Yesterday was a blur. The day began at 6bells with a hard 3P in the palace. Grappy was missing as he had a plane to catch in Indy for the National championship. Good. 8bells was a short practice followed by Choice practice 150 at 9. Diabolical had one up his sleeve and came clean, so to speak. We learned when you wait to come clean with another the one who’s dirty and burdened is you. You don’t come clean with another; you come clean youself. Talk about real freedom. Good. A long distance practice with Ron was next and he had connected to the rant about building willpower within. He’s building within with his writing. Good. A quick bite to eat followed and then I headed home to pick up Miss and Tay – we were headed to Big D with kman and fam for the National championship game. A once in a lifetime kinda day was underway.
We departed Columbus mid afternoon and were with Doc & Dad 90 minutes before kick. Our seats were awesome in section 217 row 4. Stadium food kinda dinner, one beer (shared w/Miss), and just before kick a 60’s version of Grappy showed up alongside his Mrs. We were surrounded by his grappy friends, exchanged hugs and high fives, and got down to the very serious business of cheering on the Buckeyes. The game started fast for the ducks and not so nicely for the Buck’s. One dropped pass on the second duck series might have been the omen for the night. The Buckeyes would try to give the ducks the ball 4 times and the ducks dropped it. It simply wasn’t the ducks night. The Buckeyes stood tall on both sides of the ball and ran some kinda counter play over and over that was magic in the making. It was the Buck’s night; ours too…
Doc and Tay sat in front of Miss, Doc’s dad, Mr. & Mrs. Grappy, and me. We high fived and hugged for what seemed like a day or two; in actuality it was only for a few hours. We high fived strangers in front, beside, and behind us. This really big guy behind us looked for my high five on queue as if we had been best buddies from childhood. Doc met some grappler from NY who I could swear is his future roomie. FM, baby. I was mostly mesmerized in the moment and kept looking at my loved ones all around and thanking God for giving me so much. As the clock ticked down and victory was assured, my mind wandered back to 2008 and just a few towns over in Texas. Krits and I had shared a similar moment as the confetti came down in buckets and floated around for what seemed like hours too. KU was the community we celebrated that April night as they celebrated championship number five; last night it was Buckeye nation and number eight. Wow.
I looked at Grappy and thought of him and his team. This could be them, next. He deserves this. His team does as well. His grappies are tough as nails and a few healthy Bucks away from National championship number one. He and they will have to take it, however. Oregon did NOT. OSU, however, did. OSU took the National championship they way all have to be done; they grabbed what was there for the taking – they grabbed hold of the moment and didn’t fumble it away, even when they did. OSU took it…
Yesterday was filled with learning and love. The game was great but really just a reason to come together and taste community even while among 89,000 total strangers. We ran into some old friends and made some new. We even ran into Taylor’s dentist who has done so much work on aligning his teeth and fixing them when they busted up but good this soccer season. We ran into him walking out of the stadium and he practically did another examination on Tay in Texas. Epic ending, I guess.
As we boarded the plane and reconvened with kmans tribe, my mind was satisfied with a day well played. Work and life had been a glorious mix. Memory seared. Score. One last call as we closed the airplane door; Krits of course. She wanted to know all about it even though she was already in bed cuddling with Penny. I gave her the highlights and apologized for the lateness of my call. Her voice told me she didn’t mind. I hung up and thought that was a great day invested with people I love. Miss and I held hands, looked at Tay, smiled, and without so much as a word, drifted off to a peaceful sleep somewhere over a north Texas sky. Good.
Nope, not really. That was great…
BUILT TO LEAD 