Old-school

Who’d have thought it, me claiming to be just like my late father-in-law? In many way, especially sports, Bob was very old-school. It was a factor of time and place, the Chicago Public League in the 1940s. Bob played football and basketball, two “bladder” sports, as he put it. Playing the line or starting at forward, it was all the same to him. You kept your head down, plowed through the opposition and did your best to win the game. You did not showboat, which may or may not have been a term he used. Old-school Bob sat and watched college sports, less with envy for a chance he never had—running up and down hills in Korea with a bull’s eye on his back got in the way—than irritation with the constant celebrating. I can only imagine what he would’ve made of the end zone spectacles that have become a staple in college and the NFL. The danger is to turn this into a racial thing, to point out the Bears’ Tyrique Stevenson to the exclusion of everyone else for being unaware of the adage about laughing last and best. But I got tired long ago of Cole Kmet, the pride of Notre Dame, swinging for the fences after every touchdown he catches. You’re still stuck on a crappy team, Cole. Head down, plow ahead, do your best to win. It worked for Bob, it works for me.