog and contact information at www.helpwunlang.org.
Personally, the importance of responding to this call to action was underlined for me this week when my six-year-old brought home from school a book entitled “Living Together.” The tiny book introduces children to the concept of community as a “group of people who live together.” As I pointed out to my daughter, its separate categories of cities, villages and nomadic tents seem a bit outdated—for as Franco’s life’s story illustrates—in this Global Age we are all “living together.”
As we speak, future plans are even underway to bring Internet technology to the children of Wunlang! When it happens, they will be able to correspond with other children around the globe—children like mine—reflexively broadening each others’ horizons. Until that day, each of us can make a difference in their lives, sowing the seeds of friendship and hope across borders by fulfilling Franco’s mission, and recognizing the importance of educating every child, in every corner of our world.
So, as these pixels travel across countless miles, filtering into your computer, please remember the people of Wunlang (and others like them) who yearn for the chance to fully participate in our world community, and whose children deserve a bright future.
____________________
Bread and Circus contributing writer Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Ph.D., is an Independent Scholar of Art History, Specializing in Northern Renaissance and Baroque. Click here to send her email.
For more information, visit www.helpwunlang.org.
Photos courtesy of Village Help for South Sudan, Inc.
BASEBALL NOTES
Finding Misery in Other People’s Joy
By Frank J. Colagiovanni
On Monday afternoon, the day after the Boston Red Sox won the American League Pennant, I was clicking through a few stories on the local newspaper web sites. I was at the game, had a great time and wanted to read about it in an effort to keep the good feelings going. In the Boston Herald, I came across a letter to the editor that I read, re-read, and then read a third time.
The writer, a woman from Brookline, Massachusetts, opens her missive to Red Sox fans-let’s be clear about that-with a statement so obtuse, so filled with arrogance and condescension that it actually took my Red Sox “buzz” known a notch.
She begins,
“Each October (barring the anomaly of 2004), as I see hubris and idol-worship shatter around me, I wonder: Will Sox fans put all that precious time and energy to better use, such as by working to help save our environment, improve our educational system, stem urban violence or stop global genocide?”
Reading this, I wonder — are these mutually exclusive? If I devote precious time and energy — and don’t forget money — to enjoying the Red Sox, do I do so at the exclusion of everything else? Does the time I spend at Fenway in October — or in July for that matter — negate the time I spend volunteering? Does the writer spend all her time devoted to the causes she listed?
And then she continues:
“Will they realize that big money rules every aspect of baseball? Will they (and especially, their kids) realize that second or third place still matters? That the “World” is actually the North American Series? That social workers, teachers, health care providers, community organizers and First Responders are the true heroes and heroines of society?”
And while the money involved with baseball is staggering, should that chase all enjoyment from it? If a ticket for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Pops, or the Boston Ballet — all well endowed organizations to be sure — goes for a price the writer deems too high, does that change the sound of the music? Does that make it ruled by big money? The Kroc family donated $200 million of the McDonald’s restaurant fortune to National Public Radio; is NPR ruled by “big money?” Wang computers donated the money for the Wang Center. Bill and Melinda Gates have given millions upon millions to different organizations-and you can’t get much more “big money” then them.
The Boston Red Sox have, over the past 50 plus years, donated and facilitated the donation of millions to fight childhood cancer through the Jimmy Fund. I’d call that big money.
And the fact is, it is a World Series. The best players from around the globe come to the United States to play in the Major Leagues for the very reason that this is the summit of the sport. She might notice that David Ortiz, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima don’t have Hyde Park Boston accents. The guy with that accent is Manny Delcarmen, drafted by the Red Sox out of West Roxbury high school. The Red Sox, like most teams, are made up of the very best, no matter where they come from.
There’s nothing wrong with second or third place. Second and third still matter, but that doesn’t mean that striving for first is a bad thing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but you still need to try-just ask every Red Sox team from 1918 through 2004. Isn’t that a good lesson for kids and adults?
As for the notion that enjoying the Red Sox represents precious time and energy that should be put to better use, how much time? Is there an equation? Who gets to make that determination? How much time does she spend? I know for a fact that there in the stands over the past few nights there were there the everyday “heroes” the writer speaks of. In the first few seats of my row were a teacher, a pee-wee hockey referee, and a boy scout leader. A few sections over sat a Boston firefighter and former active duty Unites States Marine; he likely would have been joined by one of his childhood friends, but that guy had to go to work, as a police office in Roxbury.
