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Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Darrell Darnell, this year for Thanksgiving I am making mashed potato bacon cheese balls, and I believe if you are learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a story of how a football game gave me a new appreciation for traditions.
Today’s fun fact:
Today’s Fun Fact: Today’s fun fact is a very special one to us here at Golden Spiral Media. Today is…Fibonacci Day!! In case you don’t know who Fibonacci was or why he was important, allow me to tell you.
Leonardo Fibonacci, or Leonardo of Pisa, was an Italian mathematician, considered to be the most talented Western mathematician of the Middle Ages. He is responsible for the Fibonacci Sequence (or Fibonacci numbers) – a pattern of counting where each number is the sum of the previous two. (i.e. , 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377) As well as being prevalent in nature, this kind of system is used widely in computer data storage and processing, and Fibonacci Day recognises the importance and value of Fibonacci’s contributions to mathematics.
What’s even more amazing is that when you divide each number of the sequence by the number preceding it, you get a number very, very close to the golden ratio, 1.618, which is also known as Phi. In fact they are so close, some consider them to be the same.
Here’s where it involves us at Golden Spiral Media. A golden spiral is a logarithmic spiral whose growth factor is phi and it gets wider by a factor of phi for every quarter turn it makes.
The symbol of phi, the golden ratio, and the fibonacci sequence were all used prominently in the TV show Fringe, even from the very first marketing materials that were released. When we decided to grow our brand to form a podcast network, we wanted a name that would always pay tribute to the show that first inspired us to start podcasting. Therefore, we chose the name: Golden Spiral Media. So from all of us here at Golden Spiral Media, HAPPY FIBONACCI DAY!!
What I learned yesterday.
Football. It’s a sport that many of us love to watch, and some of us even enjoy playing. It’s a game that inspires kids to imagine themselves as their favorite player making the catch to win the game, or shaking off tacklers as they score the winning touchdown. With mimicked sounds of the crowd going wild, they spike the ball and imagine themselves getting carried off the field on the shoulders of their teammates.
When I was a kid, I didn’t like football. I didn’t like watching it, and I didn’t even like playing it. My brother was the opposite. He was obsessed with all sports and spent all his time tossing balls and playing as many sports as he could. And my brother LOVED OU football.
It was easy to see where he got his love for OU football. My whole family loves OU football. In today’s landscape of high stakes football and big time TV contracts, every single OU game is televised. Back in the 1980s, that wasn’t the case. Quite a few of them were televised, but I remember a lot of times having to listen to them on the radio.
When the games were on TV, my grandpa would record them. It seems crazy now, but his VCR didn’t have a wireless remote. It had a wired remote with a cord that was about 15 feet long. The remote only had a few buttons that controlled the recording functions. Each time an OU game came on TV, grandpa would put in a fresh VHS tape, stretch the remote cable across the room to his recliner, and record the game. He was very careful and particular about pausing the recording during commercials, and unpausing as soon as the game came back on.
As my brother got older, grandpa allowed him to control the remote. During one particularly big game against Texas or Nebraska, OU made a big play. My brother got so excited that his finger accidentally paused the recording. Grandpa was not too happy when the mistake was discovered, and Nathan had to earn his recording privileges back.
My grandparents lived in a modest two bedroom house that had a den. I don’t think the phrase “man cave” existed back then, but if it had, the den would have definitely been grandpa’s man cave. The walls were adorned with old photographs of various OU football team photos throughout the 70’s and 80’s. He had two massive bookcases that were stuffed with OU football memorabilia. There were hundreds of OU football games on VHS, glasses, bobble heads, flags, clocks, and other miscellaneous OU branded items. However, the most noticeable item in the den was grandpa’s OU rug.
As far as I know, there were only 2 or 3 of the OU rugs ever made. I know this because my dad, a carpet layer, made them. He made one for my grandpa, one for my Uncle Len, and he may have made one for my Uncle Johnny. The rugs were about 8 feet long by 6 feet wide and oval in shape. In the center of each rug was the interlocking OU logo in a white carpet. The logo was inlaid into a red carpet. It was really cool and I remember being really impressed when I learned that my dad had made it.
My step-mom was a big OU football fan too. When she and my dad got married, they got season tickets. They not only went to every OU home game, but they often drove to the away games, and went to the OU vs. Texas game nearly every year. My dad drove a crimson colored pickup truck and my step mom drove a crimson colored mini van.
The OU fight song is called Boomer Sooner. There’s a line in the song that say, “I’m a Sooner born and Sooner bred, and when I die I’ll be Sooner dead.” Yup, that’s my family.
