football?


for all the attention that HACAM has paid to alabama's football season, you'd have thought the owners presidents had locked their paid-to-play scholarship athletes out, paving the way for fans to spend more quality time with their families, make up with long lost friends and find mission opportunities in our local and respective communities. those ideas, in an of themselves, are fairly ludicrous. in fact, college football has been played this fall.

as it has happened, i've actually watched most of alabama's games in their entirety. i left work early twice this year to make it home before the 2:30 cbs kick only to watch bama's potential dynasty fall at the hands of stephen freaking garcia and jordan "he's a quarterback now?" jefferson. as the season and the promise of back to back sec and national championships went down in flames courtesy of the two biggest underachievers at quarterback the sec has seen in 10 years, you can understand my lack of want to wax poetic about a team that, on the field, turned out not to be who i thought they were back when i put up this season's only college football preview that mattered. in that column, i feared the idea that auburn would come into today's game with more at stake. i cannot tell you how brutal the reality of that idea coming to fruition is for this alabama fan. not because i hate auburn, mind you, but because i wanted something incredibly special to bookend julio jones career in a way that, no matter the outcome now, cannot happen anymore.

julio jones has been the most prominent recurring character on this blog since it's inception, if you'll allow for the obvious exception of my girls. julio and his coming to alabama marked clearly the end of one era of alabama football and the beginning of something newer, something more polished, something more worthy of the resources my rooting interest of choice possesses. remember when tim tebow chose florida over alabama? of course you do. remember when julio chose alabama over everyone else? of course you do. the next year, trent richardson sealed julio's ("he a pretty big...") deal and chose alabama over florida, signaling not only the end of urban myer's overlord-ship of the sec, but it meant that things like sec championships and the like would now run through tuscaloosa for the foreseeable future. much to my dismay, this season, south carolina and lsu came through t-town, figuratively, and lived to tell the tale. they both navigated through alabama's still young secondary and made their seasons memorable at alabama's expense. it's been a hard pill to swallow.

harder still is that a win today over auburn doesn't mean much of anything for the tide. sure, it would end auburn's national championship hopes, but, for alabama, it's would only be a moral victory. the alabama in my head takes no joy in playing spoiler. it would continue into next season an impressive run of consecutive victories at home. yet, it would only feel fulfilling up until auburn and south carolina met next saturday for the right to carry the sec champion's banner for a year. in my eyes and my eyes only, i almost view the outcome for this alabama football team in today's iron bowl as lose, lose. if they lose to auburn, their state rivals continue a march towards their own dream season that proportionately and historically would mirror alabama's run last year. if they beat auburn, it only shines a brighter light onto the losses in columbia and baton rouge and makes the season's lost relevance seem more substantial.

for julio, if when he declares himself eligible for next spring's nfl draft, the impact will not feel nearly as significant as it should or would have if he could claim two sec and/or national championships on his resume'. instead, he will simply be remembered as the best receiver in the history of the school. that's it. the torch of his legend will quickly be passed to trent and his memory will start to fade. it makes me sad.

today, in the three and a half hours the game will be played, i will root, root, root for the home team, but, if they don't win, it won't be a shame, per se'. it will just be another loss to another good team with flaws that this group of alabama football players and coaches couldn't take advantage of this year. my world will not end.

if they win, though, i hope it's because julio treated the auburn secondary like he did tennessee's. i hope, by the end, he's established himself as the best, pound for pound, player on the field. i hope he can take this game by the horns from his totally dependant position and dominate.

the credibility of my predictions became null and void the moment alabama transformed stephen garcia into brett favre (the good one) and alshon jeffrey into terrell owens (the younger one), so there is no need to predictably fashion a scenario in which alabama wins this game.

i will say this, though. in the meta-narrative that has been the last three years of alabama football, i was right about julio.

and that makes me happy.

roll julio.

