Sucker Punched

I've been had. All those preachers. All those sermons. All that nonsense about asking, knocking, believing, supplicating, persisting, petitioning, praying, pleading, anointing with oil, jumping through hoops in hopes that God would do what you begged Him to do.

It's a bill of goods. They were selling. I was buying.

I bought the crock about getting what you asked for. So I prayed and begged and pleaded and pounded on my neighbor's door at midnight for my friend, Kerri Lane, to be healed of her cancer. She died tonight. At 44. She leaves two daughters, 9 and 6. And a giant crater in the heart of the Highland Church in Abilene, Texas.

I'm fine with God being omnipotent, omniscient, all the omnis. I'm fine with Him knowing what's best and having ways that aren't my ways. I'm fine with the fact that there's a time to die and that all things work together for good for those who love Him. I'm fine with all of that. I believe He still knows what He's doing. And that He's still good. And that Kerri's with Him right now.

But don't trot out those texts about mustard seeds and moving mountains any more. They're not true. Jesus must've meant something else. Something more mysterious. Something. But definitely not that you'll get what you ask for.

It's my fault for believing it. It's absurd to think that God would alter the course of human events because I want something. Half the time I don't even know what I want. In this case, I did know. I wanted Kerri healed and to live to an old age and to raise her daughters and serve us Communion and keep feeding the hungry and reminding us by her example that our job is to live out the mission of Christ.

That's how she lived. And died. To my knowledge, she never asked God to heal her if it meant superseding His will. She wanted what He wanted.

Right now, I can't fathom how a mother being taken from her daughters - ostensibly what He wanted or at least allowed - accomplishes anything remotely equivalent to her being miraculously healed and permitted to continue being Christ incarnate to everyone she touched. But I even understand the idea that I can't understand it.

What I can't understand is how all those preachers could tell me with a straight face that all I had to do was ask. If it's true that there's a sucker born every minute, then I've truly been born again. No more.

Steal City: Officiating The Pitts, Gives Steelers Super Edge

Okay, I was wrong. Make it 21-10 Steelers. I was never good with math. But these numbers tell the sad story of the game: Seattle had 86 yards of offense and a touchdown nullified by referees' whistles in its Super Bowl XL loss to Pittsburgh. An Xtra Large number when you consider that in addition to the 86 positive yards taken away, the penalties moved the Seahawks backward another 70. More than 150 yards difference in the biggest game of the year.

The men in Black and Gold weren't nearly as formidable as the ones in black and white.

It wasn't just that Seattle was whistled 7 times to Pittsburgh's 3 (or 70 yards to 20). It was when the flags flew. A couple of 18-yard completions deep into Steeler territory (one at the 1 and the other at the 23) were wiped out, as was a 34-yard punt return across midfield. Throw in the highly questionable ruling on Ben Roethlisberger's (pronounced "'s") end zone dive - which from no camera angle showed the ball ever crossing the goal line - and the ridiculous 15-yard penalty on Matt Hasselbeck for the unconscionable act of tackling Ike Taylor following Taylor's 4th quarter interception, and you have all the makings of a Let's-Don't-Ruin-This-Jerome-Bettis-Homecoming/Retirement-Love-Fest-By-Letting-The-Other-Team-Up-And-Win-This-Thing conspiracy theory that'll have Seahawk fans sleepless in Seattle all summer.

I can't remember a meaningful game decided by 11 points that seemed like it could have gone the other way by at least that many.

I'm happy for Bill Cowher. He's won me over through the years with his passion, his system, and his love for his wife and three daughters. He deserved a championship. Ditto for Bettis. The Steelers certainly made some big plays, none more so than Antwaan Randle El's reverse heave to Hines Ward with 9 minutes left to provide the final margin of victory.

