Don't doubt the Americans love their sport

By JJ Devaney

Published in the Sligo Weekender on January 24, 2012

It’s a cold, cold night in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I like Green Bay. They play on real grass in Green Bay even though temperatures plummet to as low as -26 degrees in January. I like the way the steam rises from the collective breath of 70’000 people.

Right now my team, the New York Giants are leading last year’s Superbowl Champions the Green Bay Packers, 37-20 on what resembles frozen tundra. It’s close to 1am and its time for bed.

Next weekend’s NFC East Championship game in San Francisco will mean I don’t get to be bed until at least 3am due to the time difference but that’s been the norm since my return from the US. What was once a Sunday night institution has now become an early morning addiction. I am hooked.

I’ve always encountered a snobbish, almost sneering attitude to American sports in Ireland. It seems to be the view on this side of the pond that American Sports are just like many other pieces of American culture: brash, over hyped, over commercialized and with out the real depth of feeling that our ‘native’ sports evoke.

It stems from a belief that our American cousins just don’t care about their sport the way we do about ours. Its complete nonsense. The idea that their sport is somehow an extension of a ‘fast food’ style American culture is simply not the case. They care about their sport in America. Big time.

In my early days in the US I too fell into the same arrogant belief that US sport - and specifically the US sports fan - is much less committed than there European counterparts.

While watching one of baseball’s truly historic match ups – the New York Yankees v The Boston Red Sox- I jokingly suggested to my then girlfriend’s family that to make things interesting next time I would don the garb of a Red Sox fan.

Her father, a quiet sort of chap, briefly retired to the garden shed only to return with a garden shears and a terse but graphic depiction of what would happen should I return to his home dressed as a Red Sox fan.

Delve deeper into that rivalry and one will find stories and tales to rival any of Europe’s storied soccer teams. The Red Sox and Yankees have been ‘at it’ longer than Manchester United and Liverpool. And the scars run deep.

Baseball was the first major sporting event to return to a changed New York City in the days after 9-11. The New York Mets Mike Piazza hit a home run and Liza Minnelli sang ‘New York, New York’ at the 7^th inning stretch in Shea Stadium, Queens. ‘America’s Past time’ provided a cathartic moment that night in keeping with its long and fabled history.

That same Yankee ex-girlfriend left me with a love for the New York Football Giants as my team after our parting of the ways. God bless her.

It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Not only have they one of the most obsessive fan bases in American sport they are a team with a great history going back to the 1920’s when they were founded by the Irish American family the Maras.

The Giants v Philadelphia Eagles is a rivalry to match any derby on these Shores. The close proximity of the two cities has engendered a jealously and bitterness that is nothing short of delicious. Try telling those fans that they don’t care about their teams.

Its easy to disparage the NFL with its regular stoppages in play and its TV breaks for adverts during the play, but for me the game has everything. High drama, an athleticism that is both majestic and brutal and edge of the seat excitement.

I know there are many educated NFL fans in Ireland but for those of you who cast a cynical eye on all things American I urge you to stop and embrace your inner, beer drinking, tailgating, foam-hand wearing American sports fan and give it a go.

As Lisa Simpson famously said: “enjoy the excitement of the savage ballet that is pro-football”. Add it to your list of late night pursuits; you’ll be glad you did. 

Getting to know the real New Jersey

By JJ Devaney

Published in the Sligo Weekender on February 28, 2012

I’ve been writing this column about my experiences in America for some months now with one glaring omission. I haven’t written about New Jersey, the place that has been my home for the best part of the last four years.

Lately I’ve been giving New Jersey a lot of thought. Quite apart from the fact I miss the ‘Garden State’ immensely I’ve also been listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Bruce is without doubt New Jersey’s favourite son and to me he represents all that’s good about New Jersey. Often when Americans talk about New Jersey the conversation is far from complimentary.

Firstly because of its geographical location (wedged underneath NY and Connecticut and hanging out over the Delaware estuary) New Jersey has been given the moniker ‘the Armpit of America’.

It doesn’t get much worse than being compared to an armpit. Secondly industrial North Jersey is a sprawling mass of factories, refineries, breweries and power plants. If you want an idea of its ugliness take a quick look at the opening credits of HBO’sThe Sopranos as mob boss Tony Soprano drives down the NJ Turnpike accompanied by flashes of its uncomplimentary industry.

