"moving forward and letting go"


that was going to be the theme for 2011. at least, so i said way back in january. i am not really sure how that all worked out, but, maybe by the end of this post, i'll have a better idea.

was i everything i wanted to be this year? was i the best father i could be? was i the best lay leader? was i the best boss? probably "no" on all counts, but maybe i'll give myself an "a" for effort. maybe you won't.

let the grading of the resolutions begin. for full context and an all expenses paid trip back to HACAJAM, circa january, click here.

1) don't die - done, unless something really crazy happens in the next three hours. happenstances in and around our family have me less interested in joking about death tonight, so i won't. i am thankful that i am alive. i am thankful that i have my family and friends around me. i am sad for my wife and her family that is dealing with something incredibly hard and painful and fucking horrible right now. lamar wade, a gentle soul that was never anything but nice to me. we talked about church, religion, his children, his children's children and my children over many thanksgiving and easter lunches. my life is more wise and more grounded for the very few opportunities i had to be around him. godspeed into what is waiting for you, lamar. we'll see you soon.

...

don't die? check. thank god. i am still not ready to leave this place. not for a long time i hope.

2) see fewer doctors - check. "moving forward and letting go". every time i go to the bathroom, i still wonder if i'll pee blood again. every time something on the left side of my back tweaks or twinges, i wonder if it's alerting me to something dreadfully wrong. this year, though, in contrast to 2010, i didn't go see a specialist every time something scared me. i swallowed the fear, looked at myself in the figurative mirror, and told kevin michael o'kelley to get busy living. some days, it worked better than others. some days, it didn't really work. but i did see fewer doctors. i saw my urologist once way back in january. i saw my primary care doctor twice. dermatologist once. that's it. well, that's it unless you count my two very recent visits to my new chiropractor. that has less to do with fear than it does with my hope to be able to continue running for a long, long time. two for two.

3) don't get fat - back in february at the first visit with my pcp, i weighed in at either 188 or 191. i couldn't really tell, but it didn't really matter. either number would be the heaviest i had ever been and that number accompanied with the doctor's nurse saying, "it looks like you had some extra cake over the holidays", was all it took. i got in the car, called sarah and told her that the nurse called me fat, and i vowed things would change. my running had started. i then decided that i would no longer eat, too. well, i ate, but i drastically changed my habits. i swore off of fast food. i ate one to two very small meals a day. and i ran. and ran. and ran. and ran. the weight dropped off. i saw results, so i kept not eating. and running. by the time i went back to the doctor, i had dropped thirty pounds and was as lean and in shape as i had ever been in my life. it wasn't the healthiest diet or way to go i don't guess, but i've found a good place now. aside from the aches and pains associated with the running, i feel great. i raised my good cholesterol and lowered my bad. don't get fat? i guess i was kind of fat at the beginning of 2011. tonight? not so much.

4) run - yeah, i did that. what started in the dead of winter as a random ass idea grew into something quite serious. i couldn't run a mile without stopping for the first month. now, i can run six miles and have something left in the tank. what a crazy, crazy transformation. i am very proud of myself with this one, maybe more proud than most resolutions i've documented on this blog. a lot of people claim to run. not many people are runners. i am runner now. son. of a. bitch.

5) find kiker and andy again - hmm...mixed results on this one. i got to see both this year. kiker and i will play softball i would guess until our bodies no longer let us do that together. i was able to help andy out through a tough spot and we worked together for a couple months. there was more to this resolution when i made it than those things, though. what i missed in january and what i miss now is feeling close and connected to my two closest guy friends in ways that don't only involve softball or facebook. when we get together, the chemistry that we've always had makes it easier to feel like it hasn't been months since we last saw each other. but still, months continue to pass without us seeing each other, and i haven't been able to fix it. i still want to, but this is my first miss. here's to better results next year.

6) buy some freaking music - fail. fail. FAIL. i bought some music, but when i made this resolution, i meant buy music like i used to buy music. one or two records a month. find new artists. turn andy or amy onto those new artists. rinse. repeat. i just didn't. i bought several that i really liked. kanye and jay-z. the wonder years. childish gambino. but i don't think i bought more than ten all year. and that's just sad. it's also a miss.

7) see julio play in a football game - wrought out of the pain of losing julio to the pros, in january, most mock drafts had julio headed to st. louis, cleveland, or cincinatti. all i wanted was to think that once we knew what team he'd play for, we could schedule one road trip to tennessee or atlanta if he came through one of those cities and see him play pro ball during his rookie season. the rest, of course, is already documented. draft night came. the falcons traded up. they picked julio. we got season tickets that night. julio missed two games we attended and parts of two others due to injury, but this one, we covered. see julio play in a football game? after tomorrow, we'll have seen six.

8) help move limbo into its next phase - "the goal is for limbo to stay fresh and exciting and kinetic in a way that will motivate our established base to include even more of our friends and family as we move towards a productive calendar year." 

i don't know if i am the best judge for this one. then again, of course i am. it's hard because i don't know if this one was a success. if we measured our success on the attendance of our christmas party, then limbo is healthy and relevant and vital to more people this year than it was last year. i am worried that our routine on sundays and throughout the rest of the year may be becoming stale. stale is probably the wrong word. predictable, maybe? not exciting? i don't know. i still very much look forward to limbo every week. i get more, spiritually, out of those conversations than i do with any other part of my week. i just would like to think limbo would move along fine without me, even if i don't really want to move along without it. i am not sure if we are there yet. but i do think we are close. i am rating this one a push. 

9) don't be a lame duck lay leader - fail. fail. FAIL. i knew entering 2011 that i would have no interest in continuing in the role of lay leader past my third year. what i didn't see until it was too late was that i didn't have a whole lot of interest in continuing in the role. period. at least, not every part of the role. i enjoyed being a voice in the room of conversations that looked ahead into the future of humc. i didn't enjoy feeling hamstrung by the same cycle of reluctance to change that we faced in the beginning of 2009. by the time the second half of this year rolled around, i didn't think i was the right person for the job. i didn't hear anyone tell me otherwise, and so, i am moving on. early on during next month, i'll take a closer look at the job we did in the last three years, but if my goal was to not be a lame duck lay leader in 2011, it was a goal i did not achieve. i truly appreciate the opportunity that was given to me by 19 voters in the fall of 2008. i will continue to be a voice for change and rethinking church here and around the campus. i will be honored to continue to serve on sprc. third miss of the year. 

10) get a dog - funny that i ended this year's list with "get a dog". i think this one had more to do with the hope that we moved into a bigger house. and that was before we added a third baby girl to our already crowded abode. i did like the thought of having a man's best friend again. now? not so much. not that i don't like the idea of our girls having a dog to pal around with in our future back yard. first, though, we've got to get that new back yard. fourth miss. 

so, the final tally? five for. four against. one undecided. not bad. not great. all in all, i'll take it. 

2011 will go down, ultimately, as the year we found june. and that is a wonderful thing. 

"moving forward and letting go". 

i am not sure that any one thing is more complimentary of that idea than introducing a new human being to this world. the operative word feels to be "moving". i am not past my fears. and i am not complacent enough to be one of those people that says life moves by too fast. i am somewhere in between. learning to be a father of three. a better husband. a better friend. a better boss. 

moving forward. letting go. 

just keep swimming. 

girl, you'll be a woman soon


i haven't written about hannah, specifically, in ages.

it's not that she's any less special than she was in the early years of this blog. it's not that she's become boring. it's not that she hasn't done anything worth writing about. to be honest, for a while now, she just been the least volatile of the on-goings in the world of the o'kelleys. for that, truly, she probably deserves some sort of medal.

since hannah started the second grade back in august, though, times, they are a changin'. the age that she and her classmates currently occupy is a weird-ass age. 7-8 year-olds are still incredibly impressionable. any time she comes home from school, church, or the henson's house, or time with amy and katie, she's picked up some new mannerism or tone or inflection that i know she didn't pick up from me or her mommy. sometimes, the newness is cute and becoming. most of the time, it's kind of cringe-worthy, mainly because you can tell most of the act is a mimic. a subconscious and innocent mimic, but behaviors she's witnessed and is trying on for size. whether it's snapping her neck, rolling her eyes, drawing out her syllables, or constantly exclaiming that something is "amazing", there's a part of me that wants to shake her and say, "hannah, you are better than this."

i don't shake her. she isn't better than "this", because "this" is relative. we are all sponges. no matter the age. hell, if i read a killer column by bill simmons or bethlehem shoals or tommy craggs or will leitch or whomever in the world of sports, there's a great chance, intended or not, that i'll rip some element of their style off the next time i sit down to write about sports, myself.

my eight year-old is no different. it's just the imitation is ratcheted up to the 100th degree. hannah hasn't had a chance to develop a niche or personality or creation of her own just yet. i suppose you could play the "there is nothing new under the sun" card and argue that all of us are nothing more than snapshots and memories and left-behinds of those in our circle of influence that have come before us. as a cynic's cynics, i get that take. i just don't buy it now that i am a father of three.

as hannah and caroline have grown from infancy to toddlerhood to the level of kid that hannah is at now, each step of the way, a parent can witness someone truly and genuinely unique in their eyes, the way they watch the world, the way they smile, the kindness that is born in them and into all of their early interactions, among hundreds of other things that are just...them.

then the world takes over. their parents and their parents' friends and their family and their daycare teachers and their sunday school teachers and their friends and their friends' families start to socialize and condition all the snowflake right out of them. the older they get, the more their looks remind you of the people they spend the most time around, the people they look up to, the people they see on television, the people they begin to think are cool versus those that aren't.

