Tag: #TottenhamHotspur

  • To Dare is to Do

    I have written about my current inability to finish reading a book. I start one, start the habit, then something happens, and I get out of the habit. This has everything to do with discipline, and my complete lack of it. Maybe I made the mistake in believing that the Pandemic would give me to opportunity to reset my life, and to create new, better habit, or at least correct things. But unemployment, remote school, and the feeling for the first two months of the pestilence that we were going to die… It made some easy things very difficult to accomplish.

    But the Pandemic is coming to an end and we will start living close to normal lives again. In that spirit, I am giving reading and finishing a book one more shot.

    I pulled down Donald Barthelme’s 60 Stories and started again. “Audere est Facere,” seems to be the idea here. I might fail again. And thus, try again, and sadly, fail again. I know what the right thing to do is, and I just need to keep trying. Everyone gets knocked down, not everyone gets back up.

    Now after having been very dramatic about reading, the other thing is that I do want my daughter to have the habit, the good habit, of reading, and I have to set the example. I have to show her that reading is important, that it’s enjoyable, that it’s the right thing to do. Really, there is my motivation. Just try again.

  • Europe’s Super League is a Mistake

    I have been following the Premier League for the past couple of years, and specifically supporting Tottenham Hotspur for the past three. I have watched them change mangers twice, get to the finals of the Champions League, got really annoyed when they didn’t re-sign Eriksen, got totally confused as to why Dele isn’t playing, and got really happy with the Kane/Son duo on the pitch. I even paid for Peacock so I could watch matches, and have tried to read up on the history of the team, so I at least have a bit of a knowledge to build off of.

    So, when the Super League was announced on Sunday, I had a resigned disappointment. Here is an explainer from the New York Times. Long story short, 12 of the biggest football clubs in Europe are forming a new league, and outside of these 12 teams making a whole lot of money, there really isn’t much benefit for anyone else. The Super League will kill off smaller clubs, actually eliminates competition, and just reeks of greed.

    And as an American, I just want to say, “Your welcome, European football fans!” Yup, we are great at greed and capitalism when it comes to ruining sports. I love baseball, but there is no mystery to that sport; whoever spends the most wins. Why don’t baseball clubs just announce how much they are planning on spending, and then the top 16 teams just play each other for the championship? It would cut out the pesky middle man, which is that boring summer season. There is no real competition during the baseball season, the playoffs is where all the action is, and money determines it.

    Which is what the Super League is. They have decided that their home leagues are meaningless, and having to deal with competition from smaller clubs is just getting in the way. The difference is in America, we still perpetrate the lie, while Europe is coming around to the truth; this isn’t about sports, it’s about making money.

    Again, you’re welcome Europe!

  • Sports and Covid: Update

    I had written about my two sports teams which I follow were starting their season this weekend. Sunday to be precise. It was Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League, and the Dallas Cowboys in the NLF.

    As luck would have it, both teams lost. And sort of in the same way; their defenses were lacking.

    Clearly, it would have been an even more enjoyable Sunday if they would have won, but I had a good time, sitting in front of the tv, talking to the TV, and supporting my teams.

    The wife did ask me if it felt good to have sports back, and I said that it felt good to do something rather normal. Normal in the sense that I was texting with my circle of college friends while the Cowboys played, and none of that conversation had to do with Covid. It was nice to look on social media and see friends posting about how awful the team played and that the season was over. It was nice to complain about something rather than the end of the world.

    It’s normal to take a break. It’s normal to talk about other things. It’s normal to have hopes that someone will put a ball through a goal.

    I have enough Covid issues to deal with; the kid going back to school, health insurance, social distancing, unemployment, eviction, and the election. It can really feel like too much, just about every day.

    But for a little while, I got to worry and hope that Kane would score in stoppage time, or that the defense would sack Goff.

    I’m not a huge sports fan, but I did enjoy about five hours of normal yesterday.