Do I even like NFL Anymore?

Well, it’s January. It’s cold. The Christmas Joy has dissipated, and we are all settling in for a long winter. Last weekend, like most weekends in January, rather than bare the cold, I watched Football with my father. It is playoff time, and it is a great distraction from the fact that everything is freezing and will remain that way for the next couple months. As we were watching the 4^thcommercial break in the last 10 minutes, my father turned to me and said, “they‘re losing me”.  While I was not at that stage yet, I get what he is saying. It is hard to watch football, and not be inundated by the fact that the egos of the millionaires, and especially the billionaires involved, are milking their product for every possible dime. They feel they are too big to fail. The golden goose will never die. These egos leave us, the casual fans, feeling taken advantage of.

My father would not classify himself as a die-hard NFL fan, but he is a lover of all things sports, and as such he follows the NFL. He is not, and will never be the type to spend hours of his day reading up on the NFL. He will never have a fantasy football team. He won’t get pumped to spend his weekend watching the NFL draft. But during the football season, it is rare for a Sunday to go by without him watching at least a quarter or two of football. I think he is like many in this respect.  

He feels like the games are too long. It is hard to stay in the moment when there is a commercial after a touchdown, than another commercial before the kickoff, and then yet another commercial break after the kickoff.  He is a sports fan who is going to watch the NFL because it is the most entertaining sport in that timeslot. When you start to see the games as a three hour commercial break with some football in between, it gets to be a lot easier to disengage. It did not help that most of the games this weekend were dull, but when a man who has made the game a part of his Sunday’s for the past few decades starts to say ‘they’re losing me’. It’s not two or three bad games that the problem. There is a problem with the product. 

I’ve thought about this quite a bit and I realized I am much less engaged than I used to be. I used to run a silly little pool through my family. I started it this year, but it kinda fizzled half way through the year.  I haven’t asked for picks from anyone in about 2 months now. That would have been unheard of for me 2 or three year ago. Now, I’m OK with it. It’s not that I stopped watching football. I am just really OK with not being as avid a fan as I have in years past. I’m complacent. I watch football on Sundays because that’s what I’ve always done on Sundays, but that’s all. 

And then the ‘independent’ report came out on the Ray Rice debacle.  This whole scenario has me baffled, and the ‘independent’ report is no different. When you hear NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell talk about it, he sounds pretty satisfied about a report. Which is good for him, I guess.  But this man, while facing raging criticism completely botching the discipline of a player who so obviously and publicly beat his wife unconscious, told reporters that he asked the police for the video evidence from the elevator where the beating occurred. This report, which was done ‘independently’, by the law firm that represented the NFL in the negotiation of a multi-billion dollar TV deal, says that neither Goodell, nor anyone else from the NFL offices asked for the tapes from either from the police or from Ray Rice’s attorney. 

 So to summarize, even the ‘independent’ investigator the NFL hand picked out of a law firm deep in NFL’s pockets could not spin this in a way that show the NFL did not royally screw the pooch. Goodell is of course putting his own spin on it saying in essence ‘I told you never saw the video’, but he seems really proud of himself for a man who is basically saying he put his head in the sand rather than actually ask for pertinent evidence in a very emotionally charged case. Explain how this man, who is clearly not capable of doing is job, still has his job.

What blows my mind in all this though is how we got here. I get Goodell using every form of spin imaginable to cover his ass. He knows he screwed up; it’s all damage control from here. I don’t get why he screwed up in the first place. Why did he cover for Ray Rice? As callous as it sounds, I would understand the motive if the NFL tried to cover for a superstar in the league. The kind of player the league bases its marketing campaigns around, who carries the league.  If say Michael Jordan, in his prime did something this stupid, I would understand the NBA’s motive to sweep it under the rug. I would NOT agree with it, and would be calling for the head of whatever commissioner led that charge, but at least I would understand the motive. In this fictional scenario, the motive is greed. But here, Ray Rice was an aging running back, who might have a pro-bowl season left in him, but I doubt it. He was a star, and his name carried weight, especially in Baltimore.  But this guy was just another big name, in a league full of big names. The league itself is no different with him in or out of a line-up. I don’t understand what motive the NFL has for thinking they could sweep this under the rug. The only answer I can come up with is that they didn’t care. They feel they are too big to fail.

