Quarterbacks And Presidents

Articles

Quarterbacks And Presidents

By Brooks A. Mick, M.D.
Aug. 28, 2006

Back in the 80s, the San Francisco 49ers were THE TEAM. Joe Montana was the quarterback, and he was known for never giving up and engineering some great comebacks. In the 1989 super Bowl, for example, the 49ers were down 3 points with 3 minutes, 31 seconds to go. And they were on their own 8 yard line. Joe Montana was not exceptionally fast and he didn't have a great arm. Yet he rallied the team around him, they drove 92 yards, scored with 30 seconds left, and won the game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

In his career, he engineered 31 come-from-behind wins in the 4th quarter, he appeared in four Superbowls and won all four.

But if he was so good, how did the 49ers end up behind in so many games? It is clear that he wasn't perfect. Sometimes the wrong plays were called or they just didn't work. Sometimes he even threw an interception. His teammates made their share of mistakes.

Each time, when a play didn't work or the team got behind, half the team would mutiny and start criticizing and stop playing. Sometimes some of his teammates even began playing for the opposition.

OH, WAIT! That didn't happen! When the 49ers got behind, whether through some of their own mistakes or whether the opposing team was playing very well, they didn't give up. They didn't desert their quarterback. The team and Montana both remained focused on their goal. They didn't change their goal. The goal from the start of the season was to score more points than the opposition and to win the game on any given Sunday and to win the championship games at the end of the season.

Which brings me to President George W. Bush. Here we are, the USA (and all of Western Civilization too) in a long and difficult battle with Muslim extremist terrorists. Some of those who should be on the team don't even know we are in the game. Some of them never showed up for practice. Some of them pretended to be on the team but were gold-bricking. Some showed up and played for a few minutes and then decided it was too tough and so they faked an injury and sat on the bench. Some played hard for a quarter and then gave up. And some have even been playing for the opposition team all along. Half the fans in the stand have either concluded that we already won the game and went home, and some have concluded we have lost the game and they went home too. Those fans that have remained in the stands are those who realize that there is still a game on and that the opponent is very dangerous, but some of those have begun calling for the quarterback to scrap the game plan or they are calling out for the coach to replace his defensive coordinator.

If we are to win this game against a deadly opponent, it is time that the whole team got its head in the game--on our side!

http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016306.html

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About the author Brooks A. Mick: Physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre.

Email: brooks15@cox.net

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