12  10 

Excuse me while I reminisce for a bit.

One of my fondest memories from childhood was the time spent with my Dad watching sports.  I mentioned earlier this year how in the latter part of his life the Colts were our joint team.  However, when I was growing up it was the Raiders.  Sunday after Sunday, but only after Mass, we'd be together in the living room along with whichever of my siblings were living at home at the time, living and dying with each game, each play.  The division games were the best, epic battles against hated foes: The Broncos, the Chargers.  And the Chiefs.  Especially the Chiefs, led by Hank Stram with Len Dawson at quarterback.  It seemed like every year the division title came down to the Raiders and the Chiefs.  Sometimes the Raiders would win, other times the Chiefs.  But always, always the rivalry.

Fast forward a few decades.  While I was sitting at the Coliseum today well before the game started, watching a few players from each team making their preparations, my mind wandered back to those days in the living room, days I will always remember and always miss now that my Dad is in heaven.  It gave cause to think about sports in general as far as the personal relationship to it, how the wins and losses throughout the years sometimes almost immediately pass from memory while others remain, be they sweet or sour.  It's seldom the sports events themselves that are the featured memory, though.  It's where you were and who you were with at that moment, at that period in your life.  These are the things that remain.  The sporting event itself -- a game, a race, what have you -- becomes almost irrelevant to the memory save as a date and time stamp marking when a memory was created.

This all came to mind again after the game, a dreary disappointment.  Mistakes, ineptitude, failure to make plays on either side of the ball at key times.  And yet near the end, there was a chance for victory.  A sweet moment to savor; a new memory to be made.  But no.  An ill-advised pass, another turnover, and a moment immediately transformed from sweet to sour.  The ninth straight loss to the Chiefs.  The seventeenth straight loss to a division opponent.

You can break down the X's and O's of this game all you want; how the defense generally played extremely well, how the offense was non-existent until the middle of the third quarter but after the lone touchdown-scoring drive teased while failing to deliver, why the running game has disappeared the past two games, how Daunte Culpepper is proving to be no better at quarterback than Josh McCown.  But does it matter?  To a degree, yes.  It's not the most important thing, though.

What's important, to me at least, is when I'm going to be able to take something sweet away from being a Raiders fan.  I don't want to live in the past; I have no desire to walk around in a jersey from someone who retired decades ago and say how great we were once upon a time.  I want some new sweet memories created.

I want to see my team win the close games, not give them away.  I want to see divisional teams say uh-oh instead of oh boy whenever the Raiders appear on the schedule.  I want my team to stop being the laughingstock of the NFL and start being a league force again.

I want some new sweet memories.

Please.

The Raiders next game is this coming Sunday at Tennessee.