football

OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…

By Chris Carosa on January 26, 2021

I’m finally confused.

What day is it?

Maybe it was the Holidays. Maybe it was non-stop football. Whatever it was, my internal chronometer, once an adept timepiece, can’t tell whether Monday, or Thursday, Tuesday or Saturday, Wednesday or Friday.

And Sundays? Isn’t every day Sunday now?

Lest you think this represents a sudden onset of temporal disorder, bear in mind that, for a few years now, my question has been “What week is it?”

You see, when you write for publication, you write for a deadline. That deadline rarely is Continue Reading “OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged cicadia, cicadian cycle, circadian rhythm, football, internal clock, Lake-effect Snow, suprachiasmatic

Should Yale (and Other Elite Colleges) Require Students Take a Kobayashi Maru Test?

By Chris Carosa on December 3, 2019

When it comes to “The Game,” precedent has no say. The annual Yale-Harvard ritual evokes a rivalry that transcends the ages, as well as the win-loss record of the season’s previous games. So it was in 1979 when the heavily favored undefeated Yale Bulldogs fell to the Harvard Crimson in the season’s ultimate game by the score of 22-7.

Even the final score means nothing. In 1968, when Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to earn a tie, the Harvard Crimson headline read: “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29.”

This year, the 136^th edition of The Game was much anticipated. ESPN had it moved up an hour to a noon start since the Yale Bowl has no lights. Yale, with a record of 8-1, scoring an average of 37.4 points-per-game and fighting for the Ivy League title, was the odds-on favorite to defeat Harvard, losers of four straight. Was anyone surprised, then, that the first half ended with Harvard beating the Bulldogs by a solid 15-3 margin?

The halftime show changed everything.Continue Reading “Should Yale (and Other Elite Colleges) Require Students Take a Kobayashi Maru Test?”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Alumni Assembly Convocation, Buffalo Bills, Campusland, Doonesbury, ESPN, football, Harvard, Kabayashi Maru, M*A*S*H, Marv Levy, Peter Salovey, resilient, Scott Johnston, Star Trek, The Game, YAA, Yale, Yale Bowl

Why I’m Thankful for The Sandlot

By Chris Carosa on November 21, 2017

Take a step out into the fall air. There’s a faint rustle in the stillness. Falling leaves flutter to the Earth’s floor. Their slow decomposition releases an arousing aroma. It’s the smell of autumn. It’s the smell of coming things. It’s the smell of football.

There comes a time in the late school day afternoon, when the homework is finished, that the smell beckons. When this siren calls, the boys come out.

Or at least they used to. There was once an age, well before organized youth sports, when neighborhood boys would regularly convene. Together, they would decide the game, the boundaries, and the rules. Then they’d play. Sometimes deep into the darkness. The score never mattered. The camaraderie did.Continue Reading “Why I’m Thankful for The Sandlot”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Dortmund Circle, football, Thanksgiving

Playing Through the Pain

By Chris Carosa on June 6, 2017

Warning: Parents, doctors, and youth sports administrators may find the following quite disturbing.

It’s a classic “guy” thing. Playing through the pain. It’s also a throwback thing. It harkens to an era when (especially football) coaches would admonish you for dogging it on account of a presumed injury. These coaches themselves reflect an even earlier epoch, one where boot camp drill sergeants berated new recruits, pushing them up to and then beyond their physical limits.

We can’t do that anymore. We now live in a sissified society, constrained by both the very real fear of catastrophic liability claims and an unnatural craze that decries all things alpha male. There was once a time – from our Continue Reading “Playing Through the Pain”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Bunker Hill, Consussion Protocol, football, Founding Fathers, Greatest Generation, Hero, Holden Caufield, Iwo Jima, Mercury Seven, Vince Lombardi

The Annual Thanksgiving Mudbowl

By Chris Carosa on November 22, 2016

Bring an old weathered football up to your nose, close your eyes, and take a good whiff. Can you smell it? Do images of sweaty muddied gruff men, caked with sweat and blood, move in slow motion within your brain? Do your muscles tighten in pleasant anticipation at the thought of the gridiron? If so, then congratulations. You are part of a dying breed, a member of a secret society that long ago closed its doors to new applicants.

