My Mom

Throughout my life, the words I've used to describe my relationship to Katrina have undergone constant evolution…

My mom’s friend...

The women we share a house with...

Mom mom’s housemate...roommate…

My brother’s mother - one of the three brothers, three mothers trio...

My mom’s partner...

To eventually just “one of my moms”

This evolution was less about clarifying my own understanding of her role in my life, as it was driven by discomfort as to how the rest of the world would react to it. I remember testing the waters with new acquaintances by using different terms and gauging reactions. In my own mind there was less uncertainty.

I used the words “I’m Katrina’s son” at the Fair Haven Clinic long before using them anywhere else.

As a latchkey Generation X’er I was quite often left to navigate myself from school to home, or my father's law office, or the Clinic.

The Fair Haven Community Health Clinic. I had grown up there. I had aunts and uncles everywhere - of all shapes and colors, always happy to see me. Sometimes, however, as I entered and passed the front desk, there would be new hire - an employee who didn’t recognize me on sight, and they would be forced to ask who I was and where I was going...and that’s when I got to reply “I’m Katrina’s son.” No offence mom/Bonnie, but this got a better reaction than your name did. Being Katrina’s son, felt like it silenced more objections, opened more doors, and just commanded more respect.

I still have strong memories of walking up the concrete ramp, past the front desk, around the waiting room, going by the WIC office and up the stairs...a quick jog left and then right again would bring me to the door of the Director.

And there I would see probably the most elegant woman I knew, professionally dressed, standing - towering - with presence and confidence and authority, while at the same time welcoming and open and warm. Awe inspiring and accessible in one.

I am Katrina’s son...and she, as much as anyone made me who I am. She helped make me an athlete, specifically a skier, a hiker, camper, boater, biker, and sometimes tennis player.

She taught me to load, and unload a car; to grow food; to string lights on a Christmas tree; and to build a fire.

She helped make me an artist - from watching her meticulously mold Sculpy fruit, freehand graceful calligraphy, create colorful needlepoint, to hearing her constant encouragement of all the avenue’s my own art would follow.

She motivated me to experience more. I’d grown up hearing about her time spent in Denmark, her experiences in the Peace Corps, and other adventures. She seemed to have a lifetime of experiences before she became person I saw every day. It was that as much as anything that encouraged my college trip to Paris, and eventually my move to Seattle to seek out something other than the obvious choices before me.

She defined in me the understanding of what women could and even should be in the world! Don’t get me wrong there have been more women of influence in my life than I can count, all of whom defied lowly stereotypes, and set lofty examples for behavior, attitude, talent, intelligence, warmth, wisdom, and achievement. But she was stands, stood, in a place apart - the first CEO I ever knew, the one I watched receive important awards, appear in newspapers, and heard on the radio; she was the ones whose powerful and graceful path I literally followed down ski slopes.

Of course, she also taught me to serve others. To strive and build and question and help wherever I can.

And then she would comfort me, give me a hug, clean up my car sickness, wipe my tears, and wish it was all better...whatever it was.

Of all the thousands of words that can be used to describe her only two matter to me now. Of all the names people have given her over the years, only one will last in my mind. It's the two word name by which my children will always know her: their one and only “Granny Trin”.

Three things from the original Star Wars trilogy that were ruined by the prequels...that nobody is talking about!

Like the rest of you (I hope!), I’m not a big fan of the Star Wars prequels: Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. Most of my issues stem from the casting, acting, writing, dialog, over dependence on digital effects, bad humor, bad characters, poor story choices, bad pacing and editing, some poor design and prop-making, and so on – the usual stuff. Surprisingly, there are aspects of the story – particularly the political storyline – that I think are fantastic and indicate that the potential existed for truly amazing films! Unfortunately, George Lucas refused to surround himself with, and then listen to, the same quality of filmmakers as he had several decades earlier.