Seattle kicker Josh Brown didn't help by Vanderjagting two long, but makeable field goals. And Seahawks' coach Mike Holmgren - while getting big ups for his taste in spouses (his wife, Kathy, and their oldest daughter missed the game because they were on a medical mission trip to the Congo) - is anything but a sympathetic figure in the aftermath thanks to a shockingly uninspired coaching performance. Seattle ran its hurry-up offense at the end of each half with all the efficiency of an Edsel, blowing precious opportunities to score in each case. And if you're a Seahawks fan, can you really spend the offseason satisfied with Holmgren's decision to punt from his own 48 on 4th and 13 with 6:28 to play and Seattle down 11? At that point, your hopes are hanging by the last thin thread on the Go Daddy girl's spaghetti strap. If you make it, you've got plenty of time to score, kick off, force a punt, and get the ball back with a chance to tie or win the game. Even if you don't get a first, you either force a field goal or a punt, and you're still within two scores. Punting in that situation seemed so...decaf. And 'Hawks fans will have a latte time to wonder "What if?" If that's Seattle's Best, I'll pass.

Still, the Seahawks weren't their own worst enemy in their maiden Super Bowl voyage. The refs played that role. Even if a couple of the calls were technically correct, the infractions were nothing worse than you see on nearly every play of every NFL game. Worse yet, this crew breached the fraternal order of referees' one and only rule:

Call Such A Good Game That No One Notices You're There. Instead, head ref Bill Leavy is now to Seahawks fans persona non grata. And make that a Venti with extra foam at the mouth.

Actually, Pittsburgh probably had some good fortune coming after nearly having its checkered flag at Indianapolis taken by one of the worst rulings in NFL history. Kind of like trebled damages. You get the win plus two more. And it was in Detroit that another official used a single coin to take the Bus for a ride. On Thanksgiving Day 1998, Bettis called tails at the overtime coin flip, only to have referee Phil Luckett rule that he said heads. It was tails, the Lions got the ball to begin OT and promptly went downfield for the game-winning score.

An official can sleep off a Turkey Day blunder. (That particular fowl, after all, is known for its natural sedative.) But blowing the biggest game of the year by constantly interrupting the flow of the game and sucking the life out of one of the contestants by overofficiating is an entirely different animal: a goat. One that will no doubt be roasted over the open spit of Seahawks fans forever.

Pittsburgh 24
Seattle 10

After Further Review...I Love Lamp

This weekend's NFL playoff games answered a number of important questions, not the least of which was: What would it look like if Brick Tamland, weatherman for the Channel 4 News Team, was the league's head of officiating? ("I ate fiberglass insulation. It wasn't cotton candy like the guy said...my tummy itches.")

In a stunning series of incompetence that amounted to their own version of a three-team parlay, NFL refs gave Denver a touchdown on a bogus pass interference call against New England's Asante Samuel; took a legitimate interception away from Pittsburgh's hirsute hitman Troy Polamalu (pronounced "polamalu"); and failed to penalize Chicago for delay of game, thus penalizing the Bears when Rex Grossman (pronounced "polamalu") was intercepted on a play that should've never happened. Good work, men.

In a statement that appeared to have been written by Colts' QB Peyton Manning, the league's real head of officiating, Mike Pereira, fessed up...that someone else made a mistake. Pereira acknowledged that referee Pete Morelli botched the Polamalu play and announced that all four officiating teams from this weekend will be reassigned to the Memoir Research Division at Random House Publishers where they will edit all of James Frey's future manuscripts.

As for Manning, his psyche must be in a million little pieces today. And his big game failure is anything but random. With Manning ruling the roost, Indy laid an egg in an embarrassing 21-18 loss to Pittsburgh, wasting a 13-0 start to the season, home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, and another team (Denver) doing their dirty work by ousting their nemesis, New England.

Worse than underachieving on another postseason stage, the two-time NFL MVP threw his offensive line under the B-U-S, this after the Steelers' "Bus," Jerome Bettis, fumbled on the goal line, nearly giving the Colts an undeserved victory. In the postgame presser, Manning said he was trying to be a "good teammate" by not going into detail but only saying his line had "protection problems." Well, at least he tried. That's like the captain of the Titanic saying in his Purgatorial press conference, "I want to be a good crew member here. Let's just say we had some water control issues."