These fans are all regular folks who give and have given their time and energy to do the very things she wonders about. Do those people who work to save our environment, improve our educational system, stem urban violence and stop global genocide deserve to enjoy themselves?
The arrogance it takes to deride people, good people, for finding enjoyment is a game speaks a lot more about the writer than about the people celebrating in the stands or cheering in front of their televisions.
Perhaps she should do a little less wondering and open her eyes to her own hubris.
_______________________
Frank J. Colagiovanni is an award-winning freelance copywriter and contributing writer for Bread and Circus.
HISTORY & SOCIETY
Making It in the World Today:
Musings on the Historical Definition of Success
By Sarah Katherine Mergel
Recently, while writing lectures on both Thomas Jefferson’s vision for a republic of successful independent farmers and the life during the Great Depression, I began to muse about the meaning of success in the American past. Americans in both eras essentially wanted to achieve what colonial Americans called a competence, where they could provide for the needs of their families. In part because of the depression, in the years following World War II American intellectuals frequently examined the traditional definitions of success. More specifically, social thinkers, including Daniel Bell, C. Wright Mills, Christopher Lasch and others, addressed what it meant to succeed and how in turn striving for success impacted the “successful” and those around them.
Independence and self-sufficiency, historically speaking, served as the primary measures of success in the United States. The Protestant Work Ethic-the pursuit of individual salvation through hard work-dominated the American conception of success well into the twentieth century. At heart, this work ethic stressed self-discipline and self-improvement. Success implied that a person met his social and familial responsibilities. Conventional wisdom also suggested that an individual who attained independence and self-sufficiency would experience upward social mobility. The American dream embodied the idea that hard working people would eventually ascend the social ladder.
The self-made man long symbolized success in American popular culture. Christopher Lasch noted in The Culture of Narcissism that Horatio Alger’s characters represented for many people the independent man who through hard work and dedication rose in social status. Lasch traced how the Protestant Work Ethic, so influential in American life, changed from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century. Self-sufficiency gave way to self-improvement that in turn gave way to self-culture and self-advancement. Advertisers in the 1920s, for example, used the ideas of self-help to sell products. By the middle of the twentieth century, “success appeared as an end in its own right.” Success no longer seemed about achieving a competence; victory over others became the one thing that retained the capacity to instill a sense of self-approval. [1]
The achievement of status through prestige provided another means to measure success. Upward social mobility increased the prestige one was likely to receive. C. Wright Mills in White Collar indicated that during economic booms, success for the American individual seemed a sure sign of social progress and exemplified personal virtue. The competitive nature of the quest for success formed the cradle of a self-reliant personality and the guarantee of economic and political democracy. The entrepreneurial pattern of success rested upon an economy of many small businesses (just like Jefferson’s yeoman farmer republic). The shift to a corporate system of monopoly capitalism provided the basis for the shift in the path and content of success. For the white-collar workers Mills described, the occupational climb replaced heroic tactics of the typical rags to riches story in the open competitive market. [2]
Success through gaining prestige was not just about moving up the social ladder. Prestige involved two persons: one to claim it and one to honor that claim. Almost anything could distinguish one person from another. In the status system of a society, people organized claims for prestige as rules and expectations. They regulated who could claim prestige from whom and on what basis. According to Mills, status position depended on a person’s chances in the commodity market, i.e., how well he could sell himself. Christopher Lasch sounded a similar note about prestige when he noted that “self-approval depends on public recognition and acclaim.” By the late 1970s, men sought approval that applauded not “their actions, but their personal attributes.” [3]
Education served as one mechanism for becoming successful. According to Mills, education strengthened the feeling of status equality, aided in Americanizing the immigrant, and strengthened old middle class ideologies. Yet, mass education was also one of the major social mechanisms of the rise of the new middle-class occupations, for these occupations required the skills provided by education. In essence, in the white-collar world education became the key to occupational fate. Americans demanded equal educational opportunity for all and more secure positions for those educated. [4] Read the rest of this entry »
BOOK REVIEW
Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World by Dennis Ross (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007).
Reviewed by Brian Bicknell
A new book by Dennis Ross has just been published, entitled Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World. Ross has been a Middle East envoy and the chief peace negotiator for the United States under both George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Both Democrats and Republicans welcome his ideas. The back of the book has laudatory remarks about its contents from Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, and Brent Scowcroft. In this day of bitter partisanship, any author who can write a book about foreign policy that is embraced by both parties begs to be read by anybody who is interested in America’s role in the world.
