In Sympathy for the Ebersols
Tim Ball
Thursday December 9, 2004
There are a lot of faces in the crowd at Arena Football games . . . but, not too many to not notice them. Not anymore.
From the cheapest seat in the rafters to the board of director’s room, there is a validation in this league that nothing can succeed without each other. Supposedly football is a game of “tradition” and there is little welcome for a newcomer organization with strange ideas of how the game is to be played. Where is the XFL? The USFL? The “World” League? They’re no longer around and there’s a reason: there was something lacking.
Quality time.
There are two main reasons for the Arena Football League making it for 19 seasons. They are the amazing game itself and the oddly, infectious nature of the people who like it. Even the commissioner of the AFL is quite literally its biggest fan.
I felt a little strange liking a different version of football so much. I mean, I’m not supposed to like anything but the NFL, right? But the game itself, and the people around me at every game made it so easy. And the league is literally built around the rights of the fans as much as the players.
Arena Football consists of everybody in it.
You see and hear the honest passion from the athletes who blast away at each other virtually non-stop the entire game. Yeah, you get to because they are there with the fans on the field talking and signing autographs the moment after the game ends. It’s a league rule!
You definitely hear it from the guy sitting next to you and see it in the family with the gooey kid wearing a Barry Wagner jersey . . . and you hear it from the big-time corporate executives working to keeping it successful: “The most exciting, fast paced thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”
That was a quote from NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol in USA Today on March 5, 2002, about the game of Arena Football. It came from one of many articles heralding the choice of Ebersol and NBC in taking a chance on the little league that could and vaulting it into the big leagues with major network coverage.
Ebersol’s quote is literally the same thing I heard from fans I met the first time I saw a game. There’s something about Arena Football, maybe the closeness of the action breeds the feeling of togetherness, but I know Ebersol meant what he said.
Ebersol is part of the Arena Football League. By taking a chance on us (and enduring the wrath of the media), Ebersol became one of us in a deal that, like the league itself, is founded on sharing.
With Caring Concern for the Ebersols
Tragically we all know by now that Ebersol is in the hospital recovering from severe injuries suffered in a plane crash a week ago; an accident that also injured his son Charlie, 21, who pulled his father from the wreckage and sadly Ebersol’s 14-year old son Teddy was killed.
Ebersol’s wife Susan Saint James spoke last week with NBC’s Tim Russert about the loss of her youngest son Teddy, and the injuries to Charlie and her husband Dick, and reminded us all how important the time we have together is. Asked by Russert if she would have taken just 14 years with Teddy if she knew that that was all she would get, she strongly answered, “Oh yes.”
With my two children in the room while I was watching the segment, my eight-year old daughter Dakota noticed my condition. “Are you crying daddy?”
“Oh yes,” I said.
And I hugged her for Teddy. And for Susan and Dick Ebersol. And I hugged her for me.
My four-year old son Elijah ran by looking for his pirates. He was captured and clapped in irons. The steel embrace of a parent knowing that time moves so incredibly fast and nothing is guaranteed except the moment.
As a member of the Arena Football family, I proudly love this game and my family loudly supports our local team, the San Jose SaberCats. Teddy and his family became a part of this league when his father took a chance on us. And the league and we have been made better by the association. The moment I heard the news of the crash and the names of those in it I knew “one of us” had suffered a tragedy.
In a statement released to the public, the Ebersols mentioned the “overwhelming outpouring of love from people all over the world.”
This article is one more offering, from parent to parent. As a member of the AFL community, as a fan of the sport, and as a writer for ArenaFan Online, I’d like to begin the 2005 season by conveying my heartfelt condolences to the Ebersols.
My bio below my articles doesn’t represent an Ivy League trained writer whose talents were honed by hours in lit classes taught by journalists. What flows from me starts and ends with my family at Arena Football games and has been helped with the patience of high-caliber editors like Mary-Ann Karaginis and other ArenaFan staff who know that feelings through proper syntax can only come first from the heart and the dictionary second. Mary-Ann is a mom too. I thank them all as I thank all of the people who make ArenaFan Online so important to the life of this league. That is, I thank you.
There is a reason for the survival of a league that should not be standing at all. Arena Football was held together for more than a decade and a half by loyalty.
That loyalty paid off and was rewarded by an NBC executive that brought the league and its fervently loyal fans into the mainstream of American sports.
And it brought the Ebersols into the Arena Football family.
NBC has setup an email address to receive communications from those who wish to send their condolences to the Ebersol family: ebersolfamily@nbcuni.com.
Mrs. Ebersol said she will read every one.
Tim Ball is a writer in the Chicagoland area. Married and father of three, his opinions on Arena Football reflects the positive aspect of the game as a family event second to none in pro sports.
