Making The Play

As a kid, my mom, dad, sisters and I spent a majority of the Christmas holidays with my mom's side of the family in St. Louis and Evansville, Illinois. Not to be confused with Evansville, Indiana, the little town in Illinois sits on the Kaskaskia River and has a booming population of about 800 people. My grandma and grandpa owned a small, three-bedroom home where we would all my aunts, uncles and cousins would gather for Christmas Eve. My grandpa put up beautiful lights outside and as kids, we loved arriving at night so that when we crossed the railroad tracks we could see the star on top of the house which meant we were only a football field away from a plate of fried chicken and a cold glass of milk. It was truly an "over the river and through the woods" kind of moment.

How my parents made that trip every Christmas, I'll never know. They somehow packed the car with gifts, luggage, three kids and usually a dog. As an expert packer, my dad was always able to hide the "Santa" gifts under everything else so that we couldn't see what Old Saint Nick was bringing us. Truly amazing.

With no DVD players, Ipods or books on tape, we three girls sat side by side in the back seat with a small bag of stuff to keep us busy during the 8-hour drive. Jenny always brought a book, Vicky had crayons and coloring books, and I had an electronic football game. You know the ones..red digital X's and O's for players. Arrow buttons so that you could move those same X's and O's side to side and backwards and forwards until they scored a touchdown. Kept me occupied for hours until one of my sisters crossed the imaginary line and a fight would ensue. Believe me, nobody was happier than my parents when we pulled into my grandparents' driveway and they could take a breather from the hassle of traveling with children.

The great part was that once we arrived, usually a few days before Christmas, we got to stay until right after New Year's, which meant we were always there when the Orange Bowl was played on January 1. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, the University of Oklahoma, more often than not, played in this bowl game. Although my dad didn't attend OU, he did grow up in Oklahoma, and would always retreat to the basement on New Year's night to watch the game.

While everyone else was upstairs playing games, watching Johnny Carson and eating snacks, my dad was cheering for the home team in crimson and cream. And on many occasions I was by his side. At that age, it wasn't so much that I loved the thrill of the sport. I wasn't raised to be a diehard OU fan, although after watching the game, the song "Boomer Sooner" stuck with me for a few days. I had no dreams of going to school there, I had never even been to Norman, and at that point touchdown and field goal were the only terms I understood.

What I loved about watching those games with my dad was simply that it was just me and my dad. I had him all to myself. Every now and then, someone would open up the basement door and tell us to come up. But we rarely did. Instead, I'd watch the game and cheer and boo at the appropriate times, my dad would try to explain the rules to me and when it was over, we would return upstairs to announce the outcome. Nobody really cared, but by emerging from the basement together, I felt a strong sense of comradeship. We had been to battle together and come out alive.

We usually returned to Tulsa within a day or so of the Orange Bowl. The car would be repacked, my grandpa would send with us bags of popcorn for the road and my sisters and I would draw our imaginary lines on the car seats to mark our territory. Back to the routine of going to school, going to work and making ends meet, I knew that time with my dad was special. I didn't realize how special until last November. The night before he died, OU played Texas Tech. Earlier in the week, my dad and I talked about watching the game as it was a big one for the Sooners. I ended up watching most of it by myself in an empty hospital room next to my dad's.

With that being said...

LESSON LEARNED #2 - Winning or losing doesn't really matter...it's how you watch the game.