The Fall Guy

I'm probably the only person you know that is ecstatic about summer ending.

Most people treasure the long days and hot temperatures for outdoor activities.  Those of us in the frigid northern climes are especially appreciative, using the warm months and lighter workload to take vacations, spend time at cabins or other getaways, and just generally live life at a slower pace.

It is, in a word, boring.

I'm not just talking about the sports calendar, which obviously takes a big hit after June 1st, I'm talking about life in general.  Routines are shattered, you never know where anyone is, all sense of urgency vanishes, the weather gets interminably hot and makes you not want to leave the house, it's terrible.  Sending a happy hour email on a Friday afternoon in September draws a crowd, in July, you'd get four out-of-office autoreplies and a couple of lame excuses about having to run a 5k in the morning.  If not for golf and barbecuing, there would be precious little redeeming value to the whole summer season.

At this point, you're most likely thinking "this guy is nuts", but with each passing year I looked forward to Labor Day's arrival a little bit more, and the events of the past week have only made the autumn yen stronger.  I suppose things are different if you're a student, particularly in the little kid days, when the end of summer and return to school was cause for reactions like this.  But I am a student, who has to start back up the first Tuesday in September, and to that I say hogwash.

Fall has better weather, better scenery and better fun than summer.  Fall has Oktoberfest, summer has Summer Shandy.  Fall has 75 and sunny, summer has 95 and sweaty.  Fall has leaves turning and cool sweatshirt evenings, summer has bugs (at least typically) and confinement in central air.  Sure, I know that fall is the forebear of the season we all hate (and after last winter the first snowflake I see is likely to make me fall to the ground and begin sobbing uncontrollably), but it can't be punished simply for what follows it on the calendar.  Doing so would be akin to boycotting the two-hour season finale of your favorite show because in protest of the fact that it wouldn't be on for the next four months.  Most good things are fleeting, can't hold that against them.

In fact, the best thing to do when faced with this situation is to gear up, have a plan and execute it with ruthless precision.  To be clear, I describe the fall season as beginning September 1st and ending October 31st.  November is a bit of a crapshoot around here, ideally you'll get a couple more weeks of fall, but it's very possible you'll find yourself quite literally knee-deep in winter.

Yesterday was the start of the Minnesota State Fair, or as I like to think of it, the beginning of summer's death rattle.  Things are going to start happening fast and furious in the next few weeks, so you need to hit September like a team of Navy SEALS jumping off a helicopter: Move fast, establish a perimeter, execute and bug out before the enemy (read: winter) can mount a counteroffensive.  Oh yeah, obviously leaving some figurative explosions in your wake is mandatory, no reason to get off that chopper in the first place if nothing's going to get blown up.

So what's penciled into my personal planner for the next 8 weeks? Glad you asked...

Fantasy football drafts
The nerdiest thing that I do every year is spend countelss hours pouring over stats and analysis to pick a perfect team of players to participate in fake football games.  People sometimes mock this, but they're usually the type of people who read US Weekly and watch Dancing With the Stars.  In other words, they've lost all credibility to mock anyone for anything.  I pity these poor souls, because they've never got to experience the fun of draft day, getting everything to fall just perfectly, the exact way you planned it out...and then having the whole thing come crumbling down like the ACL of your star running back week one.  I love fantasy football, and always will, I wear my nerd mantle proudly.

Labor Day weekend
The SEAL analogy couldn't be more appropriate regarding my annual trip to the State Fair.  I don't particularly like crowds, but don't really mind them either, provided they have some sort of collective agenda.  You go to a sporting event, you deal with a lot of people doing a lot of different things, but always doing something (heading for food, seats, bathroom, etc).  The State Fair is like the Olympics of aimlessly milling about, no one knows where they're going and doesn't really care when they get there.  I can't abide that, so have a very strict policy that encapsulates my visits between the hours of 11-3 on the Friday of Labor Day weekend.  That might seem like a small window to some, but as I said, this season needs to be rigidly metered out, or it will get away from you in a hurry.  One year the US military actually sent observers to better understand my methods.  Sadly they couldn't keep up, and were lost in the mass of humaity that is the cheese curd booth, and to my knowledge have not been heard from since.  That's one of the many areas where the US military is far superior to me, I will leave a man on the field of battle.  In a season this ruthless, it's every man for himself.  You want guarantees?  I suggest you stick with summer.

