As I sit here and watch the end of the Sunday games wrap up for the week, I keep thinking about Pat Modell.
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| Pat and Art Modell together - as they always were |
Patricia Breslin Modell, wife of Art Modell (former owner of the Baltimore Ravens), passed away this last week and oh what a void she leaves. I still remember meeting Mrs. Modell for the first time and I can still recall the smell of her perfume and her beautiful presence when we'd meet her after the games in the suite. Although we knew her as an owner's wife, Pat was so much more than this. A tough cookie in her own right by what she withstood in her time in the NFL, Pat was a great actress. Until Lucille Ball came along, one of her good friends, Pat had more TV appearances than any other woman of her time. I will miss her husky and candid voice. I will miss all that she was - and I thank her for all that she gave to my family.
The NFL lost another icon last Saturday in Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders. Despite the good and the bad that came with Davis, and some would argue the Modells (although it is blasphemous that Art has yet to be inducted in to the NFL Hall of Fame), they represented the old school days of football. The owners of today are "new money" businessman, all of whom can be credited with helping adapt the league for survival, but a group who has also had to learn that perhaps the generation before them really knew best. Often, we're the victims of our own progress; and, I wonder... will we ever know football one day for the way it used to be?
Life lesson: Look to your own heritage and history before evolving into something we don't recognize.
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| Football in a simpler time |
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| With some advances... |
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| And as we know it today. |
Well said.
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