 

to be or not to be
(cam newton)


cameron newton.

cam newton.

scam newton.

cash newton.

i stand with cam.

if you are a fan of college football, the story is inescapable. annoyingly so. fascinatingly so. hilariously so. the emotion attached to your level of interest solely rests on if you are an auburn fanatic, an auburn fan, an alabama fan, an alabama fanatic, a college football fan with another rooting interest or a casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter. let's break the groups down.

auburn fanatic - cam newton is your child. just like any of your children, you absolutely will not allow yourself to believe or see that your quarterback is guilty of anything. ever. neither are his parents. or anyone that may have represented him. none of the scandal would have happened if not for a massive conspiracy perpetuated by a scorned school(s) and ambulance chasing media and people that wanted auburn to fail because everybody hates auburn except auburn fanatics. if you have judged cam newton guilty of anything other than being awesome, you have jumped to conclusions, you have not reserved judgement and you should be shot. you are not worth the human blood that streams through your veins. people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, GODDAMMIT, nevermind the fact that cam newton is charged with no criminal wrongdoing. to the auburn fanatic, this scandal proves to you what you've known all along. everybody is wrong. and you are right. about everything. to this group, cam newton is jesus christ. if i were cam newton, i would avoid this group at all costs.

auburn fan - this group has been the most compelling to follow over the last three weeks. the story broke. unbelief was shouted from the mountaintops and in chorus with the athletic director and head football coach at auburn university. the story was "garbage", "unfortunate" and "sad", up until the point there proved to be legs to the story. all of a sudden, it made less sense to argue that the new york times and espn and foxsports and every other media outlet that ran with this story were the journalistic equivalent of the national enquirer. (a good example of this shortsightedness happened last weekend before the auburn/georgia game. a story started to make waves that cecil newton had admitted soliciting mississippi st. for cash, but his son, family nor auburn ever knew of it. lesser outlets with lower standards, like tidesports.com ran the story. interestingly enough, espn and fox and the new york times did not. why? because the story only could credit one source. so think about that for a second. to break these kinds of stories, the larger outlets and their editors are rarely, if ever, going to throw caution and their reputations to the wind just to break a story about auburn university. not based on one source. they just aren't. and they didn't. so, now, what does that say about everything else they've reported thus far? i digress.) all of a sudden, the athletic director and the coach were told by someone to shut the fuck up and, for the last week or so, they have. auburn fan sees this as foreshadowing. they are processing the information, hoping that nothing is acted on before auburn can play their last three games, and they'll deal with any future consequences in the future, ever being able to play the "well, no one could stop us on the field. so, there!" card. their alma mater or rooting interest of choice may be punished, but this season will live with them forever, whether it is erased from technical history or not. cam newton should probably fear these people, too, because if, IF he turns out to be just as much a part of this story as his father, auburn fan will defend their school/rooting interest and they will turn on him faster than he threw that laptop out of his gainesville dorm room. burn.

alabama fan (the group i claim) - this group loves their school/rooting interest of choice passionately, just like any fan of any school/rooting interest does. they also know that a strong sec makes their team look even better, so they cheer for the other schools, even auburn. earlier in the season, when cam newton was an unknown quantity, alabama fan was every bit as mesmerized as the rest of the college football country. who was this guy? the more cam newton led auburn back from deficits to victory, the scarier the prospect of his ruining alabama's season became. then lsu ruined alabama's season. then the story became the scandal that wouldn't stop growing. then it became much more interesting to follow the scandal than it was to spend time worrying about alabama games that held no more national or conference significance. this group has been through this before. they know that the murkier the waters get, the clearer the picture becomes. this group knows what is going to end up happening, and they are starting to feel bad that the auburn equivalent of alabama's dream season of 2009/10 will be tainted forever. cam newton should only care enough about this group to want to further drive a nail into the coffin this season has become for alabama fan. one year removed from the bcs national championship, debate concerning cotton bowl vs. capital one bowl sounds as exciting as that one time i tried to watch dancing with the stars.