Oh yeah, this is also the kickoff to college football, which should be highlighted by a historic Gopher upset to start the Jerry Kill Era (more on that next week) and a pair of dynamite primetime games.  It ain't the NFL, but just because you don't have chess pieces, doesn't mean you can't play some entertaining rounds of checkers.

September 8th-11th
Opening weekend of the NFL, nuff said.  Not only do we get a great game between Green Bay and New Orleans to start things off on Thursday, they NFL is nice enough to throw in a Monday night doubleheader.  Although looking at the schedule, they might be doing that to apologize for the caliber of games airing on ESPN.  Looking at the schedules for the first two months of Sunday and Monday night games, it looks like NBC must've won a bet or something:

Sunday night: Cowboys @ Jets, Eagles @ Falcons, Steelers @ Colts, Jets @ Ravens, Packers @ Falcons, Vikings @ Bears, Colts @ Saints, Cowboys @ Eagles

Monday night: Patriots @ Dolphins, Raiders @ Broncos, Rams @ Giants, Redskins @ Cowboys, Colts @ Bucs, Bears @ Lions, Dolphins @ Jets, Ravens @ Jaguars, Chargers @ Chiefs

Analyzing the Sunday slate, the Vikings-Bears tilt is the only one that has the look of a clunker.  Meanwhile, the Monday schedule is littered with potholes.  I wasn't planning on watching a Dolphins game all year, do we really need them making up 25% of the Monday night schedule through the end of October?  If you're going to schedule them, at least do it toward the end of the season, when the flex scheduling starts and they can be replaced by a game people actually care about.  I'm also scratching my head as to why "Redskins" and "national television" are making their way into the same sentence, but I suppose you have to throw every team a bone once in awhile.

Mid-September thru mid-October
Somewhere in your town, there is a bar that has a large Oktoberfest gathering, most likely featuring a tent, dark beer and lot of sauerkraut.  My advice would be to find said bar and enjoy the only holiday that officially revolves around drinking.  Sure, St. Paddy's has evolved that way, but there were actual historic events of some kind that gave rise to it.  Oktoberfest simply stems from the age old notion of "Hey, what if we got a bunch of kegs and threw a big party?", and I think we can all get on board with that.  Make sure you try the snuff.

Any cool evening
For MSP folks only, go to Sweeney's in St. Paul and sit by the big fireplace.  A lot is made of the various patios about town during the summer, but a cool October evening next to a 12-foot brick hearth with a roaring fire rates right up there with any of them.  In fact you could make a stop there on your way to or from...

October 8th
The Wild season opener is the centerpiece of a massive hockey weekend, with college teams kicking off as well.  As a matter of fact, when I discussed the best sports weekends back in March, I unfairly omitted this one.  Opening weekend of the baseball playoffs, both types of football in full swing and openers for college and pro hockey?  I think that slots in solidly at #3, bumping down the Masters/NHL playoffs combo.

October 15th
Hoping to be making my triumphant return to Ralph Englestad Arena to watch the Sioux taken on the (somewhat) hated Maine Black Bears.  We'll see how things shape up there.

October 22nd and/or 29th
Nebraska and Iowa visit TCF Bank Stadium in back-to-back weeks, the only question is, one game or both?  Leaning toward both at the moment.

So that's it, my blueprint for the fall season.  Of course this is just a framework, and will be constantly modified and retouched as needed, but a whole lot of things are out there to look forward to, and that's just the way I like it.  Many happy returns of the best season of the year.