Turning Eight was no big deal, in and of itself. Oh there was a cake and presents and your brothers were jealous (always a plus), but birthdays are birthdays and you’ll have many more…trust me. What made this one so special—so Never-To-Be-Forgotten—was something else entirely, wasn’t it? Today, December 28, 1958 was also the day of the professional football championship game, and watching it with your dad and a mob of holiday-cheery uncles electrified your world.

The whole extended family was there as part of what the grown-ups were calling a Round Robin. As you understood it, this was a party where the grown-ups would smoke and laugh and drink lots of beer and highballs before packing up and riding in a caravan to somebody else’s place, where they would start the process all over again. It was loud and festive and while it didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense, they all seemed to be having a good time. But when the Round Robin arrived at your house the game was just starting and one big party suddenly became two, with the ladies all gathered in the kitchen and the men all watching the game. It was the Baltimore Colts vs. the New York Giants, and by the time it was over it had become the stuff of legend.

It was the first NFL game decided in “Sudden Death” overtime, and would long be remembered as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.” Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasn’t, but it sure was the greatest game you ever saw…if only because it was the first game you ever really watched.  The Colts won the game, and that made you happy, mainly because they had cool horseshoe decals on the sides of their helmets, but also because Alan Ameche, formerly of the Wisconsin Badgers—and your Dad’s favorite player—scored the winning touchdown. But you saw something else today, didn’t you? You saw grace and power and drama. And you saw a fierce kind of beauty too. You fell in love with football today, and it’ll be many more days before you’re able to think of anything else.

Eventually, you’ll devise your master plan, which will go something like this: You will begin in fifth grade by trying out for the St. Aloysius varsity.  You’ll play for St. Al’s for four years and then—good Catholic boy that you are—four more as a member of the Pius XI high school team. Finally, you’ll play your college ball at Milwaukee’s own Marquette University. You will make this deal with God himself. You know how much Dad likes the Wisconsin Badgers, but I can’t imagine him finding fault with you attending a fine Catholic university like Marquette. If he’s forced to choose between UW and everlasting hellfire, he’ll fall in line. Dad likes his Badgers, but he’s not dumb! Anyway, that’s it. That’s the plan. You’re only a second-grader at the moment, so waiting will be the biggest challenge, but you’ll get there. Can’t miss.

In the distant future, when you’re an old man, you’ll look back at this and smile. You’ll remember how sure of it you were, and how wonderful it felt to believe, not just in your plans for gridiron glory, but in a lot of things. But time and reality have ways of messing with the very best-laid plans and not everything works out the way we’d hoped. Oh you’ll play for St. Aloysius alright. And you won’t be half bad. But that’s about as far as it’ll go. You’ll play through high school, but not for Pius, and you’ll go to college, but you won’t play any more football. And Marquette will have dropped its football program by then anyway.  But, you know what? It’ll be okay. You’ll realize that the dream was only that. A dream. You will never be quite big enough or strong enough or fast enough to play football at the highest levels and the game itself will have changed so much over the years that you’ll actually be glad you never made it to the pros. But you’ll never stop watching and you’ll never stop dreaming. And in some of those dreams you’ll find yourself playing for Marquette after all.

“The Golden Avalanche”    1991    John T. McCarthy, Jr.    8-color silkscreen

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