by Gus Griffin
(Image via the500section.com)
Before you “serious” minded folks get on your soap box about the opium of sports, consider this: we know the art of that which you consider of most importance better than you do and here is why.
For the sake of simple numbers, let’s use football as the example. Consider the fortunes of our team to be the same as voter aspirations.
We fans understand clearly if our team is mired in consistent 7-9, 8-8, or 9-7 seasons, it will NEVER fulfill our hopes of becoming a Super Bowl champion. So as painfully as it will be, we accept the need to blow the whole damn thing up and to start over. Painful in that doing so will surely produce a season or more of bad football. No way around the short term pain, if we truly want a chance at long term success.
Football history validates this time and time again. When [Vince] Lombardi got the Green Bay Packers in 1959, he inherited a 1-win team from the previous year. They won 5 titles in the 60’s. [Chuck] Noll’s Steelers were 1-13 in 1969, [Bill] Walsh’s Niners 2-14 in 79, [Jimmy] Johnson’s Cowboys 1-15 in 89, [Bill] Belichick 5-11 in his first year in New England. All went on to be the dominant teams in the league over the next 10 years. Why? They all understood that doing the same would get them the same and 8-8 just didn’t cut it.
But you voters don’t get this. The last president that was not from the Republican, Democratic, or Democratic Republican party was Millard Fillmore in 1850.
You have been playing this same Democrat-Republican game for generations and yet constantly express frustration over redundant minimal success. This is the definition of insanity.
You don’t have to be certain that the new plan will work. And it’s ok to be lucky. The Steelers’ first choice was Joe Paterno still at Penn State. As brilliant as Walsh was he had no clue a 3rd round QB out of Notre Dame named [Joe] Montana would become what he did, nor did Belichick know what a 6th round pick named [Tom] Brady would become. The Cowboys don’t become what they did without the Vikings over-paying for Herschel Walker. Strokes of luck to be sure for all.
The only absolute you must do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging.
So voters I urge you to take a lesson from we less sophisticated sports fans, cue up a Smokey Robinson and Miracles CD and Try Something New.
Gus Griffin, for War Room Sports
Tags: All's Fair in Sports and War, Bill Belichick, Bill Walsh, Chuck Noll, Democrats, Gus Griffin, Jimmy Johnson, Politics, Republicans, Sports Fans, Vince Lombardi, War Room Sports, WRS