Most who know me well enough know that I am a huge Cleveland Browns fan. No, I'm not an idiot, I know that a winning team is a lot of fun. There's just something about being raised in Cleveland that makes you see what being a sports fan is really all about. It's die hard, it's enjoying that you are surrounded by others who are rooting for the team, even when the can't find a way to win. The fact that you bark in the stands and they're known as the Dawgs sure does help!
Growing up we get to pick our team but I feel like in mine it was low scale. We are in the home that we are in and make the best of it no matter how good or how bad it might seem at the time. Truth is when it seems bad, you're a kid, so you're stuck anyway. So we might be forced to seek out a good team while in school or at camps. I usually, when picking my friends, sought out those who were quit or picked on, sometimes out casts. It felt good being with them and it felt good knowing that they enjoyed being with me.
As an adult we really get to pick a team. Out on our own learning life as we live it rather then by what others are telling us life is about. I made a few bad picks early on. However, those bad picks actually made me a better team member. I learned to not latch on so much and to carry the ball on my own from time to time.
Today I really get to pick my team, in a sense like an assistant coach. Players are put before me and I can pick to play them or play with them. I'm happy to say often I chose to play with them. Every now and then my mind allows me to imagine what it would be like, to feel like, to play them.
The Browns, they're under dogs but their fans continue to show up to tailgate and party, going home hoarse from yelling after each and every game. The rain, the lake effect snow, the wind chill does not keep these fans at bay. They simply layer up with more coats and continue to rally around what they believe in. A loser team that just might find a way to win and to pay back to their fans all of the years of dashed hope.
My team? My team does the same. When my pass gets intercepted or I get knocked down to the ground because of a play that was not up to par, my team rallies around me.We work together to make the plays pan out as they should on paper. I do however have a few players within my team who needed to be benched. I can't kick them off of the team, that's not my job, that job belongs to the coach. If the coach decides to remove them then so be it. But for now he decided that they are still members of my team, and so they just sit on the bench.
I'm not asking for cheer leaders. Not yet anyway. Once we make the big play that no one saw coming, once we get that final TD that we've been dreaming about, once we say the team has played to the top and can't get any higher, then I'll ask for cheerleaders.
For now I'll just stick with my team, even the ones who would prefer to deter from the main goal, even the ones who have issues with their jock straps being too tight. I hope for them that they can learn to adjust to the plays that are being called, and rally on to help finish this game.
I don't have news coverage of my team in action, oh no wait, yes I do. Click the link below to see a little bit of how team work can lead to good things.
Small in numbers but big in heart!
No comments:
Post a Comment