Finally the abominable MTV’s Jersey Shore. The less said about that the better. Suffice to say our erstwhile Governor Chris Christie refused MTV a tax rebate due to the producers based on shooting in NJ because he felt it painted such an uncomplimentary view of Jersey.

None of the above is the Real New Jersey. It’s not the Jersey I know and love. Granted I was a bit taken aback when I first landed at Newark airport in the aforementioned North Jersey. (It has since taken on a postmodern grandeur for me but at first sight I wasn’t overly enthused).

But New Jersey is a State of treasures rarely alluded to by the media. The jewel in its crown is it long Atlantic coastline of beautiful beaches and idyllic little towns.

I was lucky enough to live in two of those towns: Belmar and Point Pleasant. Almost every exit on from Springsteen’s home town of Long Branch along the Garden State Parkway is dotted with these beach towns.

When the summer comes an east coast migration occurs every weekend as the main thoroughfare of NJ, the Parkway, is jammed with New Yorkers and North Jerseyans as they look to escape the rat race for a couple of days.

To the west are the verdant and green hills of the Delaware valley. That famous and historic river demarcates the state line between NJ and PA (Pennsylvania).

Further North are the mountains and lakes that seems to pill over from the Poconos mountains of PA and NY State.  In the Fall the colour change of leaves in New Jersey rivals that of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The New Jersey sky has always been a fascination of mine. Sunrise or sun-set the colours that streak across the sky have an unreal beauty. It’s a cliché to say they look like someone painted them but I never fail to ask that question.

And then there is the people and their often shiny sun kissed faces. They can be loud and they are in your face just as much as New Yorkers but they are warm and kind and generous and they love to party. They even built their own version of Las Vegas in Atlantic City.

I’ve spent some fantastic times in Jersey. I’ve lived my own Springsteen soundtrack and I can even say that I’ve penned my own version of ‘’Jersey Girl’’ many times and with many different muses.

Now I am aware that many of Bruce Springsteen’s songs are thematically about escape from New Jersey; running from many of the paces I’ve just mentioned. But these themes are about the universal struggle of the ordinary man.

Bruce may appear to have some underlying issues with good old ‘’Jerz’’ but in his songs he always returns there. And in my own heart I’ve never left there.

Tactics, displays and chalkboards

Sligo Rovers FAI Ford Cup Final

Published in the Sligo Weekender on November 8, 2011.

Soccer coach JJ Devaney looks at how the three areas of the Sligo Rovers team functioned last Sunday

DEFENCE

ANYdefensive analysis of Sligo Rover’s must begin and end with the Shelbourne goal. An accomplished centre-half part- nership of Gavin Peers and Jason McGuinness certainly would not have been pleased with the manner in which Philip Hughes’ goal was created. The ball should have been cleared by McGuinness in the first instance and even when his clearance was returned, Peers would be expected to deal with what was far from a penetrating pass to Hughes. Barry Clancy’s dismissal all but ended any attacking threat from the Dublin side and allowed Rovers full-backs Davoren and Keane to become almost exclusively attacking threats as Shelbourne looked to contain Rovers rather than take them on. The sight of Davoren and Keane aug- menting the Rovers attack from wide po- sitions was symptomatic of Shels’ lack of an offensive threat after Clancy’s red card. JJ  Says: Job done by the Rovers defence. The uncer- tainty surrounding Shels’ goal will be washed away in the euphoria of victory.

ATTACK

A DIFFICULT 120 minutes for Rovers’ attack in this FAI Ford Cup final. Eoin Doyle looked isolated and out of form in what appeared to be a 4-4-1-1 formation. Blinkhorn and Cretaro were introduced to liven up Rovers’ forward line, but time and again they were thwarted by a combi- nation of excellent Shels defending and laboured approach play. The combination play between forwards that is quintessentially Rovers was absent. Most joy for Rovers was to be found from good crosses by John Russell – when he was moved wide – and Cretaro when he occupied a wide right position in ex- tra-time. A well-worked free-kick almost paid div- idends but Blinkhorn’s effort was saved by Shelbourne goalkeeper Delaney as Rovers increased the pressure on an in- creasingly embattled Shelbourne defense.

JJ SAYS: SNot a vintage Rovers performance in attack but a fighting one.  They kept going to the end.  The four perfect penalties shouldn’t be discounted either!

