Coach Pagano and Other Subjects

It's very cool that the Indianapolis Colt's players are shaving their heads to honor their coach, Chuck Pagano's battle against Leukemia. As someone who has survived a similar blood cancer, I appreciate what Coach Pagano is going through and understand what a boost it must give him knowing what his players are doing. If this was all that made news about Coach Pagano's cancer, I'd stop yakking with a hearty hurrah and good luck from all of us cancer survivors but, I must say, I cringed when I saw the recent half time show of Coach Pagano tearfully addressing his players.

Not that he shouldn't have done it, I cringed because he allowed that personal time between him and his team to be televised. I don't know what motivated him to do that. Was he responsible for letting the cameras into the locker room or was this a tasteless decision by management to gain some kind of perverse sympathy for its team? I watched both fascinated and horrified as an intimate moment between coach and players turned into soap opera. Cancer is not a locker-room pep-talk. Give it one for the Gipper and all that kind of nonsense. Cancer is not theater.

Athletes    by Walker Gibson

The groggy fighter on his knees
Sways up at nine, postpones the count;
The jockey, forty-to-one shot, sees
Them all go by, yet whips his mount;
The losing pitcher, arm gone lame,
Still drops that last one in, a strike -
So you and I play a stubborn game,
Disaster prodding us alike.
So you and I, ignoring odds,
Tug caps, clutch ropes, and flail our whips,
Make sacrifices to the gods,
Breed children and build battleships,
Though ours is not an athlete's doom,
Nor death like any locker-room.