Life As An NFL Scout...Sort Of

The other day, my buddy Bill and I were invited to a St. Louis Rams practice session. Seeking a return to the championship glory of former head coach Dick Vermeil’s “Greatest Show On Turf,” it is the start of another season under new head coach Jeff Fisher. Though only a passing Rams fan but a football fan in general – born to love the “Big Red,” raised on the Dallas Cowboys and eschewing both for my beloved Denver Broncos – it nonetheless was a thrill. While offense and defense ran mini-scrimmages – red-shirted quarterbacks scrambling from non-threatening yet pressing linemen, receivers practicing catches against pursing defensive backs – kickers did…whatever it is kickers do during practice. Typically, off by themselves in their own corner of the field. (Is he seriously just catching the ball and dropping it to the ground, making the slow motion pantomime of kicking??? And what’s the other one doing leaning against the goal post? Barres?)

As we sipped on free water and soda – there was no beer offered, despite a beer truck parked across the way – under the shade of exclusivity, I could not help but wonder...whose wife is she? Er, rather…is there perhaps another Bob Waterfield, Jack Youngblood or Marshall Faulk among the newest recruits? Or will they turn out another Terry Baker, Tony Banks or Lawrence Phillips? (Seriously though…with that body, those can’t all be her kids. Can they?)

Bill’s son, clearly deceived into believing we were going to an actual Rams game, became easily bored from the start. In time, though, he had made friends and started a pickup game of touch football. Some of them, preferring the tackle aspect of the game, not too keen on the touch part. With activity for the main event taking place across the field, we casually scouted the pickup game:

Bill’s son – Positives:  strong field vision, soft hands, opportune speed, aggressive on the ball; Negatives:  overly aggressive at times, sportsmanship needs improvement.
Little blonde girl – Positives:  nice field vision, good pursuit, runs well in a dress; Negatives:  gives up easy, fumbles under pressure.
Little blonde boy – Positives:  good pursuit; Negatives:  becomes bored, mom doesn’t allow him to play for long.
Taller little blonde boy – Positives:  good-natured, aggressive on the ball, demonstrates sportsmanship; Negatives:  overly confident in making team by wearing a “Snow #84” jersey.

Wait…Snow? As in former Los Angeles Rams wide-receiver and broadcaster Jack Snow? Bill and I conclude there is only one reason a little kid in the section in which we are seated would wear such a jersey – clearly, this is a relative, possibly a grandson or great-grandson. We discern that the table next to us is in fact the Snow family, or elements thereof. Quickly, Bill calls his son over, telling him to sit and rest until time to leave. No need for a lawsuit should there be too much aggression in the game of “touch” football, or at the very least banishment from the facilities.

Not much later as the practice session concluded, with players heading either to the locker room, media interviews or to sign autographs for fans, we gathered ourselves and headed to Hooters to scout the talent there…

Clearly, Team All-Americans

©2012 Steve Sagarra

Fear Itself, and Overwhelming Panic

Two former high school buddies and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises this past Sunday evening. I do not know how Doug and Tim felt entering the theater, there was no discussion of it, but there was a sense of vulnerable trepidation on my part. As we chatted and waited for the movie to begin, I took periodical note – as I often do wherever I am – of our surroundings. Like the iconic Batman, I prefer to observe whenever possible from on high and in the shadows, figuratively speaking, with everything laid before me rather than prone with my back turned and head on a swivel. It is an internal action/reaction mechanism, as one cannot know what has changed about their environment if one never notices its distinctiveness in the first place. I do this not out of paranoia, but just to have awareness that I feel a lot of people lack when in unfamiliar environs.

As the theater darkened and the movie began, my anxiety slightly increased. Not to the point of distraction, simply a disquieted elevated alert for any unusual activity. I watched the exit door, and people – including staff, who occasionally stood vigil checking the theater – leaving and re-entering the main one. After every action sequence, I found myself scanning the room. Why did I do this? Did I have a plan if, god forbid, a copycat murderous psychopath tried something similar to the events in Aurora, Colorado? I inventoried what we had on us for defense:  full sodas that could be thrown as distractions (probably futilely, and less usable as the movie progressed), belts that could be used as whips (granting being within range, and as long as our shorts did not fall down) and sets of keys that could slightly impale (if flesh wounds counted for anything). Handling these items with precision as we immediately sprang into action – coupled by decades of knowledge on each other’s judgments and reactions, mostly from adolescent nocturnal activities involving toilet paper and bottle rockets – we would not be victims.

At least, that is what I told myself as we sat and watched the movie.

Truth is you never know what you would do in a situation until it is upon you. I am certain similar thoughts as mine entered the minds of patrons in attendance at the Century Theatre in Aurora once the chaos erupted. Stories of survivors echo this belief, with several members of the audience heroically acting without hesitation to screen and protect others – some being strangers – at the cost of their own lives. Batman comics and Christopher Nolan’s trilogy, particularly in The Dark Knight Rises, epitomize the difficulty, but not impossibility, in fighting back when the wicked and depraved who seek to do harm, without a care for the law, are the only ones with the arsenal or a plan. As Alfred told Bruce, some people just want to see the world burn. Violence may beget violence, but only if there are no means – or no one – to counter such evil to its ultimate demise. You have to try in the face of the odds, or the fear can overwhelm in a panic.

That is why it was important to be at the theater, so that a murderous psychopath did not win in disrupting our daily lives. More so that the innocent lives taken and forever scarred in tragedy are remembered.

©2012 Steve Sagarra

Spirit of 1776, or 1917?

Recently, I was able to purchase a brand new radiator for my vehicle from an online retailer at an extremely discounted price over that of a “brick-and-mortar” auto parts store. All thanks to the competitive nature of capitalism, which favors consumers more often than not by organically self-regulating prices. According to President Obama, though, I should thank the government – because “if you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Is that what he truly believes?

Nobody Else Made It Happen, Mr. President, by Rob Miller (American Thinker)

From this one statement, the president has shown his true socio-economic philosophy – and it is a socialist-leaning one. In his worldview, it was not the individual drive and entrepreneurial spirit of, by and for the people that crafted American exceptionalism; it was, and is, the government. Every business owner – from large corporations to small “mom-and-pop” shops (if they still exist) – should find concern in the economic policies of an administration that portrays itself as the purveyor of economic success. And yet, takes no responsibility for the failed ventures.

Was it not thirteen colonies composed of self-made men – from the daily laborers operating as blacksmiths and cobblers to the autonomous farmers and industrialists – who built the United States after breaking from a government that wished to control and regulate their commerce? Even in the last century, the Apollo Moon landings, though spearheaded by President Kennedy’s call to action, are still a prime example of private enterprise accomplishing great achievements that could not have occurred without the men and women who had the drive and spirit to make it happen.

“The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks...if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.”

-Samuel Adams

When government believes itself king over the investment in ideas and innovation, it is time to hide the money under the mattress – because the politicians are coming for it. Not in the spirit of 1776, but in the spirit of 1917.

©2012 Steve Sagarra