Ross first sheds light on the differences between the current Bush presidency with both the first Bush presidency and the Clinton presidency by employing case studies such as German unification, Bosnia, and the first Gulf War. Ross then contrasts the efforts of George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush’s approach in the lead up to the first and second Gulf War. He is, not surprisingly, critical of Bush 43. His critique of Bush 43’s approach includes a failure of clear objectives, making disastrous assessments, misguided planning, weak diplomacy, and poor communication and framing of the issues.
Ross does an effective job of shedding light on the numerous mistakes made by the Bush presidency with regard to Iraq; ineffective statecraft, not understanding the culture, not sending in enough troops, and the rationale for the war itself being contradictory. While these harsh assessments are undoubtedly accurate, Ross repeats a mistake made by many other current books (such as Fiasco by Thomas Ricks, Cobra II by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor, and Hubris by Michael Isikoff and David Corn) by implying that if things had been done differently we would have been successful, or at least more so, than we have been in Iraq. At one point Ross states explicitly,
“In the end, the Iraq case stands as a model for how not to do statecraft… Could statecraft effectively employed have made for a different situation with far better prospects in Iraq? I believe so” (p. 131).
Ross, like others, does not give nearly enough ink to the idea that the decision to go to war was wrong in the first place.
The sections on negotiating and mediating are especially impressive. Ross provides twelve guidelines for negotiating and eleven for mediating conflicts. These guidelines are well thought out and derive from years of experience. This section is filled with anecdotes from the author’s personal experiences on the world stage, making the book more interesting than a purely academic treatise. The anecdotes provide a compelling insider’s look at what it was like working with world leaders such as Arafat, Rabin, and Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush.
With regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Ross is particularly hard on Arafat. He details how Arafat would delay, equivocate, and obstruct opportunities to peacefully resolving the conflict. He points out that Arafat, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, and now Bin Laden have led movements designed to
“capture the passions and desires of those in a part of the world that felt left out and imposed upon…Charismatic movements depend on grievance, but in the end they cannot succeed only by what they reject. They cannot succeed only by tearing down and destroying. In the end, they must deliver, they must produce. And so our strategy for competing with radical Islam must be geared toward having the reformers deliver change and come to be seen as the purveyors of social justice. While the objective is daunting, we and our allies bring substantial resources to the task. If we also bring the kind of skill and intensive and extensive effort required for executing smart statecraft – the kind seen in past cases of statecraft done well – we will be able to marshal those resources and succeed” (p. 305).
Here Ross provides a conceptual framework for dealing with a combustible Middle East and terror in general. In addition to this overall strategic goal, Ross lays out bullet point ideas for specific and realistic tactics to achieve the overall goal.
Ultimately, the person who should read this book is the current president and the next president of the United States. For the rest of us, however, it is an instructive and compelling read and provides us with important attributes that we need to look for as we elect our next leader. And whoever that leader is, that person should nominate Dennis Ross as the next Secretary of State.
_________________
Brian Bicknell is a Bread and Circus contributing writer.
COMMUNITY
Taking It to the Streets:
A Tale of One Parking Spot, a Few Tomatoes, and a Revolution
By Colleen Michaels
In some suburban neighborhoods, the front lawn is sacred turf. But it’s starting to be tread upon. Fritz Haeg, activist, artist, designer and architect, has received recent attention for creating what is being called “a powerful eco-epicurean statement.” (Food and Wine, August 2007) By replacing the smooth green carpets fronting suburban homes with shaggy edible gardens, he’s shaking up the neighborhood. As the proud owner of my own front yard salad bowl, I decided to examine what it is exactly that makes my garden grow.
My suburban street has always been somewhat shaggy, and happily so. There are no McMansions, and most of the lawns can be tamed with just a weed whacker. A driveway addled with gray pebbles divides our house from the curb. It is my view from the couch, and the first view of those who walk by. It seemed a shame to waste the sun-filled space on ‘99 Corolla. While I wasn’t expecting the plump red tomatoes I put in its place to make an inflammatory statement, I do believe the little garden is revolutionary. I propose that the placement of my garden, the reshaping of the specific space between the private and the public, has changed my neighborhood.
Before giving up the parking spot, I could have easily given a limp wave to anyone I might happen to see on the street, get into my car, hit the automated teller, plug in my iPod, and commute to work. It wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow. However, if you’ve read Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, you may have heard of how we’ve strayed from the civic, rarely socialize with people who live near us, and have become cash poor when it comes to social capital. So I give it a try: this “being neighborly.” Inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s edict that “the greatest service which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture,” I plant a tomato garden in full-frontal view.
