You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will Read Free Page A

it was a week of less-blistering sun, a lively Eagles concert with friends, and the best key lime pie this side of any other place that serves key lime pie.
    Same city, two vastly different experiences.
    For someone like me, who has called several places home, it was also instructive: you have to unpack your bags to truly understand a region or place. Some women you date, some you marry. But only one experience unveils a deeper truth, whatever truth that may be.
    I’ve lived in all four corners of the country, from the Pacific Northwest to the Desert Southwest to Florida to Connecticut. The experience has given me a perspective on geography and demographics that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Embedding yourself in a community, understanding what makes the residents tick and ticks them off, can be powerful.
    In a roundabout way, my experiences observing people and places in all corners of the country have led me to a conclusion: sports is the Great Equalizer, maybe the fairest aspect of American life.
    I don’t mean to go all Toby Keith on you. You know, “Wave the flag, jump in the Ford, grab that gun, ready, aim—pew, pew, pew. God Bless ’Merica.” But I will say the idea of sports in this country almost brings a salty discharge to the corner of my left eye.
    When it comes to sports, this is a great country.
    Politics can be a harsh and humbling reminder of our limited patch of dirt. A conservative in California or a liberal in Texas may feel his vote is worthless. The electoral system gives us a set of standings that never change; certain states are like the Astros: always hovering somewhere near last place. A lack of population often translates to a lack of funding, which can leave one-stoplight towns looking up with envy and some bitterness at the more connected and powerful.
    Sports is different. Sports is our true democracy, giving everyone a sense that they can win.
    High school sports, especially football and baseball, are mostlydominated by smaller towns or suburbs. Hoover, Alabama; River Ridge, Louisiana; Katy, Texas—they each have the focus, commitment, and amount of football talent that a major metro program in a place like New York City or Boston can’t rival. Of 2012’s top ten high school football powerhouses, as ranked by
USA Today
, eight were in towns so small their zip codes might as well have four numbers.
    People who live for high school football in those towns don’t envy the big cities. In fact, many may pity them. They don’t coddle and worship star athletes after they’ve made it big; they create them.
    We see the same phenomenon in college sports. They’re dominated primarily by relatively small cities, such as Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Lexington, Kentucky. Tuscaloosa, Norman, College Station. They can create sustainable and profitable programs that urban universities can never duplicate. The smaller places, where it means more, have a passion that translates into funding. They travel more fans and boosters to road games than city schools have enrolled in classes.
    And the media has created a world that is more condensed and less disparate. Message boards, blogs, and YouTube highlights have created connections that were unavailable decades ago. The Internet has created an endless stream of year-round recruiting information. The games might end in January for a Buckeye or Longhorn fan, but the flow of information never ends. Who needs pro sports? This is the life.
    We’ve come to assume that professional sports is one big trophy case for the richer and more glamorous cities, but even that assumption needs to be reconsidered. Even in the pay-for-play world, the frugal, grounded, and even downright small are well represented. The Green Bay Packers have thirteen NFL championships; the New York Jets, one. The Washington Redskins sleepon piles of money and yet the Indianapolis Colts win actual playoff games. The Philadelphia 76ers have spent decades as a perpetually broken-down clunker while