Each year, like a kid counting down to Christmas, I begin to build anticipation for the start of the football season. It starts right after the 4th of July, give or take a few days, depending on how the White Sox are performing. This year, with baseball a small concern, I have been barely able to contain my excitement.
My enthusiasm has been stoked by my son, Tyler. He is a football player.
From the time he was about eight years old, Tyler's sustaining passion in life has been playing football. He doesn't care about watching the games on TV, and he's not even much on going to watch the games live. He's always wanted to play, not watch. He has a bit of my passion for Northwestern and he has fully embraced my disdain for Notre Dame.
From the time he was little, he worked. We'd throw in the back yard until dark or until my arm hurt too much. C'mon. Just a few more Dad.
One year, maybe he was in the fifth grade, his team lost every game. It was the last game of the season, late on a Saturday night, trailing by a few points, last play of the game, there was Tyler, no quit in this kid, stripping the opposing ball carrier and almost --but not quite --breaking away for a game saver. Another loss, season over. As the staff picked up the field equipment, there was Tyler... Come on, Dad, throw me a few more.
Just the two of us on an empty field, until they turned off the lights.
Tyler is now a high school football player. He was a quarterback, until an excuse for a teammate fluffed a block and an enormous defensive end nearly ripped Tyler's arm off as he threw a pass. That ended his sophomore season after one game. Major shoulder surgery. Drilling holes in his shoulder and putting in anchors to pull the parts back together. Tyler went "under the knife", while the kid who didn't block replaced Tyler under center.
Tyler is amazingly resilient. Major surgery, sleeping in a recliner while an ice machine buzzed away on the shoulder, arm in a sling, excruciating rehab for months, my son was always chin up and coming back for more. He switched positions to participate in winter workouts because he couldn't throw. He moved to receiver, the position he told his dad he wanted to play when he was a round faced eight year old. Now a fleet six footer, the boy polished his skills at the new old position. Worked his tail off.
We have a little verbal routine, Tyler and I, that we developed to create some grins during the miserable drives to school for early morning winter workouts. "You want to know why am I a starter? It was February something, 5:45 a.m., 9 below zero, and I was on my way to football practice. Where were you?"
Always a way to respond to the challenge.
Summer rolled around. Tyler worked out at QB at the start of summer sessions, but coaches steered him to receiver. Fast, strong, good size, and great hands...and always a relentless hard worker.
Fall arrived. First practice, helmets only, no equipment (in literary terms, this is foreshadowing) and my phone rings at work. My wife's voice, clearly stressed:
"Tyler has to go to the ER. They don't think it's broken."
Who thinks what's not broken?!!
"The trainer. Tyler's leg."
In the "no contact /no pads /helmets only" first practice (that sounds like pure genius, doesn't it? Like lighting a match to see how much gas you've spilled), Tyler went up to grab a pass and the defender, a Thursday All-American, lowered his head and drove his helmet into my son's leg, right above the knee. I sped to school and found my son sitting on a bench in front of the door, a pair of crutches at his side. No coaches, trainers or administrative people with him, just a concerned mom who happened to be there . Off to the ER. The doctor examines him as he groans in pain, turns to me and says quietly "I think his femur is broken."
During the next hour and half, the longest minutes imaginable, we wait for the x-rays. Finally, the doctor walks back in.
No fracture! Right quadriceps got hammered, though, and the pain is excruciating.
Off we go to rehab, work through the pain, visit the orthopaedic for an exam. Four days on crutches. Tyler is working out within a week, and is dressed --and ready-- for the first game of the season.
Game One will be played one day short of one year since Tyler's shoulder was wrecked. A year away from his passion. A year of working through it. A year of rehab sessions. A year of gritting his teeth and pretending it's not painful. A year of getting ready. I hope they'll get him some action early to get him back on the horse. He expects to be starting at receiver, as well as returning kickoffs and returning punts. He heads off to the game obviously pumped up.
Game One comes and goes. Tyler doesn't start, in fact he never touches the ball as his team blows out an inferior opponent. For reasons unknown, unexplained and not uncomprehended, in the last couple of days prior to Game One, Tyler felt he had fallen into disfavor with the two coaches who governed his part of the football world.
I'll work through it, Dad.
Game Two, this past Friday night, found the team taking a long bus ride, traveling two and a half hours west to Sterling, Illinois. Tyler finally got to play some, had a nice kickoff return and a pass reception in another win. At the conclusion of the game, around 10:15 Friday night, in the end zone at Sterling High, the players were notified that some of them would be playing in a JV game --starting at 9:00 the next morning, in a pointless game, at home, a hundred miles away-- and others would be watching game films.