This brings me back to watching football with my dad this weekend.  This was before the ‘independent’ report was released, so Ray Rice was not really fresh in our minds. But still, my father, who has been a football fan for as long as I can remember, just isn’t that into it anymore. The broadcast is a blatant cash grab, and that is just getting less and less entertaining. Watching the health problems of the stars he grew up cheering for does not help either. Watching Goodell obviously lie through his teeth and hope we won’t notice, is, quite frankly, insulting.  It is all part of a bigger picture, a bleak picture that has him wondering why he is wasting his time on these people, and their product.

The problem is the NFL does their spin, and they hope we believe it, but if we don’t, they don’t really care. They think that people will tune in on Sundays like they always have. Maybe they will (despite everything I have written here, I’ll probably be watching this weekend), but nothing is too big to fail. The Roman Empire wasn’t, neither was GM. If fans like my father are getting tired of the league. If it is becoming more work than its worth for him, and fans like him, then maybe the NFL should be taking notice. Maybe they should take a long look at their product, and how it’s being perceived, because if those casual fans leave, they are never coming back. And the NFL will be one step closer to killing the golden goose.

YACC Blog #5

This is my latest blog. It's about Christmas, and how somethings change, but others stay the same when you are celebrating Christmas with someone who has cancer

http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/christmas-with-cancer/

YACC Blog #4

In this blog I was asked to write about metastatic cancer. Its not really possible to write an upbeat post on this subject, but I think it makes some points that need to be made.

http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/time-sharing-with-cancer/

YACC Blog #3

My third blog for the YACC website. It is about gratitude. This one is pretty cheery, so if you want to read somthing more upbeat from me this is a good place to start


http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/john-is-grateful/

YACC Blog #2

This is the second blog I wrote for YACC's website.  They asked me to write about life after cancer. I got mad and wrote a pretty dark post about death. If you are interested, give it a look

http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/life-after-cancer/

YACC Blog #1

So I want to post links to my gueat blog on YACC's website. That is how I started this blogging adventure. I'd imagine anyone reading this would have already read one or all of these blogs but what the heck.

This is the first blog I wrote, it is about relationships, and how they change when someone has cancer.

http://www.youngadultcancer.ca/a-supporters-perspective-on-relationships/

Run Fat Bastard

‘The only reason I’d go for a run is if someone is chasing me’

-John Aubin (the scrawny young version)

I know, the quote above isn’t really mine, I’ve heard it tons of times before, and used to think it was really funny. I thought it was hilarious in college, when my roommate would get ready to go for a run, to spout out that gem. She would run and be healthy, I would hang out on the couch and play video games, watch TV, surf the internet, and if I got real bored, maybe I’d study. It was a fun times.

A funny thing happens when you get just a little bit older. The life style catches up to you. It happens both gradually, and all at once. It would be hard to explain, but luckily anyone over 30 has some idea what I’m talking about, and if you are young enough not to have experienced this, I have some bad news for you, it is coming.

It hits different people differently, but in my case, well I’ll just say it, I was a disaster; a fun disaster, but a disaster none the less. I was always a scrawny kid. And as I grew into an awkward teenager, I was still scrawny, but the awesome kind of scrawny, where you can eat anything you want, as much of it as you want and it didn’t matter. Through high school I used to lie about my weight and say I was 140lbs. I was really closer to 130 than 140, and I was 6 feet tall. I always knew it wouldn’t last, but I was looking forward to putting on a few pounds. I thought there would be a window in between my teenage scrawniness and being a fat bastard of an adult. I looked forward to those in between years.

So, college happened. College was the perfect amount of fun. I did enough work to graduate comfortably, but let’s just say I never let the books get in the way of a good time. And the best part, being a scrawny guy in his early twenties is just like being a scrawny teenager. You can consume anything and it doesn’t matter! I remember this because it was about the time the ‘Atkins Diet’ swept the nation. The staples of my diet were beer and poutine, and I was still scrawny. I was over 140lbs now, but still skinny as a rail.