"hannah, why are you making that face?"

"what face?"

"that face. that face that i saw half your class making when i went with you to desoto caverns. that face.

"oh, i don't know. i guess i like that face."

"stop making that face, please."

"no, daddy. nothing is wrong with that face."

"hannah, that face is a mean face. it makes people think you don't like them."

"no, it doesn't, daddy. it's just a face. don't get so uptight."

"uptight. what the fu..? do you even know what uptight means?"

"sure, daddy, uptight means...uptight. you know what uptight means."

"i do know what uptight means, hannah. i need you to stop making that face just because your friend makes that face."

"fine, fine, daddy. i won't make that face."

...

"hannah! you just made the face again."

hannah makes all kinds of faces. she's a fucking smartass all the time, likely because i or the kids in her class or the older kids she hangs around with are smartasses all the time. i can't really fault her for it. she gets it honestly.

"ugh, daddy! leave me alone."

how many times will i hear that over the next ten years? 100? 1000? more than that?

it's not that she's a woman yet. it's just that i see now she's going to be.

we kidded around with each other christmas day about how old she felt. she put on this koala hat that she's wearing right now. the looks she made felt older. the things that were coming out of her mouth felt older. the way she took control of us going to get chinese take-out after her birthday party felt like i was being bossed around by the older sister that i never had.

it's something that i'll be tracking closely in 2012. there will be more hannah specific posts. and caroline specific posts. and june specific posts. as i get out and away from the church a little bit, i hope that i'll have more time to document them instead of the bullshit around them.

when i look back on my childhood, i have more vivid memories from my third grade year than any other in elementary school. i feel like this is going to be a big year for her. for all of us.

as we make intentional efforts to move out and up into a bigger house early next year, it may mean hannah changing schools and putting all of her learned behaviors to a test she hasn't really studied for. if that ends up being the case, i hope that i'll have my finger on her pulse in some ways i may have missed over the last 12 to 24 to 36 months.

happy birthday, first baby girl. here's to the next 8 years.

don't hate me.

turn a (catch)phrase


SCRIPTURE RIP ALERT: "and when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that i'll be there." matthew 18:20, the message

about a month ago, i riffed on worship as seen through my own eyes just having witnessed the facebook thread that would never end dealing with the same subject matter. i won't rehash the entire conversation here, but just so you don't have to waste your time clicking on the above link, the short version goes like this. i wondered out loud to my facebook nation, "why didn't i miss worship?", even though i had been out and away from the sanctuary for a number of consecutive weeks. people answered the question for me. people told me they missed me. people got a little offended that i had let myself miss as many weeks as i had. people also got offended at the implication that there wasn't a whole lot there to miss. people defended worship. people defended their own methods of worship. and people finally let the conversation die without us ever coming up with an answer to the original question, "why don't i miss worship?"

not that i was really looking for an answer. i was just looking for a conversation.

the fact of the matter is i already knew the answer. i didn't miss worship because i didn't look forward to it in the first place. i haven't in a long while. that's not to say that i don't look forward to seeing the people of huffman or being in a place that calls to mind memories laid before me by the ghost of christmas past. that's not to say that i don't enjoy seeing my daughters sing in front of their church. that's not to say that i don't enjoy how much caroline looks forward to seeing ms. charlotte and ms. kay and ms. jane. i do enjoy all of those things. it's just that most of them, if not all, don't really have anything to do with how i worship.

saturday night at "christmas in limbo", i worshiped.

what's interesting about that particular evening and most every gathering of limbo is our "worship" order is always quite "traditional", at least for us. there was/is food. there was/is fellowship. on saturday night, there was also catchphrase.

that's it. that's the list.

no message. no offering (unless you count the food). no message boomed or spoken softly (or joked around/about then boomed and/or spoken softly) at the congregation from a pulpit that is designed with visibility/superiority/expertise (your choice) in mind.


"when two or three twenty-six are gathered together because of me, you can be sure i'll be there."

less than five points into our first of three (the third being a classic) games, someone uttered "fuck." in frustration, quickly alerting those new to the "fold" that this wasn't your grandfather's catchphrase. this was more than a game. it was going to be an experience. a journey. a path to enlightenment.

just like always.

the more thought i have given to the idea of corporate worship over the last several weeks, the more convinced i am of the one thing any corporate worship gathering should be. an experience. if the service, on the whole, does not leave you feeling like you've been witness to something that you couldn't have gotten anywhere else, what's the point?

how we read "experience" is every bit as personal and unique as how we might feel "experience". to each and every one of us, those that choose to collect in a house of faith, we will enter that house with certain expectations and we will leave that house with those expectations exceeded, met, or left wanting.

when i have entered humc's sanctuary for the last however many years, i haven't been left wanting. i expect exactly what tends to be produced. the normal order of worship. a different collection of hymns each week. a new-ish anthem. a message. a benediction. a communion once every four weeks. i don't expect to be wowed. i don't expect miracles. i expect a gathering that feels like we are going through the motions more often than not, and those expectations are not often disappointed. not that there is anything wrong with that. as was noted in the november 15th post, for some, there is something very right with that.

so, what was it about saturday's game of catchphrase that was different then?

well, it's hard to put an exact finger on it, but i'll try.


as proven by the early exclamation of "fuck.", their was an immediate air of honesty in the room. novel, right? by saying that one dirty word, it was announced to the circle of humans playing that you could feel free to be yourself. you didn't have to dress up. you didn't have to put away your blue language that you may or may not use in every other walk of life. you didn't have to pretend to be something you were not. you just had to...be. whatever that meant for each and every person in the room was as different as you and i, but it also defined a certain solidarity that couldn't have been identified through a praise chorus or a scripture reading.

there was something else going on outside of the genuine airing of grievances, though. it was more than that. it was also that those in the room had gathered not out of obligation but out of intentionality. anyone that has been to a live sporting event to root on the home team knows the feeling that i am talking about. chances are you will have never met that guy in front of you with the retro jersey on before the game, nor the woman behind you with her face painted, nor that dude beside you that is way too big to have only paid for one seat. if the home team does something extraordinary, though, you are bound, almost by an understood contract, to go apeshit with them by sharing in high-fives and bear hugs that last just a beat too long. the same could be said for the limbo gathering. even split into two different teams, our reason for gathering together that night was similar. there was something about that group or someone in that group that we wanted to be around. every one of us shared that same concern.

did we take time out from the game for a group prayer? a devotional? to whisper our innermost thoughts into a confessional camera in the butler's pantry? no, we didn't, but we are totally doing the confessional camera next year.

no, we didn't do any of that, but we showed up in one place together saturday night because almost 100 weeks ago, a small group was established with one of founding tenets being "church can't really suck this hard, right?" (in so many words)

now, do i believe that limbo is the most special-ist place on earth and we can't begin to hope to find that atmosphere in other places within a community of faith? no, of course not. as a matter of fact, a degree of it will also be present at the weeds gathering tomorrow night. common threads? honesty? a belief that a gathering of "church folk" doesn't have to be all "churched" up, and a want to be there. i don't think it's a coincidence that tomorrow, a meeting away from the church grounds, will likely be one of the highlights of the weeds' year.

so, what does saturday night and all of this mean to your current perspective on worship?

it's a good question. i think it means that all is not lost for the general idea of corporate worship. but i also think it means that it is beyond time to reexamine what worship really is, why we do it, and what we want to get out of it moving into the next generation of huffman united methodist church. it doesn't mean confrontation must happen. it only means honesty does.

in this story, tradition is not the bad guy. tradition has brought us here and asked us to evolve. if we do not, tradition will be our legacy and our future will be written by the next congregation that buys our campus.