On the long, long bus ride home from Sterling, Tyler was told that he'd be playing.
Tyler came straight home when the bus arrived at his school. He woke his mother and I to let us know he was home safely. I looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was 1:45 a.m. Tyler showered and packed his gear for the next morning before going to bed around 2:30.
With all of four and a half hours of sleep, Tyler left at 7:45 a.m. for this stupid, stupid second game in less than twelve hours. We didn't want him to play, but he was worried that his coaches were down on him, so he felt that he had to go, lest he get further in the coaches' doghouse.
My wife and I have never missed one of Tyler's games. Never. This day we had Northwestern football tickets (there was a ticket for Tyler that he gave up to go play this stupid morning after game), so we reluctantly decided this game would be a first miss for us.
Just a JV game, no big deal.
Around ten a.m., up in Evanston, just as we joined a tailgate party across from the main gate at Ryan Field with the Northwestern players' parents (courtesy of a friend whose sons are NU football players), my phone rang. It was another high school football parent, calling from home, telling me my son was on the sidelines with his arm in a sling. We waited for some "official" word.
Twenty minutes later, we got the official call, sort of. My kid himself called. Not a coach, not a trainer. Nobody from school. My son called and told his mother he heard his collarbone crack when he hit the ground after a catch.
We raced home from Evanston. While we were still en route, Tyler texted from the ER. Doc says it's broken.
Ten minutes later we got to the ER and rushed in, rushing even though there was nothing to do except offer comfort to our son, who was handling it all in a very adult fashion. There's issues to be addressed with adults to whom supervision of my son was entrusted, some very serious issues, but that's not what this story is about.
Five weeks ago, Tyler worked out at Northwestern University and made a substantial impression, an underclassman outplaying all but one senior. That senior, by the way, made a verbal commitment to NU a week later. Tyler, pleased to have received some words of encouragement from Pat Fitzgerald, went back to work with his own high school team, ready to prove himself.
Keep working hard, good things will come.
Work through it, like always.
That's over.
There won't be any more season this year.
There probably won't be any more seasons at all.
Now you understand today's title.
......................................
Here's the weekend business summary.
**** Final TX 59, Other Guys 20 LoserMy pick was Texas laying 40 (eventually the line went to 44) in an anticipated blowout. The Longhorns were sitting pretty and then, damn it all, they let up a "so what" touchdown with 2:55 to play. Pete Carroll would never let this happen, he'd run it up (and he did, so we should have bet on him). A four freakin' star loser on opening weekend. S**t!
*** Final PSU 31, Akron 7 LoserMy pick was Penn State -26 1/2 over Akron, no cover, a loser, wailing and gnashing of teeth. PSU cruised to a 31-0 halftime lead and our selection looked golden. Then they put it on cruise control and pissed away the points. Ol' Joe decided to be nice when I expected him to be a beast.
** Final Cal 52-13 Winner
Thank heaven for Pete's Perfect Pick, a Two Star Winner. Without this, we'd have been perfect. Perfect 0 for 4. Cal romped, just like Two Gun said they would.
* Final LSU 31-24 Loser
LSU couldn't shake a decent looking Washington team. The Tigers' speed was supposed to vault them right by the Huskies. Washington showed some impressive speed of their own, we lost, let's pack up and get out of here already.
Games that I pondered and passed, or "what might have been":
I didn't feel the love for the Illini. Should have moved on it! Missouri put a whippin' on them from the underdog's role. Take that, Emperor Zook!
Navy hung with highly touted Ohio State. I thought they might, but just couldn't make the leap of faith.
Air Force pitched a 72-0 shutout. Lot of good it did us...
Northern Illinois covered against Wisconsin. Another game that I just didn't have the nerve to select. My Huskies friends, I hear you, "See. We knew were good."
Iowa barely escaped with a "W", having to block 2 field goal attempts at the end of the game to preserve victory, long after they had blown the spread--as well as their #21 ranking.
WaSW. Looks better that way.
It was an exciting (though unprofitable) Saturday. We finished minus 3, but there were great games all day, exciting finishes, and coaching calls that were incomprehensible (Charlie Weis should send Purdue's coach a big Hallmark hug, what the hell was that time out call about?). 
Thank you, Nicolle, for sharing the discovery of what is possibly the most unusual and almost certainly the most repugnant mascot for any school in America, the University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slug, or when an entire team is referenced, the University of California at Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. The tale of the slug, or more appropriately The Slug, is linked for you all (click) 
