Personal
My Sports Teams
My Sports Teams
Being new to blogging, sometimes I want to write something but I find myself staring at a blank “page”. Today I thought, pick some aspect of my personal life and just write about why it’s an aspect of my life. So today, that something is sports.
Like many fans of sports, it usually starts when you are kid and I was really no different. Without getting to deep into my "Origin Story”, I didn’t grow up in any city or area with professional teams or even college teams. But eventually my family moved to Tallahassee, Florida, the home of Florida State University. This was 1979, and Bobby Bowden was in his fourth season as Head Coach of the football program. Before Bowden, FSU football never had any real successes, but Bowden, and his charm had all of Tallahassee abuzz with the Seminoles. It was so very easy to root for him and his players in those days, they were exciting to watch, they scheduled games against big time programs and even managed to win a few of them. Today, I am a huge supporter of FSU Athletics, and not just the football team. Go Noles!
I have many fond memories of growing up with my family but one set of memories involving sports was becoming a fan of the Atlanta Braves professional baseball team. My family was blessed to have two TV’s (I know amazing!) with one of them being this little 13 inch that was in the kitchen/dining room of our home. During the Summer, after dinner my Mom might be watching something in the Family room that Dad wasn’t too interested in so he would watch something on the 13 inch. That something most nights was Braves baseball games and I found myself joining him in the evenings and soon it became a very regular thing. Thanks to Ted Turner buying the team and broadcasting every game on his brand new TBS network, my Dad and I got to see a LOT of baseball. This was also, in the 80’s and the Braves were pretty mediocre for most of that time but they did have a few incredible players that I still think of fondly, Dale Murphy, Bob Horner, Pascual Pérez, and my favorite Glenn Hubbard. After graduating high school (Go Leon Lions by the way) I ended up moving to Atlanta and attending the Art Institute. I don’t have the time most days to watch many games but try and see them as often as possible and the blessings of the internet allow me to see all the highlights. Go Braves!
This brings me to the NFL. This country may consider baseball its “National Pastime” but football is the king when it comes to popularity. Now, during the early 80’s I was certainly following along with the Seminoles but I really didn’t care too much about the professional league. That was probably another instance of geography, there really wasn’t a team near me and certainly any broadcast I saw on TV would be from cities that might as well have been in another country. When baseball season is done in October, really the only sports on TV is football and on Sundays that means the NFL. My Parents are from western Maryland and while I would believe my Dad would be the first to admit, he wasn’t a big fan of any particular team, he will tell you it was the Baltimore Colts, (yes, Colts not Ravens, go look it up) and while he was not a big sit around and watch a game kind of fan, he did occasionally tune in. Now, it was easy to be a Seminole fan, they were right down the street, being a fan of any NFL team was harder for me. You would think I picked my favorite team because of some particular player or saw some incredible win but that would be wrong. I picked the Seattle Seahawks who at the time were mostly terrible and didn’t really win much of anything. I firmly believe I was drawn to the teams colors, logo, and mascot. The hometown of my favorite baseball team had the Atlanta Falcons, a different fierce bird, but something just didn’t click with me about them. The Seahawks however looked awesome and still, in my opinion, are the best uniforms in the league. What did I care the team was literally the other side of the country from me, they looked cool and that was good enough for me. Go Seahawks!
I was not what you would call an athlete in High School but I did participate in some sports and I basically lived outdoors and on my bike for pretty much 14 hours a day in the Summer. I tried out for baseball at Leon but just wasn’t strong or coordinated enough for that sport but I I could play soccer. I wasn’t great but like today, I did have good stamina and could run without tiring easy. As I got older and moved away for the Art Institute, soccer basically disappeared for me, either playing or being a fan. In those days there was some professional soccer in the US but unless you lived in one of those cities you basically never heard about them. As life brought me back to Tallahassee, I discovered a local recreational league and started playing again, this became a favorite activity for me and I have greatly enjoyed playing again. Most of the players in this league have played for years and years going back to their childhoods and most of them are supporters of any number of professional teams from around the world. By far these teams were mostly from the English Premiere League. I started to pay attention to the spirit and history of a few of these teams and thought maybe I would pick one to kind of start supporting. As it turns out I have family that lived in Great Britain and were very much fans of the Manchester City football club. Well that was good enough for me, and it was fun picking the rival of one of the more popular club among my fellow players, Manchester United. Let’s Go City!
Now… having lived in Florida for most of my life, I never had an interest in hockey and certainly didn’t pay any attention to the NHL. As luck would have it Tallahassee got to be the new home for a minor league hockey team, the Tallahassee TigerSharks. Attending those games gave me such a better understanding and appreciation for the sport, that I started watching and checking out professional games when I could, especially playoffs. I never picked a favorite team and again fate would come calling and provide me with a fine choice. My Daughter started dating and then married a guy who grew up in St Louis, Missouri and he and his family are life long fans of the Blues. Well, that works for me and now I consider myself a fan also. Go Blues!
As for the NBA, again, geography never had me living for any significant time where a team was located, so I never adopted a team. I like basketball and attend games regularly for Florida State but I don’t count myself a fan of any of the professional teams. Maybe this changes in the future?
It’s interesting, that at the moment in time I start following a team, they really are not very good, but soon, usually within a few years, they end up becoming great.
For the Seminoles, the football team won at least 10 games every year from 1987 to 2000 never finishing the year out of the top five and one the National Championship twice in 1993 and 1999.
For the Braves, I became a fan right at the start of 15 straight years of Division Titles, with 5 World Series appearances and 1 World Series Title.
My Seahawks, between 1999 and 2020 they won their division 10 times, made the playoffs every one of those years with 3 Super Bowl appearances and 1 Super Bowl Championship.
