The M Word in Sports

7/14/08 – 7/20/08

The M word had got me good on Wednesday night of last week in sports. As it, I had almost wanted me to cry a river, literally. For those of you wondering on what that word is, it’s the word, in which no sports fan of any team should have to go though or even here your team being mention it. As the effects of it can be deadly or however you want to put it.

The M word is moving, as in your favorite team moving from one city to another.

The team that I am talking about is my beloved Jacksonville Jaguars. As their was an article in a Philadelphia newspaper, of all places, about a report that the owner of the Jaguars who is Wayne Weaver was negotiating to sell the team to a New Jersey food king named C. Dean Metropoulos.

In which after the deal was done, Metropoulos was going to move the Jacksonville Jaguars out of Jacksonville to play out in Los Angles California. That story reached the Jacksonville area websites at two minutes to 9pm, how I now that is because I got an email from one of those saying with the headline” Wayne Weaver Selling Team” at that point in time I was num from the waist down for about 5 minutes.

As it was turning out to be one of the worst days in my life as earlier that day I had root canal work on one of my tooth. For the rest of that night along with the pain form the root canal work I knew it was going to be a long tough night to sleep.

But as it would turn out on that Thursday of last week it would change everything even my month felt a little better after reading the news from a Jacksonville Jaguars news site.

The news was that my beloved Jacksonville Jaguars were not going anyway as I will give you this quote from the owner himself on that wonderful Thursday morning.

“But I can emphatically tell you the Jaguars are not one of the clubs lining up to go to L.A.”



But that got me thinking, what if the team had move to different city like what the soon to be formerly known as the Seattle Super Sonics. Who are moving to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma this off season and will began playing games there come this October. The more recent move in memory for the NFL would have to be the Houston Oilers.

The Houston Oilers moved to Tennessee in 1996. The team would keep the Oilers name until 1999 as they would later be known as the Tennessee Titians.

The More recent move in the National Hockey League would have to be of the Hartford Whalers. As they moved all the way down to North Carolina from the country of Canada in 1997.today that North Carolina Hockey team is called the Carolina Hurricanes.

As you can tell it’s not uncommon for any team of any league to move. But it sure does get that city of fans in a despair mood, in which I was until the next day. But as I have realized some fans are not as lucky as I was to learn that my team is safe for the unspeakable future.

That as fans of other teams need to start taken advantage of what they have in their team city. Because from my short experience of losing my favorite team. It was not an experience that I would wish the M word on others.

RJINTAMPAWSA@AOL.COM