The preparation alone causes a stir on the street. My husband, daughter and I outline the new bed with large stones.
A neighbor walks by with her dog and asks if we’re putting in a hot tub. We tell her it’s a garden, and she relaxes a bit. We fill the space with our year’s accumulation of rich compost, hoping old meals will make new ones. Around the seedlings, my husband anchors enormous tomato cages. “It’s too showy,” I say. But he’s more comfortable sharing his optimism with the neighborhood. We talk to each other while working, but I can’t help but feel that others are in the conversation – that we are in some way “talking” to our neighbors.
It’s easy to see why urban civic leaders of the 1880s transformed their vacant city lots into community gardens in an attempt to quell violence. I’ve seen a fight over a parking spot, but never one over a garden. There is a warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from tending to it. Sure, if the feel-good tomatoes were in our back yard, we would still feel good. But because the garden is so public, so available to passersby, it’s made us more available too. Soon strangers –well neighbors really–whom I’ve never had occasion to talk to are telling me stories about rhubarb. For me these conversations become as satisfying as the produce.
My new garden has made me giddy, and I run my hand over the vines daily to catch the scent of summer. The toddler down the street, Gab, likes to do this too. He walks with his grandmother. The garden slows them down, and I think she is happy for it. Although kids love cars, I don’t think the Corolla would have caused them to make my stoop a regular stop. In fact, I don’t remember ever noticing little Gab before we broke ground. I realize the garden has slowed me down and made me more observant, too.
Weeding is a quiet practice, but I’m learning to listen when conversations grow from it. George, my neighbor to the left, is in his nineties, loves to fish, has a brother from Buffalo, and lost his wife to Alzheimer’s. I only know this because he comes out to check on the tomatoes. When his brother visits, he congratulates me on the success of my Victory Garden.
Nate and Stacy, the couple living at the end of our street, have started taking evening walks. Like most of the people who stop and chat, we begin talking because of the garden. They tell us they’re got window boxes, but they are hoping to put down more permanent roots. One evening I hand Stacy a tomato for their evening salad. I throw in some purple basil. Nate suggests that Stacy should wear the bouquet in her hair while they continue their walk. In that moment she smiles at him, tomato in hand, in a way that lets everyone know we have been witness to one of those moments that will become for them a memory of their early salad days. I can see why the tomato has been called the “Love Apple.” The garden is making me even more of a hopeful romantic.
This public green space calls me to better action. The garden is counting on me for watering and weeding, but so is the neighborhood. In subtle ways I’m showing folks how I take care of things in general. That I’m a good parent. A stand-up citizen. In return, they are sharing back. My neighbors to the right, Garrett and Liz, dropped off their containers of cherry tomatoes for me to water when they went away. They brought them right over next to our heirlooms, like a nightshade play date. I’m now considered trustworthy, and as most social scientists will tell you, trust allows communities to thrive.
By late summer our practice of generalized reciprocity is in full bloom. When those tomato cages topple from the weight of the vines on a particularly windy day, I find a pile of old wood on our stoop, one lone instructional slat planted firmly in the soil. This time it’s George who has come to our aid. We support the thick vines with remnants of our good neighbor’s old fence. At night, I dig out my college copy of Frost’s “Mending Wall” for a fresh reading.
It is harvest time, and we are reaping the fruits of our labor. However, there’s a marginal utility to the garden which we did not anticipate: we’ve got more tomatoes than the three of us could ever eat. Instead of canning, it seems only natural that we should just give them away. Our five-year-old daughter delightfully looks for the ripe ones and then “secretly” leaves them on the stoops of all the neighbors. While everyone is on to her secret, I don’t know if she has figured out that we (without any help from Calliou) have successfully taught her that sharing is fun.
By Putnam’s standards, when it comes to social capital, I’m flush by the fall – I’ve got new kayaking buddies, a fabulous babysitter, the good council of members of the Greatest Generation, a possible wedding invitation, and unfettered access to most tool sheds – all within steps from my stoop.
It’s true I haven’t really made any financial gains, no economic clout unless I count the trout that George promised to drop off after his morning of fishing. But then I’d have to factor in the cup of sugar I measured out for Garrett when he was homesick for some Georgia “sweet tea.” I guess that makes it an economic wash, an “Even Steven” as we say around our house. However, I’m really money ahead because just the promise of trout nourishes me.
