I love my job. I truly do. It's not just my career. It's a passion of mine, and one that I am incredibly lucky to earn a living doing. My old man used to drop that tired old cliche on me: "do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life."
The principle is sound. If you wake up excited about what you get to do, and you're lucky enough to get paid for it, it doesn't feel like work.
But every cliche has a point at which it fails. And today was one of those days, one of those times where my passion felt a lot less like a love and a lot more like a job, a difficult job, to get through.
It's not blue collar. I don't have to climb underneath a sink on my back and try to turn a wrench that won't fit in the space I need it to. I don't have to bend over and load tons of heavy boxes into a truck. I don't have to walk five miles a day delivering food to difficult patrons. (And trust me - I HAVE done all of those things, and have an incredible amount of respect for the people that put their bodies into their work.) It's not demanding. I sit in a box for a few hours talking about athletics to other people who share the same love of the game that I do. The number on the scale proves that.
On a day like today, however, the job can have a way of really chipping away at you, of leaving you drained and, in some cases, beating you up emotionally. On a day like today it feels, in some ways, like no matter what you do, it's wrong.
On Wednesday, I sat like the vast majority of Americans, glued to my television, watching unthinkable events play out in Washington DC. I watched as protestors stood off against police officers. I watched as rioters slammed barricades into law enforcement. And I watched criminals break through windows of the Citadel of Democracy, the United States Capitol, and stand behind the desks on the floor of the US House and Senate, while others were carried out on stretchers.
And I was numb.
How could this happen to our country? We've seen events play out like this in other areas of the world, and said to ourselves "how lucky we are to live in a nation that doesn't have to deal with issues like this."
And we can't say that anymore.
I hurt. I hurt for my nation. I hurt for my fellow Americans. I hurt for every decent person who I knew was also watching, silent, flabbergasted, at what we were seeing.
For most shows, I put together most of my material the night before. By the time I lay down in bed, 85% of my show is mapped out and ready to go.
Not Wednesday night.
I stayed up until four thirty in the morning, watching the Senate and the House of Representatives confirm the Electoral College's election of a new President, and around 2:30am, I realized I wasn't watching because I was interested in the voting. I was watching because I was horrified that something else might happen. That a bomb planted earlier and undetected by Capitol Police might go off, that a lone wolf terrorist might make his way into the chambers and take prisoners, or worse. I was watching because I knew January 6th, 2021, would go down as a dark stain on the fabric of this country, and I was terrified that January 7th, 2021, might join it.
Finally, after the vote was confirmed and the legislators had left the chambers and Washington DC, after a day of chaos, went silent, I went to sleep. I had less than four hours until it was time to get ready not for my passion, but for my job.
The alarm hit. I woke up and before I had even thrown the covers off, I asked Alexa to tell me the news of the day from NPR, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX, and The BBC.
I laid, staring at the ceiling, dreading that something catastrophic might've happened in the few hours I was sleeping.
Fortunately, nothing had. Politics continued; calls for the 25th Amendment to be enacted, Congress retreating until inauguration, legislators retreating to their home states.
So I got up and went to work. I got to the studio, I sat down in front of the computer, I pulled up my show map.
And I didn't type anything.
Because I didn't know what to say.
My job is to talk about sports, and to, right or wrong, have an opinion about sports. My job is to entertain you, to engage you, to banter with you. My job is to give you a happy place to go for a few hours during the grind of your day to day life.
The day after the United States Capitol fell to a group of American citizens, I wasn't quite sure if that was the right thing to do.
Hell, I knew that even opening up with that sentence would be problematic. If I call them protestors, some people would get mad. If I call them rioters, others would get mad. If I call them insurgents, others would get mad. If I call them "mostly peacful," others would get mad. If I call them "somewhat violent," others would get mad.
I know, on a day like today, that there 10,000 places people can go to keep up to date with what happened, and to get 10,000,000 opinions from talking heads from around the political spectrum. And I know, that on 99% of days, my show is the safe haven from that turmoil. My show is the place to come get angry about or laugh at a topic that, in the grand scheme of things, doesn't really matter to us at all, but ultimately, means everything in the world at the very same time.
But it feels wrong to say nothing at all. To me, saying nothing almost feels like ignoring the reality of what's happening right now. While there are groups that feel consistently subjugated in this country, who feel they have no voice, no power, no representation in a daily struggle for change, to sit back and shout "hey, football!" feels almost cruel. And almost dangerous.
I reflected about how to open the show, how to stare down this reality, how to approach putting my thoughts forward while also being the distraction that I always say I want to be. And as I did, one thought floated to the front of my brain.
We must fight. Not against each other, and not with weapons and fists.
We must fight FOR each other, with ideas and concepts, against the mentality that has brought us to this point in history.
The tenants of America, and the building that is supposed to most represent them, were attacked on Wednesday.
But that building, and those tenants, stand primarily for what this country is made up of: her people. You. Me. Us.
Your brothers. Your sisters. Your friends. Your neighbors. The people you see in the grocery store. The folks that live in those places that make you wonder "why would anyone live there?"
They are America. We are America.
And we must fight for them. And for each other.
So, we found balance. I opened the show with that line of thought. I stated how I felt, where I stood.
And then we talked about sports. Mike Bobo leaving South Carolina. Predicitions for the NFL Wildcard Weekend. Professional wrestling.
It wasn't easy. There were a few moments where I thought to myself "we need to be talking about what happened."
So we did. And then we went back to sports.
What happened yesterday hurt. Deeply. It cut the nation in a way that the squabbling and fighting of the past few years hadn't. And it's not going away, not any time soon.
So, we'll all find that balance in our lives. We'll find the balance between fighting for our shining city on a hill, while fighting to keep ourselves sane and together as friends, as countrymen.
It's our only choice, our only option.
And we will find that balance.
I thank all of you who listened to the show, agree or disagree. I thank all of you who understood why we said what we said, and why we said it the way that we said it, whether you were on board or not.
And for those of you who tuned out, or didn't listen, or texted your disgust or disagreement to me: I care about you. I care about you as an American. And the things we say on the air, we do because we strive for all of us, every American living under that star-spangled banner, to live the American Dream we all believe to be real.
Stay safe, and stay strong. Fight for your fellow man, and against the negativity that threatens this country every day.
I have your back.
Have each others.
See you on the radio.