Score One for the Old Guys…

I am old enough to remember when the only big-league team in Florida was the Miami Dolphins – and they only arrived in 1966.  Tampa, the city nearest us, built a new stadium in hopes of luring an NFL team to town.  The sports editor for The Tampa Tribune, Tom McEwen, hailed from my hometown of Wauchula (he grew up with my Dad).  He constantly wrote about the need for an NFL franchise in the “Greater Tampa-St. Pete-Wauchula” metropolitan area.  With a population of almost 4,000, we were sure that Wauchula would be the deciding factor in awarding the coveted expansion team.  Finally, in the first NFL expansion since the AFL/NFL merger, Tampa, along with Seattle, was awarded a team.  The team would be called “The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (I thought “The Wauchula Wildcats” would have been a good name).”   

By that time, we had moved off the ranch and I was attending high school in Largo.  Our band, The Largo Band of Gold, had just won a national championship.  We were selected to play the pre-game and half-time show for the first Bucs home game ever.  I still remember the electric feeling in the stadium that night.  The crowd would cheer for anything, they were so pumped.  The Bucs fell to the instant in-state rival, Miami Dolphins by a score of 28-21.  The first quarterback of the Bucs?  Steve Spurrier. 

It turned out, that first pre-season game was the highlight of the season.  Spurrier ran for his life behind an offensive line made up of cast-offs from other NFL teams and rookies fresh from college.  The team wilted to a winless season.  When Head Coach John McKay was asked what he thought about his team’s execution, he replied he was in favor of it.  The Bucs would stay winless until late in their second season.  Their mark of losing 26 games in a row was exceeded only by the Chicago Cardinals losing 29 from 1942-1945.  At least they had World War II as an excuse.   

It was hard to be a Bucs fan in those days.  Coaches would arrive, promising a turn-around and would run the team into a ditch in a few seasons.  People began to wonder if the Bucs were cursed.  There was a rumor Tampa Stadium was cursed.  A local radio station hired a witch doctor to remove the curse.  The next Sunday, the Bucs won.  The week after, the Bucs reverted to form and lost again.  Apparently curse removal is a temporary thing. 

I moved away to go to school, but those first steps on the Bucs’ field created a bond.  I followed the team through its ups and downs.  Tony Dungy became Head Coach and brought quality (as he always does).  Jon Gruden took Dungy’s team to the Super Bowl and won.  We thought the curse was finally lifted.  Not so.  Gruden coached the team right back to mediocrity.  He was fired.  A new coach was hired.  Then he was fired.  The cycle repeated, again and again. 

Like the rest of the world, I took note when Tom Brady, the Greatest of All-Time (or G.O.A.T.) left New England and Bill Belichick for warmer climates.  The Patriots had decided Brady was over-the-hill, but Brady thought it otherwise.  When he started the 2020 season, he became the oldest man ever to play NFL football.  He was already the oldest winner of a Super Bowl MVP at 40.  At 43, he was stretching retirement out even further.   

They say Brady changed the culture at the Bucs.  He got them to shake off their loser’s laments and the team start playing with a fire in their gut.  Brady convinced his go-to tight-end from the Patriots, Rob Gronkowski, to un-retire and come and play in Tampa.  Brady and Gronkowski played for Bruce Arians, the Head Coach, who at 68, also had come out of retirement to coach the Bucs.   

After losing to Kansas City on Thanksgiving Sunday, the Bucs would not lose another game.  Facing Kansas City again in the Super Bowl, in their own stadium, the old men of the Bucs dominated Kansas City and their young, brilliant quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.  Brady topped his own record and was again named the Super Bowl MVP.  Coach Arians became the oldest coach to win a Super Bowl. 

I cannot help but feel proud for my hometown Tampa Bay-St. Pete-Wauchula Buccaneers.  I was there in the beginning, suffered long, and got to see the old men score.  Being no longer young myself, it is a reminder just because the calendar turns a page, that does not mean a person is done.   

