My time in football heaven.
I dreamt that I went to football heaven. As I approached the gates, I was quite surprised, at first, to see that Howard Cossell was the gatekeeper, then, I thought to myself, “Who would be better to greet people at the gates of football heaven?” Howard motioned at me, “Follow me, God would like to speak to you.”
I followed Howard for what seemed like hours over lush green playing fields with white stripes as far as the eye could see. Eventually, a stadium started to take form ahead of us. As we got closer, I realized it was Three Rivers Stadium. “Wow”, I whispered. Howard just gave me a knowing look. When we got closer, a man came out of a side door and offered me his hand. “Hi”, he said, “I’m God”. I stared in disbelief for a second and replied, “But, you’re Vince Lombardi!” Lombardi squinted his eyes, “Who the hell else did you think would be God here?” I thought for a moment and said, “I don’t know, maybe Hank Stram.” Lombardi chuckled, “Maybe, but I got seniority. Follow me.”
We made our way down a hill to the most pristine playing field you have ever seen. “Why am I here?,” I asked Lombardi. “Look,” he said and pointed down to the field. I turned just in time to see a familiar figure come around the end and obliterate Johnny Unitas. As he got up, I heard Unitas mutter, “Damn, Nitschke never hit like that.” Nitschke overheard the remark and I can’t really repeat his reply here. Let’s just say it was long and riddled with some words I’m not sure I’ve ever heard before.
After Nitschke’s diatribe, I turned around to face the man that had made the tackle. “Hey”, he said, “I’m Derrick Thomas.”
“I know who you are, Mr. Thomas, I’ve been a fan of yours for years”, I finally coughed out.
With a big smile, Derrick said, “Mr. Thomas was my dad”, he glanced over to the sidelines where I saw a man in an Air Force flight suit give us a little wave, “you can call me D.T.”
As we walked over to the bench, I asked D.T., “Why was I brought here?” He sat down on the bench and looked up at me. “Chiefs fans”, he started, “are starting to lose hope. I can feel it. I guess we spoiled them a little in the nineties winning so many games. Couldn’t get to the Super Bowl…” he trailed off and turned his head for a minute and then looked back at me, “The important thing is that they never give up. Remember the eighties? That was a dark time for Chiefs fans, but it got better. I guess the fans could look at what’s going on as a testing. You know? Weed out the bandwagon fans a little. Even though things look bad, things will get better. Tell them that for me. It’s always darkest before the dawn.
I was scared but I had to ask anyway, “Things aren’t looking good, the coaching has gone downhill, the players act like they’ve given up, how can you be sure it will get better?”
D.T. gave me a little grin, “With me and Lamar up here, trust me, things will get better.”
D.T. stood up, he stretched a little and said, “Speaking of which, I’m meeting him in a little bit for dinner.” I noticed Cossell was standing at my shoulder, I don’t really know if I hadn’t noticed him walk up, or if he had just kind of appeared there. Either way, I knew my time in football heaven was coming to an end. “D.T.”, I said, “It’s been a real pleasure meeting you.”
“Same here, you just don’t forget to tell the fans what I told you,” he said and started to walk off. I turned and started to follow Cossell when I heard him yell, “Hey, Colby”. I turned around and he came running up, it was then I realized how scary it had to of been for quarterbacks when they saw him doing that. “I want you to do one more favor for me.”
“Anything, D.T., you name it,” I said.
He looked me in the eye and said, “Tell h-squared to quit posting those damn parrots.”
"If you need braggin' on, let someone else do it"-my dad
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Originally Posted by prough91
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