By Staff
Coaches are cliche machines. Rarely do you ever hear anything original out of there mouths. One of their favorite trite expressions is "We have to take it one game at a time."
Though I hate to be cliche, it's time we start taking one holiday at a time. It seems these days that Thanksgiving is overlooked. It's merely the prelude to Christmas season, which begins earlier and earlier each year.
Well it needs to stop, and I'll tell you why - Thanksgiving weekend is the greatest sports weekend in all of the year. Hands down. No contest.
Thanksgiving has long been my favorite holiday because of the obvious reasons - to food, the family, the four-day weekend. But the biggest reason I love the fourth Thursday in November so much is that it's the gateway into a week crammed full of more sports than any one person can handle.
The cornucopia of sports actually began on Wednesday, when a couple college basketball tournaments wrapped up play. I always love the night before Thanksgiving because there are the basketball games during the regular prime-time hours, but then there is the Maui Invitational championship, which doesn't start until midnight.
Hoop lovers get to stay up till all hours of the morning watching college basketball and not have to worry about waking up early for work the next day.
Thanksgiving, of course, offers football galore. But this year's holiday was particularly special for me. For the first time ever, both my Indianapolis Colts and my Indiana Pacers played on national television back-to-back. Well, I got to watch half the Pacers play, at least, as the other half remain suspended or injured.
Today, the Michigan state football finals start, offering the finest prep football in the state. There are also a handful of college football games being played today.
Once the weekend rolls around, sports fans have an amazing blend of football and basketball (high school, college and pro) to choose from. I get dizzy just trying to keep up with the non-stop action.
From an athletic perspective, Thanksgiving is clearly the greatest holiday of the year. What's Christmas got to offer? A couple second-rate bowl games and maybe an NBA game or two. Although, this Christmas features two NBA games that have potential to be explosive.
The Detroit Pistons visit the Indiana Pacers for Round Two of their infamous Throwdown in Motown. This time it's the Throwdown in Naptown.
Christmas Day is also the first matchup between Shaquille O'Neal's new team the Miami Heat and his old team the Los Angeles Lakers.
Still, Dec. 25 can't touch Thanksgiving as far as sporting events. That's why we need to show this weekend more love. Let's take this year one holiday at a time and not look past Turkey Day straight to Christmas.
Let's all be thankful that we have the fourth weekend in November to do nothing but park in front of the TV and watch sports for four straight days.