that seems like a sad way to go out.

limbo is not the answer for everyone, i am sure of it, but i'd like to believe it and groups like it could provide a blueprint, or a talking point at the very least, for a new way of doing "church".

in the meantime, thank You for saturday night.

amen.

confessions of an alabama football "fan"


let's get this out of the way first.

before you think it or feel compelled to throw the term at me as a pejorative, i am beating you to the punch. as i have mentioned here and in other posts here on HACAJAM, i am fairweather fan. in every sense of the word, i am fairweather. even with the teams that i love and live and die with the most (alabama football, atlanta braves, atlanta falcons, alabama basketball...in that order), if they suck and don't show much potential for improvement, dude, i am off that boat.

it's not that i'll only root for a winner. i love a good underdog story, and, shoot, nothing stirs my drink in a more bonds-ian way than when one of my teams is being given points. no, it's not that i'll only root for a winner, but i will only root for a team that is intentional about wanting to win. and by "win" i mean compete for the highest of titles in their respective leagues/conferences. for example, vanderbilt may say that they want to win, but they don't really mean "win" by my definition. the lack or resources afforded to vanderbilt football do not set their bar of accomplishment at "sec champs". to "win" at vanderbilt means to hopefully beat tennessee once every ten years and maybe go .500 in-conference. unless you are a vanderbilt alum or a masochist, i haven't the slightest clue how someone could be interested in that program.

the same can be said for many, many professional teams as well. in major league baseball, in spite of how much i love my friend, philip gibson, his pirates will never actually compete for a world series title, not when three other teams in THEIR OWN DIVISION are willing to outspend them. the same goes for the astros, a's, royals and a handful more of other teams. through no fault of their own, the championship bar in baseball has been determined by the "have's". exceptions to the rule like the a's of ten years ago or the rays of the last three years only prove the rule. they are cinderellas only because the stars are or were aligned in just the right way for them to compete, talent-wise, with the "have's" over the course of a 162 game season. their deficiencies are then ultimately exposed in a best of 5 or 7 game series, the nation nods in approval of those mighty "mights" and their achievements, and then we move on to celebrate a world series champion with a 85-200 million dollar payroll.

(see also: 2/3 of the nba, 85-90 percent of "big-time" college football)

for me, myself, and i, these odds against winning it all would be too great for me to waste my time with.

for me, the value of my sports fandom can be measured in these ways:

1) can my team potentially and legitimately win their league/conference this year or in the next three seasons?

2) if not this year, is there work happening in recruiting, free agency, or a farm system that leads me to believe the "three year plan" is potentially and legitimately realistic?

3) is there a superstar that i can own and attach my man-fan-wagon to in a way that will interest me and engage me on the field and off even if my team of rooting interest is struggling to find consistent success?

that's it. that's pretty much the list. for me to be a card carrying member of any team during any given season, only one of these three criteria must be met.

i'm still relatively young. i have a little disposable income. pay free agent lebron james to come to miami? i'll be a heats fan and buy a t-shirt. sign ichiro to an otherwise irrelevant seattle franchise ten years ago??? i'll buy the bobblehead and look along interested from birmingham, al. draft alabama wunderkind wide receiver, julio jones, to play only two hours away from me? i'll convince my wife and friends that we should get falcons season tickets.

there are many, many more examples of such impulse in my sporting fandom i am sure, if i sat down and thought about it long and hard enough.

...

and then, of course, there are exceptions to my own rules.

as much as i love my alabama football team, as much as i love knowing about them and following them and talking about them, this year has been a struggle for me, even though they easily cover all three of my fairweather fan qualifiers.

i call it my julio jones hangover.

way back during his junior year in high school, julio hooked me in as being interesting. as a junior at foley high, he was already considered the best wide receiver prospect the state of alabama had ever produced and he was already considered a university of alabama lean. over many a dreamland lunch, andy, kiker and i swooned at the idea of bama having a dominating presence at wide receiver. through its rich tradition and history, it's the one thing (outside of the heisman) the school had really lacked. not that alabama has ever been considered a passing school, but, then again, maybe they could be.

yada, yada, yada, julio came. as i documented for over three years, his impact was almost immeasurably positive. alabama did not become a passing school, but julio's skill-set opened running lanes for mark ingram and trent richardson in a way that eventually proved the school to be heisman worthy. julio left last year as the most accomplished wideout in the history of the school, won a national title, and was drafted sixth by the falcons in the 2011 nfl draft.

when julio left the capstone, though, it left a julio-sized hole in my heart. it left me scrambling for a supernova of a super freshman to hitch my man-fan-wagon to. if i couldn't find that freshmen, the season, no matter how highly thought of the team as a whole would be, would feel less exciting. and so, i attached my love to dee hart, a rich man's version of lsu's former waterbug, trindon holliday. i attached my love to dee and then...??? shit. dee tore up his knee before fall practice even officially started.

dammit.

i kind of went into an alabama football daze after hart went down. i loved trent, of course. and hightower. and my little terrorhawk, mark barron. but i didn't love them like that, you know? not like julio. not like i wanted to love dee.

and so the season started.

one of the crappy things about following alabama football in the new, golden age of saban ball is that once the season begins, there are really only four-five games on the twelve game schedule that alabama can legitimately lose. alabama has become so efficient, such a juggernaut, that a loss to someone outside of lsu or arkansas would have required a state of emergency being declared. their sheer depth of talent and skill and resources and coaching render most opponents moot before the game even begins. and while that process proves entirely fascinating during the offseason and can make the football team a 365 day a year show worth watching, once the games kick off, the result is hardly in question. it's one thing i have found completely fresh and wonderful about the falcons this year. in the nfl, the falcons can absolutely and potentially lose every game they start (as can the packers for that matter, which makes what they are doing so special). you can live and die with the product on the field. the same can't be said for alabama football. you can tell yourself that auburn or tennessee or penn state or florida had a chance to win, but some honesty and forethought might tell you otherwise. i digress.

and so the season started.

alabama blows through their first 8 opponents. they average just over 39 points. the average margin of victory is just over 32. the closest any one opponent gets is 16. they use the pre-julio alabama formula for success in all eight games. run the ball. run the ball some more. play action here. one deep throw a game there. overwhelm the other team with a suffocating defense. impose will. win game. rinse. repeat. to some alabama fans, this was immensely exciting. this was the product of all of the recruiting and the money and the saban and the history and the tradition and the best of the best that alabama football has to offer a player or a fan manifested as unstoppable force/indestructible object.

to me, i'll be honest. it was boring. what i wanted was more creativity in the offense. take some chances. fling it around a little. be more aesthetically pleasing. wear a black jersey. just do something, anything, a little different from what every alabama fan knows and loves.

i caught flak for saying as much on facebook, pining for the excitement that came with being a fan of an auburn team that's just barely good enough to beat utah state, because at least the utah state game made you feel something. wishing i could somehow claim oregon and their flavor of the week uniforms and their zippity-fast athletes flying all over the place. long tenured bama fans scolded, "go, dammit. go be an auburn fan!" "are you kidding? you should LOVE this type of smash mouth football!" "this. is. alabama football, you heathen!" "sounds fairweather to me." can i say for just a minute how fucking retarded the few fairweather comments i got on facebook and off were. truthfully, weren't my comments the opposite of fairweather??? you can't really get any higher up on the mountain than alabama football right now. fairweather would mean i had left the mountain during times of trial and now wanted back on. that wasn't the case at all. i kind of wanted off the mountain in these times of utmost prosperity. anyway, maybe there are other definitions of fairweather out there that i don't know about. i digress again.

i caught flak for calling alabama football, in-season, boring, but, again, i just wanted to feel something, anything.

and then i did. lsu came into alabama having already played a game that they could have lost versus "my" oregon ducks. they didn't lose. they destroyed them. they had played a game versus the eventual big east champ, west virginia. they didn't lose. they beat them worse than they did oregon. they embarrassed florida, same as alabama and kicked the crap out of auburn. they came to tuscaloosa with an edge, with a number one ranking, and with the only real shot of blemishing alabama's season.

and fuck it all. they won. in overtime. in one of the most dramatic football games i've ever watched. both defenses brought their "a" game. alabama's offense showed sparks of trent, a dash of creativity, and several more scoring opportunities than did lsu. but they couldn't convert enough of those opportunities. they let lsu hang around. regulation ended in a tie. aj mccarron showed his nerves during overtime. and lsu escaped tuscaloosa with a win and started driving down this now ridiculous road of being considered an all-time great collegiate team.