MIDFIELD

ANYONEwho may have doubted the im- portance of Joseph Ndo to this Sligo Rovers team had a very clear and almost disastrous riposte on Sunday at the Aviva Stadium. Shorn of Ndo’s guile, Rovers’ midfield looked one-paced and sluggish. This is by no means a one-man band, but Ndo’s abil- ity to create, cajole with skill and link midfield and attack with penetrating combinations was tangible by his ab- sence. Rovers needed that little bit of inspira- tion to prize open a solid and well-organ- ised Shelbourne defence and Ndo has so often been the man to supply it in tight affairs. Richie Ryan worked hard to be that cre- ative force, but it was the wide play of Aaron Greene and John Russell in the second-half that looked most likely to lift Rovers’ offensive malaise.

JJ SAYS: Rovers strength is their passing ability and creativity in midfield.  The fact that the free-flowing football associated with Cook’s team rarely appeared in the midfield zone meant that Shelbourne survived and were able to take the game to extra-time.

SHELBOURNE

ALAN Mathews’ team were set up to be difficult to beat. Any time Rovers had the ball they faced two perfectly in-sync banks of four designed to stifle. Clancy’s dismissal merely strengthened Shels defensive mindset. Had Clancy stayed on a more open game would surely have ensued. This was not to be and Shels clung on grimly to the bitter end, marshalled by ‘Player of the Match’ Stephen Paisley at centre- half.

Bay Ridge Remembers 9-11 in true New York fashion

JJ Devaney. Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. NYC. Sept 10, 2011.

Published in the Sligo Weekender, September 27, 2011.

Ten years on from the terror and loss of September 11^th 2001 the people of New York are still coming to terms with the darkest day in their history. This weekend New Yorkers have attempted to honor those who died in a solemn and thoughtful way while still showing the resilience and hope that was so evident in the lives of those that perished that day.

On Saturday night 74^th street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn honored Officer Moira Smith of the NYPD. Moira Smith perished in the World Trade center while evacuating people from the burning and soon to collapse towers. Smith, a daughter of Irish parents, is credited with saving hundreds before the collapsing towers took her own life.  I was invited to join in this celebration of an exceptional life by Tony Conaghan, a great friend of mine, an Irish American and a 74^th street native. Tony is married to Mary whose people, the Tuffys, are from Castleconnor in Sligo. Officer Moira Smith was a dear friend to all on 74^th street and especially the Conaghans.

I had never been to a block party before. Block parties were the stuff of movies and events that only the Beastie Boys could rap about with any credibility.  The fact that my first block party was a commemorative event added to my sense of wonder. While I grew up with the cathartic idea of the Irish wake (almost a party for the deceased) I was fascinated by the thought of this block party which was being held with such a tragic back drop.

At the intersection of 74^th and 5^th avenue a wreath hangs above a sign ‘MOIRA SMITH WAY’. This wreath is the only visible sign of bereavement or loss on 74^th street. With the street closed to traffic at both ends there is a big party underway. The street is bedecked with star spangled banners and the smell of food cooking. Music fills the air. At the lower end of the street the Conaghans sit outside their family home place drinking, eating and cracking wise with neighbors and friends alike. At the other end the Latino kids are competing for space to play soccer with a large inflatable slide and some Italian kids who are throwing a football around. An impromptu game of volley ball has broken out with a tree and a NO PARKING sign being utilized to suspend a net. An older gentleman has decided to sing ‘Bad Bad Leroy Brown’ on a speaker system much to the joy of his daughter who gleefully asks her kids in the stroller ‘wanna hear grandpa sing?’ as if they had a choice in the matter. A Greek mother and daughter skillfully negotiate the crowded sidewalk with huge desserts and, thankfully, just before the Irish kids decide now is the time to unleash the cans of silly string. The Algerian family adjacent to me are barbequing something and that something smells very good.

So on that most somber of evenings a little part of Brooklyn is celebrating life. This is not just a celebration of the lives of heroes like Officer Moira Smith. In its own beautifully subtle way this block party is an act of defiance. 9-11 took the lives of almost 3000 innocents. It broke families and destroyed lives. But the fundamental idea that is at the core of this Big Apple and central to American life has not been extinguished. Brooklyn celebrates life. All of it. As Bono sung so prophetically on U2’s ‘’New York’’: ‘Irish/ Italians/ Jews and Hispanics/ Religious nuts/ Political fanatics in the stew/ Living happily not like me and you’. New York is epitome of E PLURBIS UNUM- ‘Out of many we are one’. And tonight, in honor of Moira Smith, my neighbor Kieran Gorman (from Lavagh in Sligo) and all those who perished on that awful Tuesday there are many. Many, colors races and faces. All celebrating as one. All New Yorkers. Those who tried to dim the brightest of cities with hijacked planes and twisted ideology wanted to create a New York as grey and mournful as the cloud that blocked out the sun over Manhattan on that day in early fall 2001. Ten years on the cloud has lifted but the memories remain. Memories of great people celebrated on 74^th street with a unity of shared belief that will always remain free of any cloud.

