Sports Juggling

We live in a great time for sports.   I can watch every single Indians, Cavs, and Browns game. I even have the ability to stream my alma mater Kent State getting their clocks cleaned if I so choose.  It's great.  I pay a large bill to the good people at DirecTV each month for the privilege.  There is only one problem with this.  Where do I find the time to follow all of my teams as much as I would like?

 I work as a teacher for students with multiple disabilities, I have four kids, two of which are teenagers with full calendars filled with their own sporting events and no drivers licenses, the other two are twin hyperactive babies under two years  old, who don't want to spend their Sunday afternoons watching the Browns fail to convert on another third and long, and a wife who on occasion has been known to want to spend time with me.

Browns have lost #1 spot in fans hearts.

The Browns have long been the center of Northeast Ohio's hearts and minds.  The area has flowed the Browns with a die-hard passion since the 50s when Jim Brown and Otto Graham ruled the gridiron on the coast of Lake Erie.  The Browns have kept the attention focused on them ever since.  They have ruled above and beyond the Cavaliers and the Indians despite those two franchises having more success at various points over the past fifty years. 

This town is a Browns town but that has begun to change.  After years of the Browns being terrible on the field and mismanaged in the office, the fans have stopped giving the Browns their love and more importantly their eyeballs and money.  In years past, all the Browns had to do to draw a crowd at Cleveland Browns stadium was play a football game and show up dressed in orange helmets.  The fans were just glad to have football being played by their team.  Then something happened...

The Cavaliers and the Indians started having success.  They started making smart decisions that improved the team and the experience of the fans.  Cleveland fans spent their money on teams that break 52 year curses and teams that lead their division despite having a middling payroll.  

The fans have decided that a revolving door of general managers, coaches, and quarterbacks were not worth their time and money. The Browns are now dealing with lack of interest.  As the 2016 season begins, the Browns have a new general manager...again, a new coach....again...., a new quarterback...again.  This season however, I don't see or hear fans talking themselves into a season with false hope.  The season seems to be met with apathy.  Fans are still riding high on the Cavaliers championship, still enjoying the day to day fun of pennant raise with the #Windians.  The Cavs and Indians have usually been quickly dropped from a Cleveland fan's mind once the sounds of pads cracking hits the air. 

This season attendance at training camp is down. People aren't going to go spend their time watching an inferior product.  Attendance for the Indians has in fact risen since the beginning of the Browns training camp.  Fans in Northeast Ohio have now tasted a winner and they will not accept ineptitude and continue to fork over increasingly hard to come by dollars to support a team that brings them no joy.  Cleveland isn't the sports punching bag lining up for its next body blow.  Cleveland is the reigning and defending king of the sports world and doesn't want to spend it's time watching a team going through another awful season as the new regime brings in "their guys" to play "Cleveland Browns Football".  Whatever the hell that actually means.

Cleveland used to be a Browns town.  Cleveland is now a city of champions.  The Cavaliers have won a World Championship and the Indians are the betting favorite to make it to the World Series.  It's your move Browns.  It's time to produce an enjoyable experience.  An enjoyable experience in this town has changed from the last time you embarrassingly left the field.  This town demands winning.  This town demands progress.  In 2016 in Northeast Ohio, you have to win or the FANS go home.




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I'm a Blockhead for Loving These Teams

I was raised the right way. My father instilled in me what any good father should. I'm not talking about being honest, trustworthy, and respectful. I mean he taught me that a man loves his teams, he sticks with his teams for the rest of his life, and those teams better damn well be the teams for his town. I live in Canton, Ohio, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame and sports heartache. In my 31 years of life the Cavs, Browns, and Indians have never won a championship. They have only made it to 3 championship series. Hell if the Indians don't win the World Series this year, it will be 50 years since any Cleveland sports team has won it all. No city with multiple sports teams has gone longer. Even cities with one sports team like Green Bay, Wisconsin and San Antonio, Texas have won multiple championships in that time frame.

 

I have seen a lifetime of fan pains in my short 31 years. In Cleveland we have a list of THE's. They all have names but they might as well be called THE Groin Punch. The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Decision..... All have hurt me deeply. Being a Cleveland sports fan is like being Charlie Brown trying to kick a football.  We tell ourselves that the team will change. They will stop pulling the football away and stop making draft picks like Gerard Warren and Vitaly Potapenko. We assume that for once when we trade a Cy Young winner we will actually kick the ball and get one actual All-Star. Our teams always seem to be in year one of a five year plan and we patiently wait as each new coach, general manager, and player will be the one to pull us out of this fifty year great depression.

 

This season the Cavaliers blew a 26 point lead against the lowly Suns. My 8 year old step-son had to go to bed before the end of the game. I tucked him in and we discussed how the Cavs were going to get a good win. The next morning I had to tell him that our team had blown the game. He seemed devastated to hear that the Cavs somehow managed to gag up such a big lead. I was not surprised. I had seen it countless times over countless seasons. The wound was still fresh for him. He then said something that made me realize that he was doomed to continue my fate, "There is no way they will ever do that again." The Cavs would go on to lose two more games this year after blowing leads of 20 plus points and had the worst winning percentage of any team in the NBA when leading after three quarters.  My Cleveland teams, OUR Cleveland teams had already turned an 8 year old into Charlie Brown! He was already telling himself that they would change and things would get better.  He was in a relationship where he gave love and received only pain. I have done to him what my father had done to me.  I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was raising him right. I now know that one day, many years from now, he will sit and think how much he loves these teams and how much he hates me for helping him fall in love with such terrible partners. “AAUGH!!!”

 

 

 

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