Before I go on, let me make an important side note…I define Star Wars ‘cannon’ in a very specific way. I’m a film purist. I only really accept as cannon what I see and hear when I watch the films – or more specifically what I SAW in the films when they were originally released in theaters. For SW, ESB, and ROTJ that means 1977, 1980, and 1983 respectively. No re-mastered, re-edited, re-engineered, re-animated bullshit (even if Empire got some cool new scenes!). It also means no Lucas interviews, no role-playing game, no novelizations, no animated series, no accepted fan-fiction, etc. I want you to know that so you don’t come back at me with “but in the radio play version we hear that obi-wan…” No. Han shot first. Jabba never spoke to Han in docking bay 94 of the Mos Eisley spaceport. Ok now that we got that cleared up…

Chewbacca is an asshole

Throughout the trio of movies that were the original star wars saga, Chewbacca is the lovable, loyal sidekick to Han Solo who provides comic relief, the “this giant has my back” muscle that all daring rogues require, as well as serving to prodding at Han’s conscience with grunts and growls that indicate his questioning of the path Han chooses to follow, from time to time. At various times Chewie appears threatening and volatile, highly intelligent and empathetic, daring – or at least at ease with most of Han’s more daring maneuvers, and of course loyal. At other times he appears silly, cowardly, child-like, and on rare occasions, more like a pet then a person.

Nothing about this range of personality ever bothered me because Chewie was always just some simple, everyday, run of the mill Wookie whose life experience was probably along the lines of a million other simple, everyday, run of the mill henchmen in the galaxy’s underworld. And while he might have the intelligence to operate and repair complex starships and droids, the acquisition of those skills in no way precludes a similar level of wisdom. It was easy to forgive his tag-along approach to Han and the rebellion as an extension of a life-long strategy of latching on to an alpha dog for purpose and direction.

However, Chewbacca’s inclusion in the prequels as one of the leaders of the Wookie Clone War forces, who not only guided his own people, but served as liaison to Yoda, the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, paints a completely different back story! It would now be reasonable assume that his early life was filled with some formal warrior training and enough education and life experience to imply the wisdom necessary for some diplomacy and at least a small grasp of political strategy.

With that in mind…why the fuck doesn’t he just up and full on join the rebellion himself, if not as soon as he lands on Yavin 4, or at least right after the victory? Because based on the prequels we now have to assume the following life events: he grew up to become a leader of his people, lead them in resisting the Separatists, watched the Empire evolve out his allies (literally right in front of him when Clones turned on Yoda and then, as we can only assume, either joined with the Separatists, or did themselves what the Separatists intended to do by conquering Kashyyk), watched the people he used to be responsible for defending get enslaved, escape himself at some point, survive as a smuggler…and then discover there’s a rebellion with a real chance at over throwing your enemies – BUT DECIDE NOT TO JOIN THEM because some dude you’re friends with is a self-absorbed stuck up nerf-hearder. How the hell can he sit back and let Han take the money and run prior to the Death Star assault!? Why, by the time Empire begins, isn’t he some level of commander, or at least a committed operative!?

While its acceptable to conclude that he hasn’t been rebelling between ROTS and ANH perhaps to due self-loathing and/or general pessimism at the state of the galaxy and his chances of making a difference…once he gets thrown in with a well-organized and reasonably successful rebellion, only an asshole would continue to ignore his responsibility. Unless he had some sort of Jason Bourne-like memory loss he has no excuse for not participating in an active way. Almost every underdog war movie ever made has a character in this position coming to the realization that he HAS to participate. The SW trilogy itself is partially about Han coming to that exact conclusion – it’s almost his entire character arc!

It’s just this type of potential re-writing of a character that is at the heart of my belief that as much as possible, Lucas and others should treat the Galaxy as a huge place with enough people and beings in it to never need to see the same people in every part of the story. To me, Boba Fett doesn’t need to have anything to do with the origin of the Clones/Stormtroopers; Jabba need not be the only gangster on Tatooine; C-3PO need not be created by Anakin; and Chewbacca need to be a former Clone Wars participant. In this case, if Lucas wants Chewie to have a greater role, then he owns responsibility for the impact of that, and if he just wants him to be a movie version of his trusty dog Indiana, then keep him the hell out of the prequels!

Obi-Wan Kenobi is sexist

We should all remember the gripping cliff-hanger near the end of Empire Strikes Back when Yoda and Obi-wan fail to convince Luke to stay and complete his training, and as Luke takes off in his X-wing, Obi-wan comments that Luke was their last hope…only to have Yoda knowingly reply “No, there is another.” As viewers and fans, our minds were instantly blown at that revelation! Who could it be? Han? Leia? Lando? Boba Fett we may even have hoped? Someone we haven’t met yet?

