Just when you think football is king, when football thinks it is king, when it considers itself the most important thing in the world, Mother Nature rolls in and kicks it aside, makes it scramble, and, most significantly, puts it in perspective.
It bows and bends to and battens down and sometimes bitches about the extreme powers of the planet.
But, man, they are there and they can be cruel and unrelenting and devastating. They blow mighty trees down. They batter houses and then flood them with 20 trillion gallons of rain. They leave people stranded on rooftops, calling for help, looking and hoping for rescuers or neighbors or good samaritans or anyone with a heart and soul and able body to save them. In many cases, they, themselves, are all they have left. Everything else is washed away.
The welfare of a football game? That’s on down the list.
Still, some fans around here are complaining about the relocation of the BYU-LSU game, the one that was scheduled for Houston’s NRG Stadium on Saturday night. The moment Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast and certainly as it moved in on Houston, burying its streets and buildings and homes under deep flood waters, that game, as it was planned, was doomed.
It had to go somewhere else, if it went on at all. As ESPN and partners supposedly negotiated with possible alternative sites — rumored to be from Arizona to Florida — fans waited for word and then scrambled to change their plans. It’s no small investment for partisans to buy tickets, airline tickets, make hotel arrangements, and, next thing, have to switch all of those plans up on account of a game and a game change they have already dropped hard-earned cash on and now are forced to drop more.
Some BYU fans think the game’s relocation to New Orleans sucks, not just because it’s costing them a whole lot of money, but because a game that was supposed to be at a so-called neutral site will suddenly be a home game for the Tigers. They thought a move to the Cotton Bowl or Jerry’s Place would have made more sense. It would have been a fairer competitive move, and probably more convenient.
We were all scrambling around on Monday night to change transportation and accommodation. Even those of us who are covering the game for news organizations took a hit. The Tribune, for instance, will pay thousands of dollars more for its planned coverage of the game because of the specific relocation.
The teams, the schools, the programs will fork over more money for the change.
The fans will sacrifice financially for their fandom.
Everyone who attends the game, save those who will drive down now from Baton Rouge, will have been inconvenienced.
Poor us.
No. No. No.
Look at the pictures from Houston. Look at the faces of the people who are in pain, who have suffered so much loss. Officials say it will take weeks and months and years for that city, and other areas around it, to recover from the widespread devastation. Residents are holed up in shelters, good people have lost their possessions, their dwellings, their places of employment, and, in tragic cases, their loved ones.
Nature can be one vicious mother.
A single positive among so much heartbreak is the noble efforts of the people of South Texas, officials and regular folks, the first- and second- and third-responders, heroes who come together to help one another survive and get by. A picture that was tweeted and retweeted out of Houston the other day was an image of a black police officer carrying in his arms two white children through flood waters up to his waist to safety.
In times when we all hear about and see on television and computer screens so much hatred among people of different groups in this country, that single photo brought home what it should be, what it is, at least in many cases, to be a freaking American.
Send up prayers, then, if that’s what you believe in, send out good thoughts, if that’s what you do, send money or supplies or relief of any kind, if you can for the people affected by this terrible storm.
All the inconveniences and expenses associated with a game change are no big deal. Football, the king, can take a flying leap.
GORDON MONSON hosts “The Big Show” with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.