One week ago, schools across the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the state of Maine took the day off in honor of Patriots' Day, a civic holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. Clearly, I'm not a true Bostonian because it took me roughly six days to realize that the holiday wasn't designed to honor what Tom Brady had done on the field and in the Playboy Mansion or anything else relating to Bill Belichick, Randy Moss or the End Zone Militia. But what if all of our holidays were like that? What if our most hallowed of days were transformed into 24-hour celebrations of all things sports? Well ...
Passover, for example, would be turned into a holiday praising all of the stupid teams that let those future stars go in the draft. The Portland Trail Blazers continue to recognize this day long after they passed over Michael Jordan in the 1984 NBA Draft to select Sam Bowie with the second overall choice. Other honorees include the Kansas City Kings, Indiana Pacers, New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors and the Blazers (notice a trend?) for passing over Larry Bird in 1978.
While the real Passover is usually reserved for the Jewish population, the sports Passover in no way segregates based on sport. The Kansas City Royals, for instance, could potentially have a team with Derrek Lee, Lance Berkman, Brad Lidge, Barry Zito and Chase Utley. Let us also commemorate the Green Bay Packers for taking Tony Mandarich instead of Barry Sanders, the Chicago White Sox for selecting Kurt Brown over Barry Bonds, and the 31 teams that said, "No, thank you" to that Michigan kid Brady.
Boxing Day: Pretty obvious. Here we can take the opportunity to pit Mike Tyson against a hungry mother kangaroo in a battle dubbed as the "Whose Ear Gets Bitten Off First?" match.
For those Buddhist jocks out there, fear not because we have a day just for you. Uposatha is a Buddhist holiday known as an observance day, so this day can be used to observe all of the things in sports that just go unnoticed on a day-to-day-basis, such as ...
Zero percent of Mark Cuban hails from Cuba. If last names of sports figures were based off of actual things, then we would have crab trees. But we do not. Furthermore, there is some jazz in Utah, but not too much jazz. To that end, there are very few mascots in this world more intimidating than one defined by a highly improvisational tenor saxophone playing in E-flat minor.
Hindus, do not despair, as your Vasant Panchami, which celebrates the blessing of the goddess of wisdom, becomes a day exclusively for recognizing the wise moves in sports over the past year. Rather than praise Saraswati, we can just hail everything that comes out of either George Steinbrenner's or Al Davis' mouth as the ultimate truth.
St. Patrick's Day is turned exclusively into a day celebrating St. Mary's guard Patty Mills, while Christmas Day becomes a day only for lacrosse superstar John Christmas. On Valentine's Day, it is your choice whether or not to honor baseball manager Bobby Valentine or the Scottish rugby players who share his family name.
For Independence Day, we can celebrate the true values that make this country great: the freedom of assembly, the freedom of religion and the freedom for the Miami-based Sled Dog Action Coalition to flood my inbox with 87,941 e-mails about the Iditarod at eight in the morning.
And finally, this brings us to Thanksgiving, a day where we get to give thanks for all of the wonderful things in sports: the zamboni. Commercials featuring Peyton Manning. Eight-second pit stops and tire changes. Peanuts, cracker jacks and not coming back. Carlos Quentin's "dashing good looks." Selection Sunday. Spanish soccer announcers' goal calls. Troy Polamalu's hair. Touchdown celebrations with cell phones or pom-poms. "The Sandlot" (1993), "The Mighty Ducks" (1992) and "Angels in the Outfield" (1994).
The President's Marathon Challenge. Three-game weekend series. NESCAC tournaments. Senior quad-captains. Jumbos like Bear Duker (men's soccer), Sterling Champion (women's lacrosse), Baker Potts (sailing) and Kanku Kabongo (women's track and field). Having an elephant for a mascot. Brown and blue.
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Alex Prewitt is a freshman who has not yet declared a major. He can be reached at Alexander.Prewitt@tufts.edu.
