Sitting here at the loading screen for Hard Knocks and considering my relationship with the manufactured reality of football vs. the true reality. Hard Knocks is reality tv designed to make a story of rookies and veterans returning to their jobs. I like it. I like the storylines. I’ve read and watched enough narratives to recognize how these things will go and what it is I get out of them. This is going to be about returning heroes, new hope, and an underdog. All of them are that way and most stories contain trace elements of those pieces. Still, that I find more interest in the unreality than the reality does say a bunch about my relationship with the sport. The reality is a disappointment. Two of my three boys are finding themselves in the path of such disappointment. For the eldest, this comes in the form of realizing you are not good enough, fast enough, or big enough to play (and actually get PT) at the Tier One High School level. For the mid kid it is recognizing that what you were sold as an all star organization is really just bad pre-game coaching and empty promises.
I will say, I am still debating offering some (albeit unwanted) advice to the mid-kid’s coaching staff. I am good at seeing things from a distance (Quality Control) and I can see how a few well-placed moves can really open up the opportunities and play into the skillsets of the talent that team has. I can offer up 6 plays that are based around the idea of what they say they want to do, but in a fashion that works with a lot of what they have already put together.
I don’t know that I should.
I want to. I want to drop data and move along, and maybe that is just me pretending–injecting the elements of unreality into the reality the kids face in order to help things meet in the middle. Or maybe I just think I know better.