Well, not exactly. Those doors remain open today and they will forever stay open. It’s just that, in an era of prefabricated microwave cooking, no one wants to go through the Continue Reading “The Annual Thanksgiving Mudbowl”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Buffalo Bills, Dortmund Circle, football, Marv Levy, Thanksgiving

Soaring With The Eagle… and Beyond

By Chris Carosa on August 9, 2016

It snows a lot in the towns south of Buffalo. That’s why they call them the snow belts. So when a young dad wants to teach his two small sons the fundamentals of football, he only has one option: The finished basement of the raised ranch home he built for his family.

That young dad was my father, and those two young sons were the six and seven year-old version of my brother and me. There we were, in our bare feet (lest we slip on the linoleum tiles), running and defending simple pass patterns drawn by our father on the cold basement floor. We’d take turns. One series of plays I was the receiver and Kenny was the defender. The next series of plays Kenny was the receiver and I was the defender. We could barely catch the oversized ball, let alone comprehend the intricacies of basic square outs, buttons, and hooks.

Yet we persevered. Such was our enthusiasm to play the sport that no amount of failure could discourage us. More important, though, were those reassuring words I remember my Continue Reading “Soaring With The Eagle… and Beyond”

Posted in Boy Scouts, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Abbott Parkway, Be Prepared, Camp Cutler, Do Your Best, Eagle Scout, football, Kenny, merit badge, Plan Ahead, Sam Butera

Penalize Colorado! Ethics Begins on the Football Field

By Chris Carosa on October 20, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the October 18, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

Sure I wanted Notre Dame to score on that last second touchdown pass. Just like a lot of other people, I was disappointed when the receiver dropped the ball. Yet, something else occurred on that particular Saturday which upset me even more.

College football bashing seems to be a regular event among the more erudite columnists. Many people complain the big money business of NCAA football runs counter to the spirit of the educational university. Certainly, we can’t encourage putting bucks ahead of books. But a solid education must Continue Reading “Penalize Colorado! Ethics Begins on the Football Field”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged 1972 Olympic basketball, Bill McCartney, Colorado, education, ethics, Extracurricular Activities, fair play, football, honesty, NCAA, philosophy, Vince Lombardi

Double Sessions

By Chris Carosa on August 25, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the August 23, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

The early mornings of late August forebode the coming end of summer. A slight chill remains above the heavy wet grass until the sun gets high enough to melt the dew. Take a deep breath and you will notice the smell of the season has changed. The dry dustiness has been replaced by a soft gentle odor reminiscent of spring.

Late August mornings encourage us to Continue Reading “Double Sessions”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged football, Gates Chili, Growing Up

Some Silly Thoughts…

By Chris Carosa on April 14, 2011

[This Commentary originally appeared in the April 12, 1990 issue of The Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.]

Yes, I’ve lived in Western New York all my life, but the crazy April snowstorms we get still strike me as silly. “April showers bring May flowers.” I can’t recall any lyrics dealing with April snowstorms.

Once silliness infiltrates my mind, it doesn’t require a whole lot of effort for other absurdities to encroach upon the various unemployed synapses and neurons. For material, one merely needs to review current events… Continue Reading “Some Silly Thoughts…”

Posted in The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Al Michaels, baseball, Bob Costas, Brent Musberger, football, George H. W. Bush, Jim Henson, Mario Cuomo, Monday Night Football, New York State, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Time Magazine

The Greatest Game Ever… So Far!

By Chris Carosa on February 1, 2011

The game has come to define my life. You won’t find my name in any record books or even on many rosters, but the game flows through my very blood. Indeed, the fact I don’t appear within any organized log tells you most of the story. But this, this is a different story.

Gary Trudeau once said we have become a nation of play-by-play announcers. We see life as a narrated live action event. It therefore doesn’t help things that, among the many paths I’ve taken, includes that of actually serving as a play-by-play announcer. But, rather than dwelling on a “voice of God” describing the action, what stands out in my memory remains the visions of modest, yet self-satisfying, glory. Picture not the booming baritone of NFL Films, but the dramatic slow-motion dénouement of a Hollywood picture.

It’s the littlest things I remember: The enormous body floating silently above me that Continue Reading “The Greatest Game Ever… So Far!”

Posted in Memoir of a Real Life Tagged football, HFL, Peter