Momentum gains momentum
Posted: Wednesday February 03, 1999 02:19 PM
I know I'm just getting started in this commentary, but please give me a chance
to build up a little momentum. This goes for you, too, in your daily lives --
especially for those of you who don't usually watch football games, but will be
watching the Super Bowl this
Sunday.
You've got to have
momentum.
Momentum is the most important thing in football, even if I'm not quite sure
what exactly it is. It's been around for a long time, too. It even used to be
called "Big Mo." But now, momentum is too important to be treated
with such familiarity. As football announcers tell us, if a team has momentum,
that is good. If it doesn't, a team must get
momentum.
As nearly as I can tell, momentum is like oxygen or advertising or bad taste.
It's always there. I know that because: Momentum shifts. The announcers tell
me this, with great gravity. "Well, it looks like the momentum has
shifted." First one team has it, then the other. Nobody ever says:
"What's completely missing today is momentum." Or: "What this
game needs is a heavy dose of some
momentum."
No, the first law of football momentum is that there is always momentum, and if
you don't have it, you need to get it.
Pronto.
Well, sometimes in a game there are a few seconds when announcers are sort of
confused, like when an obscure infraction happens and the officials have to
check the rule
book.
This is what the announcers say then: "It looks like they've lost their
momentum."
It's always spoken that way, too -- forlornly, with a great deal of distress, in
the same manner as when Peter Pan lost his shadow or Eeyore his tail. But,
happily, you do get the idea then that the momentum has not really been lost.
It has not disappeared. It has merely been
misplaced.
I always try to maintain my composure during these instances, because I know
that either a) momentum will be regained, or b) momentum will shift. It always
does. If it's football, there must be momentum.
Somewhere.
Rarely, in fact, do we have momentum in other games. Certainly not in baseball.
I don't think in hockey. In basketball, occasionally there is momentum, but,
most times, instead of momentum, a team is "on a run."
What do you think, have I built up any momentum yet in this
commentary?
Actually, the one place outside of football where we are told that there is a
lot of momentum is during a primary-election campaign. A candidate will win a
couple primaries, and the pundits will then say that the other candidates have
"to stop his
momentum."
This is where football and politics are different, momentum-wise: In football,
the announcers never suggest that the team that has momentum can have it wrested
away. No, momentum belongs to you. It's sort of like your soul. It's up to
you whether you will keep it or not. Yes, you may lose your momentum, but you
cannot have it taken from
you.
The thing about momentum in football is that it is all-embracing. I used to
think that momentum was, well, in layman's terms, sort of the opposite of
inertia. But now, momentum has been expanded to the point where it represents
good. If you are playing well, you have momentum. If you are not playing well,
then you don't have momentum. You have to find some momentum. It's become a
very elastic
word.
And now, while this commentary has run out of momentum, I hope you can build
some of your own momentum to carry you through that interminable Super Bowl
Sunday.
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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