Last week’s draft had a certain quality of summing up for those of us who’ve been with the program for over 4 decades. There was much to reflect upon. For example, how unlikely it is that this unprepossessing little campus, with its equally modest stadium, 400 or so miles from anything the rest of the U.S. would recognize as remotely “urban”, had managed to shoulder its way into the stratosphere of the elite college football programs whose bona fides were established decades before this little strip of earth our stadium sits on was a mail drop off for the fledgling United Airlines. I wanted to give the readership a sense of what I’ve distilled in my 44 years of watching this team.
1. THE TREND IS ALWAYS UPWARD. This sounds dramatic, but it isn’t. It describes the inexorable quality of development I’ve seen here, which has always led it to the next level. Sure, there have been valleys, but those must be measured against the decades long traditions of the programs we faced in slogging through them. I never felt there was a time the program was taking a step back; holding pattern, maybe, not back.
2. MAGIC. Ok I’ll go a little metaphysical on you here. Maybe I need to couch in terms more acceptable to the modern consciousness, like “synergy”. I think there is something about the fact that we ae 400 miles from anywhere, that we all choose (most Boiseans are here because they want to be) to call this little spot our home, that the guys who show up to play here are our guys (yeah Vandal fans enjoy your inevitable slide/creep into complete irrelevancy), and, more recently, the “circus has come to town”/Halloween Saturday Tailgate Extravaganza which is creating its own flame not unlike like the firestorm that inhaled Dresden circa 1945. It will be interesting to see this develop over the coming years.
3. SPLENDOR SINE OCCASU. The city of Boise has been whacked, hard, these past few years, no doubt about it. I’ve seen nothing like it, and from my conversations with those of even longer tenure there has been nothing like it. It’s been an open faced shit sandwich hold the bread. But these times do not last. And when the sun shines brightly again, Boise State University will have even more to offer, be better positioned to offer it, the university, along with its program, will join the city in sharing in a renewed progression to becoming a true little city. This gets back to the synergy I spoke of; I also think the Spirit God Leviathan of the Boise River has something to do with it. Magic, and location, location, location.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