Next summer the second phase of the revolution begins. I’m planning a full-scale block party, and the neighbors will be counting on me to bring the salad.
__________
Colleen Michaels is a Bread and Circus contributing writer.
Image (above): World War I-era U.S. government poster. Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration.
BOOK REVIEW
FICTION
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Vintage Books, 2007)
This bleak, bleak story follows the Man and the Boy on their journey down the road to the coast and an unknown future. McCarthy’s description of the landscape—constantly gray, covered in ash, cold, with a sun that never breaks through the clouded sky, is chilling. The depths of the love that the father feels for his son, the desire to protect and save him above all else, both brings home the desperation of their situation and provides a tenuous thread hope for the reader. This book reaches the heights of human bonds and the depths of inhuman horror as it navigates a scarily realistic post-apocalyptic world.
–Reviewed by Erin Dionne
Our rating: 5 out of 5 stars
BOOK REVIEW
The Devil in the White City:
Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson. (Vintage Books, 2002, hardcover; 2004, paperback).
In this tale of power, deceit, and passion, Erik Larson uses turn-of-the-century Chicago as the backdrop for his illustration of the heights and depths of man. Capable of achieving feats of great beauty, Daniel H. Burnham is the architect charged with overseeing the design and construction of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893-on a nearly impossible time-line. Henry H. Holmes is a charismatic doctor, businessman and serial killer who preys on the rush of fair visitors, deceives his creditors, and nearly gets away with murder. The beauty and magical charm of Burnham’s “White City” (the fair) contrasts sharply against the increasing tension of Chicago-the “Dark City”-as it struggles against economic collapse and labor strife. Told in alternating chapters, these two stories present a clear picture of a country in the midst of turmoil and the consequences born by a world moving into the modern age.
– Reviewed by Erin Dionne
SPORTS
And that’s why the games are played
by Frank Colagiovanni
When you look at the teams on paper, the conclusion is nearly certain. There’s no way that a Division 1-AA football team could knock off a perennial powerhouse. The powerhouse is too big, too strong, too talented. There is no way they could lose. But they don’t play the games on paper.
Appalachian State of the Southern football conference took everything Michigan could throw at them and, powered by a 21 point second quarter, bested the Wolverines 32-34-at home and in front of 107,501 die hard fans in stunned silence.
They never even should have been “in” the game.
That was almost the case this past weekend when my team, the Eagles of Boston College lined up opposite the University of Massachusetts Minutemen. The problem for BC was that when they lined up, they did so with an illegal formation–less than seven on the line-resulting in loss of yards, three times is the first quarter alone. UMass played like they had nothing to loose.
UMass never even should have been “in” the game. But they were, pulling within one score, a field goal during the first half, much to the delight of the visiting fans voicing their approval and quieting the homers.
BC pulled it out, but it easily could have gone the other way. On paper, it was a mismatch, just like Michigan/Appalachian State. But between the lines, between the whistles and between the tackles, none of that mattered.
They don’t play the games on paper.
And that’s the part of being a sports fan that I love the most, those moments when the impossible happens. The comeback, the no-hitter, the overtime goal — all those moments that are, in their essence, perfect. Those are the moments I hope for every time I file through the turnstile and take my seat.
Sometimes it doesn’t work out. Sometimes your team loses. And then sometimes everything falls together for a perfect moment.
I’ve had the opportunity to witness a few of them, to feel the current shift. The collective elation and relief when Dave Roberts slid into second ahead of Jeter’s tag in the 2004 ALCS. The seconds counted by everyone at Fenway after the ball left the bat of David Ortiz before it landed in the Red Sox bullpen.
As I tap this out, I’m four hours away from passing thought the Fenway turnstile for Game 1 of the American League Divisional Series, and I’ll be back at there again on Friday night for Game 2. In an hour or so I’ll start to get the nervous feeling. And at noon on Saturday I’ll be taking my seat on the goal line at Alumni Stadium for the Boston College-Bowling Green game. It’s a busy week, and I know the outcomes I’m hoping for — and if my lifetime as a Red Sox fan has taught me, will be praying for — but you just never know. That’s why I have to be there.
As of 2004, no team in the history of baseball had ever come back from a three game series deficit. And as of last week, there was no way that a Division 1-AA team was going to take down mighty Michigan.
And that’s why the games are played.
And that’s why I watch them.
Seed Newsvine
Recent Comments