Hey, I'm restaring this blog, uh again. And unfortunately, the first blog back is a sad and frankly devastating one for me. I wanted to give others who weren't able to attend my Dad's funeral the ability to read my eulogy speech if they so choose. It's been two weeks since we lost Dad and I feel like now the only way I can measure time is by how long he's been gone. Maybe one day that will fade but it's too fresh right now to not measure time that way. Here's my eulogy to Dad, I love you.
When you work in news you get used to talking about and compartmentalizing death. But rarely do you think that the traffic accident with the fatality on the Interstate will change your entire world. It’s still hard to believe that my Dad has been gone for over a week and that I won’t get to see him again for another hug or another game or another visit. But the things I do have of my Dad over the past almost 25 years of my life won’t ever go away. The memories, the stories, the love, and our many, many similarities. I’ve definitely been called my father’s child a lot and there are a lot of reasons for that. There are the obvious genetic similarities between my dad and I like the red hair and a slightly lopsided smile that won’t ever be straight. And then there are the personality traits, like being too nice to others to a fault, taking jokes a little too far, enjoying weird art, music, and movies, loving sports teams a little too passionately, and being too damn stubborn.
But there were two areas where we differed completely. While I am early to everything, Dad ran on Dad time, which was usually several hours later, and Christmas. I’ll admit, I can pretty much be a total curmudgeon. As someone with a Christmas Eve birthday its easy to feel ignored and left out. First of all you get less presents, you never get to see anyone, and most people generally forget it was even your birthday that week until like the new year. But my Dad loved Christmas, probably more than any other day of the year. When we were kids he’d spend hours after we went to bed assembling toys in the living room under the tree to make it seem like Santa had come. He even went so far as to walk across the alley to CVS and have some poor clerk working the overnight shift write a note to us as Santa thanking us for the cookies. And he did this long after we had all realized Santa wasn’t real, probably until I was getting ready to go to college.
And once the Santa phase was over, Dad transitioned into trying to get all three of us the perfect gift for Christmas. One year it was new TV’s for our dorm rooms, for another it was a kitchen appliance I had been begging for, (that’s when you know you’re an adult right? Being excited to get appliances for Christmas?), but I think my favorite present my Dad ever got me was on my birthday in 2017.
That year my birthday fell on a Sunday, and as luck would have it the Chicago Bears had an afternoon Christmas Eve game too and it felt like fate. Some of you may know this story but I was born in the early hours on a Sunday morning back in 1995, a Sunday that also included a Bears holiday game. From the way my mom tells the story, one of the first things my Dad did with me at 12 hours old was pick me up, put me in front of the TV in the hospital room that showed the Bears playing the Philadelphia Eagles at home in their last game of the season, and said to me, “Beaarrsss” letting me know this would be my football team for life whether I liked it or not. So since the Bears were playing on Christmas Eve at home in Chicago for the 2nd year in a row, we as a family decided to go to the game.
So let me set the scene a little bit here for you about what that game was like. In 2017 the Bears finished the season with a 5-12 record, were headed into their second to last game of the season, and were playing the Cleveland Browns, who currently at that point in time had 0 wins to their name. So as you may be able to expect it wasn’t a particularly crowded game at Soldier Field and hopes weren’t high for much of an entertaining contest. Oh also it was snowing so hard that day I think I almost slipped and fell walking to Soldier Field like 3 times and by the end of the game my socks were completely waterlogged from all the falling snow.
But even if you had come from the future to tell me all those things about that day, you could not have dampened my spirits. I was so excited for that game, to finally back at Solider Field for the first time in almost a decade, and to finally get a cool story to share about one of my birthdays. But there was definitely one person more excited than me about being at that game and no it wasn’t Robert, it was very much Dad. Not only was an IU player on the Bears squad in running back Jordan Howard but he was also a big part of the team. I don’t think there was something Dad loved more than cheering for IU guys in the pros, especially when he also had their jersey.
We got to the game pretty early and spent a decent amount of time before it walking around the stadium. Which of course included looking at the main gift shop that wasn’t too far from the entrance. At one point in my childhood I had a Devin Hester jersey that I’d either grown out of or was donated to Goodwill. So I was planning on buying myself a new jersey as a birthday present to myself to have a Bears jersey again and get it at halftime. So once halftime came around and the Bears had scored a single touchdown for a slight 3-point lead, I headed down back to the gift shop with everyone else in the family.
