Dan Mooney

With today being both Sunday and a defacto national holiday, I don’t want to take too much time away from doing nothing by doing, well, anything — but I just wanted to take the opportunity to throw my helmet in the ring and say the Monday after the Super Bowl should absolutely be a day off across the country.  I’m not the first to suggest this, by any means, but I totally agree with the sentiment.

If you think three Mondays off in two months (with Martin Luther King Day and Presidents’ Day) is too much, all you’ll have to do is this:

Hold the Super Bowl on the Sunday before President’s Day.

This scenario is actually quite plausible.  But I can also see several arguments against this, which I’ll now argue away:

a) That’s the weekend of the Daytona 500!

No biggie.  The affiliation is a loose one.  Since the race is usually held the second OR third Sunday in February, I see no reason why the Daytona 500 could happen the week after the Super Bowl (especially should the Pro Bowl be played the week before the Super Bowl).  For the apparently huge portion of the country that enjoys the Daytona 500, it”d be a nice pair of weekends, not unlike Christmas falling precisely week before New Year’s.

b) Mid-February?  That’s awfully late for a Super Bowl.  Rectify that.

No problem.  If the NFL is serious about moving to an 18-game schedule, and judging by how profitable football is, I see no reason why it wouldn’t be, that right there would fill in the two weeks that, for instance, this year lies between today and President’s Weekend Sunday fourteen days from now.

I’ve read that if the NFL does switch to 18 games, they would come out of the preseason which stretches on for four pathetic weeks in which starters dip their toes in to see if they remember how to play, then coaches pull ‘em to give an arsenal of backups their only game time of the whole season (barring injury, of course).  I’m sure everyone’s used to the calendar flipping to August and training camps starting, but if you were to put that off for two weeks, things at the back end will fall seamlessly into place, PLUS you have a whole nation chomping at the bit for the season to start.  Or, you might just hold two more weeks of practice, it doesn’t really matter.

c) Doesn’t that demean the Presidents for whom the day has been so honorably dedicated?

Not as much as you might think.  It used to be just “Washington’s Birthday.”  Then Lincoln got involved, still does in some states, so for most of the country the sanctity of their birthdays has already been compromised somewhat by forcing them to share a day of celebration.  And if two things can be celebrated that day, what’s one more?

…Especially when that one more is so utterly American.  People gathering to drink too much, eat too much, watch TV, stare at advertising, ogle women, and somewhere in there, watch championship sports?  There’s probably nothing more American than that.  And if that’s America, that’s also the nation that Washington fought for, and Lincoln kept together.

Super Bowl Sunday IS togetherness.

It’s filled with the holiday spirit.

It totally merits a day off from work for observation… and sleeping in, Bloody Marys, drinking lots of water, eating leftovers, lazing around, cleaning up, and so on, and so on, and so on…

The rookie in Baltimore started each game,
Improving with every one, fanning the flame,
Igniting the offense he put on his back-o.
His name is Joe Flacco.

Since he could be leading the Ravens for years,
Like Stover and Lewis, who’ve spent their careers
With the franchise that now wears the Purple and Black-o,
Get wacko for Flacco!

Though Pittsburgh has won, and will go to the Dance,
And Baltimore’s lost, having failed to advance,
True fans know the Ravens will always come back-o.
They’re wacko for Flacco:

Our yearly pursuit of a Super Bowl crown
Isn’t just about shutting the other teams down.
We want you to be there to lead the attack, Joe.
We’re wacko for Flacco!

Now, there are some fans who won’t join that refrain.
To them, I will say this, but never again:
Quit wavering!  I think you need a good smack-o!
Not wacko for Flacco?!

But listen up, everyone: Your number Five
Is what you all needed.  His time will arrive.
Until then, stay hopeful, and cut him some slack-o.
Be wacko for Flacco!

If I were a professor at a college, as one of my future parallel selves surely will be, I would spice things up every fall semester. Instead of grading A-F, I would grade as such:

A: BCS Championship Game
B: BCS Bowl
C: Bowl eligible
D: Demotion to I-AA (i.e. Championship Subdivision)
F: Demotion to DII (or DIII, if the score is a blowout)

Seriously, “bowl eligible” is such a sad phrase because it seems to imply merit but really only rewards mediocrity.

Pretty soon there will be 59 bowls to go around – and all but ONE “Bowl Subdivision” team will NOT make it to a postseason game. Really put some pressure on those also-rans that way.

(On a side note, “eligible” is a very tough word to type. One’s right hand has to bend at all sorts of weird angles for the word to have any kind of flow. “Legible,” with almost the same letters, is exponentially easier to type. And one can type “stewardesses” with just the left hand!)

I’m watching BC play Maryland at home on ESPN2. Pam Ward, if that is her real name, was just talking about Doug Flutie’s Hail Mary pass to Gerard Phelan against Miami in November of 1984. She said it happened “right here on this field” – which it DIDN’T! The game was played at the Orange Bowl!

As a BC alum, I’d like our history to be reflected accurately on a national telecast. As a sports fan, I’d like the commentators on national telecasts to get these kinds of details right. It was a HUGE play, one of the most famous in college football history, and I must insist that those pairs of people who are selected to speak expertly about a subject actually know what the fuck they’re talking about.

UPDATE: The “Miracle in Miami” was addressed in the trivia question, read by Ward. She was slow to read it, as if confused, but as she put 2 and 2 together, she appeared to realize the error of her previous ways. Thank goodness for all of us. I didn’t suppose a researcher would nudge a producer who was inform Ward of the correction, but am nonetheless glad that it was all set right. We can all sleep tonight.

Yesterday, August 3rd, was the day of the Great Shift in sports coverage from baseball to football.  Gone is the non-waiver trade deadline, more gone is the Hall of Fame induction, way gone is the lovefest that was the All-Star Game celebration.  In their place are the stories of NFL players reporting to camp, not reporting, maybe reporting, holding out for more money, pouting, posturing, posing, whimpering, punching people, punching each other, punching themselves (in the face); almost getting murdered, murdering others, getting arrested for some of it but punished for hardly any of it.  Baseball players aren’t all mature, harmless do-gooders (the steroid scandal, Ugueth Urbina, Josias Manzanillo, and others) but thank goodness those in charge let us get through one full month of summer – July – before “whetting our appetite for Fall” by posting what amounts to little more than a police blotter.