Of course we later find out he means Leia, since she’s Luke’s twin sister and probably has some force ability she hasn’t tapped into yet.

Remember that at the time we have no indication that Obi-Wan should know who Leia really is. There’s no reason why he should have thought of her the way Yoda did. We have no direct evidence, for that matter, that Obi-Wan was intentionally watching out for Luke and waiting to train him – their introduction and subsequent mentoring seems to be a bit coincidental and opportunistic. And while it’s clear Obi-Wan is well aware who Luke’s father is, his conversation with Yoda leads us to conclude that he has no idea who Leia really is and thus we assume that after the movie cuts away from that scene, Yoda tells him her backstory, He’s as blown away as we are, and he then relays the facts to Luke after Yoda’s death.

In the Prequels, however – Revenge of the Sith, specifically – we SEE Obi-Wan at the birth and naming of both Luke and Leia. We see him participate in the decision to separate and hide them from Vader, giving Leia to Bail Organa to raise has his daughter while he watches over Luke under the direct care of his aunt and uncle.

That means that even after he becomes aware of Leia’s involvement in the rebellion and that she battled the Empire to bring him the stolen plans (SW events); even after he knows she is a rebellion leader alongside Luke (In Empire we see he is now watching from the Jedi after life); he still never bothers to consider her as even a possible hope…in his mind its Luke or nothing. Why? ‘Because she’s a girl’ is the only conclusion I come to.

Lucas didn’t have to make Obi-Wan present at the birth, etc. He could have had Yoda there and have Yoda bring him Luke with instructions on where to take him and hide him, giving him no indication that there was a twin sister. That would have been an easy out and changed nothing of importance within the ROTS storyline. That minor change would have preserved Obi-Wans ignorance to Leia and I wouldn’t now have to assume that he was secretly annoyed by all the damn female Jedi he had to serve with in the Clone Wars and their brief monthly conversions to the dark side.

Luke is not related to Leia’s mother

One of the more emotional powerful scenes in the entire original trilogy, for me anyway, is the scene in which Luke tells Leia they are siblings after asking about her mother. I cry. Everytime.*

Luke has spent his entire life, or at least the entire series (and through him, us), searching for the idea of his father. He’s been obsessed with who he was, what he did, what he became, can/should he follow in his footsteps, etc. He wants to join the academy and become a pilot because his father was a spice freighter navigator; he wants to learn the ways of the force and become a Jedi like his father; he wants to turn the evil version of his father back to the good side. But the power of that particular scene comes from the fact that all of a sudden, after learning about Leia, he realizes he had more than just a father – he had a whole family! That conversation, to me, represents Luke’s attempt to connect with his mother for the first time, through Leia. If he has been defined by their father, then she is the extension of their mother and together they become complete, as a family. It was a huge part of the emotional story arc.

In addition, Leia describes her mother, though she died when Leia was still young, as always sort of sad. Of course she was! We would assume she had experienced her husband’s transition to the dark side, his betrayal of the Jedi, and then the loss of her son as she and her daughter went into hiding from Vader! This was a perfectly justified description and one we would have concluded ourselves had we thought about it – it fit perfectly.

And we had no reason to question that she had survived in hiding for some time…the galaxy is huge and there were no Star Trek-like planetary scanners that could detect individuals from long distances; the Empire needed probe droids, Vader could only sense Obi-Wan or Luke from a limited range, Yoda and Obi-wan had been hiding for decades, Leia’s prominence as a senator wouldn’t have exposed her mother if she died when Leia was still young, and so on.

Once again, the prequels screwed up something good! By having Padme die during childbirth and showing Leia raised by the ‘real’ Mrs. Organa, Lucas kills the power of the ROTJ conversation! Why was her mother sad? Because of the Empire? Who in the galaxy wasn’t sad about the empire!? Because she has an adopted daughter? That’d be kind of wicked step-mother-ish! Sure, Luke is still grasping for the same connection, but the fact that Leia is describing someone who has nothing to do with Luke or Anakin just sucks the energy right out of the scene. It mean’s Luke and Leia’s reunion as family is still incomplete – he may represent their father, but their mother is still lost to them both, and while that may be acceptable in a J.R.R Martin chaotic reality sort of way, it doesn’t fit the Lucas mythical fairy-tale genre at all.

