I started rooting for the New York football Giants after they drafted the Amazing
Lawrence Taylor from the University of North Carolina. As an original Pittsburgh Steelers fan and a fan of my original sports hero,
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (whose biography I read when I was a wee lad, without my parents knowing that he talked all about jazz and weed and sex and going out partying with Wilt when he was still in high-school), most of my emotional investment in professional sports stems from where my favorite players from Carolina went after college.
But I digress.
The Giants have always been, like the Steelers, my kind of football team. Smashmouth running game, intense defense, and an efficient passing game. Of course, that has changed over the last decade as most teams have had to pass the ball more to overcome six-foot six 330 pound defensive tackles clogging the middle so linebackers the size of a grizzly bear with the speed of a deer can knock the running backs head off.
They also have had class players, good role models for young athletes. Now granted, Taylor was not an off the field model, but as shown in today's New York Times, the tradition of class continues.
Michael Strahan and Amani Toomer are both reaching the end of their careers, and this feature is a good story of leadership and loyalty in a year when pro sports has been engulfed with stories of cheating and classless back stabbing by men who owe their place in society largely to the amount of adoration bestowed upon them by kids who were just like me when I discovered Terry and Franco and Kareem.
The current Giants offense is so unpredictable, I can't imagine them winning today. But then again, I didn't give them a chance last week either.
