Tunnel 8

This was the tunnel I walked down as a child - every game day Sunday -- for five solid years when my father coached the Los Angeles Rams.  Every time I walked down this tunnel, there was the rush of hope.  We always entered a game believing we would win. 

I had a chance to visit the Los Angeles Coliseum a few weeks ago.  I took this picture to remind me of that hope.  That confidence.  That sheer clarity.  These emotions aren't buttons that you can just push and have them all turn on instantly like a light.  

Any athlete knows that these emotions are earned by months of hard, earnest, unforgiving labor. And as a child, I witnessed this in my father.  He spent long hours away from home, and  once home, he was breaking down film in the downstairs basement. alone, way past when we had all gone off to bed.   

Walking that tunnel, even in an empty stadium, far from the kick-off of September, I could still feel all of this stirring in me.  It was deeply familiar, like the pulse within.