For the last time, it didn’t have to be this way. The story of ROTS could easily have had Anakin believing he killed Padme on the landing platform with Palpatine willing to accept that story because it serves his own ends in isolating Anakin. It could have had Padme being convinced in her weak state to separate the children as the only way to protect them both and agreeing to live with Bail as cover – whether or not they actually marry or not is a minor side point that doesn’t even need to be addressed (they could eventually fall in love, or simply marry as part of their cover and to offer Leia more opportunities). We could still see Obi-wan unaware that he was taking one of two children and that Padme was raising the other. We could have seen any number of small changes that ultimately result in Padme surviving several years before dying (of her broken heart?), Leia and Obi-Wan unaware of each other, and Vader unaware of Luke and Leia’s existence or of Padme’s survival.

In the end, if Lucas wanted to make more action movies in the Star Wars universe, or even just in the style of the Star Wars films, he was free to do so. But when he decided to work with pre-established characters and stories that are clearly defined and documented by his own work, would it have been so hard to think through what he was doing to/with them?

*I cry at a lot of parts of a lot of movies...some justified, some not!

No Batman for Ben

My biggest problem with the casting of Ben Affleck is not specifically about Ben Affleck, but about casting anyone who is so well defined in my mind, and so incapable of acting outside that definition. Most actors, through their body of work and in conjunction with their public personas, take on a perceived personality that influences how we see them in future roles…and for the most part this is why they get cast in certain roles going forward. Think about male leads like Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tommy Lee Jones, Mark Whalburg, Nicholas Cage, Samuel Jackson, or female leads like Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron, Jennifer Anistion, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltro, Selma Hayek, or Sandra Bullock. Hell you can pretty much anyone and if you’ve seen enough movies you have a 90% chance of knowing what to expect from a movie with their name on it. Generally I’m good with that! Because I usually don’t yet have much invested in a film’s characters and I like to know that Vin Diesel will give me Riddick, Jason Statham will give me Frank Martin and Milla Jovovich will give me Leeloo. And I'm open to these actors going off and creating new characters like Charlize in Monster, or Tom as Stacee Jax (awesome!) because again I don’t have anything previously invested in those characters.

The problem with casting for superheroes is that, for the faithful, they are already very strong personalities and characters. And generally we, the audience, are not looking for those characters to be significantly re-defined and we certainly are not looking for them to be co-opted by the perceived personality of an already defined actor personality. Really we just want the hero personality we know and love to be presented again doing even cooler things than we’ve seen them do before. In some ways casting a superhero is more like casting for a historical figure that everyone knows and loves.

To date, the three best superhero casting jobs have been a virtual unknown in Christopher Reeve, a pretty versatile actor, who you could ague was fairly undefined at the time he was cast, in Christian Bale, and an actor whose perceived persona almost exactly matched the hero’s personality in Robert Downey Jr. But when an actor is cast who already has a strong perceived personality that is in conflict with the hero’s personality, it creates a contradiction that requires extreme acting ability to overcome. I think Ben Affleck has done a great job in some of his films, and I’ve enjoyed them, but I always know I’m watching Ben Affleck. He has never been able to act outside of the personality that his films have defined for him.

So 'no' on the batman thing...even though I'll still see the movie when it comes out. Doh!

America's Game

I’ve been going over this thing in my head about how all Americans are soccer fans…most just don't know it yet.

Its about how we only think that what we like are measurable and statistics...yards, receptions, hits, strikeouts, rebounds...etc. But really, after the game is a few weeks old, who remembers those things? What we REALLY like are memorable moments – moments that burn in your visual cortex and last for generations! Boise State’s hook-and-lateral, Montana to Clark for The Catch, The Broncos and The Drive, Jordan with is hand raised after hitting possibly his final winning shot, Tiger pumping his fists, the Immaculate Reception, Ali standing over Liston…

I moved to Seattle in ’97 and missed the '95 MLB playoffs. You can’t live here (hell, I’m not sure you could visit here!) and not feel the importance of Griffy rounding third at full speed and racing home off of Edgar’s linedrive. The statistics from winning 116 games will never come close to the power of that memorable moment and all that it represents. Having now adopted the city, and the Seahawks in particular, I still must admit (hate to admit!) that the Seahawks lost the Superbowl because Pittsburgh was able to create the more memorable moments and not just statistics.

