Tuesday, September 27, 2011

ONE OF OUR OWN!

ONE OF OUR OWN! (Frazer Chronicle)
"I got your back," "he's one of our own," "he's like a brother," three phrases that can either fill a person with a warm fuzzy feeling, or doom a guy. In this day and age of brotherhood and solidarity within the fire department, law enforcement "cop shop," or an athletic club, the attitude is to "cover each others collective asses."

It can be the same for other vocations in life, like brain surgeons, bankers, carpenters and garbage collectors. Aren't their duties as important as any other, not everybody can be a doctor, a banker, a carpenter, or even a garbage collector, I know, I in fact have been a garbage collector, it can be tough duty and dangerous as well, "syringes."

Now we come to New York Jet football coach, Rex Ryan and his rant about Joe Namath, former Jet quarterback, and what Ryan felt was an uneducated comment about his Jet's readiness for this past Sundays game, a 34-24 loss to the Oakland Raiders.

Ryan, in his retort to Namath's comments about the Jets maybe taking the Oakland squad "to lightly," blustered that "Namath was an outsider," and "would have been surprised" at the amount of time taken in preparation for the game. Ryan also said that Namath was "out of the loop," and had little understanding about the players or the coaching staff.

I watched the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers and actually could care less about the New York Jets. But I will say this, obviously the Jets weren't prepared and  did  take the Raiders lightly, unless Ryan is telling anybody within ear shot that Oakland is 10 points better then the Jets.

Ryan did say that "Joe Namath is a Jet and always will be a Jet," he's one of our own, and always will be. This is where Ryan and much of his brethren depart from the sports fan who actually played whatever sport these guys are coaching or managing. The coaches, managers or instructors have long ago forgotten how a fella feels when he loses at whatever game he is playing, at whatever level.

I played baseball, basketball and football, all on the amateur level and the only sport that I was any good at was football, and at best, not really very good. But every time we won, or every time we lost, the elation or the sting of defeat felt as good or as bad as any professional. The level I played at was with "my best effort,"  it was my highest level, my professional league.

To say that I don't know what it takes to get ready for a game, and to regard my opponent with the proper respect is ridiculous, making Rex Ryan sound like the village idiot. Technically people like Rex Ryan are light years ahead of sports fans, but Joe Namath wasn't talking about the X's and O's of the game, he was talking about attitude.

In closing I would just like to say one thing about Rex Ryan, "remember where you came from Rex," and quite sounding like a "blowhard," which actually I think you are.





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