i was heartbroken, but, looking back, i think i was a little happy. if nothing else, even though it was sadness i felt, at least i felt something, anything.

and thus the switch turned back on. the julio jones hangover ended, and my alabama football fandom was back. i fumed at their shitty play versus miss. st. i refused to watch a meaningless game against a lower tier opponent in georgia southern. i digested the undressing of their arch rivals in auburn and genuinely hoped that some of my auburn friends felt some of the same pain i had allowed myself to feel last year during the greatest iron bowl meltdown/comeback ever. i rooted for their misery and hoped it felt bad, if only for a couple of hours 'til we all came back to our senses and realized it was "just a game". after all, it's not schools we root against. it's our friends and family that don't see things the way we do that we hope are hurting. (kinda screwed up, really.)

i felt something during the auburn game most especially because of dominoes having fallen and stars having aligned back in the favor of "my" alabama football team. if they beat auburn, they would have their second chance at lsu.

they did. and they do.

it's funny to me. as much as this year's team has accomplished, i am already waiting for next year. i want to see dee hart and tell him that i love him and that i wish him well. i want him to light the sec on fire in the same way lamichael james has done so with the pac 10 12 the last three years.

in the meantime, though, my switch as been flipped. my fairweather flag is waving proudly behind me. i am 34 days away from alabama playing for and possibly winning their second national championship in three years. it's going to be incredible. it's going to be insane. i will yell. and scream. and cuss. and eat. and it will be wonderful, because alabama is going to win the scoreboard this time, not just the game.

let's be honest. we are all fairweather fans of some thing, some place, or some one, whether we choose to admit it or not. and there is no shame in admitting it.

just admit it.

i'm the pot. you are the kettle.

roll tide.    

a longform-ish take on the facebook worship thread


maybe sarah is right.

maybe i am just done with worship.

that was one of her takes on the terrific facebook thread that happened yesterday between humc current and ex-members on my status that read: "can't remember the last time i was in a sanctuary on sunday morning. june, work, and the falcons are the main reasons. i am not sure i've had such a stretch in the last 10 plus years. it feels weird, but does weird mean "i miss it" or just that i am out of my routine?"

facebook (and any social media) can be a nasty beast. all it takes is one outlier to take offense or throw a personal barb into the mix and the whole conversation goes to hell. fortunately, yesterday, that didn't happen.

i think some contributors took offense in a reasonable and healthy way. and i think others were defensive of their church or ex-church in a reasonable and healthy way. some did both. it was fantastic!

in my opinion, it is threads like yesterday that is what facebook does best. gather friends and family and acquaintances from around your church, city, state, country or globe and let them all talk to each other about something that may have been a spur of the moment idea or a long-festering pet peeve. for me, yesterday's original comment probably fell in the latter category.

i can be more direct here, because i was afraid if i were to be too blunt yesterday, it wouldn't have started a conversation as easily as it merely may have hurt feelings. hurting feelings was never my intention (i'm pretty sure i can claim that i have NEVER intended to hurt feelings on facebook, even though if i have, i will own it 100 percent and say that i am sorry.). rather than risk hurting feelings, i wanted to talk it out. thanks to those that participated and thanks to those that may have followed the conversation here.

over the last several weeks, i haven't missed worship.

to be clear, that's not to say that i haven't missed the people of huffman. i have. that's not to say that i haven't missed hanging out afterwards with whatever familiar faces are present to shoot the breeze and/or catch up. i have. that's not to say that i haven't missed lee garden or neighborhood or o'charley's or ruby tuesday or wherever we head after service to lunch. i have.

it's just that i haven't missed the worship service. and to be honest, i haven't looked forward to it in a long, long time.

i don't believe this is an indictment on the body of christ. i don't believe this is an indictment on our current set of worship leaders. i don't believe that my blase' attitude toward worship is an indictment on anything other than myself. me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

humc has had the same worship service for as long as i can remember. for many, the routine and tradition of the elements that we recite and repeat week after week are cherished and held dear. for me, the repetition of it all has grown tiresome. predictable. boring at times.

don't get me wrong. there are exceptions, of course. if hannah is participating in something, i'm all over it. occasionally we'll sing a hymn i love. during those, you'll catch me singing loud and singing proud. if every sunday was vbs sunday, it would make my year. then again, if every sunday was vbs sunday, there would be some in our (and every) congregation that would withhold their tithe as ransom to make it stop.

unfortunately for me (just me, ME, kevin michael o'kelley!!!), that's kind of the list.

outside of those exceptions, there isn't really a part of our worship service that i can't get somewhere else in a more fulfilling way.

people that know me know that i am a big "journey" guy. i am about the road we take, the path we forge, the foundation we lay as we question and attempt to understand "that which is greater than ourselves." insomuch as what we can accomplish in the span of an hour or so in humc's sanctuary, the directive has to be much more narrow. we are a christian community of faith. that is a fact. i am not trying to push back against what has been established. i understand the establishment. i understand our structure. i pledge to support it in many, many ways. it's just not, how do i say this..., fun. to me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

maybe fun's the wrong word. engaging? relevant? creative? interesting? fluid? dynamic? flexible?

yeah, yeah. all of those.

in our worship service, the journey has found its destination. that destination is jesus. the theme then concerns how can we be more like jesus. or how do our worship leaders and message-deliverers best see fit to interpret our role in the great commission. it's been settled. tradition-ed. established. and that is fine for many of our members. i just don't know if it's fine with me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

here is where my personality causes tension in others i presume. and i only presume it due to the defensive way i or some of the things i have opined have been received over the last however many years. i respect brother harris. i respected reverend denson. reverend lee. reverend owen. reverend rutland. all of them. i do. or did. but, in my opinion (me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley), they are only men. just like me. just like you. hearing "the word proclaimed" makes me cringe. i find myself wishing every statement delivered from the pulpit be issued underneath neon lights that loudly qualify "THIS IS ONLY WHAT I THINK. I ACTUALLY HAVE ZERO IDEA HOW ACCURATE ANY OF MY DIRECTION IS."

but it's not. that's not how our (and most) christian worship services are structured. our pastors are our appointed "experts", called by god to deliver direction and advice on christian living to his/her fold. the rest of the service, in theory, reinforces the message in different but the same ways every week. se-cond verse, same as the first. i'm henry the viiith i am, henry the viiith i am, i am...

that structure. that construct. those routines. they are not relevant to me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

but herein lies the crux. i could argue (i won't today) that it is not just kevin michael o'kelley that feels this way. our numbers, while not the most credible indicator or spiritual health, continue to drop, drop, drop. we are losing members faster than we are gaining new.

is this because one lonely, little man has, on occasion, been critical of his church and her leaders and that one lonely, little man's "bad" attitude has infected his church like a virus that we can't recover from?

or is there something more to it?

is something...missing.

truth be told, those "left behind", like myself, are probably not the ones to ask. as evidenced on the facebook thread yesterday, the "left behind" are now dug deep into our foxhole. we aren't coming out. we are going to see this through to the end, even if the end doesn't paint itself as very attractive, painless, or completely within our control.

no, i wish we could talk, in an honest and cooperative way, to those that are no longer there. to all of those that were there in the pews celebrating the tradition of huffman on our 140th birthday and then weren't there the next week. it would be a fascinating picture into what might have been, wouldn't it, if we would have been able to talk to them before they left, answering their personal and unique questions of "how do you justify leaving your church home that you pledged to support with your prayers, presence, your gifts and your service? what is missing?" before it was too late?

it's too late to do that now. but it speaks to what i've been struggling with for years now.

if the worship service is the driving force of your congregation (make no mistake, in most churches, it is), and i am not attracted to the service, itself, what then?

it was rightly pointed out yesterday that, as humans, we condone and support our friends and family getting out and away from hurtful personal relationships. we support our loved ones when their current job has run its course and they look for a fresh start.

consider walking away from a church home, though? baby, we attack!

"you just aren't trying hard enough!"

"where is your loyalty, man?"

"remember that time you got up in front of the congregation and said 'i will' to all those questions? well, what's wrong with you??? do it! you pledged you would!"