I'm a huge Peyton Manning fan. Have been since he played for Tennessee. But even the most shameless apologist can't ignore his stunning inability to beat the best opponents. I may've sneaked a glimpse into Manning's makeup during an ESPN profile Sunday morning. They showed some home video of the three Manning boys playing football in their backyard. Peyton's the middle of the three and was probably 7 in this particular footage. He was running with the ball when his older brother, Cooper, grabbed him by the collar trying to make a tackle. Peyton started whining, "You grabbed me like this! You can't do that!" From that five-second piece of video, I just got the sneaking suspicion he was one of those kids who was such a sore loser that he'd do whatever it took, like complaining about an illegal tackle, to make sure he won. I could see him playing basketball in the driveway and pretending he was taking the last shot to win a game, "3...2...1..." He'd miss but keep counting, "1..." and miss again and keep counting, "1..." until he made it. I'm not sure he's grown out of that.

Maybe it was being the middle kid and having an older brother who was a great athlete as Cooper was. Like he's always been trying to prove something but never quite can. So when he'd win, he'd happily share the glory with teammates because he was inwardly fulfilled. But losing made him feel like such a failure inside, he couldn't stand the double whammy of others thinking he was to blame, so he'd find a scapegoat. Of course, the grown up Manning is media savvy enough to know you can't blatantly call out your teammates, so he gave the "good teammate" line. But in reality, he was being exactly the opposite. And those O-lineman won't forget it.

That psychoanalysis was free of charge. Now back to the sarcasm.

Almost as spoiled a sport as Manning was Patriots' coach Bill Belichick in the aftermath of his team's bid for a third straight Super Bowl being derailed by the Broncos, 27-13. Granted, he's not Tony Robbins in the best of times. But that sour puss series of one-word, p.o.'d, smart alecky answers was an embarrassment to the otherwise classy dynasty he's helped create.

Then there's Tony Dungy. How many truly gentle men have coached Super Bowl champions? Tom Landry (1972) comes to mind and maybe...Tom Landry (1978). Seems like more often, the best coaches are the spaz (see Jon Gruden and Brian Billick) or the cold-blooded dictators (Bill Parcells, Jimmy Johnson, et al). I hope Dungy gets a ring someday. He's everything good about sports in a day when so much isn't. But I'm beginning to wonder if that style resonates in such a violent sport.

Goofiest Postgame Quote of the weekend goes to Colts' kicker Mike Vanderjagt, whose last-minute attempt to tie the game went further right than Jesse Helms (who actually couldn't have done any worse): "From the Polamalu interception reversal to Jerome's fumble, everything seemed to be lined up in our favor. I guess the Lord forgot about the football team." Just a suggestion, Mike: next time, try giving Him a little something to work with. He has a pretty good track record of widening the otherwise impassable, but that banana ball wouldn't have hit the Red Sea if you were standing next to Moses. The only bright spot for Vanderjagt was that his kick was so off-target, conspiracy theorists had no ammunition to suggest he threw the game.

So it's Panthers-Seahawks and Steelers-Broncos this weekend with the Super Bowl awaiting the winners. Brick Tamland's referees won't be doing the game, but he would like to extend to everyone an invitation to the pants party.

Right Of Passage

I was 10 when my blood turned Tennessee orange. My cousins from Jackson came to Nashville for Thanksgiving, bringing with them tickets to the Vols' "home" game at Vanderbilt. (Contrary to folk legend, Miles Standish did not offer the Wampanoag Indians that same bounty at the first Thanksgiving. The Vols were away that week.)

It was just one UT game, but I was hook-and-laddered. I'd been an Oakland Raiders fan my whole life, fulfilling every mother's dream of having her precious little lamb tack a Jack "The Assassin" Tatum poster up above Curious George. But suddenly, my Silver and Black Sundays were following Big Orange Saturdays. I'd rooted for both teams, through good times (three Super Bowls and a national championship) and bad (there aren't parentheses large enough to encompass just the Joe Bugel era alone), ever since.

Until now.

One weekend this past September, after staying up late on back-to-back nights watching my beloved teams lose to their archrivals while my true beloved went to bed without getting from me so much as a kiss goodnight, I decided I'd let my passion for pigskin override what really mattered: The Texas Rangers. Seriously, I couldn't justify the involuntary, physiological reactions to my teams' wins and losses any longer. The most common side effect was what my wife calls "getting splotchy." Sounds like something 50 Cent might do with one of his shorties, but it's actually the matching red patches that form on either side of my neck during especially tense moments - like the coin toss and TV timeouts - of Vols and Raiders games.

