Today is Christmas. For many, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. For others, who might be going through hard times for a myriad of reasons, it could be the opposite. But I just wanted to take this opportunity and use my platform to express my appreciation for what we do have in 2020, and for what I have here.
First and foremost, we have to acknowledge that there is an alternate reality somewhere out there in which we didn’t even have the opportunity to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers, or football at all, this year. but the NFL has somehow managed, through bumps and hiccups, to carry out its season, and we should be grateful for that.
We also should be grateful for an 11-win Steelers team that had missed the postseason entirely the past two years, having already locked up a postseason spot. Even though there are major questions facing the team right now, at least we will have postseason football, while we hope that they can get some issues straightened out.
It comes up time and time again, but sports are an important component in the lives of many Americans, and people around the world. Several months ago, I shared an anecdote from an Iranian film called And Life Goes On that takes place after a very real earthquake in the region.
A rural village has set up a big screen and a generator to air a World Cup match, and the man playing the director of the film asks a man who says he lost family in the earthquake how he can focus on a game during such trying times. His response was basically, what can you do? The World Cup only comes around once every four years…and life goes on.
Some of us may have lost loved ones, whether from Covid-19 or so many other things, over the course of the past year, extinguished lights that may darken our days for some time to come. But we still have to live our lives. Now imagine your life without football, without the Steelers.
I can speak very pragmatically about this issue. At a time when so many people have been thrown into instability and chaos, I count myself as fortunate and grateful to not only have had the opportunity to have this job, which I can execute from home, but to have a season to write about.
A viral pandemic certainly makes it easier to appreciate the benefits of a job like this, and I owe that to Dave Bryan, the owner and founder of this site, who first gave me an opportunity to earn a living writing about one of my passions, now over seven years ago.
Lastly, I must express my gratitude, and our gratitude on behalf of the entire crew, to you, the readers, and the loyal followers over many years, who truly make this platform not just possible, but successful, and growing. To be able to make a living writing about something I care about is something I never thought possible, but because you guys patronize our work, it is. For that, I am truly and humbly grateful, especially at a time, and in a year, like this one.
