From
Kansas. A legendary collegiate running back for
Oklahoma State University, winning the
NCAA's
Heisman Trophy as the best "amateur"
football player in the US. His professional career, for the
NFL's
Detroit Lions, was even better, raising him to the rarefied air of the greats, like Jim Brown,
O.J. Simpson, and
Walter Payton, performing magic in spite of the mediocrity of his teams and the fact that opposing defenses were psyched up to stop him, week after week.
But the mediocrity of the Lions - a top-down thing, for the players and head coach Wayne "Yabba Dabba Doo" Fontes were merely victims of management's perennial recursive bad juju - led Sanders to, first, demand a truckload of money to suffer the ignominy that nestles in the astroturf of Pontiac Stadium, then, in 1999, "retire" in hopes of coercing his way out of Dodge.
If I watched only one NFL game all year, it was the traditional Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit, just to see Barry. This year, he sits in Kansas, probably still collecting paychecks from his endorsements, probably still in possession of Detroit's bonus money; the only exciting moves he's making today are from the stovetop to the gravy bowl, and the only running he's doing is to answer the phone, in hopes that his agent has some good news.
Thanksgiving isn't about the launch of the fuckery against the indigenous (I forgive - Lord's Prayer and all that); it isn't about launching the xma$ season (bah! humbug!). (It is, at best, about genuinely giving thanx - and it should be a 24/7 thing, not one day a year - but play along with me here). Thanksgiving's about chowing down, becoming a couch potato for Just One Day, and seeing Barry magically turn a broken play into a highlight-reel touchdown run, dammit!
Where's Barry now? Not on my idiot box, where he's supposed to be. He's watching the idiot box. Enjoy the turkey, you stupid @#$!%(# diva!
I feel better now.