The first time I can recall enjoying an OU game is the 1986 Orange Bowl that capped off the 1985 season. Led by quarterback Jamelle Holieway, the 3rd ranked Sooners squared off against the top-ranked Penn State Nittany Lions. OU was trailing 7-3 when Holieway connected with Keith Jackson for a 71 yard touchdown in the second quarter that put OU on top 10-7. OU never again trailed and won the game 25-10, winning the national championship. Jamelle was a true freshman, and it still marks the only time a true freshman has led a team to win the national title.
It was the 71 yard pass to Keith Jackson that got me excited. I remember going to school the next day and recreating that play in the hallway with my friends. The following summer my uncle took my brother and I to fan and media day where we got to meet many of those players, including Jamelle Holieway and Keith Jackson. We also encountered Brian Bosworth that day, which is the story I shared in episode 197.
My fandom of OU football continued to grow after that, and it was fueled by getting to go to watch OU play in person. Once a season my dad and stepmom would take us along with them to one of the OU home games. It was usually against a really bad team like Kansas so that they could get the extra tickets as cheaply as possible. I didn’t care. It was fun to go to the games and experience everything in person.
Going to the games, watching the Sooners on TV or listening to them on the radio was a tradition in our family, and I was glad to be a part of it.
Unfortunately, my kids aren’t really that interested in sports. They don’t enjoy watching the games on TV, and even though I’ve tried explaining the rules to them, it hasn’t made a difference.
A couple of months ago we attended an annual party put on by the company that built our house. Each year about a thousand people show up to eat hot dogs, listen to a live band, enjoy the evening sun, and have a good time. Everyone also gets their name in a hopper for a chance to win some cool prizes. This year my daughter won tickets to go see OU play TCU. If you listened to last Friday’s episode, you, of course, know this.
As we prepared for the day, she wasn’t really all that excited about the actual game. She was looking forward to doing something new, and hanging out with me all day. And I suppose she was somewhat excited about the game. But mostly she was excited that I would be taking her to Starbucks on the way. Any time I mentioned our upcoming trip, she would excitedly talk about what drink she would be getting at Starbucks.
We grabbed our Starbucks and arrived to the stadium about 4 hours before kickoff. We walked around campus, toured the fan zone area, and ate some burgers. We got to our seat about 80 minutes before kickoff and watched the players warm up and go through their drills.
I took time to tell her about some of the things the crowd does to participate in the game. We chant Boomer and Sooner with the other side of the stadium, we chant O-U when the ball is kicked, we make as much noise as possible when the other team has the ball, and we always cheer when a hurt player gets up, no matter what color his uniform is.
She seemed to understand everything, but I really wasn’t sure if she’d actually do any of those things. After all, she really didn’t seem that interested in the Heisman Trophy we’d seen earlier that day, nor was she impressed when she was standing just a few feet away from 1978 Heisman Trophy winner, Billy Sims. I took her on a tour to see the statues of the legendary OU football coaches and each of the 5 Heisman Trophy winners from OU.
When game time arrived, I was pleasantly surprised. She was totally into it! She cheered for our team, made noise for the other team, encouraged the hurt players, and participated in the chants. We yelled, exchanged high fives, laughed, cheered, and had a fantastic time.
As we walked away from the stadium she asked if we could come back again next season. Her only request was that she wanted to go to a game when the temperature wouldn’t be so cold. Once we got back to the car and began our journey home, I asked her if she’d had a good time, and she said, “yes.” I asked her what her favorite part of the day had been, and much to my surprise, she said that the football game was the best part. So much for Starbucks.
Here’s what I learned.
I’ve been talking all month about gratitude. Last November, in my gratitude series, I talked about family, health, food, God’s provision, and so forth. This year I wanted to take a different approach to gratitude. I’ve chosen to express gratitude for things like having the ability to learn, hear, and the opportunities of education.
So today I’m grateful for traditions. A tradition is a custom or belief passed from generation to generation. While some traditions become unnecessarily sacred, many times traditions are very powerful things.
Why?
I think traditions are powerful because they have the ability to unite us and draw us closer together. Traditions help us express and experience community and familial bonds. Traditions create memories that live on long after those who come before us have passed away. And in that way, traditions help us remember and honor those who passed the traditions on to us. Like echoes reverberating through the halls of time, traditions carry the voices, teachings, and passions of our ancestors.
This last weekend I got to take one of the great traditions of my family, and pass it on to our next generation. For that, I am grateful.
Since I won’t speak to you again before Thanksgiving, from my family to yours, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving.
I’m Darrell Darnell and this has been stuff I learned yesterday.
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