Soccer strips away all the things that we as Americans pretend matter...and simply celebrates (or mourns) the most memorable moments!

I don’t just mean the big moments in the big games like Pele scoring at 17 or Maradona’s…take your pick: Hand of God goal or the one that followed? No, every single soccer game is an example of ignoring apparent progress, and accepting only those moments that actually change the outcome of the game! That's why every goal, so difficulty crafted, elicits such extreme celebration, and every miss is so agonizingly lamented .

Ask Spain or Barcelona if 'time of possession' really matters or if only the goals matter in the end. See if Italy and Brazil care about 'shots on goal' from ’94. Only one shot mattered, the one that went over the crossbar. Ask Messi how many Golden Boot awards he would trade for a World Cup trophy.

Americans are soccer fans, even if they don’t know it yet, because we do, in fact, value everything that soccer is about! All we need are some of those moments of our own to value.

We’ve got a couple now and we are adding to them all the time. We had one in 1950, we added to that in1994 versus Columbia. The women gave us one in ’95. Those who were paying attention remember Preki and Keller beating Brazil in ’98, a game that the great Romario called the greatest goalkeeping performance he had ever seen! We saw the men beat Spain in the confederations cup ending their unbeaten run. We saw the women again produce some amazing moments in the last word cup – from Abby’s goals to Solo’s saves. And we saw Donovan and Dempsey produce maybe our best moments yet in the last world cup.

We even have our fair share of bad moments. The women losing to Brazil in one world cup and Japan in a shootout four years later. The men being put in their place all too often by Rivals Mexico, or by some nation a fraction of our size and resources. The '94 injury to Tab Ramos or the recent snow game.

And yet I understand it’s a process. We need these moments to create memories. We need the memories as a foundation for the motivation to watch more often. We need to watch more often to grasp the subtly  of the game. We need to grasp the subtly in order to recognize that just like every pitch in baseball or every down in football, every pass and every dribble in soccer is just seconds away from the next most memorable moment ever!

Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, and Quarterbacks

From May 2012

I was listening to a conversation on sports radio regarding the banning of college football and I had all sorts of crazy thought and ideas.

Keep in mind that I’m a 40 year-old white male who loves both college and pro sports – especially football, basketball and soccer! I’m a Seahawks season ticket holder, lifelong athlete (mostly soccer) and I’ve coached youth sports at various levels for over 15 years.

When I hear most people complain about college sports, football in particular and to a lesser degree men's basketball, what I distill out of the conversation is a frustration with the degree to which the sports have grown into a business, and how revenue from television increases the expectations for wins…and how that trickles down to effect recruiting, facilities development, coaching, etc. Certainly the games are entertaining and enjoyable, but at a huge cost – literately and figuratively. I think everyone agrees that to some extent it’s 'out of hand.’

The radio program mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal claiming that sports don’t support the goal of an academic institution. I disagree. As a long time coach, I fully believe that the true value in sports is as a metaphor for life, and that the lessons we learn from playing – and watching – are critical to our development as people who live and work in dynamic communities. Sport develops our self confidence, self awareness, teamwork, responsibility, empathy, problem solving, leadership, and a healthy respect for playing specific roles as well as when to respect and when to question authority. Sports also develop community and camaraderie amongst fans (of each team). Because I believe that, I believe that sports should always have a place along side academics in institutes of learning and student development; at all levels!

Having said that, I’m going to propose something very radical…

My Big Idea:

Privatize the industry that college football and basketball have become.

By that I mean take the coaches, the players (the ones who are only, or mostly, in college for the athletics), the non-student fans, the TV contracts, the uniform contracts, the marketing, and so on…and make it private. Let the revenue support the infrastructure outside of the college environment. What that would give you is a true NFL and NBA minor league system made up of regional teams that travel, compete, are on television, fill stadiums, sell jerseys, and maybe most importantly, pay players a market value. When players are good enough or old enough, they can get drafted to the full-pro league. European soccer, baseball, and to a degree basketball, have already made something like this work!

What happens back at the universities? The values that I listed above, that I so wholeheartedly believe can be learned by participating and competing in sports, can be learned just as fully at a recreational level as at a semi-professional level – if not better! So why not let sports at a place of learning be about the learning environment for both players and fans, and let the business of sports entertainment be a business.

