I know it may seem like an odd combination but, Some Other Dude, the guy who writes this college football blog, is also an Average Joe posting to a poetry blog. Weird, I know.
While we enjoy a little break from college football and just before the madness of the college basketball tournament, here is a sample of when my worlds collide – poetry about college football.
Although I currently reside in the Pacific Northwest, Some Other Dude lived in New Jersey from 1990 – 2008. Upon first moving to the Garden State, I became vaguely familiar with the Division I college football team playing out of New Brunswick/Piscataway claiming to be the birthplace of college football. Because, at that time, it felt like that program hadn’t had any success since winning that first game in 1869, they didn’t demand much of my attention (in all fairness, there were some periods of success in the 60’s and 70’s – long before SOD arrived). Then, eight years later, my oldest son enrolled as a freshman at Rutgers and we became season ticket holders for Rutgers football (and men’s basketball).
For the first 6 years or so, we and the five other people in the stands cheering on the Scarlet Knights suffered through some pretty awful football, including more than one loss to Div IA schools and yearly battles for last place in the Big East with Temple. Then, Greg Schiano happened. It was a slow, brick by brick process, but the team started getting a little bit better; excitement started to build; and, the wins started to come.
I did not storm the field on that Thursday night, Pandemonium in Piscataway game on November 9, 2006, but I stood at my seat for an hour watching the players, students and fans celebrate the upset win over #3 Louisville that seemed to announce Rutgers Football had arrived, and it felt good.
Two years later, my wife and I decided it was time to move on and we packed up our bags and moved out west, but, we brought along with us our allegiance to the Scarlet Knights. Although Rutgers was no longer an annual bottom ten team, had actually been to a couple bowl games and was no longer a stranger to the Top 25 polls, the Scarlett Knights had not yet reached such heights as to appear on west coast broadcasted football games; so, beginning in 2008, I had to watch Rutgers games streaming on my laptop PC.
Such was the case on October 16, 2010 when the Scarlet Knights were battling the Black Knights of Army at the Meadowlands in Giants Stadium. I’m not sure why, but I happened to see right away that the young man who made the hit on an Army kick return was seriously injured – way before the broadcasters even recognized that there was a man down. At that time, I did not know who it was, but I knew it was not good. That sickness I felt in the pit of my stomach watching the medical staff prepare to carry Eric LeGrand off of the field, still sits there today.
It is now 4+ years later and Eric is still not able to walk following that fateful day.
Eric’s daily struggles and his amazingly positive attitude with carrying on with life is well documented. There have been books written and news stories and documentaries detailing Eric’s journey. Eric’s smile lights up the screen through social media and on his tours to speak at many events and special occasions.
Within hours of watching Eric drop to the field at the Meadowlands, I was moved to write the following poem as a way to express what I felt at that time (I put it into picture format a few months later using a picture from Eric’s Facebook page):
I know that Eric’s is not the only story of a young man who had his life drastically changed due to injuries on the football field. The names of Adam Taliaferro, Kevin Everett and Devon Walker immediately come to mind. I am not comparing stories or suggesting that the Eric LeGrand story is somehow more special – I just have a more personal connection to Eric’s journey.
Yes, it’s going on five years later and I know that Eric still bELlieves; I know that I still bELieve; and, somehow, I feel like it would help if you, too, still bELieved that, one day, Eric can return to the Meadowlands and finally walk off of that field.
Sometimes, the game transcends the game and leaks into our everyday lives. I watch Eric’s progress from afar and am proud and humbled by his attitude and his perseverance. One thing that I know beyond belief, Some Other Dude has learned an awful lot about how to handle adversity from this young man. Thank you, Eric, and keep the faith.
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