So, 26 years after that first Thanksgiving as a Tennessee fan, I made the decision to go cold turkey. Or at least lukewarm as far as the Vols were concerned. I would no longer watch games unless there was nothing else going on. And I'd quit rooting for the Raiders - whom my wife detests - all together. It was time to grow up.

That's when I got religion, specifically Catholicism. Kind of. On September 24, in a game against Washington, the game stats will show Notre Dame's first play from scrimmage was a 13-yard completion. What the numbers won't show is why the head coach of the Fighting Irish, Charlie Weis, chose to call a pass play from his own 1-yard line. The week before, Weis went to the home of Montana Mazurkiewicz (pronounced ma-zur-kie-wicz), a 10-year-old Notre Dame fan whom doctors said would never be an 11-year-old fan of the Irish because of an inoperable brain tumor.


Weis told the boy about his old college roommate at Notre Dame, Joe Montana, for whom Mazurkiewicz was named. The two talked football until the pain became too much for the boy. Before he left, Weis signed a football for young Montana and asked him if there was anything he could do for him. The two agreed that the boy could call Notre Dame's first offensive play that Saturday against Washington, which he did: "pass right."

Charlie Weis has one of the most brilliant minds in all of football, having served as offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots as they won three of the last four Super Bowls. But the greatest play he ever called wasn't a complex code of numbers and football mumbo jumbo. It was the simple request of a terminally-ill 10-year-old, "pass right."

Montana died the day before the game, but Weis kept his word. Yea, though his team walked in the shadow of its own end zone, Weis feared no evil. While conventional wisdom was screaming, "Run it up the gut!" Weis instead listened to his heart and called Montana's play.

Quarterback Brady Quinn rolled right and hit tight end Anthony Fasano for a 13-yard gain. The Irish won going away, 36-17, and afterward Weis had his players sign the game ball, which he later presented to the Mazurkiewicz family.

I felt like Michael Corleone in The Godfather III: "Just when I thought that I was out, they pull me back in!"

Stories like that one (the "pass right" thing, not The Godfather) remind me why I've always gotten so worked up over sporting events. The final score may not matter in the broader scope of world history, but how people get to those results often represent the best human beings have to offer one another.


Remember the scene from City Slickers when the guys are discussing baseball minutiae and Bonnie incredulously says, "I like baseball. I just don't memorize who played...third base for...Pittsburgh...in 1960", to which the guys immediately and in unison say, "Don Hoak!" She thinks that proves her point and proceeds to tell them that her friends and she talk about important things like relationships. Then Phil says, "All I know is that when I was 15 and my dad and I couldn't talk about anything, we could always talk about baseball."

It's true. For every tantrum I've thrown over my team losing a game, there've been a hundred tears spilled over something heart-wrenching like the time Waverly (Ohio) High School abandoned what should've been a shutout of Northwest High and let Jake Porter score a touchdown.

Why do I still remember where I was (at our house on Starsdale Road in Memphis), what I was wearing (my Oakland A's pajamas), and how old I was (4) the night I watched Brian's Song and bawled like a...well, like a 4-year-old when Billy Dee Williams-as-Gale Sayers said about his dying teammate and friend, "I love Brian Piccolo...and tonight, when you hit your knees, please ask God to love him." And why do I still tear up when I read that line?

I think it's because sports aren't inherently anything. They're merely a vehicle by which we see the best and worst in ourselves and each other.

So now, as the NFL playoffs begin, I'm wondering if giving up my favorite teams was a bit extreme. Maybe I should just wash down a chill pill with some decaf and try watching games like a kid again, enjoying them for what they are instead of making them a matter of life-and-death. Death is what happened to Indianapolis Colts' coach Tony Dungy's eldest son three days before Christmas. No victory in and of itself - not even a Super Bowl title - can stanch Dungy's grief. What might be meaningful, though, is the relationship he has with his players and coaches and the journey they take together.

And that idea's worth cheering for. No matter how old you are or what color your blood runs.