11/10/2003 - Football
A Reality Check
A Reality Check
And My Own Mea Culpa
By Bob Socci
I awoke this Sunday morning after a 48-hour journey from one extreme emotion to another.
The weekend began with great anticipation and excitement. Of yet another visit to one of the most special settings in sport, for yet another meeting of the Midshipmen and Notre Dame.
It continued with the disappointment of the outcome - a 27-24 loss delivered to Navy on the final swing of a leg on the final second of play - and an embarrassment all my own (please see below).
Finally, today, there was outrage. Inspired by the words I first heard and later read.
Spoken by a college football player, they had absolutely nothing to do with the effort of the Mids against the Fighting Irish.
And, yet, they had everything to do with the team I cover and you follow.
They were uttered in South Florida, about the time darkness was settling over South Bend, by a member of the Miami Hurricanes who launched a tirade to reporters following his team's 10-6 loss to Tennessee.
Punctuated by profanity, Kellen Winslow's verbal assault was aimed at his opponents and the officials. The target they struck, though, was the sanity of anyone possessing a single ounce of perspective.
Winslow had been penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct late in his game, after reportedly drawing an earlier warning when he delivered a block to Tennessee's free safety Corey Campbell.
Questioned about his apparent taunting of Campbell, who was injured on the play, here's how Winslow was quoted in the Miami Herald:
"I don't give a flying you-know-what about a Vol. He'd do the same thing to me. It's war. They don't give a freaking you-know-what about you. They will kill you. So I'm going to kill them.
"I'm [ticked]. I'm [ticked], man. We don't care about nobody except this U. If I didn't hurt him, he'd hurt me. They were gunning for my legs. I'm gonna come right back at him. [Expletive] soldier."
Once over the immediate anger, something else came to mind.
"Too bad," I thought. "Too bad Navy's option offense doesn't employ a tight end!"
If it did, Winslow might then be able join the Mids and be exposed for what he truly is - by no means an expert in the art of "war."
But instead, just someone so sadly disillusioned as to think that wearing shoulder pads and a helmet makes you a "soldier."
Too bad there isn't a way for Winslow to join his few contemporaries in college football who actually understand what war entails.
Those for whom a warrior mentality isn't some cheap form of lip service, but rather a way of life that defines who and what they are.
Those who may someday be forced to kill or be killed. Whose former teammates are in the very throws of war. And who may soon be called to join them.
Too bad that Winslow - and so many others playing, coaching and reporting on games - don't seem to have a clue about the difference between war and competition.
That difference is far, far wider than the Persian Gulf, where so many men and women - many younger than Winslow - now patrol.
Sure there are soldiers who play Division I-A football. But none of them wears No. 81 in orange and green.
And last Saturday you wouldn't find them in Miami. Because they were busy in South Bend and Colorado Springs, where Air Force hosted Army.
Too bad Winslow couldn't discover what it's like to chop around Bancroft Hall as a plebe, spend part of summer vacation at sea, devote more hours to the study of physics than game film and function in a world without excuse. All on a few hours of sleep per night.
Too bad there isn't a way for him simply to accompany the Midshipmen on a road trip like their last two, to Rice and Notre Dame.
Perhaps, he'd then have his eyes opened to reality when passing through BWI Airport's international terminal, as the Mids did before each flight.
There he would see the hundreds of men and women in Army uniforms, as the Mids did.
Kids, like themselves, who signed on to the idea of service to country, willing to make any sacrifice toward that end.
Not football players. Citizen soldiers. And likely headed in harm's way.
Too bad, indeed.
Too bad Winslow couldn't share experiences with the Mids. He could talk about the peril of not performing well at the NFL scouting combine. And they about the danger of landing a Hornet on the deck of a carrier bobbing on the ocean in the pitch black of night.
He could reminisce about the players he followed to Miami, like the guys who once showed up at the Fiesta Bowl in fatigues. And they about their own predecessors who don fatigues while canvassing the caves of Afghanistan and back alleys of Baghdad.
It is entirely too bad, for Winslow has no idea who the true soldiers of college football are.
And until he does, some of us won't give a flying you-know-what about you-know-who.
- N -
On the subject of the spoken word, I owe an apology to Notre Dame's man of the hour, as well as anyone who tuned in our broadcast from South Bend.
Somehow in the subconscious, I changed the name of Irish kicker D.J. Fitzpatrick to D.J. Fitzgerald as the game moved toward his climactic field goal.
As someone who, if nothing else, invests great preparation in each assignment, I've always been mindful of the importance of a broadcaster's credibility and the absolute need to earn each listener's trust.
On Saturday, I violated that trust. And for that, I am humbled - humiliated really - and I am truly sorry.
If to err is human, this announcer - all flesh and blood - can only hope you'll be so divine as to forgive.
- N -