"oh, they were just looking for a way out anyway. forget them."

nice, right? we can be pretty awesome at being "christian" sometimes.

and so, then, what now for me? ME? kevin michael o'kelley?

i don't know, dude. i am one of the ones in the foxhole. as long as i get my limbo fix and find my way around my friends every now and again, i'll be fine. at the same time, i am still not jazzed about the next time i'll be in the sanctuary for worship.

like i said, i think that's an indictment only on me. ME. kevin michael o'kelley.

i think.

hannah and caroline and june and me
(part one)
((the story of june's name))


have you ever seen the movie from dusk 'til dawn? if you haven't, there's a good chance your life is better for it. it's pretty crappy. crappy, but fun. the imdb synopsis is as follows: "two criminals and their hostages unknowingly seek refuge in an establishment populated by vampires, with chaotic results (naturally)." directed by robert rodriguez, the only reason this terrible movie gets made is that quentin tarantino wanted it to be made. on the heels of pulp fiction, quentin could make whatever he wanted to. in 1996, when this movie hit, there was no such thing as twilight or vampire diaries or true blood or my babysitter's a vampire. vampire movies were still b class, but quentin wanted to make it with his buddy, rodriguez, so it got made.

i remember watching the movie, starring george clooney (then of er fame), and being mildly entertained. clooney was still skating by on his good looks and still doing that er thing where he would look at a woman and then shyly look down with a grin. this was his go-to move. he does this, like, ten times in from dusk 'til dawn, which seems like a pretty feminine response to fighting off vampires. it was pretty silly, but, at the same time, in the movie he also was (pretend) inked with a massively awesome tattoo. his character's name was seth gecko. at some point during the movie, i fell in love with george clooney, his lovely eyes, his tic where he looked down shyly with the grin, his pretend tattoo, and his character's name, seth.

i was in my first post-high school serious relationship at the time. we were nowhere close to thinking about children, but i decided then and there, were i to have a boy, his name would be seth. seth gecko michael o'kelley.

fast forward to 2003. i've now married sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. we find out the child is a girl. sarah's female name equivalent of seth is hannah. hannah marie. our first child would be hannah marie o'kelley.

fast forward to 2007. i am still married to sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. we find out the child is a girl. the name, caroline, occurs to sarah, more than likely during one of her trips to or from tuscaloosa. caroline's middle name would be a sarah's side of the family name, lilla. our second child would be caroline lilla o'kelley.

fast forward to 2011. i am still married to sarah. sarah is pregnant with child. this was going to be my seth. sarah said for weeks "this one feels different". as much i had romanticized and fantasized over the idea of having a boy for fifteen years, i was stoked. because of my reconnection with my brother brian (patrick o'kelley), my boy name had evolved. our third child would be called seth patrick o'kelley.

that is, until we find out our third child would be a girl.

much to my surprise, sarah was pretty taken aback and (a little) disappointed in the revelation, herself. i had not given much thought or time to that concept, because i was too wrapped up in what i wanted. that being said, it took a while before we gave any serious thoughts to naming our now third girl.

when we got down to it, these are the names that came up most often:

eva (sarah)
scarlett (sarah)
sloane (me)
beatrix (me)
bree (me, it's the female version of brian)
amelia
many, many others

my names above never really made it past the cut line. i, on the other hand, immediately cut eva (and the many, many others i suppose). scarlett, i didn't shoot down immediately. i didn't dislike it at all, and scarlett was the leader in our clubhouse for many, many weeks.

dateline: sunday morning worship about a month or so before june arrived. for different reasons, i started to feel conflicted about scarlett. again, i didn't have anything against the name, but it just didn't feel connected to me. it didn't feel like mine, as selfish as that probably sounds.

so, we re-opened the negotiations and sarah throws out the name amelia. she doesn't like her middle name, elizabeth, attached to amelia, so she proposed june as amelia's middle name.

i like it.

for a couple weeks, amelia june joins scarlett elizabeth on the leaderboard.

i couldn't get june out of my head, and the reasons for that are plenty. every time i thought of june, i naturally thought of june hearin which, in turn, made me think of gerry hearin.

gerry deserves his own blog and will get it one day, so i won't wax poetic about him for long here, but i will say this. having given it serious thought, gerry is one of three adult men in my life that i have ever held in high enough regard to consider them a mentor or a role model. while on staff with gerry, i learned to love him and soak up everything that i could from him in my limited time around him (he was only part time). gerry had my back and was willing to give advice whenever i needed it. he was a champion and defender of huffman united methodist church and it was through him and his wisdom that i channeled my own passion as an adult for the church that saw me through part of my childhood. gerry was everything that i thought a pastor should be. kind, eloquent, smart, sincere, and honest. the time i spent with him and around him during that period of my life was absolutely and totally beyond value. his positive influence and his engaging spirit towards me and every one of his congregations, i am sure, are what i want to be for my family and for my friends. i miss gerry.

his wife, june, is no less beautiful. every bit as supportive of me and sarah and my ministry while i was on staff, june, to me, felt and continues to feel like huffman united methodist church's matriarch. a passionate supporter and cheerleader, always involved in every outreach, ever willing to share a smile and a hug with a long time member or first time visitor, she's our spoonful of sugar. our silent defender. my friend, donald, has said many times that if june ever asked him to crack some skulls, he wouldn't even think twice before responding with force. she's our mary poppins and our batman all rolled into one. most importantly, when i think of god, i don't picture "jesus laughing" or zeus or some faceless, abstract entity. i think of june hearin, her patient and grace-filled smile that always suggests (to me) she knows what's happening behind the curtain.

i couldn't get june out of my head. and so, i asked sarah what she thought of us dropping amelia and going with june. we'd reattach elizabeth as the middle name. it sounded perfect.

and maybe it was.

it took a little time for sarah to completely adjust. she would finally say that she had been leaning scarlett for a long time, and she needed some space to let the idea of going in another direction sink in.

the clock was working against us, though. fast forward to a week before june arrives and i am sending sarah emails asking her if we can nail down a name. i don't care what the name is (of course, i really did), but i didn't want us to show up not knowing.

sarah decided that we'd play it this way. we would wait 'til the baby was born. if she looked like caroline, we'd go with scarlett. if she looked like hannah, we would go with june.

fast forward to october 18th. the baby, baby, baby girl was born. she favored caroline.

so, scarlett, right?

well, not so fast. after june was born, she asked me what i thought.

"you know what i think."

shortly after, june opens her eyes, her dark blue eyes.

"we can call her june."

"yeah?"

"yeah."

and so it was. three weeks old today, june feels like the only name we should've considered even if it wasn't. she looks like a june. she feels like a june. she is.

june.

at some point when she's older, she'll read this post or hear from her mommy and daddy of the legacy that her name carries. we'll help her fully understand all of the incredible images merely saying her name brings to life inside of both her daddy and her mommy.

welcome to the world, princess june elizabeth.

and welcome to the blog.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part twelve)))


day twelve: offensive guard

John Hannah



9 All Pro Bowls
10 All Pros
75 Anniversary Team
70's All Decade Team
80's All Decade Team
Offensive Lineman of the Year (78, 79, 80, 81 and 84)
HOF 91


Bear Bryant, "He was the greatest lineman I ever coach."


Viewed as the second greatest lineman to ever play the game of football. Right behind Anthony Munoz who is also on Team Hicks.


Roll Tide!

i knew hannah would be your pick, and i don't hate, hate the pick, but you provide us a good path back to our old school/new school debate. we've already deconstructed the munoz as g.o.a.t. thing. we'll do the same here with hannah.


i don't like arguing against a Bama guy, but let's face it. he weighed in at 265 on a good day. no matter how "fast", "agile", or "intense" dude was, there is no way he has any shot of handling a monster like ted washington. and sure, he's going to get some help from what i assume will be an also undersized center, but you are setting up your pocket to start 2-3 yards behind the line of scrimmage from the jump of every play.

my pick was always going to be bruce matthews, the best guard that i've seen play, and he was probably even a hair past his prime when i started paying close attention.

his resume of pro bowls several-ups hannah with fourteen consecutive. he has an equal number of all-pros as well. he's a member of the 90's all-decade team, which i will contend until the end of this draft meant he was doing his thing around bigger and better athletes than those of generations past. he also was an iron man that never missed a game, playing in a record 296 for an offensive lineman.

what say you?

What do I say?  I am no expert, but the experts say Hannah is the 24th greatest player of all time.  The same experts say Bruce Matthews is the 78th.  Bruce Matthews was a great lineman.  John Hannah he was not.  My grade for this round:  Chris A  Kevin A-
 
yeah, i get that. and i understand where they are coming from. the only way that you can make those lists is to is to grade guys out relative to the competition they were playing against.


to me, and maybe we are approaching this in two different ways, we are doing something completely different. we are putting together two teams that will play when each guy was at the height of his respective powers, lining them up, and playing one game to end all games. if we were just drafting based on the lists that you and i are both looking at, we would just be aggregating 20 lists and picking the next guy in line.

there is no way, in my mind, that hannah was a better offensive lineman than bruce matthews. i think, from what I've read, that hannah was a great lineman, too...for his time. in the same vein, how many of bear bryant's many all-americans could even make a current nick saban team? what about bruce matthews?