alabama fanatic - this group stirs birmingham talk radio's drink. they are every bit the conspiracy theorists that auburn fanatics are, only more practiced. to this group, the ncaa is always looking for a reason to come down on alabama. this group fears that the fbi's investigation into cam newton will only serve to uncover that one time that one booster paid julio's mom to take that one vacation to cabo. to this group, cam newton (or his father or an agent or a runner for an agent or it-doesn't-matter-else. it all breaks the same rule.) is not only guilty of soliciting money, but he used what money he eventually got from auburn to pay for prostitutes and throw them out of his dorm window, too. burn. auburn boosters totally paid for cam newton. they paid for cecil newton's church to be renovated. they've been paying players for years. and after they come off probation for the cam newton thing, they'll pay players again. alabama fanatics give human beings a bad name, but they do make auburn fanatics want to kill themselves. i know two wrongs do not make a right, but if we could let these two groups battle it out at legion field with spears, the world would be a better place. cam newton should pay minimal attention to this group unless a member of this group embedded themself into the auburn fanatic group and actually paid cam newton. to that person, he should probably say thanks.

a college football fan of another school - to a person, EVERY SINGLE football fan of another school is loving this. why? because every school is guilty of some ncaa violation. they just haven't been caught yet. for football fans of other schools, 2010 will go down as that year you didn't have to worry about anything other than football. boise fan can be obnoxious. tcu fan can be self-righteous. oregon fan can celebrate the idea of a national championship. and lsu fan can be satisfied that a team with the worst quarterback situation in the history of top ten college football teams will finish the season 12-1 and ranked in the top five. a quick aside...my favorite recruiting story is the one about eric dickerson from way back in 1979. he was a senior in high school and started driving a brand new trans-am that he told people his grandmother bought for him. later, it came out the trans-am was purchased by texas a&m.  eric dickerson ended up going to play football for smu. just brilliant. cecil or cam or albert means or reggie bush or name-that-athlete-that's-been-caught-scamming isn't the first to try and outfox the broken system that is the ncaa and they won't be the last. every single college football fan of another school should know this and be thankful the hammer is pointed elsewhere this year. cam newton should love this group, because they unconditionally love him.

casual sports fan that happens to watch a lot of sportscenter - cam newton should be terrified of this group, because they all want him to die. instead of talking about sports, espn has flooded their lives with this story of yet another entitled college athlete that broke some rule (or someone broke it on his behalf) and now they have to sit through two segments of joe fucking schad before the monday night crew starts to break down the chargers/broncos game. this group doesn't even like college football. they have no idea where auburn is and they have no idea what any of this has to do with them. if cam newton comes to their professional city, though, they will love him and throw their underwear at him because they've heard on espn that he is "just that good". casual sports fans are the best. especially of pro sports teams. they care nothing about the process that led this person to be on that team. they just care about winning. of course, they are part of the problem, too.

i've gone on record with no one and everyone in particular to say that i believe cam newton will eventually be ruled ineligible. i said that way before EXTREME DENIAL gave way to reasonable analysis. i said that because i live in the world of sports. and in the world of sports, this kind of time and attention is not paid to something that will lead to the cam newton allegations being proven entirely false. it just doesn't happen. you can hold that opinion against me i suppose or believe with your whole heart that the cam newton thing will be the exception to the rule. you may like to read or listen to npr or knit or stay up too fucking late so you can complain about being tired the next day or play videogames or spend too much time at church or whatever your vice is. mine is sports. it doesn't make me an expert. it just means that i am right this time. i'll probably be wrong the next time.

as far as cam newton goes, though, none of this matters. he is a gun for hire. he will leave auburn after one year like he left florida like he left blinn community college because auburn is a means to a professional end in professional football. he said as much back in gainesville. although illegal information has been leaked that suggests otherwise, his story is that he left florida because he didn't want to sit behind tebow. he wanted to play football. he served his "time" in community college last year so that he would be ready to take his talents to a school that wanted a physical freak of an athlete to play quarterback for their school for one year, two if he got hurt or accidentally chose a school that sucked at playing football and didn't do anything for his draft stock.

another tangent. that's the part of this "i stand with cam" thing that i will never understand. i get that auburn fan and especially auburn fanatic loves their school. i get that newton is primarily responsible for the success of this season and, because of that, you feel some indebtedness to his causes or concerns, but you don't. you were going to cheer for auburn every bit as madly and every bit as passionately if barrett trotter was leading your team of choice to a 8-4 season. success breeds contempt, though. contempt for common sense, common sense that has been traded for blind loyalty to a young man that has reportedly said both before his freshman year and before this year that he wanted to play football somewhere other than auburn. he loves auburn now, sure. he may come back and visit on the school's dime in the future to be celebrated and wave his hand to the crowd and laugh with bo jackson. he loves auburn now, because he ended up there. period. excellent. end tangent.

