Championship or Art?
Tim Ball
Monday June 12, 2006
What did we just see?
A championship game? A season coming to and end?
Hardly.
What we just saw was an artist finishing his work while we watched. Like an idea we can’t grasp or "picture" we just don’t get until we stare at it awhile.
(Of course that "is" Arena Football isn’t it?)
And even then we need someone to tell us what we see. And then: Oh yeah "that’s" what "that" is . . .
The Chicago Rush football team started the season as an idea formed and molded, then changed, re-molded, re-formed, put together, put up, taken down, put back up, and then held there to see if the level was right.
Like a painting it took more than just liquid die and some white cloth.
Or in football terms: more than X’s and O’s.
A 7-9 team just won ArenaBowl XX. That means "they" are the champions.
Yeah I know, I’ll write it correctly:
A 7-9 team just won the ArenaBowl?
Is that what "they" are? Or, are" they" more than that?
Much, much, more than that?
What we observed was Michael Hohensee, Head Coach, ex-player, leading a football team of athletes trained to run plays and score touchdowns and stop other teams from scoring more points than they do. That’s pretty much the only way a team can win anything.
We noticed that the Rush had a hard time of doing that in nine games.
But, what we failed to notice was Michael the artist.
Pride doth not always goeth before the fall
Head coaches are only commissioned for one reason. The championship game.
As in; "Get there and get the job done."
Before the win over the SaberCats last week that propelled the Rush to their first ArenaBowl appearance, there wasn’t much of a way to see the value in the Rush to the naked eye. How did they even get to San Jose, let alone win their way to the two XX’s game?
Hohensee . . . "Michael the artist," saw what only the eclectic visionary can.
After the win in San Jose: "I am so proud of this team," said Hohensee. "Nobody gave us a chance at the middle of the season, but we re-grouped and started playing like the talented football team I know we are."
That’s true Michael. And trust me, you were seeing what onlookers could not grasp until the paint was dry.
Sometimes art is fun. But hardly enjoyable during the process. Even for the painter or sculptor.
It’s not just staring at some "thing," until someone comes along and tells you what you’re looking at and how you should be enjoying it, no, ArenaBowl XX was fun from start to finish.
We just didn’t know it until it "was" finished.
Sorry Michael, even the home fans didn’t understand what you were doing most of the time.
Ingredients mixed together
Two ingredients that were really hard to grasp the understanding of, was what Hohensee was doing with were the two most important positions in all of Arena Football.
Usually quarterbacks that win only a seven games - and two of those seven in overtime - are not one of the guys hoisting a championship trophy.
And replacing a kicker with one that just rehabbed from knee surgery (even the knee of an ArenaBowl Champion), is not exactly where you’ll find the three point’s difference in the Semi-finals to win a trip to the championship game.
Quaterback Matt D’Orazio and Kicker Dan Frantz where not just athletes to Hohensee, they were colors to observe on display.
While mixing and matching his vision Hohensee certainly was on his own here.
D’Orazio had to hold his head high through a season no one wanted to look at. Or, better yet, Hohensee had to hold that head as many people heaped "opinions" of that head, on that head.
And Frantz was replacing a part that looked great with what Hohensee saw was something that looked even better. I don’t think many people were on the same page as Michael the artist, on those two ingredients for a Championship to be hung on the wall.
But I’ll bet everyone buys it now.
After the improbable win over the Orlando Predators that still has fans in the league wondering how or why; Michael the artist gave us a statement to NBC:
"I’ve lived this a thousand times in twenty-years," said Hohensee, "The faces were always blurred but now our Championship has a face."
Faces painted by an artist.
Oh yeah . . . now I see it. McMillen, Molden, Unertl. Sippio, Robinson, D’Orazio, Frantz, and . . . all the rest and in sharp relief; ah, it’s so clear now.
Oh, that’s what that was. A "team."
Isn’t art fun?
Nice guys do finish first too.
While rushing to get to a Rush practice, as I slid the car into a parking spot, I noticed D’Orazio walking to his car, I waved thinking he was just getting something he needed for practice and he waved back as if he knew who I was.
He didn’t.
But, typical of an Arena Football athlete, he stopped and asked me how I was, and, the wife and kids. He also informed me that most of the guys had left an hour ago after practice was over and he would "go get coach" if I had an important question or two.
I thought I did. The rush of embarrassment flooding my face must have moved this fine young man to empathy, if not complete sympathy. I didn’t bother an attempt to explain my being new to this bewildering state of Illinois and I don’t like excuses for losing anyway.
I then remembered the guy with me was my brother Mike. He’s a great photographer and was along to snap some pictures of the team at practice.
D’Orazio talked with us for five minutes.
I had met him just one other time after a game and here this exhausted young man was trying to make me feel good (and not dumb) for missing the entire practice session. I still feel good about that day, as I do about loving Arena Football.
Back in time just a bit to a SaberCats game.
I and my "wife and kids" always get to the game early.
My wife informs me that Frantz had just handed a football to my son as he was known for doing before the game starts.
Me, thinking it was because of my influential and impressive writing at ArenaFan.com, and the 2004 championship season I covered from wire to wire, thanked "Dan" after the game for giving "my" son a football.
"Who?" said Frantz, "I was just looking for some cute kid and I noticed this little guy at the railing cheering me on, so I he looked like a good candidate, so I tossed him the ball."
I was a bit embarrassed at first but once I thought it through, that ball meant more to me then Frantz could have possibly known. A father’s pride about his child doing something on their own is a powerful emotion.
There is nothing like Arena Football and its fans.
Michael Hohensee is now a champion and we all know "now" that he threw the first touchdown pass in the first ArenaBowl.
But my family and I didn’t know that during our first Chicago home game this season.
When Hohensee, long before kickoff time, put his arm around me and walked with me over to my "wife and kids" and introduced himself, it was fairly typical of the excellence of this league to the fan connection.
Then, after getting all our names; Hohensee turned and pointed across the field to his family.
Congratulations Mike Hohensee, and to your 2006 ArenaBowl XX Champion Chicago Rush.
Forever your picture will hang.
Art is fun.
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.