When you read the Bible, you discover God does amazing things with people in the last third of their lives.  Noah started on the ark when he was 600; Abraham becomes a dad at 100; Moses is 80 when he leads the people out of slavery in Egypt; Joshua was 60 when he led the people of God into battle; Jesus begins his ministry at age 30, remarkable when you remember the average life-span in his time was 42.  God does great things with people others think are over-the-hill. 

No matter how old (or how young) you are, God has a purpose for your life.  If you do not know what it is, ask.  Before he was even asked, Brady announced he was coming back to play next year – at age 44.  The G.O.A.T. is not done yet. If you are reading this and if you still have life, neither are you. God still has a purpose for you.  Live it.

Critics…

A few years ago, I was at a high school football game.  Our team, the home team, was huddled on offense. They broke the huddle and came up to the line of scrimmage.  The ball was hiked, and the quarterback rolled out to the right side of the field.  He had an open receiver and threw the ball.  It was not a great throw, but it was a catchable pass.  The defender arrived about the same time as the ball, delivering a bone-crushing hit.  The receiver briefly held the ball, then it went out of his hands and fell on the ground.  Incomplete pass.

Before the PA announcer could say, “Pass broken up by number 56,” a man behind me stood up and started yelling at the receiver: “How could you drop that ball?  It was right to you!  You got butter on your finger’s boy? My grandmother could have caught that ball!”  I turned around to look at the man.  He was about forty-five years old and about forty-five pounds overweight.  I had no idea what kind of shape his grandmother was in.

I did not know this man, but I was tempted to say to him, “Do you think you can do better?  Do you think you could hold that ball, knowing a hit is coming?  What gives you the right to criticize?” 

Since this happened early in the game, the man behind me had several other comments when players made mistakes or did not perform at an NFL level.  By the third quarter, I was thinking to myself, “If he yells at the players one more time, I will turn around and slap him in the name of Jesus.”  Then I remembered Jesus did not slap anybody.

Our team was up by a comfortable margin, so I allowed my mind to ponder everything on a sixteen-year-old’s mind.  The test he blew that morning.  The fight he had with his girlfriend last night.  The coach cutting his playing time in favor of an up-and-coming sophomore.  Overhearing his parents fight three or four days ago.  Wondering if he is good enough to play college ball.  The performance pressure of playing in front of three thousand people.  If all that were on my mind, I doubt I could focus on catching any ball.

The final horn sounded and the man behind me slapped my back and said, “We pulled out a win!”  I thought, “What do you mean ‘we?’  I did not see you down on the field.  I do not think you were calling any plays.  In fact, I heard you refer to the coaches as ‘Idiots’ several times.  All I heard was you hollering criticism.”

There are three kinds of criticism.  Constructive criticism aims for improvement.  Every boy on the field that night had signed up for constructive criticism.  The coaches of the team were watching film, correcting mistakes, doing their best to train the team to win as many games as possible.

Destructive criticism has a different purpose.  Destructive critics love to point out faults in others so they can feel better about themselves.  They love feeling powerful at the expense of others.  They do nothing to help people get better. 

If you grow up with a parent who is a destructive critic, God help you.  The voice of a destructive critic worms its way into your soul and can eat at you.  You constantly hear an internal message that you are not enough, you are only valued when you achieve, and you will never be as good as your critic.

The third kind of critic is the most toxic.  I call them “The crazy critic.”  Crazy critics pretend to be your friend one minute and tear you down the next.  The crazy critic does not just try to control your emotions, they try to manipulate your life.  I have talked to people who are married to a crazy critic.  They tell me it is a special kind of hell, living on the edge every moment.  Free dating advice for those of you who are not married: If you see signs that you are dating a crazy critic, run.

The good news is you can control your response to your critic. If a critic really has your best interest at heart, you choose how to accept and apply their counsel.  You can choose to set a boundary with a destructive critic.  You do not have to have a relationship with a crazy critic.  If you must relate to them, you can keep your guard up.

One of the many reasons to admire Jesus was his response to critics.  He refused to accept their agenda.  When they tried to trap him, he changed the agenda and put them on the spot.   Even though his critics had power and prestige, he did not let them define his mission. 

The older I get, the more empathy I have for coaches, presidents, and ballplayers.  As Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

I wonder if the man at the game ever heard of Teddy Roosevelt.