Adam Karon Karon is very thankful for
anyone who is still reading this column. Send comments to [email protected].
I am not a sentimental person. I don’t like sappy songs, I
don’t remember much about high school, and I never cry at
movies (except maybe Field of Dreams).
But Thanksgiving makes me a totally different man. Maybe
it’s the fumes from Aunt Edna’s toxic stuffing or
perhaps the 90-person family reunion we have each year, but for
some reason I always take time to reflect on my life as I eat
leftovers and watch USC get destroyed by Notre Dame on Saturday
afternoon.
This year was different. In my family, Thanksgiving means about
20 of my 90 family members getting together for a huge, absurdly
competitive football game. Never mind that the best athlete is my
12-year-old cousin Tzfia (she’s the only one who can really
catch). This year, as the game wound to a close, I became very
thankful.
Thankful that none of the armchair athletes in my family
sprained an ankle, wrist, or even a pinky toe as we sprinted
towards the pumpkin pies spread across the table, I thought about
the things in life for which I am most thankful.
My brother: Last week he broke his hand on the face of an
unfortunate USC sportswriter during the annual football game
between the Daily Bruin and Daily Trojan. There’s nothing
quite like watching the kid you pounded for 18 years take to heart
the anti-USC rhetoric that he has been filled with since the days
of Troy Aikman.
I am also thankful that there have been no serious strikes in
the past few years in professional sports. This shows great
maturity among today’s athletes. We know it takes heart and
some serious strength of character to learn to survive on an
average salary of $1.2 million a year. Thank you for making such
sacrifices for the fans.
I give thanks that I am not Paul Hackett, and you all should do
the same. Even after an agent of the devil rose up through the turf
of the Rose Bowl and assisted David “I need a push”
Bell’s field goal over the crossbar, Hackett was still in
deep trouble. He had a turkey’s chance in November of
sticking around for next season.
I am also thankful, in advance, for Freddie Mitchell coming back
next year. After you read this column, go to Taco Bell on campus or
Headlines in Westwood and look for the man with the navy blue
letterman jacket. Thank him for the past three years, then remind
him of Rocket Ismail and beg him to stay. Remind him about the
Biletnikoff award, a Rose Bowl bid, the chance to beat ‘SC,
and having the Playboy mansion in his backyard. When he returns, I
will be thankful to all of you for your influence.
I am very thankful that I write for the Daily Bruin instead of
the Daily Trojan. Their “special” edition before
Saturday’s game consisted of 16 pages of filth that looked
like they scraped it from the floor of a bathroom stall in Ackerman
after a bad case of food poisoning.
I am thankful for a man named Bill who has been entertaining us
at football and basketball games the past two years. If you ever
watch the Bruin mascot try to dance, you know what I’m
talking about. I also want to thank the men’s water polo team
for beating the heck out of USC Nov. 18 and giving us at least some
sense of the superiority we should all feel over the Trojans.
Sorry to be negative, but there are a few things I am definitely
not thankful for. Jim Rome, the designated hitter, and assigned
student seating at the USC game all make me see red, cardinal
red.
I am thankful that the WNBA is folding after this season. They
announced Saturday that the league is bankrupt and will no longer
excite us on ESPN2 every Tuesday at midnight. I am also thankful if
you fell for this joke and got really excited, and I will be even
more thankful if you don’t hunt me down for getting your
hopes up. The league will never fold, and instead will stick around
like a boil on Bush’s behind.
We should all be thankful that Jason Kapono can’t jump, or
he might have made the leap to the NBA a year ago, giving Cal State
“Nowhere” that much more of an edge.
I am thankful for Jim Everett, the greatest quarterback of all
time. I am also thankful for Kirk Gibson and Mickey Hatcher in Los
Angeles, a 37-foot green wall in Boston, and frozen tundra in Green
Bay.
In Westwood we should all give thanks for a man named
Wooden.
To close, I am most thankful I go to UCLA and can take pride in
baby blue and gold, sorority girls at football games, and the
goosebumps I get when I step into the Rose Bowl on a sun-splashed
Saturday afternoon.