I wish I had more time to write, and perhaps I will soon, but it is finals season at the old law school, and times the last thing I feel like I have most days, at least over these two weeks. But I had a final this morning, so I've got a bit of time this afternoon.
Tomorrow, as anyone following Cleveland sports at all, is the NFL Draft. It's a bit of a joke around town, that the draft is the most important day of the year, every single year. If our team could actually win, logic goes, we'd be able to talk about that instead. That's true. As a life-long Packers fan, I spent the majority of my life before moving Cleveland without much mind for the draft at all.
And yet, here we are, on draft-day's eve, and it feels like tomorrow is opening day or something.
It is easy to make fun of Cleveland for putting so much stock into a bunch of players who haven't set foot on an NFL field yet. Perhaps, to a degree, it's not entirely undue. But there's also something noble in it.
Other cities with such sustained runs of high draft picks would probably stop caring about their team, much less the draft, at some point.
But for Cleveland to still, year in and out, put so much stock into a day that represents nothing but possibilities says something about the city's spirit. It's about hope.
That's the heart of what I love about Cleveland. Even if what happens doesn't always work out-- in the case of the NFL draft, it's barely worked out at all since 1999 (and most of the time before: don't forget that Bernie Kosar was not a traditional draft pick). But Cleveland hasn't given up hope.
Perhaps its because we're all just too into football and will take anything we can get, even if that's (probably unfulfilled) hope in the middle of April (or beginning of May, as it is this year). That might be true.
But there's more to it. If it was just a football-fix, it wouldn't fixate and excite everyone so much. We don't give up, even when so many others would. We con't give up even when so many others say we should.
And that's what makes Cleveland Cleveland, all sports aside.
Too bad I have a final Friday morning so tomorrow night is a bit less than convenient...
-Zack
