Sometimes the Underdog
When I was in high school a friend of mine used to tell me, “You can learn a lot about life from watching sports.”
Being a non-sports-fan back then, I would just shrug and say dismissively, “That’s because sports are a part of life. There’s nothing magic about them.”
Over the last several years, however, I’ve developed a passion for watching football (American football, for any readers I might have outside of North America). And I’ve discovered that my high school chum was right.
On Sunday, the underdog Buffalo Bills — who at 4-6 have had a crappy season and are a laughingstock — got the ball back from the Houston Texans with just 1:10 to go and a four-point deficit to overcome. The Bills’ much-maligned quarterback, J.P. Losman, did something no one expected him to do: he rose to the challenge. Showing poise, leadership, and a lion’s heart, he led the Bills into scoring range and threw an impossibly good pass to Peerless Price. Price also did something he was not expected to do: he made a miraculous leaping catch and amazingly came down with his feet just inside the end-zone.
Touchdown. Victory.
Many of you are aware that at the beginning of this year I put a stake in the ground and via my Web site announced to the world that I would be unleashing my original super-hero, The Victory Streak. Over the last several months my progress has sputtered to a halt.
All of my life, I’ve felt like the underdog. The laughingstock. The One Who Just Couldn’t Get It Done. The one who struggled in art class while the whiz kids with all of the natural talent left me eating their dust. The one in screenwriting class who just didn’t seem to have the knack. And of late, I had come to despair that I didn’t have what it takes to see to fruition my life’s dream: to publish my own comic-book.
But watching the Bills do what no one expected has shaken me from my despair.
It helped me remember the encouragement I received from a fellow art student, who reminded me that the “whiz kids” were art majors while I was only an art minor. He told me I’d made remarkable progress given how little time I’d been spending on my drawings. He also told me I had talent that would be worth the effort to develop.
It helped me remember something one of my writing professors told me: that I had “abundant talent.”
But, you know, I was focusing on my losses. Not my wins.
The Bills did the opposite. They tuned out all the shit everyone was saying about them and did what they believed they could do all along.
And now I realize there is no excuse for any of us not to do the same thing. Because sometimes even the underdog wins.
November 21st, 2006 at 11:19 pm
So, what you’re trying to say here is that I now have to set aside two new lines for my budget?
321) Bill’s movies
and now
322) Bill’s comics.
What, you two think that we’re all made of money out here?
November 22nd, 2006 at 1:29 am
Stop your whining. Quit the crack or eat ramen noodles for breakfast AND dinner.
Seriously, Bill, I’m glad you feel better. What you’re doing is, in my mind, a lot more difficult than say, making movies, where you have team of people to depend on. Yours is a one man operation.
Of course, when it’s done the rewards are all yours as well (well, you and your lovely significant other).
November 22nd, 2006 at 1:57 am
Always remember, Michealangelo said that the sculptures were already in the marble, he just had to clear away the extra bits. Michealangelo’s cleaning lady said “Yeah, HE clears away the extra bits. What the hell am I for?”
You’ve got stories to tell. That’s the biggest thing that gets most people out of writing, not having anything to say. You have things to say. You also have one or two people to do really nasty things to in your stories. Literary homicide is so much more satisfying and so less messy than the real thing.
I remember in one of his forewords, PAD wrote that someone told him they didn’t like his stuff because he was to fanny. He responded that he writes his stories for himself, and if other people like it, so much the better.
November 22nd, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Some of you may have noticed that I edited my post a couple of times, in part to correct some awkward sentence construction, but also in part to take some of the emphasis off of me.
My point was not to say, “Hey, look how great I am!” I was trying to write about something larger than me. Most of us feel like underdogs at one time or another — and I truly believe most of us are capable of grabbing moments of glory like the Bills did on Sunday.
I posted this in hopes that all of you might remember this the next time you feel tempted to get down on yourselves — something to which we can all fall prey.
November 22nd, 2006 at 11:23 pm
Do we think you’re all made of money out there? Yes. Yes we do.
November 23rd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
I think that you’re being more self-conscious about it then you needed to be. It came across the way you wanted it to the first time. You’re a much better wordsmith then you often give yourself credit for.
Happy Thanksgiving.