as far as cam newton goes, this story makes him instantly and infinitely more marketable. once he is drafted next spring, the theme of redemption and struggle will follow him for two to three years or until he has proven himself as a capable starting quarterback in the nfl, whichever happens first. his commercials, if he's lucky, will stress those themes and make him and his family even more money.

cam newton will be alright. currently, he is protected from the lion's share of this mess anyway. his school and his coaches encourage him and feed him enough of it like chum in the water to motivate his performance. his school and his coaches, his fans and fanatics will cheer wildly for him friday and then a week from saturday and then in some bowl game and then he'll move on to where he was going all along. to be a professional football player.

when i was a little younger, not a day passed that i didn't think about how i wished i was a professional athlete. when i was a little younger, like yesterday, i daydreamed about it. could you imagine, a year from now, being in cam newton's shoes? a millionaire professional quarterback in training. how great would that be? this season's scandal and the head end of his redemption story fully focused in the rearview mirror. he and his dad, sitting across from each other reminiscing about those tough times. "they tried to take you down, son. but they couldn't do it. not my boy." cam smiles back at him. "thanks, dad."

"when i was a little younger" wasn't that long ago.

to be or not to be cam newton.

i choose "to be".

500 posts of summer kevin
(a retrospective)
((hannah and caroline and me))
(((part forty-one)))


you've claimed to hate something, but for some reason you're drawn to it anyway. you've understood the logic, and yet you've hated it for the same logical reasons. you like to journal, or you did. but you don't anymore. you've had thoughts that ranged from the silly to sincere as to how people have journaled of and about you. you've been flattered. you've been mad. you've swore you'd get even. you've been proud that you didn't. and so here goes... -me, october of 2005

had you asked me on monday night, october 24, of 2005 if i thought the blog would have lasted over five years and five hundred posts, my honest answer would have had to be "no." i've never been known as someone that's stuck with something very long. aside from my family and, what, 3-5 long time friends, the only thing in my life that i've ever been able to throw myself completely into was church, specifically the seven year run when i served on the staffs of huffman united methodist or common ground.

i don't know that i would say that i am a flake in that regard. i've never been terrible at following through with commitments, per se, but to take on something like a blog, a hobby and time-killer in every sense of those words, and stick with it and the original vision through which it was created impresses me. it really does. i am proud of myself. it's a nice feeling.

as has been documented on this uniform resource locator(s) ad naseum, the genesis of this place was not complex. in the early and mid-2000's, social media was transitioning from niche to mainstream. every young person, seemingly, in my youth department had something called a livejournal or a myspace page that they would use to communicate either their angst or joy with their internet community. for the longest time, i was only an observer. the outlets, while frowned upon in general, were fascinating snapshots into the working minds of teenagers and college students that i held near and dear to my heart. they were conversations that our daily routines would never allow us to have one on one or in other more corporate settings. sure, sometimes they would lash out against parents or friends or others in their lives and, sure, some of it seemed to be done without regard for rational thought, but it didn't make any of the entries any less compelling.

at the time that hannahandme.blogspot.com was born, hannah was about to turn two. i could feel the beginning of the end of one era of my life happening and moving from being paid by a church to not being paid by a church felt like a seismic shift. sarah and i were growing busier by the second. the huntsville experiment would have been hard to make work without hannah in the mix. with a baby girl as part of the equation, it was nearly impossible. i started looking for and brainstorming my own not-so-private outlet. i've loved writing for a long time. i'd, at that point, built up enough passer-by experience with blogs and the like that i figured i could stumble my way through my own. wouldn't it be cool if i started writing things down so that somewhere deep into the future hannah (and now caroline) could be introduced to parts of her father that she may have never known? and so, it happened.

five years and five hundred posts later, HACAM (formerly known as HAM) is still running strong. not a day passes that i don't think about sitting down and writing something to my girls. unfortunately, not many days pass that afford me the disposable time to make that happen. my pace has slowed in the last couple of months, but i am hoping that the end of fall soccer means a little extra time to invest back into the blog. back into ongoing series like "to be or not to be" and "conversations with kathy" or ever-going series like "hannah and caroline and me".

