The Curious Case of Pam & Lou

…and who would have guessed it. Something I love brought me back to something I love. Football brought me back to writing. Sport reminded me of my purpose. Because someone I’m so used to seeing on the sideline won’t be there much longer.

It's messed up that Black folks age so badly... #YeaTHAT

But there is someone who will still be there. Lou Holtz. How. Old. Is. Lou? Forget his age. How old are his glasses? They got at least about 10 years on me. OMG! I am convinced that Lou was on College Gameday before I was born. And not that he just started around that time, but he had a pretty solid career by my birth. His hatin-on-the-Pac-12 butt is old enough to have children, who could have had children that could be the parents of the other people sitting alongside him. With years to spare. He was hating on the Pac 12 when the first named it Pac 10. 
#ImNotSaltyAboutIt #OkayASmidgeOfSaltiness #WhyWontHeAcceptThePac10-12Greatness?

And if the Lord allows that man another year of life, he’ll be hatin on College Gameday next football season. …and if the Lord allows Pam Oliver another year of life, she’ll be developing other sports stories on the #2 network, while some other woman is giving me the sideline injury report. Meh.

Pam Oliver revealed to us how she was wounded. I am humbled by her honesty and impressed by her resolve to be unapologetically human, despite the humiliation of it all. Wounded, though, being my way of internalizing this thing that did not happen to me directly. Wounded as in this thing that will impact me next year when I don’t see a woman I once believed I could be, talking to those beautiful men in uniform. #CallMeAntonioGates #ErinIsMarried #DontListenToHer #SheIsAGroupie #ImKindaAGroupieTooButILoveYou

The explanation is what’s worse. That’s what I’m having the most trouble with. going in a different direction, not a demotion, promotion (repurposing) to a new role…all of those things and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Now I do believe that there is a natural evolution to these types of things. I have been asked to perform tasks that I did not see the benefit in; tasks that eventually grew me. I have let go of positions and roles I thought were exactly what I wanted, until I experienced something new. So, this in and of itself is not a bad thing. Bad? No. Flawed? Yup.

I’ve got a consolation prize of though. A younger, paler version of what I thought I would be. *le sigh* …and Lou. He’ll be there still too. I know exactly how Harpo's new girlfriend felt #PreSlap. This here was our football sideline… *le sigh*

Do I feel wronged by it? Absolutely. As a Black woman who watches football from Thursday night to Monday night, I feel some kind of way about the game I came to love at such an early age changing on me without my permission. She has been on the sideline almost my entire football loving life…and doesn’t look like it! I hadn’t realized there had been damn near 20 years of me and Pam, until I had to realize there might only be 19 years of me and Pam. Nobody asked me how I felt about it. No one consulted me about viable options for Pam’s position #ICouldaBeenGreatYo. Nope. None of that.

I am not going to stop watching football. With all that’s happening with football, I might not have to stop watching it. The League may crumble under the pressure of lawsuits, bad behavior, terrible press conferences #WeKnowYouSawTheVideoHomey #YouAintGotToLieRoger and horrible PR… 
#TheyNeedOliviaPopeOnRetainer #IMeanSheIsFreeRightNow #TheSeasonHasntStartedBackYet #WhereAreMyWineGlasses

This does leave me with a lingering thought. The one that brought me back to my laptop as Sunday Night Football serenades me. Why is it that women have an age limit in football, and men don’t seem to have one? Men can be associated with the game forever. Retire, un-retire, retire again, play, coach, commentate, manage and own a team. Women can bring you the news, but once their football clock beings to tick they get repurposed to #2.

…and then there’s the numbers. Pam received this news at the end of her 19^th season behind the sideline microphone. So much of football is about numbers. Stats, records, yardage after the catch, tenure behind the line of scrimmage and points scored. Football analysts spend their time and abilities to manipulate numbers to give us this information in real time. You think they don’t know how many years Brett Farve played? Or times he retired? How many interceptions Deon Sanders got in his tenure? Or the number of them that could have been gifted by Tony Romo if Deon (or Leon Sandcastle) was in the league today? They know.

I believe in my heart of hearts, that when they made that trip to Atlanta to deliver the news to her, they knew she was on year 19. As a gesture of gratitude, or recognition for her contribution to the game, could they have not, in that conversation given her year 20? Why did she have to request it?

There was already the insult. The injury/the wound is her having to report it. #SheIsGoodAtWhatSheDoes #TheConsummateProfessional #andSheHellaClassy