HOMAGE TO GONZO

In lieu of a Broncos Update, which seems highly unnecessary and downright depressing at this point, and in light of the improbable victory Sunday by the San Francisco 49ers, which happened to be Hunter S. Thompson’s favorite team, I would like to offer a tribute to the founder of Gonzo journalism in the mold of his old ESPN.com columns which were so entertaining even if, and especially when, they weren’t entirely about sports.

Had the gun decided to jam on the fateful day, we would all no doubt be reading about the glorious return of the San Francisco 49ers to respectability. And after their victory over the revamped Rams, it is hard to deny that such respectability is close at hand, though a single victory in the first week of the season hardly means that the 49ers are respectable. It just means that they can’t be called lousy, which unfortunately is a fairly apt adjective for the Broncos at the moment. But it should come as no surprise that a team coming out the glorious Bay Area should prompt adjectives such as respectable, decent, even hard-working. Having been to San Francisco, I can easily say that it was one of the most delightful cities in the country, and it made me proud to be an American. Yes it’s true. In a day and age when red states outnumber the blue ones, when Republicans are doggedly fighting to legislate love and all but deport homosexuals while failing to provide adequate relief to the mostly lower-income residents of hurricane-damaged areas in the South, I can honestly say that San Francisco stands as a beacon of hope not only for struggling NFL franchises like Detroit and Miami but for the whole wretched state of affairs in our country.

I have close friends and relatives who don’t read the Broncos Update because they are not interested in sports. I’m always trying to convince them that sports itself is rarely about sports at all, something Thompson seemed to know intuitively. Instead sports is about everything else. Witness the outpouring of support by Carolina fans when the New Orleans Saints took the field. And when New Orleans beat the heavily-favored Panthers in their own stadium there was even applause from the hometown fans. In a time when many professional athletes play for themselves, the members of the Saints found a much more powerful motivation in playing for the displaced citizens of their ravaged city. For this weekend at least, in whatever Carolina the Panthers come from, sports was not about sports or even about winning. It was about something more important, more special than either of those things.

But for 49er fans, football this weekend was about sports and it was about winning. Normally, despite being at odds with Dr. Thompson, I would spit out some venom over the quick turnaround of the 49er organization. After all, I had to wait nearly a decade for a Nuggets turnaround, and the 49ers humiliated the Broncos on more than one occasion, though the Super Bowl debacle was enough humiliation for a lifetime. No, on this occasion I feel obligated to raise my fist in quiet celebration of the 49er victory and all it could or even might mean for a country in turmoil. Mahalo!