 John Hannah may not beat out a guard on Saban's team right now, but he would beat out Bruce Matthews. And right now, that's all that matters. I'm sticking with the greatest Guard of all time. Chris

(ed: chris had first pick, so he's supposed to get last word. after that last statement, though, it's. so. hard.)

bill and tom's excellent adventure(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part eleven)))

day 11: defensive line

as i ponder where to go with my third and final defensive lineman selection, two names jump out at me. i assume that both are coming off the board, regardless, in this round, because i feel like chris will take one or the other as well. i won't name both because i don't want to put words in his mouth nor do i want to remove the potential of team tom drafting another dud and dressing him up with numbers and accolades posted against competition that didn't wear facemasks.

i got my mountain of a man in ted washington last round. i've got my rush tackle/end in the greatest defensive lineman to ever play the game in reggie white. i need a guy on the other side of ted washington that can stop the run, primarily, but cause his own havoc in the backfield since he's going to be blocked with one guy every snap of this game.

i'm taking randy white.

from '77 to '85, randy white was the truth for the dallas cowboys. nine pro bowls and nine first team all-pros lead his resume. nicknamed the "manster" (half man, half monster), white was able to play a number of positions for his teams due to his size and freakish (for a white guy) athleticism, lining up at end and some linebacker. white found his home at d-tackle, and seeing him on my line will give system montana bad memories from their showdowns in the 80's.

Deacon Jones

8 Pro Bowls

8 All Pros

NFL 75 Anniversary Team

60's All Decade Team

2 - Defensive Player of the Year

HOF 1980

"Revolutionized the DE position", "First to use the head slap, that they all use now", "Lightning Quick"

Sacks weren't recorded, but the un-official numbers give him 194.5 which would be 3rd all time.

Named #15 on the 100 Greatest Players of All Time. In comparison, Randy White was named #62.

With Deacon Jones on one side of my 4-3 and Bruce Smith on the other. I think this team is shaping up to be pretty good. I feel certain I can find a sufficient DT to go next to Mean Joe.

yep. i could've called it. i was torn with my white pick, because i know the consensus on most of the "best ever" lists have deacon above white, but, as you noted, jones was a true defensive end, and, in my 3-4 scheme, it wouldn't have made sense to have another guy coming off the end.

it is interesting how a guy in white with 9 all-pro teams versus deacon's 8 would be so much less regarded, but, in the end, i think it goes back to the points that were made along with my ted washington pick. there isn't a lot of glamour playing on the inside of a d-line. comparing a rush end and a tackle isn't apples to apples.

I don't want to down play the "Manster" because he was on my list! Both are outstanding picks. No matter where they end up on the 100 All Time Players list, they are both very high on the d-line list.

you can tell it's been too long since we logged a pick. all this kumbaya crap is going to have to end fast.

hannah and caroline and me
(the last one before we add another name to the list)


this blog's kind of gone off the rails the last few months, hasn't it?

for all that's been said and done about this being a love letter of sorts to my girls that will one day be handed the keys to this kingdom, there haven't been many them related updates in a while. the "bill and tom" series has taken front and center and, while fun, sports and nothing but sports has never really been what this place is all about.

sure, sports makes up, always has and always will, a large portion of HACATLKAM, because sports makes up a large portion of me. but, where have the church updates been? where have the updates on the family or something silly that has happened to one of the girls been? where are more posts about the boondocks or lost or something stupid i read on facebook that one time?

well, all of that has been kind of muddled.

i feel like, for the last few months, my life has been on shuffle. i wake every morning with no idea what song is going to be playing. am i going to be in a good mood? a bad mood? how long will it take one of the girls to say something completely innocuous that will end up setting me completely off simply due to my being primed to be pissed off in the first place?

things are happening fast. we are about to be a family of fucking five, bro. FIVE!!! i still don't have any idea what that is going to mean. we don't have cars for a family of five. we don't really have a house for a family of five. hell, we still don't even have a name for the fifth yet! what are we doing? or, moreover, what have we done?

it's silly. for nine months now, we've been skipping along not really preparing for much to change. i mean, we know, know that things are changing. sarah's belly isn't getting bigger and bigger for nothing. but our routines haven't been evolving with a focus towards us adding another baby to the family. they've just been evolving with a focus to being even more busy than we ever were.

sarah's stressed at work. i've been asked to be more proactive in the community for my store, networking and creating referral based relationships with other businesses for the first time in my life. hannah's playing (and i am coaching) soccer again this fall, committing us for two nights and one saturday morning of each of the last six weeks. caroline's doing gymnastics on monday nights at the same time humc is still rocking the green and playing softball out at trussville. i'm now running over 20 miles a week. we've eaten dinner at home as a family, like, once in the last month (i am pretty sure this is not an exaggeration). even though i am backing off and away from my many roles at the church (which feels fantastic!), sarah can't really afford to yet, because ncd still has eight years to go and the children's place (in spite of some pretty nasty behind her back scuttlebutt to the contrary) can't afford to not have her leadership. we've got fajita fridays and falcons season tickets and etc. to boot. we try and find time to let the girls be girls, but, most of the week, they are caught in their parents' current, being swept away to whatever commitment we've made for them next. trying to breathe it all in at one time feels like being congested. you can get the breath down and you're still making it all work, but it feels like it takes a lot of effort and sometimes it's really fucking uncomfortable and snotty. and so, since we have all this shit figured out, we're going to go ahead and add a fifth dimension to the o'kelley universe.

in some ways, it feels like we are idiots.

in most other ways, it just feels like this is what families do.

it's no real surprise that life skips by in the blink of an eye. we do it to ourselves. our commitment calendar in the paragraph above? that's every family. even though it sounds like i am, i am not complaining. we signed up for everything above with not one gun placed to our heads. we did it. we wanted it. and now we've got it.

so, we deal with it.

hannah and caroline are about to be big sisters, together for the first time. they've already mastered the first step, which was to move into the same bedroom. not one complaint from either, they've jumped into their literal and figurative bunk beds and they are ready for their baby sister to come. i am sure they are more ready for her than us. hannah's going to be incredible. we already know that. caroline wants to hold the baby and feed her and call her sleeping beauty, which, to be fair, is as good as anything her parents have come up with so far. the girls, if nothing else, are a daily example to just roll with the punches, man "mommy". have some "chocolate milk", go "i'm gonna color this picture" and get ready for the next "iCharlie". life comes at them fast, too. they don't bitch much. they just live it. there's a lesson there.

hannah and caroline and the little kumquat and me will change again as soon as the kumquat arrives. it always has. it always will. in many ways. i'm excited for some new subject material. i'm excited to freshen this place up again soon with new ideas and new adventures that come with being a father of three.

there will still be some more "bill and tom". there will definitely be some whining about sports. but, i hope, hope, hope that there will be even more of the other, "the other" being come what may.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part ten)))


day ten: defensive line

chris: I will take "Mean" Joe Greene as my next Defensive Lineman. Revered as the greatest defensive tackle to ever play the game he will go perfectly on my team. Accolades are as follows:

NFL.com - 13th greatest player in NFL History

10 Pro Bowls

8 - first or second team All Pro

75 Anniversary Team

all 70's team

Defensive Player of the year in 72 and 74

Defensive MVP in 1972

HOF - 1987

He was the anchor of the greatest defensive line of all time. Need I say more!

good pick.

in my 3-4 scheme, I've been torn, because, truly, how many all-timers jump to mind when you are talking about nose tackles? not many, right?

if joe greene was available here, i was going to take him and ask him to be my over the center guy, but you selecting him made my mind up for me. if i am going to play a true 3-4, i am going to need a true nose tackle. a space-eater. a mountain among men. a guy that will require triple attention from your center and two guards because he's just that big.

i am taking ted washington.
 

the sporting news once called ted washington "the prototypical nose tackle of his era". in his prime (which, admittedly, was a small window. whatareyougonnado, though??? He was 6'5" and over 350 pounds. his body wasn't built to be elite for long), he was dominant. in a five year stretch between 1997 and 2001, washington made 4 pro bowls and as many all-pro teams. i remember seeing videos and highlights of him completely obliterating the insides of nfl offensive lines. when healthy, running up the middle wasn't an option and between the tackles was a risk. ted washington will free space for reggie white, derrick thomas and lawrence taylor to do their thing. you can only double-team so many guys.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part nine)))


day nine: running back

this one should be fun. will it be another lesson in "old school" versus "new school" or something else entirely? the history of the nfl has given this position, maybe, more "greats" than any other. four will be picked in this draft. many others will have had deserving cases and careers.

chris is up first.

chris: I have thought about this one a lot. I am going to go with my heart and my wife's heart and take the Bear. I will select Walter Payton as my #1 Running Back. Like Jerry Rice for you, where do I even start with the stats and the awards.



