Today was amazing, from start to finish. I began my day as I had not in over two weeks: having slept through the entire night without a single coughing fit. I woke up refreshed and feeling so thankful that I am finally on the other side of this silly illness. I felt like God gave me a couple extra days of feeling crummy to make sure I had really learned my lesson before saying poof-be-gone to this darned bronchitis. And while it is much harder to keep taking it easy as I start to feel better, I am determined to learn from my past negligent behavior and take care of myself as a way of giving thanks for the health I am gifted with everyday.
Fast forward to the end of the day... it's 8pm, I have just put the girls down to bed, and I am settling in for one of the most stressful hours I have experienced in a long time: the Heisman trophy ceremony. At the beginning of this football season, my hope for my Texas A&M Aggies was to go 6-6 in their first season in the SEC. Now, tonight, I was nervously twitching on my couch as I watched our own Aggie quarterback Johnny Manziel, who led the team to a 10-2 season, being introduced first as a Heisman finalist, and ultimately as the first freshman to ever win this prestigious award. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this for my alma mater - we are typically a football program with all kinds of potential but can never deliver the final punch. To have seen this level of success for my school makes me prouder than I can imagine, and was truly a high point to my day.
The other high point, however, came in an unexpected way. Another of the Heisman finalists was a linebacker from Notre Dame. Our good friends Amanda and Logan Foley both graduated from Notre Dame, and we actually had dinner at their house tonight. Logan and I joked that this may not have been the best night for us to be hanging out together, and we left with plenty of time to spare before the ceremony aired. But during the ceremony I got to thinking about my relationship with the Foleys and Logan in particular. To tell the truth (and I don't even know if I've ever said this to them), I've never been a huge Notre Dame fan. I've always tended to be annoyed by what I consider to be "bandwagon teams" like Notre Dame, Ohio State, and Texas, who seem to have a fan base full of people who have no real affiliation with the school, they just like programs with lots of success and tradition to root for and so they pick one of these prominent schools. A&M is very much not a bandwagon school, and almost ensures this with their "from the inside you can't explain it and from the outside you can't understand it" attitude. I've known plenty of people who cheer on the Fighting Irish, but don't really have a reason for doing so. Then I met Logan. He may in fact be one of the most hard-core fans I've ever met, for any team anywhere. He lives for Irish football, and this season I have enjoyed watching him stress out, at times doubt, and ultimately jump for joy at the success his team has seen. He has shown me that even if Notre Dame may still be a bandwagon team, they do in fact have true fans as well, who have watched every loss as well as every win. Tonight as I was watching the Heisman ceremony, I was of course hoping my Aggie would win, but at the same time knew I would be almost as happy if Te'o had won, because that would have made my friends happy, and that would have been a good thing as well. I am thankful that Logan and I have bonded over our (at times obsessive) love for football - and hope that we do not find ourselves on opposite sides of the field too often.
No comments:
Post a Comment