Days after 9-11 New York chat show host David Letterman proclaimed on TV ‘If you didn’t believe it before, and it’s easy to understand how you might have been skeptical on this point, you can absolutely believe it now; New York city is the greatest city in the world’.  Ten years later on 74^thstreet, Brooklyn, written on the faces of everyone in their smiles of resilience and hope were the words: Still the Greatest.

You think you know snow?

Letter from America: J.J. Devaney (Published in the Sligo Weekender, December 13th, 2011

You know you should get off the road when snowploughs begin to overtake you. At first the journey down from my cousins place in Buffalo was a pleasant trip. The dark clouds of foreboding weather had been with me from early morning but I had just figured ‘this is December on the east coast of the US’ and I would surely make Yonkers, NYC with little hassle.

And then came the snow, a little at first. A dusting. Irish snow you could call it. It made the landscape along the motorway look festive.

An hour later and things are far from festive. Following dogmatically to the pronouncements of my Satellite Navigation I am now on Interstate 84 in the mountains between Pennsylvania and New York State with the snow falling fast and heavy.

The snowploughs pass me out and appear to be making no headway. There is now only one other car on I-84 with me. I had past many signs saying ‘Motel: Next Exit’ in the previous hour but I stubbornly resisted such a compromise with the elements. Now there was just one witness on the road to my folly.

I decided if the car in front of me slid off then I would find shelter at the next exit. Almost in slow motion the car in front of me braked hard for some reason and slowly drifted toward a large bank of snow on the side of the road.

The next exit would be my last. At 545pm I took the ‘Promised Land’ exit off Interstate 84 and hoped the place would live up to its name.

‘Promised Land’ was nothing more than a tiny gas station surrounded by trees and mountains. A snowbound desolate place. I parked my car just outside the forecourt and watched as snow engulfed my vehicle inside 10 minutes.

The Pakistani lad who was manning this 24 hour station took a brief break from watching cars slide down the hill outside to inform me that the nearest motel was 20 minutes up-hill from the gas station.

With the phone lines down and my mobile phone refusing to work I was literally stranded. I had no means of contacting my relations in Yonkers to explain my delay.

I decided then to take advice from the next local that pulled into the station. I may have been away from the hazardous highway but the thought of a night in a petrol station in the freezing snow was far from edifying.

That’s when Carol Jackson and her daughter Lana came suddenly into my life and to my rescue. Assuming they were local I explained my situation to them when they pulled in to the gas station.

I couldn’t have imagined the reaction I was about to get. Carol told me to come with them and that they would look after me for the night. I couldn’t believe it. They were en route to a friend’s child’s birthday and told me to come with them. Me? A complete stranger? A foreigner, no less.

Carol simply replied ‘Well we gotta trust that you aren’t an axe murderer now are you?’ I replied quickly to confirm my lack of interest in both axes and murder. And so, up in the snowy mountains of Pennsylvania I made my way with my new found saviours to a party.

Rarely have I had such sudden and unexpected hospitality. At the party I was introduced to everyone. I was given as much food as I could possibly eat and naturally a nice cold beer cooled from the first heavy snow just outside the door.

Some being native New Yorkers, took a sceptical, if funny look at my predicament. ‘Who picks up an Irishman on the side of the road in America who says he is stranded? Said one sage Italian native of Queens New York.  Who indeed?

Not only was I fed and watered for the night but I was given a couch to sleep on by a fire and a wonderful breakfast in the morning before I set out on the now snow free I-84.

I had never met these people before yet they treated me with the hospitality that would be extended to any member of their families. There is a view that American ‘exceptionalism’ is in crisis. That America isn’t the nation it once was.

And perhaps financial woes and costly wars have drained the American spirit but whenever I hear of American exceptionalism I think of Carol and Lana Jackson and the way in which they treated me that cold December night.

It’s the people of America who make it exceptional. I can confirm that high in the snow capped mountains of Pennsylvania exceptionalism is alive and well.