Having already spent one column pondering the vast amount of milestones achieved by local high school sports teams in 2010, now it’s time to ponder the larger sports picture in this wild, tumultuous year.
And here is what remains true. Despite the dollars, the scandals, the quasi-scandals and “The Decision”, sports still is able to get us and, like Michael Corleone, pull us back in when we think we are out.
Take the NFC Championship game, Vikings vs. Saints. Never, it seems, had a conference title game carried so much emotion. Admit it – you were willing New Orleans across the line, just like those screaming masses in the Superdome.
And when Garrett Hartley’s kick went through the uprights, the release was immense, the tears across the Bayou copious. True, the Super Bowl summit was scaled two weeks later, but for a long-lost franchise and a once-submerged city, this night was true catharsis.
Move on to the Olympic gold-medal ice hockey game, Team USA vs. Team Canada in Vancouver. Yeah, it would have meant a lot for the Yanks to win, but for Canada this was about national identity, and the fear among our northern neighbors when the Americans tied it in the last minute of regulation was immeasurable. Just as the joy that was released when Sidney Crosby slid the puck past Ryan Miller in overtime.
March brought the NCAA Tournament, and no sports event this year, from beginning to end, was as good. Novels don’t carry this many plot twists, from Northern Iowa shocking Kansas to the full amount of last-second finishes, in every round, to the ill-timed injuries that doomed so many, Syracuse included. All of it leading to a crashing climax in Indianapolis, hometown Butler trying to shock Duke, and Gordon Hayward’s last heave…so, so close to immortality.
SU aside, the most fun we had around here came in the spring – especially May, when Stephen Strasburg came to the Chiefs and sold out Alliance Bank Stadium for his AAA debut. The control, the speed, the filthy curve, the K’s that piled up – and he even drove in a run with a single. We sure hope that arm heals fast after Tommy John surgery.
Many, when looking back at the World Cup in South Africa, will fixate on the American drama just to reach the knockout round, or their annoyance with the vuvuzelas, or Spain erasing a history full of underachievement.
But I’ll always go back to that quarterfinal, when Ghana played Uruguay. All of Africa stood behind the Black Stars as they pushed at the end of overtime, forcing that handball in front of the net and that penalty kick to win.
Asamoah Gyan had a chance to put an African team in the semis for the first time, and he crushed it – off the crossbar. The heartache he felt could be felt across a continent, and beyond.
Back in this land, two instances of unrequited love finally came to an end. There was Chicago’s Blackhawks claiming the Stanley Cup 49 years after it last won it all. Hockey fans in the Windy City had to endure near-misses, long periods of ineptitude and horrible ownership before a new regime, and young stars like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, brought redemption.
Four months later, it was the baseball Giants’ turn. They had never won a World Series since moving to San Francisco in 1958, and only made the playoffs on the last day of the season, a relative afterthought amid the big-money powers.
But with a beguiling group of leftovers, outcasts and odd-looking stars (long hair, beards, that sort of thing), the Giants stunned the Phillies, shut down the Rangers and became the ideal representative of a city that prides itself on flouting conventions.
Yet another moment of pure drama sticks out – namely, the last match of the Ryder Cup. It all came down to Graeme McDowell against Hunter Mahan, with pressure none of us can fathom -even McDowell, who had won the U.S. Open. But Graeme sank that 15-foot putt on 16, and one hole later the Cup was in European hands.
It figured, in a year with enough scandal and controversy to engulf the events on the field, that figures representing both extremes provided the last definitive marks on 2010.
There was Cam Newton, the scandal-plagued quarterback at Auburn, leading the Tigers from 24-0 down to beat bitter rival Alabama. And there was Mike Vick, just a year removed from prison shackles, rallying the Philadephia Eagles from 21 points down in the fourth quarter to stun the Giants and secure NFC East honors.
Newton and his War Eagle mates have a date with Oregon Jan. 10, 2011, just as Vick leads the Eagles into the playoffs exactly 50 years after that franchise won its last league championship. Not a bad place to start another year full of complicated memories.
