NYC: In case you missed my diatribe on the radio — judging from the outraged response — maybe you’d better sit down. This city-sponsored parade for Ricky Williams sucks. Now, I have nothing at all against Ricky. Nothing. Yes, he appears to be a good “role model.” Certainly, he’s a nice guy. No question, he’s a helluva football player. But a parade? Come on. I do have a problem with this kind of hero worship.
When John Glenn circled the earth in 1963, he was a worthy hero, deserving of a parade. Symbolically, he represented so many American things: an astronaut who risked his life; a triumph of technology and a victory over the Russians. But a parade for a football player? Bad idea.
We all bitch and moan about the pampered, spoiled athlete. Yet a parade for a football player, no matter what his accomplishments, shows how off-kilter we’ve strayed. All the winks of adults willing to let the jock slide by — failed tests pushed aside, rules and laws broken, and ignored by the grown-up world — all because a person can run fast and hit hard. Get this straight. I’m not talking about Ricky Williams. I’m talking about what a parade for an athlete symbolizes, which is a value system run amuck. A parade for a teacher, a fireman, or a paramedic, I’m all for, though I’m not holding my breath. A parade for a college athlete? Only in Austin.
But, you know what? I didn’t intend to pontificate about parades. I want to tell you about New York City. It’s a little ironic, after questioning the importance of the Heisman Trophy and now this parade tirade, that Kelly and I find ourselves on a Friday afternoon flight to NYC that’s been named, for this day only, “The Heisman Special.” Innocently, I’d booked this flight months ago.
The flight’s filled with official Austin types going to the presentation at the Downtown Athletic Club. We have a long chat with our new friend, Earl Campbell. Not good enough friends, though, to be invited into Earl’s limo for a drop-off at our hotel. Thus, Kelly and The Coach, two innocents from Bevo-Land, are now on our own in the cold indifferent Land of the Big Apple.
After Earl leaves us, we join an endless, slow queue at the cab stand. As is my custom, I romanticize a wonderful holiday version of New York; where a gentle snow falls on a happy, good-natured passel of holiday shoppers as we stroll the Avenue. I anticipate a decent crowd at the famous tree at Rockefeller Center, where we’ll join the holiday fun and skate at the famous rink. We’re going to stroll up and down Fifth Avenue, marveling at the festive window displays.
This vivid, spectacularly wrong vision of New York is culled extensively from movies of the Thirties and Forties, like Cary Grant’s The Bishop’s Wifeand Nick and Nora’s The Thin Man. Reflecting back, though, I seriously doubt that Nick in his tux or Nora in her gown would ever venture out into the streets of the 1990s. Asta would be squished in a minute.
The streets, you see, turn out to be a life-and-death struggle at every turn. We want to see the window displays at Saks 5th Avenue, but unless you’re unfortunate enough to be smashed against the window, this is impossible. New York’s famous Fifth Avenue is, at all times, from 9am until 2am, like this. Picture leaving Memorial Stadium, the crowd a sellout. You move imperceptibly along the ramps, arms tucked tightly to your sides — a change of direction not only unwise but out of the question. You walk in teeny, tiny baby steps, your snout rubbing against the back of the person in front of you. This is an accurate, perhaps even understated, description of pedestrian flow on the sidewalks of New York. When it comes time for the shopper to turn, and that time will come, he must lower his head and shove against the flow. Add to this the fantastic cacophony of 10,000 honking taxis and limos, all totally and utterly trapped in complete urban gridlock.
It was, indeed, life and death out there. After our first hour in the street, Kelly’s Texas civility is gone. “Excuse me” and “I’m sorry” are words for the weak. And the weak don’t survive long in NYC. At the end of day two, she became a New Yorker, having participated, and prevailed, in an ugly pushing and shouting incident at the revolving door entrance of Saks.
Though the famous tree was only a few blocks distant, we saw it once and only once. A two-block area in every direction is ruled by a sullen, unmoving mob. We routinely walk five blocks out of the way to avoid the utter anarchy around Rockefeller Center. When Loretta Young went shopping at Macy’s, it didn’t look like this. Amazingly, you adjust. The mobs on Broadway are about the same, but by Sunday we walk from our hotel to the theatre easily and amiably.
Each day, I check The New York Times sports section for news of Ricky. On Heisman day, there’s a short story on page one. The next morning, another small story. On Heisman day +1, another story — on p.10. Given the situation in the streets, a parade seems unlikely. Oh, well. What does New York know?
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This article appears in December 18 • 1998 and December 18 • 1998 (Cover).