I had to drive to Durham to swap laptops (I’m in my third week of the new job, but could only arrange to pickup the computer today). On the way, I listened to the SiriusXM football channel as Ray Hudson talked about the news that soccer legend Diego Maradona had died at age 60 from a heart attack.
“A blind man on a galloping horse in a Scottish fog” could see that Maradona was talented and one of the greats, said Hudson. Soon, he was weeping, and I too, was tearing up, as I remembered watching Maradona in the 1986 World Cup—I was a teenager who talked my way into using the satellite dish at the high school across the street and I was alone in the media center as Maradona weaved through the English team for that glorious goal.
Last week, Erin and I watched and enjoyed the first season of Ted Lasso, a wonderful show about an American football coach who goes to England to manage a Premier League team. “Football is life,” says one of the players to Coach Lasso. I imagine Dani Rojas, that character, would be saying that right now to rest of the players in the locker room as they paused to honor Diego Maradona (or curse him for that egregious earlier “Hand of God” goal).
© Anton Zuiker