Watching the Bowl game last night reminded me of a story about my mom. And by watching, I mean having the game on while I dozed in bed and shut it off after Florida was up by 10. There’s so many of these damn Bowl games, I’ve lost track of the name. I think it was the Last of 43 Bowl Games over 3 Weeks Bowl Game Brought to you by Southwest presented by Ford with a grant from The Chubb Institute. Damn, wish I got a grant from the Chubb Institute….
I need to preface this by saying my mom is a total sports noob. She’s a trooper, she just wants to spend time with my old man. She watches sports with my dad. She tries to understand shit like the “infield fly rule” and horse collar tackle, while dad just yells at the TV. You ask her who her favorite Eagle is, and she will reply in the most innocent way “I like the big black one” without a racist tone whatsoever. This story took place about 20 years ago or so. It’s become one of those legendary family stories that we trot out from time to time to bust her chops. And shit, I totally forgot to include this story when I had to give the toast at their 50th wedding anniversary. Instead I went with the time when she took home movies (Super 8) of us opening our Xmas presents and had the camera backwards the whole time. So we get the reel back, and it’s 20 minutes of her nose. The sneeze was a nice touch, though.
All of us were watching some college football game, where the Sooners were playing. For the sake of this story, the front of their jersey looks like this. There are no player names written on the back:
I recall at the time that there were no players’ names on the back of the jersey. I noticed last night that now they do have the players’ names on the back of the jerseys. I suppose if I wasn’t so lazy and a better writer, I could look up all the historical facts of this. But that is too much work, and I ain’t making a dime off any of this stuff (yet), so we will all suffer in my ignorance and lack of investigation. So where was I?
By the way, I am half Irish, and half Polish. After this story, can you guess whose side is whose?
For some reason, we’re all watching this Oklahoma Sooners game. They have the ball, and their QB makes a good throw. My mom pipes up, “Wow, that quarterback sure made a good throw! What’s his name?” We’re all silent, and she’s clearly just trying to sound like she fits in. She continues. “What’s his name? What’s the name on his jersey? Sooners? Well, that Sooners kid sure made a good throw. Actually, that was a good catch, too? What’s the name of the guy who caught the ball?” Again, all us kids are silent, we want to see just where this trainwreck will end up.
“Wow,” she continues, “his name is Sooners, too! Wow, that’s pretty neat. Are they brothers or something? Those Sooners boys sure can play football.” We’re all quiet as the screen now shows the team in a huddle. You can see the wheel in my mom’s brain turning. The next play is a running play, and when the running back gets up, my mom goes, “Wait a minute. He’s Sooners, too! Are there a bunch of Sooners brothers playing for this team or what?” When he returns to the huddle, my mom clearly sees that all the jersey names say Sooners. She is clearly confused now. We all wait to see where the queen of our gene pool will say next.
“Hey! Their jerseys all say Sooners! Is there just one family that plays for this team?”
There is a stilled silence in the room. Possibly the sound of a palm slap to the forehead.
Someone finally says, “No, mom, Sooners is the name of the team.”
“Oh.”
Ok, so maybe you can give her a pass since a lot of college teams don’t have the player names on the back of their jerseys. But my family has never given her a pass. Nuh-uh, that’s not how families work. Just a quick little memory that popped up last night.
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