Make college athletics a much lower impact venture, again. Continue to have teams for all sports so that students get the value of participation, competition, and supporting a team; but let them resemble a small D3 program, or college-club level, or lower. Teams get a coach or two, some uniforms and equipment, shorter seasons, regional travel only, etc. The NCAA could even set a budget cap and a revenue cap (to keep history from repeating itself) for each sport!

Look, I went to art school, which had very limited sports - mostly just intramural sports that often resembled a pick-up game. However we had a hockey team that was extremely low budget, played only a few games against local schools, and lost all of them by huge double-digit margins. Guess what…our student body were ravenous supporters and would turn out for 10pm games to scream and chant! It didn't take wins or a big budget, or even a home ice (we used another local school’s building), it just took having a team to watch and share...and maybe the idea of getting to shout "GO Nads!" for a couple hours.

I don’t think the problem that we talk about with college football (de facto professionalism) only exists in college football, I think its trickled down to basketball, and soccer, and track, and softball, and baseball, LAX, and so on. Football created the problem, and basketball followed first, but to some degree all the sports are following suit. The trend now is to model each college athletic program after the professional structure, in every sport! The pressure is on for all coaches to recruit and win, and that means players train and practice more, need a bigger medical and support staff, more academic support for lost study time, and on and on and on.

Probably only football and basketball can afford to support themselves as a private industry, so maybe only those should. But reducing expenses and expectations at colleges across the board would be required, and who knows, the MLS or NHL might have enough players for developmental leagues.

I know that currently football pays for everything else and the idea of losing it would collapse the system. But it’s not the only way to pay for everything else, and as the expense of all sports has gone up the burden of paying has become part of the problem. Change the system so it doesn’t collapse. I think if you were to reduce expectations and costs for all sports colleges could find the funding. Why does a university need a bigger football budget than a high school team? Why does the university soccer team need a bigger budget than a select U-15 team? I don’t even have a problem with a publicly funded college operating sports at a loss, if I know my tax dollars are actually supporting a valuable student service…and not propping up a multimillion dollar industry!

Like I said, radical…

A Story About Opportunity

I recently read an article on ESPN about how the NFL's Rooney Rule wasn't really working since no minority coaches were hired for the, like, 20 coaching positions available this off season. After reading some of the stupidity in the comments I wrote, and tried to post, this little story! Unfortunately it got rejected due to the site rules on comment length. So instead, I'm posting it here:

A Story About Opportunity

A bunch of white guys get together and invent football and only allow white guys to play and to coach.

Year after year they refill their teams and coaching positions with other white guys, because that’s all they want around.

Finally one white guy says “hey, this black guy is pretty good, maybe I’ll let him play” and the other guys say “go ahead, but we’ll stick with the white guys we know and trust.”

Eventually the black guy does well enough that some of the other white guys say to themselves “I guess if I see a black guy who is good enough I could let him play too.”

After several years, there are a bunch of black guys playing with the white guys…but not at ‘skill’ positions, because “they’re not skilled enough.”

Finally one white guy says “hey, this black guy is pretty skilled, maybe I’ll let him play a skill position” and the other white guys say “go ahead, but we’ll stick with the white guys we know and trust.”

Eventually the black guy does well enough that some of the other white guys say to themselves “I guess if I see a black guy who is skilled enough I could let him play a skill position too.”

After several years, there are a bunch of black guys playing skill positions with the white guys…but not at ‘leadership’ positions, because “they’re not smart enough.”

Finally one white guy says “hey, this black guy is pretty smart, maybe I’ll let him play a leadership position” and the other white guys say “go ahead, but we’ll stick with the white guys we know and trust.”

Eventually the black guy does well enough that some of the other white guys say to themselves “I guess if I see a black guy who is smart enough I could let him play a leadership position too.”

After several years, there are a bunch of black guys playing leadership positions with the white guys…but there are no coaches, because “they’re not experienced enough.”

Finally one white guy says “hey, this black guy is pretty experienced, maybe I’ll let him coach” and the other white guys say “go ahead, but we’ll stick with the white guys we know and trust.”

Eventually the black guy does well enough that some of the other white guys say to themselves “I guess if I see a black guy who is experienced enough I could let him coach too.”

After several years, there are a bunch of black guys coaching with the white guys…but there are no coordinators or head coaches, because “they’re not sophisticated enough.”

