This is the year we’re going to the Rose Bowl.  This year, the California Golden Bears will not choke.  We will start off the season by avenging our loss to Maryland last season.  Without the East Coast heat and humidity, coupled with a starting time when our players are wide awake, we will crush the Terps.  NO mercy, I say.  We will struggle a bit with Oregon but pull through in the fourth quarter.  Having our first win in the conference under our belt, we surprise everyone by beating USC at home.  Jahvid Best scores a touchdown returning the opening kick off – 87 yards!  From then on we take on an aura of invincibility.  We obliterate the rest of the Pac 10, go to the Rose Bowl, and a lot of Cal old timers can finally die in peace after seeing their wish come true.

In honor of this historic season, Cassandra will take Saturdays off beginning September 5th.  Let her drink her Bud Light and drool over Kevin Riley in peace.  Yummy yummy All-American Riley.  A girl can hope, can’t she?  Doesn’t he look like a total closeted Tranny Chaser who would love having his ass pounded?  But I digress…

Go Bears!!!

I remember the year when Reuben and I went to the Big Game at Memorial Stadium.  We beat Stanford by 20+ points.  Reuben and I were such dorks: we rushed the field at the end of the game and took pictures of ourselves, grinning like idiots.  I even saw Aaron Rodgers a few feet from me, his face flushed beet red from the excitement of winning.  (He has awfully skinny calves for a quarterback.)

I wasn’t feeling Nate Longshore last season.  Did the guy have two left feet or something?  And what was up with the padded waist band he wore around his middle?  Or was he just fat?

I suppose I succumbed to nostalgia when the SF Chron’s coverage of the Bears’ upcoming season had no mention of Longshore.  Last I read he was an undrafted free agent, hoping to get signed to camp.  He is gone and forgotten, another casualty to the merciless whims of fate.  One minute playing to the roar (and jeers) of 60,000 fans, and then… nothing.

My friend Hank has remarked that my blog bears an unhealthy obsession with aging and unrequited dreams.  For reference, click (women), and (MJ).  He says melancholy permeates my thoughts.  I think I must suffer terribly. 

Hank is right: I DO obsess over failures, lost opportunities, and the cruelties of an ephemeral moment in the sun.  I don’t follow the career of Aaron Rodgers much – the golden college quarterback who Tedford compares everyone else against.  Last I heard he got a sweet deal taking over for Brett Favre for the Packers. 

But when this season started and Nate Longshore dropped from coverage completely I found myself missing him.  Did you know Longshore was rated as high as the No. 1 junior quarterback in the country at the beginning of the 2007 season?  He had an awesome 2006 season and was on his way to being a very high draft pick.  Then there was the ankle injury.  Longshore never regained his momentum as a quarterback.  He lost his starting job to Kevin Riley for most of 2008, his senior year. 

I wondered where Longshore is.  What he’s up to.  What he’s thinking.  What he’s feeling. 

And so I googled him. 

Guess what?  Nate Longshore is now an Account Executive at Blue Star Jets in the Greater Los Angeles area. 

He didn’t make it to camp, after all.

You have one moment in the spotlight.  A game or two to make the big plays, an entire season if you’re lucky.  If you don’t break through, well, you become an airline sales person.  

One day Longshore woke up and realized his dream of playing football in the NFL was over.  There most likely wasn’t a big farewell celebration, no cake and champagne to properly say goodbye.  One day, the expiration date on your dreams suddenly appears from out of nowhere.  And you have to go on living life. 

They call this stuff literature. 

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Tags: aaron rodgers, california golden bears, kevin riley, life, nate longshore, unrealized dreams