to the handful of people that have been with me from the beginning and continue wasting their life by making this blog a part of your daily routine, i can't thank you enough. you know who you are. without your constant constructive, critical and supportive feedback, i would have probably hung this thing up the first time a united methodist pastor commented that he wanted to see me because of some jacked up opinion i shared "for all the world to see". "fear the community", anybody? :)

to the rubberneckers that have been handed a sheet of paper with my asinine reflections upon them and were forced to read them against your will because the department of homeland security demanded you to, i am sorry. and i agree with you. my existence threatens all of us, and i should be destroyed.

to those that i've hurt with my "potty mouth" or posts that obliterated some perception you had of me prior to your reading one out of the now 502 entries, that was not my intent. if i wanted to push your buttons, i'd kill one of your threads on facebook.

speaking of facebook, to those of you that have met us because i now shamelessly promote this place to 271 (and counting or subtracting...depending on who i pissed off yesterday) of my closest "friends", thanks for visiting. "pass some time" while your here. just don't expect anything that will add even one iota of depth to your life. remember, in the immortal words of the pearl and the jam, "this is not for you". pimp your blog on facebook, too. everyone is doing it, right? i'd love to read your thoughts.

to my brother, brian, that won't read something unless i text him asking him to, i love you. you are the third muse. every time i write something, i kinda hope you read it and wonder what you think. i wish i could see you.

to sarah, who got tired of me asking her "what did you think of the blog?" four and a half years ago, thank you for your support and i am sorry, more than anything, that people being little bitches about something i've written hurt you once, let alone the seventy-five other times.

and to hannah and caroline, well, here's a tip of the hat to the first 500. my labor of love has only cost me one kidney up to this point, and i do not blame that on you two. i love you both more than anything this world could ever offer me in return. i can't promise you that some slippery little misfit will never hurt you. but i can promise you i will call him a fucking douchebag on the internet when he does.

with love, daddy

because it's never too early for christmas advent


here's a sneak peek into what you'll be getting when the 2010 humc advent devotionals are handed out come, you know, advent. don't you worry, though. i know for a fact the others will be way better than this one.

forgive the capitalization.

--------------------------

Maybe one day soon

It will all come out
How you dream about each other sometimes
With the memory of
How you once gave up
But you made it through the troubled times -Fountains of Wayne

Living in and on our own “private Idaho” on the corner of Huffman and Gene Reed Roads, it’s easy to feel like HUMC is the only community of faith that has ever suffered or will ever suffer from the emotional and sophomore-ish ups and downs of life.

Surely, other congregations have mastered the calculus of interpersonal relationships while we’ve just discovered that we are behind the curve. “He said, she said” doesn’t exist at “the church across the street”. Otherwise, they would have empty spaces in their parking lot, too. The “University of Jesus” down the road never questions their leaders. They have their ducks in a row, and, therefore, have the capacity to build new buildings that will serve even more members of their community in new and fantastic and interactive ways. “That church that my friend goes to now” hugs and kisses each other all the time. Then, they go and hug homeless people and feed them and, then, they hold hands and sing “Kumbayah” and always go home happy. Right? Right?

Well, of course, none of the above three hypotheticals are totally accurate, but it’s easy to feel that way at Huffman United Methodist Church. The comforting thought is that Huffman United Methodist Church is no different from “the church across the street”, “the University of Jesus” or “that church that my friend goes to now”. If we don’t intentionally and often remember the connectedness that is a life lived in union with The Divine Spark, it’s easy to feel isolated and alone and discouraged, no matter where you hang your hat on Sunday morning.

If Advent means anything to me, it means a fresh and renewed understanding that I am not alone. It means that it is time again to renew the effort “to put on a new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness”. If not for myself, I effort for my family and my church family and those that I call “brother” and “sister” in Christ.

Feeling alone is a very human and flawed emotion. In Advent, in Christ, it is never “us vs. them” but a global connection that helps us work for a Greater Good.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:20-25