NFL.com - #5 player of all time
9 pro bowls
6 first team all pros
3 second team all pros
1977 NFL MVP
1985 NFC Player of the Year
75th NFL Anniversary Team
1977 Pro Bowl MVP
HOF - 1993


Rushing:


16,726 yds
110 TDs


Receiving:


4,538 yds
15 TDs


All time leading rusher until Emmit Smith broke record in 2002
All time leader in yards from scrimmage until Jerry Rice broke record in 1998


For many years, Walter Payton was all the Bears had with regards to talent. And even with all of the talent around him in 1985, he still excelled. He was the leader of that team and the leader of that offense. I am proud to have him on my team!

this is the first position where i was legitimately worried you were going to take my number one off the board before i picked. thankfully, that didn't happen.

"while other people are stuck with joints, he seems to have ball bearings in his legs that give him a mechanical advantage." -si's paul zimmerman

what an excellent quote, right? i can't think of more eloquent way of describing the freakish nature with which my number one running back, barry sanders, played his position relative to his contemporaries.

there are many special running backs that have played in the national football league. walter payton makes that list, no doubt.

remember when i brought up the the "evolutionary" vs. "revolutionary" point with my lt pick? barry would slot in as the third (with lt and vick) revolutionary guy on my team. things he did on the field during his hall of fame and too short career were breathtaking.

in my opinion, barry's the greatest. he made the pro-bowl and first or second (6 first teams) all-pro's in all of his ten seasons. he rushed for over 2,000 (hitting the mark in his 14th game) in 1997 and shared the mvp of the league with brett favre.

obviously, i'm a big style guy, and i have never watched a football team with as much anticipation as i did a lions game during sanders' career. every touch carried with it the potential of seeing something obscene, something historic, something you may never see again. always lauded by john madden types for his spectacularly low center of gravity, more impressive was his athleticism. standing only 5'8", it's been reported that sanders could dunk flat-footed.

the nfl is a league of athletic outliers. barry sanders, though, was something altogether different, in the same pantheon of creation as his draft class peer, deion sanders, and a signal-caller that would follow in his highlighted footsteps, my quarterback, michael vick.

chris?

chris: i think i have the greatest running back ever. i think you have the 3rd greatest running back ever. i am certain mark will call it a draw.

(ed: we shall see)

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part eight)))


day eight: linebacker #2


as we reach the second week of the "only draft that matters to us", our teams will start to feel very bill-ish and very tom-ish, respectively. no better place to start with that than quarterback, and my and chris' philosophical differences will become more and more transparent as we move forward, i am sure.

today, we both take our second linebacker.

in my 3-4, scheme, i want explosion off both ends, because the goal will be to get after system montana on EVERY play, not just passing downs. i don't know that i can think of a better word than "explosive" when my memory serves up pictures to me of the guy that will serve as a bookend to lawrence taylor, the late, great derrick thomas.

widely considered one of the best pass rushers of all-time, thomas' first step is one of legend. if taylor signaled to teams that an athletic left-tackle would be fundamental to the future of the national football league, thomas tested the new world order. there was no secret that dt was coming off the edge and he was coming fast. on the most prolific single day of his career, thomas sacked seattle quarterback dave krieg seven times!

over the course of his hall of fame career, dt, was selected to 9 first or second all-pro teams, as many pro bowls and was named to the 90's all decade team.

chris: With my second linebacker, I am taking the great Jack Ham from the Pittsburgh Steelers. He fits perfectly into my 4-3 scheme and will be my weak side outside linebacker. Often revered as one of the best outside linebackers to play the game, he was a ferocious hitter with great speed, quickness and smarts. Chuck Noll said he was the fastest guy he had ever seen for the first 10 yards. And that was on a team with Lynn Swann and John Stallworth. Many of the players on that Steelers dynasty defense have said that Jack Ham was the leader of that unit, including Jack Lambert and Joe Greene. Joe Paterno who gave the induction speech for Ham at Canton in 1988 said, he was the best player he ever coached! The best linebacker to ever come out of linebacker U is pretty good, but the best player that Joe Pa has ever coached.....that's a guy I want on my team.

8 pro bowls

8 all pro's

all 70's team

75 Anniversary team

HOF - 1988

it's almost too easy to come back at this pick with a "really??? TWO white linebackers???", but i'll admit that your case is a good one.

i've watched too many nfl films documentaries about ham's steelers teams to not know he was a good and tough player. I don't know that speed, per se, ever jumped off the screen when I saw him play, but he was always in the mix at the end of the plays I have in my head right now. all that i really hope for you is that paterno was more aware of his surroundings and his players when ham played for him than he is now. At this point, I would be terribly surprised if jeopa could name ten players on his current squad.

i like where we are getting in the draft, getting to second guys at respective positions. this one's a good example of where we aren't really drafting dt vs. ham, because we are drafting for two different schemes.

i'm glad i got dt. my guess is that you're happy with your pick.

bill and tom's excellent adventure
(the only draft that matters)
((to us))
(((part seven)))

day seven: quarterback

the head of the snake.

it what seems like appropriate timing, we end our first week of picks by drafting our starting quarterbacks. knowing chris for as long as i have and knowing his undying love of the san francisco 49ers, if he picked first, chris was always going to take one guy. in contrast to other positions where the luck of a coin flip determined who got the consensus best player at a respective position, i would never have taken chris' quarterback. not that i would dodge him out of respect to team tom, but i am putting together a team for one game, a game where we will assume all of our draft picks will be playing at their highest level of potential. to that end, chris' "old school" and my "new school" philosophies were always destined to diverge most glaringly with this singular pick.

chris is up first.

Without further ado.........I will go ahead and take Joe Montana as my quarterback. He is without a doubt in MY mind the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. He did not have the numbers that Marino, Favre or Peyton when he is done will have, but he was the consummate general. It is often thought that if he didn't have the players around him that he did, we wouldn't be considered the same player. I disagree and so do those players. Jerry Rice has said that without Joe Montana the 49ers of the 80's were a good team. Not a great team. He elevated everyone around him and will always be considered a winner, because that is what he did best....found a way to win. And he did it on the greatest stage of all. Stats are as follows:

1989 and 1990 NFL MVP
1990 Sportsman of the Year
8 Pro Bowls
4 Super Bowl wins
3 Super Bowl MVPs
3 1st team All Pros
1980's team of the decade
75 Anniversary Team
Named by ESPN as the 25th greatest athlete of the 20th century

i'll take this guy (see video below)...

(ed: cue chris' head exploding)

there were three guys on my list that i was considering taking as my quarterback. peyton manning was one. his statistical numbers will end up as the best of all-time. while peyton's career has not been one that suffers from a dearth of talent on offense, his defenses have been consistently poor to downright bad, putting even more pressure on himself and his skill guys to perform at their highest levels. john elway, i've heard described as the best athlete ever to play quarterback, which is the most ridiculous statement ever, but i understand the sentiment. in an era where plodding pocket passers (montana, simms, theismann) were the norm that teams would build around and hope to find in a draft, elway was cut from a different mold. he was an all-everything athlete at stanford, his arm was a thing of legend, and, by the end of his career, his accomplishments stacked up nicely to his early potential.

the greatest athlete to ever play quarterback, though, is mike vick. bar none. end of discussion. vick took the skill-set displayed by guys like doug williams and randall cunningham and raised (and continues to raise) them to the 3rd or 4th power. from the time he stepped foot in atlanta, he was reality's equivalent to "tecmo bo". faster than everyone on the field. strongest arm in the league. literally unstoppable when he found his groove.

his numbers, admittedly, pale when placed next to a guy like montana or manning or elway. i get that. he's made four pro bowls. he's finished in the top 3 of the nfl mvp vote twice. he will eventually eclipse the aforementioned cunningham as the most prolific rushing quarterback in the history of the league. he's had a 1,000 yard rushing season from the quarterback position for god's sake! all of that, and he's becoming more efficient. the eagles' version of the west coast offense last season was as explosive as it has ever been under andy reid and only figures to become more dangerous.

as a pure playmaker, mike vick has no equal. in a one game and off scenario, there isn't a more difficult player to gameplan against. he's my guy.

This is a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking") joke! Thanks for making the greatest draft ever a f-ing (ed: chris means "fucking" again) joke!

