hamandeggs45

location: the den

mood: exhausted

music: Brahms - String Sextet No. 1

We survived yet another big milestone day.

Today was the opening day for the Allentown Diocese Flag Football League.  Dave was the coordinator for our parish’s teams and served on the diocese’s board of directors as sergeant at arms – code of conduct.  

Dave’s whole entire life was football, baseball followed by hockey.  Football was Dave’s passion.  Unless you know a professional athlete involved in this sport, you will never be able to grasp the depth of the love he had of the game.  He hated the antics of Terrell Owens, the cheap shots of Warren Sapp, worshipped Dick Butkus, laughed until he cried at every story he heard Art Donovan tell, watched NFL films each and everytime - no matter how many times he had seen an episode and cried when Walter "Sweetness" Payton died.  Dave’s high school and college playing days were legendary.  My husband was a middle linebacker – the most athletic position on the field and he was built like Paul Bunyan.  His high school coach called him “Big Blue” or simply ‘Blue” after Bunyan’s big blue ox, Babe.  On the playing field he was an animal.  Dave had the honor of Coach Bill Parcells calling his home for tryouts, as did other NFL coaches, but with Parcells, Dave’s own dad had answered that phone call.  “This is Coach Parcells of the NY Giants, may I speak with Dave Berger please?”   Instead of heading for the glory of the gridiron, he stayed with his new career with AT&T.  He always said it took him too long to get into AT&T to give it all up.  Instead Dave went with coaching.  He coach at his old high school and other area schools. Along the way he met me, we became best friends and fell in love and married in ’96.  September 21, 1996 to be exact.  Our anniversary is looming large and just around the corner.  My Dave has me primed and ready for any man who might come along who has a love of the game.  I could have either chosen to become a "football widow" every fall or I could jump right into it with him.  I jumped in.  I asked all the questions and endured having any show I may have been watching interruped in order for Dave to catch the scores on the ticker over on ESPN.  He was one of a kind.

So, a few years ago Dave was offered the job of coordinator of the flag football teams.  Never, not once, not never EVER did any of these guys, any of his friends know of the caliber of a player he was.  Modesty prevented him from mentioning that he was asked to tryout for the NFL or asked to camp as a pitcher with MLB.  No one ever knew.  They all pretty much knew Dave as this big guy who loved football, knew what in the hell he was talking about and consistently produced winning teams in baseball and in football. 

Opening day.  He should’ve been there.  My girls, my cheerleaders (all 25 of them, including my own two daughters) were announced, the players were announced and then they had the ceremony.  I stood with my two little girls on the middle of the 50 yardline.  I was wearing his Our Lady of Perpetual Help Cougars coaching shirt, his Our Lady Cougars hat and a black armband.  My daughters were wearing black armbands too.  The coaches all had black stripes across the “Cougars” name on their shirts.  Tom Villani, a friend and a neighbor, spoke about us and Dave – he had Dave described to perfection.  The championship trophy has now beeen renamed "The Dave Berger Memorial Championship Trophy."  I cried, my daughters cried.  The girls on my squad presented my daughters and me with bouquets of flowers.  Phil (Dave’s buddy and the guy who took over the league when Dave died) put his arm around me.  When it was over, there was this loud applause from both sides of the field, St. Anne’s and Our Lady all on their feet, applauding and crying.  It was weird.  How did this become us?

Our team lost.  St. Anne’s beat the snot out of our Division I team; I haven’t heard the final scores on the other two divisions yet.  Even though we lost, my kids and my cheerleaders had a blast.  You ain’t seen nothin’ yet until you’ve witnessed me leading 25 elementary school girls in a halftime dance set to Jump5’s version of “Celebration”

Once that was all over with we fell back into our normal lives.  Our new normal lives.  We left the field and went to the fabric store to get faux fur material in order to make Joanne a Kitty Cat costume for Halloween, stopped by the cemetary to show daddy our flowers and swung by the grocery store for a few things.  All while dressed in coaches and cheerleading attire and black mourning armbands.

I can't wait to sleep tonight.  I think I'm even too tired to dwell upon how lonely I am in my bed.

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