By Matt "Money" Smith
FOX Sports West and PRIME TICKET
January 24, 2011
With the NFL's conference championship games having taken place Sunday, and my having been in Chicago for the Bears-Packers contest, I clearly forgot what a professional football team can do to unite a community.
There is no question we know it here in Los Angeles thanks to the Lakers, but with an 82-game regular season and four playoffs rounds that follow a best-of-seven format, the fever-pitch drama moments are few and far between. Granted, a Game 7 against your chief rival Boston Celtics for the NBA Championship can be a bit stressful for a fan, but it took nearly 10 days to get there with countless moments of drama along the way. There is a reason why the NFL is our most popular sporting league, and like me, if you managed to forget that feeling of waking up in a city on a Sunday morning knowing this day could be their team's last game for nearly eight months, you should travel to one of the playoff rounds next season to remember.
There really is nothing like it in professional sports.
From shoveling their driveway, to working the drive-thru at Dunkin Donuts, young and old, men and women, the Chicago Bears was the only topic on their minds, and they let their wardrobe show it. We were ridiculed by the rest of the nation for the Lakers flags that at one time occupied nearly every back window of every fifth car on our overpopulated freeways. What's wrong with a little civic pride for a city that's often cited as having the worst fans in the nation (see Money's frustrations with L.A. fans here), at moments we can be just as fervent and myopic about our teams as a Boston, New York or Chicago. I admit bristling at times when one USC porch flag after another appears in my Orange County neighborhood and I'm not sure if my oldest daughter is no longer playing AYSO soccer by her own choosing or thanks to her father losing his mind over every Trojans fold out chair or crying and whining on a Sunday following a football loss.
I figured it out while witnessing the highest of highs and lowest of lows all within a span of six hours. Complete unadulterated joy that their beloved Chicago Bears were hosting their most fierce of rivals in the NFC Championship Game on a cold 19-degree afternoon. It was an event that galvanized an entire region of the country. The game takes place after service, mass, the divine liturgy, or simply some steak and eggs. And once it enters that window of time, everything else in their world stops. Whether they like it or not, there is no getting around it, a community is united thanks to a certain team, playing at a certain time, representing a certain city.
The Lakers Game 7 victory over the Celtics in June happened on a weeknight. It tipped off while many of our residents were still finishing up at work or stuck in their cars trying to make it home while having missed as little as of the action as possible. The world didn't stop like it does on a Sunday afternoon for a conference championship. Many have suggested Los Angeles has a professional football team thanks to the stretch of games won by USC. That's an insult to everyone in town that might have attended UCLA, Cal Poly, LMU, Pepperdine, any of the Cal State schools, and the list goes on. It's likely more people in town get absolutely zero joy out of seeing the Cardinal and Gold exact their power and will over all other comers, than actually do.
It's simply not the same as an NFL team.
Before I left for the weekend there was, depending on your perspective, a big or not-so-big story to cover regarding AEG and their their renewed interest in seeing the NFL return to Los Angeles. We've now been fed more than one artist's rendering of a possible stadium that could be nestled right next to STAPLES Center and LA Live, further enhancing an already incredibly enhanced downtown area. I used to write these sort of stories off as non-news. What's the point of covering the possibility of maybe seeing the LA City Council award an environmental impact exemption, or an architect inform us the design in in fact feasible for the space provided when it came to the NFL? (See Money's angry rant on Football to LA rumors here). I just wanted to be left alone and told when a team was in fact coming. Contract signed, ground broken (a wood-encased pile of loose dirt, a golden shovel and a red ribbon cut with giant gold scissors), official opening day set, even if it was four years in the future.
I wanted certainty, and have yet to get it.
After witnessing what happens to a city when their NFL team is on the precipice of participating in the biggest game in all of sports, I now realize why for some, chasing the return of a team that could do the same for Los Angeles consumes them. I don't want to get too deep into the AEG plan, I'll save that for another column, and one that I won't write until I sit down with the players involved, particularly Tim Leiweke. But I will say, more than any other time, more than any other group, this is what I believe to be THE shot for Los Angeles to finally pry a team away from their current home. So instead of dismissing the idea of it actually happening and approaching the presentations with tremendous skepticism and a flippant attitude, I'm ready to buy in. Maybe it's because I want to, maybe it's because this really is the group of people to make it happen.
But having lived in Los Angeles for 20 years, to have 17 of them be without a professional team is enough.
We miss it, we need it, and it's time to bring it back.
CLICK HERE to view the LA Football Stadium design photos.
