wait…What?

As we continue to bumble along in seeking precedent and context in these times, we find our self turning once again to the ancient times- my ancient times. In particular, we will be going to a certain place, but the visit will occur at a number of stops on the personal timeline. Our main focus will be on sports and power, which may tip the cards enough so that one might know where we are eventually going with this. Our first stop will be at the pool, not the wrestling pit that the one in memory has become since the opening of the new David H. Koch Natatorium (yes, that Koch) in 1995. It was in the old pool at my old school where I pounded myself into shape for three years of prep school competition. It was this work that garnered me  prep school all American status, as well as the honor of winning the 100 yard backstroke race at the New England prep school championships and setting a record in that event along the way. In an attempt to channel Walter Brennan here I will simply say- no brag, just fact.

As it was, this time qualified me for the AAU nationals, which it so happened were in Pullman that year. The team that I swam for during the summer was the affiliation that I swam under when we traveled across the country from New York for this race. My summer coach and my Dad both shepherded me through the ritual of being there, which had its share of lessons to wade through as well, so to speak. Perhaps the biggest lesson of the weekend involved two words- know yourself- although it took me awhile to figure that one out. What prompted this lesson was the curious choice of my summer coach in suggesting that I change my race strategy from the one that had worked for me all season. Generally, you do what the coach says, otherwise what’s the point of having one? Instead of going all out from the gun as had been my practice all year, he asked me to go out relatively easily on the first lap and accelerate through the next three laps to the finish. Lesson: Never change race strategy on the day of the big race. My time was seven tenths of a second slower than my New England triumph, and I never swam that fast again- I have other explanations for that which we won’t go into here other than to say that it is really hard and takes a ton of work to go fast, let alone, ever faster.

Fast forward twenty five years to my prep class reunion at which, one of my main priorities was to go swimming in the new Koch Natatorium, although at that time, which was 1996, it was long before my knowing who this Koch was or what he represented. Personal reputations aside, it is a beautiful and fast pool. Part of my reason for taking that plunge, beside the fact that one can’t pass on a swim in a new pool, was to burn off at least some of the effects of the night before since, well, it was a reunion. Earlier that morning, and prior to that swim when the night before was all too fresh in a morning-fuzzy kind of way, we were briefed on the day’s activities. This included an evening wine tasting, with a selection of wines being offered up from one of our classmate’s vineyards. This was a classmate who, after breaks and vacations, arrived back at school from his Manhattan residence in his family’s private helicopter, which generally landed about fifty feet from the dorm. As we were hearing about the tasting, I can’t say I was thinking about that air taxi service or much of anything other than how thinking about another night of drinking sounded less than appealing in the light of this particular morning. What I was envisioning was a real wine tasting with a bunch of people sipping and spitting, which in spite of the previous evening’s overindulgences seemed a horrible waste, so I blurted out “does that mean we have to spit it out?’, which happened to draw a number of laughs from those close by.

We didn’t spit it out that night, and of course the next and final day of the reunion started off on a less than chipper note. Somewhere along the way to leaving the reunion, as well as the fog of morning, my classmate whose wine we had been appreciatively swallowing on the other side of midnight came up to me and leaned in close in such a way that I was assured of hearing what he was about to say. He recounted my spitting statement and one other extremely tangential thing that he took to be about him which I had said at another time. My comments had certainly not been made in any cutting or vindictive way, either at or about him, although that was how he took it all. I have no idea how he heard of either bit, although he had certainly heard about them. In any event, I was shocked that he had taken offense and I think I apologized, although I wasn’t sure what for. There was an important take-away in this though, and that was simply that messing with the stuff of a really rich white guy, no matter how innocently or absent of malice the messing is, can have some consequences.    With reunion XLV looming in 2016 and pressure mounting (actually not that much) for me to attend again, I will have to keep that in mind. In checking the alumni directory it seems that the likelihood of my having a similar problem with Mr. Koch however is not great, since we are on different five year reunion cycles. With Super Bowl L happening in 2016, it would be interesting to have a conversation with another alum, although Peter McLoughlin is also not in my five year circle. Some might recognize this name as that of the president of the Seahawks and the  CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment.

Having been entertained by the team from Vulcan recently, it should be said that in the paralysis following the game ending interception there were words that I kept repeating in answer to the incredulous echoings of “how could they call that play?” that continued to ring days later. My words were these: “because they were told to.”  I know- here comes the conspiracy theory. It is, indeed, just a belief I have, but I think it’s pretty well founded in the fact that Marshawn Lynch has gone out of his way to be in the face of NFL management most of this fall and in truth, I loved every minute of it. But to think that the really rich white guy ranks that control the NFL were going to let Beast Mode rule this day after all of the defiance and trashing is simply delusional thinking.

Logic said, as we were constantly reminded throughout the rest of the evening, that the ball should have gone to Lynch for that final play, but I just don’t believe that  was an approved grand finale option by the NFL brand, or board. This was a disturbing, although not necessarily critical change in the force. The Seahawks could have let Robert Turbin have a crack at it on a run in, or there could have been an arching lob to either Chris Matthews or Doug Baldwin waiting somewhere in the far reaches of the end zone. And having watched the fatal goal line snatch, if the timing of that play had been a fraction either way it would have been lights out in Beantown. Perhaps the Seahawks drained the luck bank on the circus catch by Jermaine Kearse- who knows? But I do know that Lynch was not getting that ball and running for the win because, in the words of Ned Beatty’s Arthur Jensen character in the 1976 cine classic ‘ Network’: “you have meddled with the primal forces of nature and YOU… WILL…ATONE….!”