And I already had my mind set on exactly who’s jersey I wanted to get for myself. This may just be a me thing but as someone who is naturally pretty short, I’m always really impressed by smaller athletes who are around my size. And first year running back running back Tarik Cohen had become a standout for the team while also only being 5’6”, one of the shorter players in the game. So he had easily become a favorite of mine and I was determined to get his jersey and have it for his hopefully long and successful career with the Bears franchise. But the problem was because it was his first season, Cohen didn’t have a ready to grab jersey at the store. If I wanted a Tarik Cohen jersey, I’d have to pay extra to get his name and number ironed onto a blank Bears home jersey.
And while I definitely had the money to get the initial jersey, I didn’t budget quite enough for the extra money that a technically customized jersey would be. So I was standing near the back of the gift shop where the customized jerseys were made hemming and hawing about what to do since my initial plan was backfiring on me. My family had prodded me to get a Jordan Howard jersey since they thought he’d be the running back the Bears would keep in the off-season. Spoiler alert, Howard was gone to the Philadelphia Eagles two seasons later and Tarik Cohen is still making big running plays, or at least was until he tore his ACL. So while I was standing there not sure what to do, Dad came over asking me what the problem was.
I explained the situation to him and expressed how sad I was about not thinking I’d be able to get the Cohen jersey and to have to settle for someone else like Kyle Long, or god forbid Mitch Trubisky. Once I was done explaining it took Dad probably less than 5 seconds to say he’d pay for the customized Cohen jersey so I could have the birthday present I wanted. But because it was more expensive than a usual present, I protested some saying I at least wanted to pay for some of it or pay the difference between the two jersey types. Because if you’ve never had to buy an official jersey before, let me tell you they're pretty expensive. But Dad wouldn’t hear it, he was paying for the jersey I wanted no matter what amount I said I wanted to pay for it.
And getting a jersey as a Christmas present may not seem like the biggest thing in the world. I’d gotten a Blackhawks jersey for Christmas before in high school. But for me it was the fact that I had a physical reminder of that day, the first birthday I could remember actually truly enjoying myself. My brother and sister having a summer birthday always got fun parties while I was lucky if I’d be able to watch my favorite movie at home if it was on TV. But this year for my birthday instead of moping saying all I did was watch TV, I could say I went to a Bears game, I could even say I got a jersey of my favorite player that day.
And it was a good game too. The Bears ended up beating the Browns 20 to 3 with a couple extra touchdowns thrown in in the second half keeping them winless. And they would stay winless in week 16 too becoming the first team since the 2008 Detroit Lions to go 0-16. We even had a snowball fight up in the stands with other fans because it snowed the entire game and by the 4th quarter it was pretty obvious it would be a Bears win. I still think it’s the best birthday I’ve ever had and it was all thanks to my Dad.
Because that’s the kind of person Dad was. He’d do everything he could in his power to make you happy, especially during his favorite time of year. And he’d do that for you even if it was maybe to his own detriment, like his wallet. Its why Dad was a great nurse but a bad lawyer, he cared more about you and how you felt than about how he was feeling. He didn’t care if he was right and he wouldn’t get mean about it either if it meant making you happy. I saw that throughout my life from my Dad. Like when I wanted to go into theatre and no one else around me really got it or when I decided that I was going to be the person calling the football and basketball games, no matter how many obstacles I faced. Dad was always there for me with a supportive word and a great hug.
I know this birthday won’t be as good as my 22nd was in 2017. I got to spend the best day that year in my favorite city, watching one of my favorite teams, with my favorite people. And its hard to swallow that it won’t happen again, at least not in that way. I hope when the Bears won against the Bucs last week Dad was watching it with Walter Payton and Gayle Sayers, saying how much the team meant to him and his family. And I really wish our last conversation hadn’t been about how bad Trubisky was doing before he was pulled for Nick Foles. Thank you for everything Dad, you taught me a lot in your short time here, especially about how to care for others. I love you and I hope I can make you proud.
The only picture we got together that day, I wish my eyes had been more open for it.
So what's going to happen with this blog now that I'm back? I've set up a schedule for myself to write a blog over the weekend and post it Monday morning or early afternoon. I will most likely take holiday weekends off like Thanksgiving in November. But otherwise every Monday expect a sports blog from me discussing a variety of topics. I have a feeling the closer we get to the New Year the more they'll become hockey blogs but until then expect a variety of sports blogs moving forward. And you also may want to be on the lookout for a Youtube channel as well 👀
Dad supported me in everything I did and wanted to see me become a sports broadcaster more than probably anyone else. I'm going to do it Dad, I hope you can see it wherever you are. This is the start of achieving my sports broadcasting dreams and I wish you didn't have to be gone for me to do so.
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