President Barack Obama delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 24, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
Call me a political junkie, but the State of the Union address is pretty much must-see-TV in the Jones house.
The pomp and circumstance, along with TV analysts doing their best agenda-setting by showing clip after clip of things they personally care about, regardless of what the viewers may think. (Notice all the references to Rep. Gabby Giffords.) It just makes me want to call up my father-in-law and talk shop.
And even though I’ll leave my politics at the ballot box, there is no denying our commander in chief is a fantastic rhetorician. I mean, how he framed the controversial aspects of his speech between the two things our entire country believes in — the dominance of our military and taking down Bin Laden — was brilliant. His use of parallelism was pretty solid, too.
Speaking of parallelism, I think one reason I like the annual address so much is because it affords me the opportunity to take a few minutes and assess the state of my union.
Now, don’t worry. I’m not going to spend the next couple hundred words rambling about my goals and aspirations. You have no interest in the fact that I’m going to be doubling down on my efforts to get YJ3 doing his business in a potty as opposed to a diaper. Or that I’m going to try and spend less time doing wasteful things like being mean, sucking in my gut and watching sports on Standard Def television.
However, personal mumbo-jumbo aside, giving you something worth reading is important. So I did take some time to reflect on what this column is and what it should be.
The first thing I realized is this column needs to be more local. Now trust me. That does not mean I’m going to write column inch on top of column inch about the inner workings of intramural sports.
However, I did just notice that my man “G-Rob” Gary Robinson is still holding court at Murphy and running point for our Fort Meade Patriots. (No, they didn’t get to play against the Globetrotters on Tuesday.) That’s pretty impressive when you consider he’s been playing pickup games here since before the Washington Wizards — then Bullets — moved from Baltimore in 1973. So I may write about that.
I also won’t spend a ton of time writing about individual achievement with Youth Sports athletes. Though I think outlining the importance of youth sports, the necessity of parent participation and why winning isn’t everything are topics I plan on tackling this year.
More importantly, I also plan on getting our local subject matter experts involved so that the opinions you are reading aren’t just mine.
I also realized there is a lot of stuff going on in our sports and recreation community that can and should be addressed in this piece.
For example, we all know this is going to be the last year of the Courses, at least at its current location. But what you probably do not know are all the efforts the garrison is making to ensure our golfing community is taken care of, or why the course is being replaced in the first place. At the end of the day, it is really about mission necessity. But there is an economic and human portion to this story as well, which you should know about.
Another big event coming this year is the opening of our Youth Sports Complex on the corner of Reece Road and Ernie Pyle. The facility is not only going to give our family members the facilities they deserve, but it will also open up multiple opportunities to partner and strengthen Team Meade.
With all that being said, I’m still going to hate Ohio, love America’s Team and tell all you yahoos mourning over JoePa and hailing him as the patron saint of football that you really need some perspective because some inaction can erase a career full of greatness. What he did, or didn’t do, was that bad, people.
And, of course, after Tuesday’s major announcement, which made the state of my sports union very strong, you are going to read an awful lot about a man named P-R-I-N-C-E — Detroit Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder.
But knowing my audience, you may hear a few more references to our local teams like this clip, courtesy of Ray Lewis, which had me itching to put on my pads and go back to warming a bench for the Mattawan High School football team: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUwNVTsJc_k.
Plus, I’ll keep you informed of the dumber things I do like draft Michael Vick in the first round of my fantasy football draft, or make up a song or two that will tick someone off.
I’ll also still include abstract references to my co-workers, i.e. Doug Wise, and generally provide you a weekly dose of awesomeness that will be capped off neatly with the traditional:
If you have comments on this or anything to do with sports, contact me at chad.t.jones.civ@mail.mil.
