Montgomery looking forward, not back

“You’ve gotta want it…” 

Dateline: Mille Lacs AOY gig

“Never look back, look through the front window not the rearview mirror.”
Andy Montgomery  

Welcome, to the Wild Card Game of B.A.S.S.

Since I’m almost at full Social Security age, I’m going to be bluntly honest with you, which is pretty much the definition of what a sports columnist should be, honest, opinionated and a trustee of the game.

I’m a game 7 fan, I’ll watch game 7 of ANYTHING, if chess has a game 7…I’d watch that (if it does I apologize for not knowing it does ).

I NEVER watch all-star games. 

Never.

I’m an “all in” kind of guy, I only have two speeds, stop & go.

All out, or nap time. And I make no apology for that. A fault I have is that I expect and accept no excuses from those not like me.

So why bother with “all-star” games, in truth game 7 is the best all star game around.

I also hate, HATE math.

No side of my brain does math. I need a tip app to figure 20 percent of $10, it’s that bad. In fact you start talking numbers to me I see it as a legit time to take a nap up there inside my no math side brain.

I can’t do NASCAR math.

I can’t do NHL plus or minus math.

Fantasy sports are a complete mystery.

As is the AOY point system, no offense to my thousand bosses and Elite anglers, but please just tell me if you won, or lost. Once again when you tell me, “I’m slipping in points…” I’m actually napping up top.

Thought you would like to know, will cut down on our conversation time.

Now I tell you this because in honest sports columnist class in “J” school it is mentioned some that you should let people know where you stand on things you have a stand on.

So here goes…I have no stand on this AOY gig, in fact, for the most part, I don’t underSTAND most of it.

It seems to me to be a math tournament.

We’ve got some slight math issues up top of the leaderboard between two friends of mine, Gerald Swindle and Keith Combs…one of them will be AOY when all is said and done…but don’t completely trust my mat. The other reporters out here do a great job covering the game day stuff so trust them on that more than me…we’ve got guys in the middle who tell me that no matter what the math says they will end up in the middle…and then we have several guys down at the bottom of the math equation where this gig means everything to them.

So, as normal I’m not looking up top for a story, nor the middle, I’m looking where the sweat and tears run down to…the low math dudes.

For them, this is a Wild Card Tourney…and that my friends…I underSTAND.

“…from the bottom of your heart…”

 “What makes something special is not just what you have to gain, but what you feel there is to lose.”
Andre Agassi

For me, the cool non-math thing about this gig is that I get the chance to sit down and talk with people I don’t normally get to spend time with. Last year it was the Lane brothers, Bobby and Chris, who to be honest I gave a wide berth for many years, but once I sat and had dinner with them, laughed and hugged with them, they have become close friends. I apologized in person to them and in public to you for ignoring them all those years.  Check it out: db: Bobby Lane

This year the apology goes out to Elite angler Andy Montgomery.  In my nine years covering the sport I have never written a word about him, in fact I had to dial up Bassmaster-dot-com to find out the correct spelling of his name.

And that is all my bad, none his.

So Andy, so Andy’s wife, Sharon, and to their 2-year-old daughter, Kinsley…I publicly apologize for missing out on knowing a dude who it turns out is a great family man, great competitor and all around nice guy.

I need to stop ignoring anglers, but frankly it makes this gig all the more special for me.

It seems for most of my readers you know exactly where/what you were doing in 1982…for Andy so does he: “I was born then.”

Yeah that always sets me back as well.

“db, I’m a bubble boy at this event I’m in…” Andy is doing math, I’m stealing a French fry from his plate not listening. We are sitting in a booth with his BFF, and suddenly rich guy, Ott DeFoe, sitting next to him, my bud Steve Kennedy is sitting next to me eating some kind of fish that I wouldn’t think of stealing.

Here’s the deal, according to AOY fishing math, Andy is like three points into qualifying for the Bassmaster Classic but if he screws up here he could be out of the Classic altogether.

Me: “Does that worry you.”

Andy: “Ya think?”

I write that quote down exactly, steal another fry from this melted cheese covered plate in the middle of the table, and smile, not entirely about the French fry but the “Ya think” said with compassion, with drive, with feeling, which BTW…is what all sports should be about.

“…you’ve gotta give it…”

“If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?”
Joe Namath

Andy is a civil engineer by training, a Clemson fan by birth, worked through high school, college and a couple years after graduating in the South Carolina Department of Transportation, “I was a road and bridge engineer.”

A numbers guy so I only ordered root beer in a futile attempt to be clear headed and catch up with what the dude was saying.

“All my life I wanted to be a professional angler, even more so I wanted to fish the Classic and win the Classic, have been in it twice now but haven’t won.”

Next to him Ott is taking a photo of his $100,000 win check from last week’s tournament and texting the photo home to his wife, Jennie, who told Ott that she sent hugs my way, which I sent back without really hugging Ott until he picked up the dinner check.

“db I’m always the bubble boy, same last year and last year I fell out of 50th and missed the Classic, every year I seem to have a bomb, just have a tournament blow up on me, this year it was at Winyah Bay where I came in 105th, didn’t even get a point for the event.”

At three points out that point not gotten, matters. (So I’m told)

“Here we roughly have 15 guys fighting for 10 spots and practice today (Monday) didn’t really go well for me.”

I knew that without the number thing, Andy hasn’t taken a bite of food for maybe 15 minutes, “I try to be optimistic, I look at this event as that I have everything to gain.”

“Wild Card Game for you huh.”

“Yep, yes it IS.”

“…everything you’ve got…”

“Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.”
Arnold Palmer

It is my loss that I didn’t know and hang with this Andy guy much earlier in my gig here. In just talking with him before, during and after dinner I sense that he is a complete athlete, a complete sports guy.

I don’t know if he played a sport in high school or college but he is big enough, and the drive enough to be a proud player on whatever field he chooses.

He is also a gentleman. I told him he reminds me in both speech and manners of my friend, Guy Eaker, both have sportsmanship in their souls.

Quiet confidence emanates from both.

Andy will now move high up on my “Root For” list.

This AOY thing matters, for some though it matters more than it does for others, it’s the name of the game at these kind of events, an issue sports wide not just for B.A.S.S.

If you take any advice from me, take this, throw the AOY math out when you tune into this gig. Congratulate those who finish up top, whoopee for them, but also pay close attention to the bottom of the chart, that’s where the drama will be found.

If like me you grew up with Jim McKay’s voice booming, “… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… the human drama of athletic competition…” then scroll down in the leader math to Andy Montgomery and those around him, to me that’s where the thrill, the agony of this event lies.

The human drama of athletic competition…

No math skill needed.

“…you’ve gotta live it and never let it go.”
You Gotta Want It
Roberta Gold

db

“You are never really playing an opponent. You are playing yourself, your own highest standards, and when you reach your limits, that is real joy.”
Arthur Ashe