Sports Sense

I’m worried like I always am before an Indianapolis Colts playoff game. Somehow I’ve come to think that the New York Jets can actually beat the once undefeated Colts. I don’t really believe that do I? Still the last time the Jets played the Colts in a playoff game the score was 41 to nothing – Jets win. And even though that game was seven years ago, for a worrier like me it might as well have been last week.

Those of us who come from Indianapolis are used to being disappointed. I grew up in a city that never seemed quite worthy of, or comfortable with, top tier status. As such we natives have historically both derisively and proudly called the city Naptown, a place where not much happens, but is nonetheless a great place to raise a family. But its kind of like having to kiss your sister – not much joy in that.

But things have changed quite a bit in my hometown over the years and so has my perspective and reality. So now as a grown man I’ve spent a lot of time defending the Circle City (the better nickname) and extolling its virtues.

This is as good as it gets in Indianapolis. It is a city that remade itself by meticulously developing an enviable reputation as an international sports capital. And as a bonus Indianapolis now has one of the NFL’s best teams, it’s best quarterback, and a beautiful retractable roof stadium to play in. But perhaps the best and scariest fact of all is that the Colts are again the favorite to win the Super Bowl. The Colts help make Indianapolis mean something.

The rational me believes that if the Colts play their best game Sunday they should easily beat the Jets, who ironically thanks to the Colts, backed their way into the playoffs. But like many of the folks back home – the skeptical me is unduly focused on the fact that it was the Jets who a couple of weeks ago ended the Colt’s improbable bid for an undefeated season.

So will the Colts beat the Jets on Sunday and advance to the Super Bowl? I certainly hope so but I’m not sure yet. I’m from Indianapolis and I’m still worried.

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He leads one of the NFL’s best teams. But we barely know who he is.
What does this brother have to do to get some love?

His team remains undefeated which means he’s now 14 and 0 – the best record ever for a first-year NFL head coach. But all we seem to know is that he’s the guy who replaced the noble legend Tony Dungy.

He apparently blends in so well that the commentators never give him his due for his leadership and knowledge.

Even though he’s not publicly complaining, it’s got to be tough being virtually anonymous despite so much success. No one is calling him a genius even though he replaced an icon and actually improved on his team’s brand. One game at a time is the way he looks at it. But don’t lose sight of the fact that every win means he’s extending his own record breaking victory streak.

He’s on the road to 19 – 0 and the Super Bowl. One day the masses will notice he’s a very good coach, maybe they’ll notice in February.

Who is this unassuming, under-appreciated man? His name is Jim Caldwell, head coach of the Indianapolis Colts.

The way I see it he’s the NFL’s coach of the year. He deserves the love.

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Another blow to the pro football ownership hopes of Rush Limbaugh.

Now an NFL owner says he doesn’t want to see the conservative broadcaster in the owners box.

Indianapolis Colts owner, Jim Irsay said Tuesday that there is no way that he would vote to approve the controversial Rush Limbaugh as an owner of an NFL team.

Limbaugh is reportedly a key part of an ownership group seeking to buy the St. Louis Rams.

According to a report from the Associated Press, Jim Irsay said, “I, myself, couldn’t even consider voting for him. When there are comments that have been made that are inappropriate, incendiary and insensitive … our words do damage, and it’s something that we don’t need.”

Irsay has earned the credibility to speak out against Limbaugh. He has proudly hired two African-American head coaches in this decade. And Irsay who won the Super Bowl three years ago with the revered Tony Dungy at the helm, now has a high-powered, undefeated team under new head coach Jim Caldwell this season. Some football insiders believe this could be the Colts best team yet.

But Irsay will need at least another 8 owners to join him in opposition to Limbaugh. NFL bylaws require that at least 24 of the league’s 32 owners must vote in favor of an ownership change.

Several NFL players have spoken out against Rush Limbaugh, and they have been joined by the NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith who indicated the other day that he also strongly opposes Limbaugh’s bid.

Sports have long been the place where America has tested its appetite for tolerance. But changes on the playing fields and on the courts did not come without many disappointments, hurts and shame. But more than 60 years ago several significant racial barriers were hurdled.

Joe Louis won the heavyweight championship of the world in the 1930s. Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin in front of Adolph Hitler. And of course Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in 1947. Those three athletes transcended their sports and helped change the way America viewed and treated all African-Americans.

Here’s hoping a united front of NFL owners, players and fans speak up strongly against Rush Limbaugh and send an even more powerful message about the kind of progress we’ve made as a nation.

UPDATE

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I was reminded this morning that this is the 25th anniversary of my becoming a Colts fan.  On this day two and a half decades ago the Colts left Baltimore under the cover of darkness and moved to my hometown,  Indianapolis.  The move enhanced the transformation of one city and devastated another.  All these years later, thousands of people in Baltimore are still not over the loss of their original NFL team.   In Indianapolis, where I grew up, the city continues to enjoy the downtown renaissance, civic pride and nationwide respect, that the Colts helped to inspire.

These days I live 45 miles from downtown Baltimore.   And over the years I have come to appreciate how strongly the people in Baltimore feel about their teams and their heroes, particularly the Colts.   But as an Indianapolis native who grew up without the NFL, I was happy when my hometown moved closer to big time respectability when it “acquired”  the Colts in 1984.  I feel for Baltimore but I’m happy for Indianapolis.  (But as much as I like Baltimore, when I’m there, I rarely tell anyone that I’m from Indianapolis.)

For more than a decade the Indianapolis Colts have been one of the NFL’s marquee franchises.  They just moved into their second downtown facility, a retractable roof marvel known as Lucas Oil Stadium.  The new stadium is being used not just for Colts football, but also for NCAA tournament basketball.  This weekend it hosted a Sweet Sixteen/Elite Eight regional and the Final Four will be played there next year.  Three years from now Lucas Oil will play host to the Super Bowl.   This is today’s Indianapolis.  Spurred on by the Colts.

In Baltimore, it took 12 years before the NFL returned.  In 1996 the original Cleveland Browns, became the new Baltimore Ravens.  Ironically Baltimore, “acquired” the Browns/Ravens with a better offer than the city of Cleveland made.  Just the way Indianapolis made a better deal for the Colts than did the city of Baltimore.   But this time Baltimore stepped up.  The facility they built for the Ravens, M &T Bank Stadium, is another ornament in an exciting downtown, one that was forced to remake itself after the Colts moved away.  But this remains a bitter sweet tale.  Even though the Ravens would win a Super Bowl just five years after moving to Baltimore, they remain the city’s second favorite football team.   The number one team remains, the Baltimore Colts.

Colts fans from Baltimore years ago fell in love with the legendary number 19, Johnny Unitas, and a team that proudly symbolized their working class city.  They feel their team was stolen by another city and their pain has lasted a quarter century.

600 miles away and many years later, another great quarterback, number 18, Peyton Manning is creating his own legend in a uniform that looks just like the one Johnny Unitas wore.   But Manning, the NFL’s highest paid commercial endorser, symbolizes the changes that time often brings about.   Manning embodies the new Indianapolis and the new NFL.

Where sports are concerned a connection can be made that lasts a lifetime.  That’s the way it was with the Baltimore Colts, that’s the way it is with the Indianapolis Colts – a tale of two cities and one team.

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