Last week, Auburn’s Jonathon Mincy trotted off the field in untouchable satisfaction. The scoreboard said it all:
AUBURN: 31
WASHINGTON STATE: 24
When asked about getting the first win, Mincy merely nodded his head, a face full of towel muffling anything he could’ve tried to say. A towel as dry as Tom Izzo’s voice was soon damper than Ray Lewis’ handkerchief after church.
“We just found a way to win and that’s big for us,” he replied in a tone monotonous enough to make the iPhone’s Siri sound enthusiastic. How many times has the country heard that answer? How about the ‘take it one game at a time’ response? Too many more than enough. There will always be those moments in or stemmed from sports we wish we could just witness at least once.
Like…
1.) Hearing a conversation between Greg Popovich and Craig Sager alone in an elevator ride from the scrapings of the sky to the lobby.
2.) Seeing Adam Silver enrich and overturn every viewpoint 70-year old NBA commissioner David Stern had—the very day Stern steps out of office next year. Throw out the dress code, which bans players from wearing headphones, chains, shorts, T-shirts, indoor sunglasses, and any other form of modern-day style. Never veto trades and say it was for “basketball reasons” while superstar free agents team up on one team in the process; allowing it is fine, just stay consistent. Never fine a team for benching its best players for much-needed rest. Oh, but he should keep the type of basketballs used currently, though, not the weird microfiber ones with divided seams. According to Shaquille O’Neal, they felt “like one of those cheap balls that you buy at the toy store.” Like a hobo’s logic on socks: just don’t change them.
3.) Seeing Dodgers manager Don Mattingly purple-faced, pissed beyond measure, and in dire need to tell Yasiel Puig something with no translator in sight.
4.) Seeing what useful things Los Angeles has found to do with the Dwight Howard ‘STAY’ campaign billboard before the furnace gets fed. Houston’s mayor is probably shuffling through rubbish as we speak; he’ll need that billboard in a few years.
5.) Seeing an egotistical basketball team strut their getting-lucky-tonight smirk too early. That is, before utter desperation heaves a full-court shot to win the game for the underdogs. We’d see lottery-winning leaps and full displays of roaring mouths a dentist with Shaq-sized hands would thank. Let the janitor sweep up the jaws the failed, shell-shocked players dropped as they snap out of a trans, only to find out the bus already left. The too-perfect underdog story.
6.) Finally hearing that Rickie Fowler was charged with blinding someone. (“What, I thought I’d pick some pale colors from the wardrobe today! Still too bright?”)
7.) Seeing Johnny Manziel encouragingly shake the hand of everyone who plows him over on the field.
8.) Seeing the NCAA make a rule that allows student-athletes to make profit while in college, but it must go straight to a savings account monitored so it’s not accessed until they leave college. Then let’s lay off Manziel.
9.) Seeing the Clemson football bus run out of gas on the way to the tunnel. Maybe then the team would just stay put from then on and run out on the field like a regular team.
10.) Seeing Miguel Cabrera crank 10 homers next game so he can get the Triple Crown tension out of the way.
11.) Hearing Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless agree on every subject for one day.
12.) Seeing Chris Anderson in a tattoo parlor. At this point, it’d be like putting money in Bill Gates’ bank account or giving oranges to Florida. Does he really need any more?
13.) Not believing what we’re seeing when Dwight Howard makes every single free throw next season.
14.) Hearing a NASCAR announcer, unaware of being on air, say, “This gets pretty boring, doesn’t it?”
15.) Seeing Brett Favre try not to fall apart, a box of tissues hidden behind his back, as he addresses a press conference through sniffles to announce his retirement from assistant coach of Oak Grove High football—only then to ask, out of curiosity, if they’re hiring next spring.
15 seems like a good number to stop at. Right about now seems like a good time to stop believing you’ll check those 15 off your Witness Bucket list anytime soon.