Vick is a great athlete......this is not being argued. But if you believe that Michael Vick could lead a team to victory (even in a one game scenario at his prime) against a team led by Joe Montana.......you are crazy (ed: call me crazy). Vick will be known one day as the greatest running quarterback. Congrats. The position takes more than just running; it takes sound decision making and leadership. Oh did I mention that I agree Michael Vick has a rocket arm. To that point....he hasn't done DICK with it! When Michael Vick has four super bowl rings, a couple of MVP's and is considered THE BEST at his position of all time.....call me. In fact, take away the requirement of Super Bowls and MVPS and show me a list the day he retires that puts him in the Top 5 NFL quarterbacks of all time.....I will be waiting (ed: can i end the suspense and tell you he'll end up on mine???). The fact that you want to even argue this bothers me. The credibility of your team just got chewed up like a puppy in a dog fight.....of course you are the one that drafted Michael Vick as "YOUR GUY"! Good luck.

Since you are the king of throwing stats in peoples faces, I thought it would be fun to compare these two statistically. First I wanted to see where Michael Vick ranked on the NFL's Top 100 Players of all time.........and I was shocked he didn't make the list. I am sure you are just as bewildered. BTW....Joe was number 2. So then I thought, well that isn't really fair because Michael Vick is still playing and he did miss a few seasons (see note later). At this point, I decided to see where he ranked in the Top 100 Players of Today's NFL. Vick came in at number 20. He was the 5th Quarterback on the list behind Brady, Manning, Brees and Rodgers. I wonder if such a list had been completed in 1987.....(Joe Montana's 9th season) where he would fall. Of course, at that point he already had two Super Bowl MVP's so I'm pretty sure he would be pretty high. I guess we will never know.

I kept coming back to the fact that maybe I am just being unfair to Vick. So I went and did a little study on how his 2010 season (a great season for a quarterback) ranked in EAGLES quarterback history. He lead the other folks (McNabb, Cunningham, Jaws, Van Brocklin) in two categories: Rushing TD's with 9 and Fewest Picks with 6. Of course, Cunningham who was closest on the rushing TD's stat with 5 did have 9 more TD's passing and 400 more yards passing. And as you probably presumed, I found that while McNabb had two more picks in 2004 he did throw from 800 more yards and 10 more TD's. BTW...McNabb did get to the Super Bowl that year as well. I just thought that was an interesting side note.

You know I mentioned earlier that Vick has only played 8 years......yeah, I knew you were going to remember. I realize that I need to compare their stats based on their first 8 seasons. 8 of course because Michael missed 2 seasons due to the fact that he was doing hard time for being a complete waste to society....another topic for another day. Here is how he and Joe Montana stack up next to each other after their 1st 8 seasons in the league. It is important to remember that Joe went 13/23 for 1TD in his rookie year (1979) and that 1986 (his 8th season) was a season shortened by the strike and only had 8 games. Oh...you know what....that fact really isn't that important.

Vick

Passing - 55.3%, 14,609 yards, 93 TDs, 58 INTs and a rating of 80.2
Rushing - 4,630 yards, 32 TDs and 23 Fumbles
Awards:
4 Pro Bowls
2003 ESPY Best NFL Player
2009 Eagles Courage Award
2010 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

Montana

Passing - 62.4%, 21,498 yards, 141 TDs, 76 INTs and a rating of 89.3
Rushing - 905 yards, 10 TDs and 0 Fumbles
Awards:
2 Super Bowls
2 Super Bowl MVPS
4 Pro Bowls
3 - 2nd Team All Pro
1986 NFL Comeback Player of the Year

I repeat how I started my rebuttal.....this is a f-ing j (ed: you know what he means) joke.

so, it took a full week for you to wake up, huh? well, at least you're awake now.

first of all, i am not sure if you are truly offended, or if you dropping fuck-bombs all over the place is some sort of premeditated strategy. for the first six days of our draft, you've been downright pleasant about having your ass handed to you, even to the point of conceding on several days. but here, on the day we select our quarterback, you lose your shit at the mere thought of me taking someone outside of the conventional box of every all-time quarterback list and acting like it isn't worth having a conversation about. even after i've provided you with video evidence of what has been called quite possibly the best all-around quarterback performance of all-time. methinks thou doth protest too much. let me explain.

first, let's compare two very short and very simple lists.

49er's joe montana had the pleasure of playing with

dwight clark
randy cross
wendell tyler
roger craig
freddie solomon
fred quillen
keith fahnhorst
jerry rice
john taylor
tom rathman

falcons michael vick had the pleasure of playing with

warrick dunn
t.j. duckett
peerless price
bob whitfield
dez white
alge crumpler
michael jenkins
roddy white
brian finneran (ed: white guy skill player)
ashley lelie

from these two lists of ten, what do you see?

me? on one list, i see tens on top of ten pro-bowlers and all-pros. the other? a trash heap of has-beens and never will be's (one exception in roddy white, who played with vick only two seasons).

now, when i first read your fuck-bomb infused takedown of vick, i thought i'd respond with a similar takedown of system montana. but, really, what's the point? i won't argue your pick.

what i will argue (ed: i present the above lists as exibit a, your honor), though, is that your joe was put into a system and situation and surrounded with a cast of characters that gave him a higher than average chance of succeeding. vick, on the other hand, was taken by a falcons franchise that had tasted true success only once and their organization had no idea how to take the "dirty birds" and build them into the future, a future that was desolate and beneath decline when vick came to atlanta.

joe montana was allowed to develop underneath one of the more brilliant offensive football minds ever in bill walsh. mike vick? his "coach" was jim fucking mora, jr. excellent.

now, let's take a quick look at your numbers from the two quarterbacks. actually, let's just take a look at two. total yards. total touchdowns.

in montana's first 8 seasons (120-ish games, taking away the strike shortened games and not accounting for the games he missed due to ijnury), he led his team to 186 yards per game and 1.25 touchdowns per game.

in vicks first 8 seasons (128-ish games, also not taking away games he missed due to injury), he lead his falcons and eagles to 150 yards per game and .98 touchdowns per game.

hmm...the "greatest quarterback in the history of the game" was good for all of three first downs more and about a quarter-touchdown a game more than the guy that i chose and you claimed made this draft out to be a "fucking joke".

i am sure montana's pro-bowl teammates had nothing to do with those minor statistical differences either. i am sure they can all be accounted for because joe was such the fucking "general' on the field, right?

give me a fucking break, tom. if you don't like vick, fine. i am glad you slighted him so i could pick him to match up against your defense that was really good "for their time". you're telling me that white dick butkus would ever, and i mean FUCKING EVER stand a shot at tackling vick in the open field? really? how many times? 1 out of 50, when mike tripped over a divot??? please.

what this really is, your "this is a fucking joke" takedown of vick, is nothing more than the old baseball writer that votes the best player on the the best team mvp because it's easy and no one can really argue against it.

again, i am not arguing against montana. he's fine. we aren't building franchises, though. we are building collections of talent that we think could outplay the other's collection of talent. it looks like, according to your own numbers, i've spotted you about a 1.5 points.

you've still got some ground to make up.

chris:Let me respond with....you are right on one front....I have been pleasant and have conceded some picks. This pick makes the draft a fucking joke. That's right...a fucking joke. Vick had a great season last year. Slice it all you want, BILL, he is not worthy of this list. When he finds himself in the top 5 QBs of all time when he retires.....we can have this argument again. He won't....if he stays out of prison long enough to retire! Until then, my 2nd QB will out shine him. I have nothing else to say on this subject except fuck you and your BS strategy and fuck Michael Vick! Tom-out!

now i am starting to feel like i'm on foxnews and some pundit keeps saying the same line over and over again in the hopes that people start to believe it.

the ground rules of our little exercise did not include the mandate of having to choose players from every old nfl writer's best nfl players of all-time lists.

we've established that the great system Montana was worth about 1.5 points more to his team than michael vick over the course of their first eight seasons. we've also established that the cast of players and organizations around system and around vick were not even in the same ballpark. as bill walsh asked system to do what he was capable of doing (throwing 8 yard slants and almost over-throwing his tight-end in the end zone), we've established that michael vick's own coach often had no idea how to use vick.

is it coincidence, then, that the first year vick started and played with a capable coach and with capable players in a capable organization that he ran less, threw more and finished second in the mvp voting? this guy thinks not.

vick is the most dangerous weapon this league has ever seen.

you've already granted he's the best running quarterback in the history of the league. by the time i finish my backfield, we may never have to throw the ball anyway. 

chris: (ed: rests his case)