Finally one white guy says “hey this black guy is pretty sophisticated, maybe I’ll let him be a coordinator” and the other white guys say “go ahead, but we’ll stick with the white guys we know and trust.”

Eventually the black guy does well enough that some of the other white guys say to themselves “I guess if I see a black guy who is sophisticated enough I could let him be a coordinator or head coach too.”

…but that NEVER happens because there are so few positions and so much money at stake that instead they “stick with the guys they know and trust.”

The End

Decisions Decisions

“Don’t give the referee a chance to blow a call.”
I’ve used that line over and over as a youth sports coach. And I didn’t make it up, I learned it from one of my coaches – probably all of them! It’s a sentiment that is widely used at all levels of athletics and means slightly different things in different sports. In soccer it means that if you make a slide tackle near the penalty area you might be giving the referee a chance to reward a falling opponent with an undeserved penalty kick. In football, it can mean that if you have a hand on a receiver, you might get called for pass interference…or it might mean that if you try to make a catch instead of knocking the ball down, you might give the receiver enough time to make it look like he caught the ball with you!
That’s what the Green Bay defensive back, M.D. Jennings, did Monday night. He made a poor decision that kept the play alive just long enough to let Golden Tate force the referee to make a split-second judgment call. That was his mistake, made at a critical moment, that contributed to his team losing the game.

“Force the referee to make a decision.”
That’s another line used by coaches on the other side of the ball. It represents the understanding that sports are judged by flawed human beings who may occasionally make a mistake in your favor. It’s as much a part of any sport as the field itself! It’s why offensive linemen hold and hope it doesn’t get called. It’s why basketball players flop. Why batters crowd the strike zone. It’s why soccer players claim every throw-in as their own. It’s not always pretty – or honest…but it’s a part of every game, every win, and every loss.
That’s what Golden Tate, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver, did when he snuck his left hand between Jennings' outstretched arms, and then wrapped his right arm around the ball as he and Jennings fell to the ground. He got two hands on the ball just long enough to force the referee to make a decision. Two hands, by the way, not just the one that everyone on TV is claiming. His left hand is between the ball and Jennings’ chest and his right is around the ball on the outside. It was just enough of a good decision and a just enough of a good play, at a critical moment, to help his team win.

Now, I’ll admit I don’t think the decision made by the referee was correct. But I also don’t think the decision not to call Tate for pass interference was correct. Nor was the decision not to call pass interference against Green Bay just a couple calls earlier, which would have put Seattle into better scoring position with a first down. There were poor decisions by the referees all night long. Many benefited Green Bay, and many Seattle. I can't change any of them. Regular referees and replacement referees are pushed to make bad calls throughout every NFL game, and we live with the results.

And when I coach, when I lose a game because of a close call in a critical moment, its my job to stop my own complaining, turn to my team, and tell them that if they really deserved to win, than they shouldn’t have left it up to the referee to make a poor decision. When a game is left in doubt until it comes down to that single moment, than both teams deserve to win, and both teams deserve to lose…and we can’t complain about being on the wrong side.

We can’t complain when one player makes a poor decision, and another player make a good one.

(There’s a lesson in there too about sports and life being inherently uncontrollable, and learning to give yourself a cushion and avoid narrow margins; because life can seem to conspire against you, sometimes to the other guy's benefit – that’s why you’re not supposed to wait to start writing that paper until the night before, why you’re supposed to go to the airport early, and other clichés like that.)

Post script
What really bothers me about the reaction to the end of this particular game is the sentiment that I hear in the comments being made: that Green Bay had a greater right to win this game than Seattle. That somehow they were entitled to win it…as the team with the more rich history, the bigger name stars, or the greater potential. For some reason I feel this assumption that Green bay deserves to be 2-1 and Seattle doesn’t. The feeling being expressed is not simply that they could, or even should have won, but that they were entitled to win and it was stolen from them! No team, regardless of their history, fan base, or potential is entitled to anything except a chance to play. Seattle learned that in 1998, and was reminded of it again in 2005.

Post post script
The rule is ‘simultaneous catch’ not ‘equal possession.’ Meaning, the fact that Jennings may have had MORE of the ball than Tate is not relevant, as long as Tate had the ball ALSO (which he did, with two hands). What is relevant is that Jennings seems to have had the ball FIRST, and Tate got hold of it after – which is not simultaneous!