Now, I should mention, that I understand some people are tormented by their body image. I am not one of those people. If you are, I in no way mean to make light of your struggles, which I am sure are significant. Thankfully it is not plight I have to deal with.  When I was a scrawny teenager, while I would have preferred to be built and strong, I was happy as a scrawny teenager. I continued to be happy as a hard partying college student in his early to mid-twenties, who was still skinny. And I continued to be happy as I drifted into the adult world, with an adult job and adult responsibilities. In fact, I was even happy with my body when I realized I wasn’t the scrawny teenager I used to be. I was fine with the fact that I had grown into a fat bastard. Who doesn’t like a jolly fat guy?

The problem was my body wasn’t happy with me. How could it be? Sure I drink less beer than I did in college, but that’s really more of a statement about the amount I drank in college, rather than my habits at this point in my life. I also hadn’t gotten any exercise since high school. After all, ‘the only reason I’d go for a run is if someone was chasing me’. I used to walk to the Tim Horton’s to get a cup of coffee on my lunch breaks. There is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that I counted that walk as exercise. And there is nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that that 300 yard walk to Tim’s was the ONLY exercise I was getting at the time. If I was being honest with myself, the last real exercise I had gotten was in high school.

I know it’s wrong, but you know how you sometimes see a stranger in public, who happens to be overweight, and I mean crazy overweight, and you wonder how they got there. Well they got there by doing what I explained in the last paragraph over a long enough period of time. The red flags were there. I kept growing out of my pants (it’s a lot cuter when a kid grows out of something than when a grown up does). It got harder and harder to climb the stairs to my apartment (I mean I could do it, but I should be able to do it without breathing hard). And then on a family trip to the cottage, my mother pointed out that I had a bigger belly than my sister, who at the time was very pregnant.Also I was lying about my weight again, only this time I was saying I was ‘a little under 200lbs’, but in reality I was over.

I finally decided to do something, and in the summer of 2011, month before my 30th birthday, I went out and got the first bit of exercise I had gotten since high school.  I went for a run. I was not fast, and I probably walked further than I ‘ran’, but I did it. I got the dreaded exercise. I ran without somebody chasing me. I learned a valuable lesson. Exercise SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!! I hurt so bad! I missed my couch and TV and Video games! I loved my sloth lifestyle!

So here I am making a lifestyle change and hurting. I hated the exercise at first, but quitting wasn’t going to change my expanding waistline. So a few days later I ran again, and again, and again. It has been about 3 years now. And I am by no means a picture of health, but I’m at least health conscious. I try to run at least once a week, for about 10kms. I consider it a good run if I can do the 10kms in under an hour. I even ran a half marathon.

I also realized that I had other habits that weren’t helping. For example, eating a bag of chips in one sitting is not smart. So I have actually started eating better. I stopped eating chips altogether, and then a few months later, I stopped drinking pop. I have started cutting out little unhealthy things one at a time. Small and manageable things, that after a few months you rarely even notice. This month, I stopped putting sugar in my coffee.

I can’t say I’ve lost a bunch of weight or anything like that. I’ll never be a scrawny teenager again, and that’s OK.  My waistline has not really shrunk, but it certainly hasn’t grown. And I still have my share of bad habits, but I can honestly say I am as healthy as I have been in years. My body is happy with me again! I may have a bit of a beer belly still, but I am no longer a fat bastard.

So this is a picture of college John, and yes I am all painted up to look like superman. I'm not positive, but I think this is on the way to a Vanilla Ice concert. My favorite part is the shoes. Yes, they are bowling shoes, and no, they do not match. Like I said, I was a disaster, but an awesome disaster.

Here we have adult John, aka fat bastard John. It's an action shot! It's too bad it's not a video, because that would have been hot! This is the John that needed to start exercising.

 This is a flashback to high school John. Scrawny John. Singing in my high school band. Yes, we were awesome.