Sports Talk With Mom

Clunk.

I slid behind the wheel and shut the driver’s door.

“Are you ready?” I asked my mom.

“Yep, let’s go,” came the response.

I started the car and so began the 1,100-mile journey from Gering, Nebraska, to DeWitt, Michigan.

A year ago, I moved my mom from Nebraska to Michigan so she could live closer to my family and me. Three days—five states: Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. There were more than a thousand miles to cover with untold opportunities for conversation. What do you say to someone who is in her mid-seventies?

“I saw a great commercial for Metamucil that I thought you might be interested in.”

Uh, no.

Some folks would be driving the conversation struggle bus, but not me. Nope. My mom and I talked sports. It helps when the woman who gave birth to you can also rap about the latest sports news.

“Hey! The Huskers are playing in the Big 10 men’s basketball tournament today. I want to listen to the game,” stated she who must be obeyed.

“Okay. Let me see if I can find a station with a strong signal,” I replied. I found the station that had the University of Nebraska announcers calling the game, so I merely listened. My mom listened as if she were participating in an interactive broadcast and she was coaching the Huskers:

“No, no, no. You can’t do that.”

“Hey, that’s got to be a foul.”

“Call a timeout!”

“Drive and dish, drive and dish.”

For someone who could not actually see the game, my mom sure had all of the answers for how to pull out the win. Unfortunately for Nebraska Coach Tim Miles and me, the Huskers lost to Ohio State by four.

“I knew the Huskers were going to lose to THE Ohio State,” interjected my passenger. “If Urban Meyer can get the calls in football, the Buckeyes can probably get them in basketball, too.”

Oh, boy. Already the car was beginning to overheat, and I still had eight hundred miles to go.

This love of basketball my mom displayed represented only one smidgen of her love of sports. Over the years, the number of sports she follows has grown. She smack talks women’s college hoops, the NBA, and an occasional college or professional football game.

Living in Nebraska, she listened faithfully to Sports Nightly, a radio show originating from the University of Nebraska. I didn’t know who is who at Sports Nightly, so I asked and got the skinny from my mom:

“My favorite (announcer) is Ben McLaughlin. He is a producer for the Husker Sports Network. He is the second banana on Sports Nightly. During games he is behind the scenes running the radio part. There is also Greg Sharpe. He is known as the “Voice of the Huskers.” He calls all the football games and a lot of baseball. If you have never heard him speak, he has an excellent voice. He is the head of Sports Nightly. When I first started listening to Sports Nightly, Lane Grindle was running the show.”

I do believe Sports Nightly would garner more listeners if they had my mom voice over one of their commercial spots.

She tunes into Husker football every Saturday. Eleven to twelve hours every single game day finds my mom perched within earshot of her radio for the pre-game, game, and post-game broadcasts. If she were a geyser, her nickname would be “Old Faithful.”

My mom continued: “Someone who is not on Sports Nightly, but is one of my favorite sports broadcasters, is Matt Davison. He is the color man during football and does the same for men’s basketball. He is very popular and does a lot of speaking for sports stuff.”

Why radio instead of television? I asked her and she said she loved listening to the boys on the radio and Sports Nightly so much that she would miss not hearing them.

But the sport she loves above all others is Nebraska Women’s basketball. I knew this but was reminded soon after the guys lost their tourney game against THE Ohio State.

“I bet the women will play better than the men and will win their games. Coach Connie Yori is an excellent coach, and her girls play together as a team. No individuals.”

I glanced over at my mom, but she had turned her head to look out the window.

A year and a half has passed; it is now college football season, and I am once again picking my mom up for another road trip. This time, it is only an hour and a half jaunt to the Motor City of Detroit for a visit with my cousin.

“Hi, Mom. How are you?” I asked while helping her into my Escape.

“I’m fine,” came the terse reply.

My door had no sooner shut than conversation filled the Ford.

“How about that Husker football team? They lost another one. Can’t even win a stupid ball game.”

“Well,” I hesitantly began, “the good news is that all of their losses have been close. They haven’t been blowouts.”

I thought it was quite the diplomatic answer.

“Well, it should’ve never been close. They got rid of old Bo when all he did was win nine games a year. They hired this Mike Reilly fella. He’s a nice guy, but he can’t win. Oh, brother.”

I glanced over at my mom and she was looking directly at me. I was not going to add anything. Not. A. Single. Word.

“I was listening to Sports Nightly this week, and they had all of these people calling in. Some were saying ‘Give Reilly a chance,’ while the other half were saying ‘Dump the guy; he can’t coach.”

I was tempted to ask her opinion on the personnel matter, but thought better of it.

The ride was comfortably quiet for the next minute and a half. And then:

“What do you think about all of this Derek Fisher mess? Do you know who I’m talking about? He used to play for the Lakers and now coaches in the NBA with the Knicks. Anyway, he is dating another player’s ex-wife, and the other guy punched him at a party.”

Before long the dialogue shifted to Michigan State University football and their upcoming game against the University of Michigan.

“I think Dantonio is doing a great job at MSU,” analyzed my mother. “He lost a coach to another college, but they are winning even though they aren’t winning by much. I hope they beat Michigan.”

We were quickly approaching Detroit, a city she had never visited before, when a thought crossed my mind—“Cool, what are the odds my mom would know anything about sports in the Motor City?”

Pop. Well, there went that thought bubble.

“I sure hope the Lions start playing Ameer Abdullah. He was great when he played at Nebraska. Sure, he’s fumbled some. But if you handle the ball, those things are bound to happen. It’s not like the Lions are going to the Super Bowl. They ought to let him play and get some experience.”

Hello, Detroit. Hello, Cousin Mark.

I’m not sure of the exact details of the conversation on the way home. I believe the sports-talking senior was all out of material because we spent some time talking about Mark and his wife Anita who are missionaries in Brazil.

We were an hour into our return trip when…

“What do you think about Izzo and his team this year? Have you heard anything?”