Manchester City between 2010 and 2023 won the Premier League title 8 times, including 4 in a row. In 2023, they not only won the Premier League Title, they also won an historic Treble by also winning the FA Cup and the Champions League Title!
The Blues? Well, what can I say. I become a fan and they win their very first Stanley Cup! I really am agood luck charm.
Fanaticism is a funny thing, I have experienced heartbreak, ecstasy and everything in between. As I have gotten older, I have come to understand that teams will go through up and downs from year to year, especially in leagues where there is built in parity. I try not to get to high or get to low now a days but just try and enjoy the talents of the athletes, and do my best to cheer them on. When is the next game...
Special Place in Hell
Public Service Announcement.
I have a pretty decent spam filtering process, but no process is 100% and I will still get the occasional BAD email, as follows.
The first screen shot shows the message as it appears in my inbox and is pretty legit looking…. although the use of French in the fine print is a clue. The second screen shot shows the senders full email…. “noreply@pphoki.me” is probably not an actual Disney email server. The last screen shot is what the website looks like and shows the full address in the address bar, yes I used a private browser to access the site. There is a special place in hell for these kinds of criminals.
A very special place.
Twister Twister Twister
So. That was something a little different. Last Friday morning, Tallahassee was hit with a very strong storm front that came on very fast, that isn’t the new part. The front produced tornadoes, that isn’t completely new either, we are used to Hurricanes but we get occasional twisters also. What was new, was there were three of them all in the span of about an hour and all isolated mostly in the South part of the city. When you live in Florida you understand the destruction that low pressure fast winds can make. You pray for minimal damage, no serious injuries (or deaths) and cope with the loss of power get to cleaning things up. This was different.
Tallahassee is a very beautiful tree loving city… we are kinda famous for our canopy roads. We tend to even build sidewalks around the trees instead of cutting them down. While that does make living here like living in a forest, it does come with downsides when big storms hit. This one was bad. It took down so many trees and with it power lines and poles. The City Utilities reported that the damage was worse than the last three hurricanes to land in the area combined. Those crews, along with neighboring counties and states lending their crews, have been working non stop to restore power to so many people.
We were fortunate to have minimal damage to the trees near our house, bunch of small limbs, a few big ones but nothing too bad. We will need a utility crew to take care of a large limb resting on our power line to the house, but we have our power back after 36 hours. Small blessing to have my Parents home to shelter (and save our food) in while the utility crews did their thing. Sadly, there has been one reported death and a number of injuries. The damage to the Railroad Square art district is near castotrophic, it may be years recovering. Both FAMU and FSU suffered significant damage to buildings.. the FSU Circus had their big top tent destroyed. It will be a long time before that part of the city is functioning back to normal.
A shout out to the efforts of the City of Tallahassee Utilities and the crews helping from other utility companies. Thank You.
Will be listening to rain a little differently now.
Tuve unas vacaciones increíbles visitando España.
Translation… I had an amazing vacation visiting Spain. With what I hope will be a regular occurrence, I recently traveled with my Wife, her Sister and her Husband. A few years ago we took a trip to Indonesia with Viking Cruise lines. That trip was incredible and if you have the opportunity to travel with Viking, I highly reccommend them.
This time, instead of the other side of the globe, we only went half way around and had my first visit to Europe. I sometimes will do a lot of research leading up to a vacation and try and learn about all the things to do or not do. This time, I consciously chose to only do a minimum of reading or viewing with the intent of being surprised a little as I experienced things. I thought it worked quite well, there were genuine moments and locations that I knew nothing about ahead of time and the impact I think was greater to me.
I began a draft of this post, and it was turning into a travel blog chronicling all of my itinerary. I decided to scrap that and instead just write a bit about my overall impressions. Spain, like most countries, can feel very different depending on where you are, that was the case for me anyway. We started in Madrid, had a day trip Toledo, took a high speed train to Barcelona and then a day trip to Montserrat. Each one of those places had some similarities, but the feeling and vibe were very different to me. Madrid had a very bustling large city feel, we were only really exposed to a very touristy part of the city but I got the same feeling I get when in Atlanta or New York. Toledo, however was like stepping back in time to the Middle Ages, some of the buildings literally. It is a UNESCO World Heritage location and I really loved how well they took care to preserve this very Old World city. Barcelona, the heart of Catalonia, was almost the opposite of Madrid, while just as big and with maybe twice the tourists, things felt so much more relaxed and laid back and I could see returning to visit here again and exploring more. While Barcelona is a very coastal city, it is not far from a very significant mountain. Montserrat was a place on this trip that had the naturalist in me full and happy. It’s an amazing place that is famous for the monks that built the Benedictine Chapel and Monastery there but it also is a haven for hikers and climbers who enjoy the outdoors and the spectacular views.
Spain was everything I hoped it would be, and like most vacations, my time there was too short. I look forward to another adventure with my travel buddies.
Qui no s’arrisca, no pisca! (Nothing ventured, nothing gained!)
Another Trip Around the Sun
So yesterday’s Eclipse went by and the Apocalypse was apparently postponed. I have always loved Space and any celetial events are cause for me to geek out. Where I live gave us about a 70% coverage of the Sun but really happy for those in the totality band that got to experience the full impact of a rotating piece of rock casting a shadow on to a larger rotating rock. ;-)
Speaking of rotating rocks… the one we call home completed for me another trip around the Sun and I have now made 56 successful laps. I am (like all of us) a work in progress and as I grow older I do try and acknowledge the end goal is maybe less important then the pursuit of the goal.
A day is a vestigial mode of time measurement based on solar cycles. River Tam of Firefly