Turtledroppings.com – Maryland Football And Basketball Blog

Well if anything is to be learned from this excersion, it’s that you can’t run away from your problems.  I leave the area and things just get worse.  But I am here in St. Louis living these past few days under the Gateway Arch.  You really can’t do anything without feeling as though it is hovering over you (I really didn’t realize how big it was).  And every time I grab a glimpse of that structure, I’m reminded what it stands for.

You see back in the day St. Louis was considered the gateway to the West.  The west was where everyone went after they had basically crapped out in the East.  They either found the cities too crowded, the opportunities too few, or if they were from the rural east they found out that growing the same crop on the same ground over and over without any fertilizer, that the ground will eventually stop producing.

But here, where I type now is where it all began.  After stepping outside of St. Louis heading west, no one really knew what to expect.  Anyone could be the next person to strike it rich in the gold mine, to have a new farm covering the vast virgin and limitless territory, or on the reverse end, be the next Donner Party.  No one knew, but everyone who came this way realized that there life had gotten to that point where the gamble of a cross country journey, through plains, deserts, and Mountains, past Indians, rattlesnakes and blizzards was worth the risk.  And here underneath this arch (actually it wasn’t really around back then, but you get the idea), that optimistic spirit took it’s first step.

Where am I going with this?  Well the Terps are sort of playing the role of a down on their luck easterner.  We don’t have much going on for us, and prospects don’t look good.  We can either remain where we are and sink in misery, or strike out in a new direction.  In football terms, striking out and moving west isn’t an option (maybe in the NFL, but it’s kind of harder in the NCAA!).  But creating a new begining is.  In all honesty we are 1-3.  In reality though we are 0-0 in ACC play. 

There aren’t many chances in sports to start over, but we can put the debacles behind us.  We can forget about the 1-3 and focus on the 0-0, and maybe take this opportunity and run with it.  And maybe like the pioneers of old, make something out of a pitful life…..or at least die trying.

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