the death of old dreams and the beginning of new ones

Time expired this weekend.




Like an eerie dream, the state of Pennsylvania was cast under a shadow of darkness on Saturday and Sunday. Naturally, I'm referring to football. In what seemed to be a juxtaposed nightmare both the Nittany Lions and Steelers had huge games ruined by interceptions on crucial drives. Moving backwards from Sunday, we can quickly examine what happened. The Steelers seemed to have the game in cruise control when they lead 17-14 with 1st and Goal on the 2 yard line. However, instead of using a little creativity, the boys played "typical Steeler football" and ran it straight up the middle three times in a row....only to be stuffed three times in a row. Memo to Mike Tomlin: Jerome Bettis retired two years ago. You aren't the run three times in a row and hope to get the first down kind of team that the Steelers were before acquiring Roethlisberger. And when you get to the goal line you have to have a little moxy and try something. A direct snap, a double reverse, hell even a play action once in awhile would make me feel better about our chances of getting into the end zone. Of course, Ben did throw an interception at the most inopportune time to set Peyton up to lead the winning drive. The reverberations from Iowa City seemed to reach into Pittsburgh that night...

Just one night earlier, Happy Valley fell silent. With one second left the Hawkeyes from the corn capital of the world destroyed a dream. You've heard the story by now. Up two with five minutes left. Driving deep into Iowa territory. And suddenly, Daryll Clark had a horrific Anthony Morelli moment that he may or may not be remembered forever. In what can only be described as one of the worst throws at the worst time, Clark sailed a ball over a Penn State receiver and into the waiting hands of a Hawkeye defender. I could just see the "Iowa shocks the world" headline in tomorrow's papers at that point. And with six seconds left, they did. Let's face it, football isn't life. Not even close. The sun obliged and rose the next morning with the hint of a winter chill. Something died out there in that cold Iowa night. The dream of a generation of Penn State students and alumni of a national championship that began in 2005 when Norwood, Butler, Williams, and Lee began playing together perished with the fall. Now we have to dream of roses and a trip back to California to play USC in a game whose tradition will be talked about for weeks leading up to the game(given Penn State wins out and USC doesn't play for the national championship). Finally, how about the crazy scenario that Pitt's hatred for all things Joe Paterno finally gets to surface in California, given the outside chance USC makes the national title game. Now we're talking crazy!

Moving on to happier things now. Barack Obama got elected. I don't sound more excited about it though because I just knew it was going to happen. The fundamental change that has happened in America over the last twenty five years will likely be named by future historians as something like the Openness Movement. Think about it: one hundred years ago, only white males could vote in this country. Now, we have a president of color about to lead the country. Never in the course of human history has radical, non violent change swept across the country so quickly. For the most part, the right for women and people of color came with much struggle but few deaths in comparison with some of the other major movements in history. It took the English seven hundred years to oust the Royal Family from power. Dynasties from China to Egypt ruled with iron(i guess it was more like bronze at that time) fists for thousands of years in lieu of any change. Yet since becoming a country, America has tried to bring a sense of humanity to the world. It's true, sometimes we overstep our bounds and try to radically push ourselves on other cultures. We truly mean good though; and anyone who says that America and its rise to power has been a mistake should examine how better off we are than people one hundred, two hundred, or even five hundred years ago. Tuesday night was one of those rare moments where you could not only feel that change come to fruition, but you could see it as well. As CNN put up the words "CNN projects Barack Obama as the winner" I had to quietly reflect for a moment. It wasn't just people of color that had come this far and brought about a sense of change. It was all of us.



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