2B — April 20, 2015
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
SportsMonday

SPORTSMONDAY COLUMN

Somebody has to care

B

efore I had the Daily, I 
lived for those weekends.

The ones filled with 

football and 
baseball early 
in the fall, 
when I could 
sit in front of 
the TV and 
watch games 
all day. Those 
were the 
days I could 
name starting 
lineups, 
where players 
went to college and God knows 
how many stats.

I was eight years old, at the 

house on Merrick Street. I would 
mimic the sport on TV because I 
was too excited to just sit down. 
Sometimes, the games on TV 
were too tense to run around, so I 
moved closer to the TV clutching 
my football.

I was so enthralled with the 

skill that went into hitting a 
100-mph fastball or hitting a 
buzzer-beating 3-pointer. I felt a 
sense of belonging, of pride and 
happiness, the kind you can’t get 
anywhere else, when I saw my 
favorite teams win.

Dad had been in and out on one 

of those afternoons, cleaning the 
old garage, when he returned to 
the living room. I began pleading, 
really crying, for him to join me 
on the couch. I hadn’t been able to 
attend games, so watching them 
on TV was the closest I could get 
to those moments.

“Dad, it’s the Tigers on right 

now,” I said. “They’re down two 
runs, you have to watch.”

“That’s all right, I’ll check in 

later,” he said, ready to turn back. 
“There’s plenty of work to finish 
up outside.”

“Well, somebody has to care 

about this stuff, Dad,” I shouted, 
tears running.

He looked at me, silent and 

confused. He turned to my mom 
for an answer. I lived for this 

weekend; Dad didn’t. He went 
back to work. I watched the game 
alone.

Two years later, Mom 

purchased season tickets to the 
Toledo Mud Hens for the family. 
I cheered the announcement, 
hugged her because I could 
finally go to a game in person. 
She thought they’d be good 
to make us get out and stay 
together, but Mom despised 
baseball games — “They just 
never end,” she’d say — and my 
sister, Elizabeth, looked for 
anything else to do.

So Dad and I went together, 

just the two of us. He’d buy me a 
sausage and peppers from Sofo’s, 
he’d grab a beer for himself, and 
we would watch a bunch of guys 
we’d never heard of. I’d be upset 
when they lost and chatty when 
they won. He was indifferent, 
looking at programs and chatting 
up the neighbors in the seats.

On weekdays in the summer, 

when we had moved to the house 
on Amsler, I’d sit outside on the 
brick porch 
steps. Dad used 
to call to say 
he was coming 
home, so I sped 
through dinner 
and rushed 
outside to wait 
for him.

I’d hold 

my new red-
and-blue mitt, 
tossing the ball 
to myself while Dad’s mitt was 
waiting. He’d come home in a 
shirt and tie, as usual, and most 
times he’d say he had to change 
and eat. I’d roll my eyes and beg 
him to hurry.

His shoulder was almost 

always sore, so he threw 
underhand pop-ups and 
grounders as I kept running 
and running as the sun faded. I 
didn’t have many close friends in 
Adrian, but Dad was there.

I still watched games night 

after night. My parents put me to 
bed and I’d proceed to form my 
pillows into the shape of a body 
under my sheets. I’d sneak to 
the basement to watch whatever 
game was on. Dad found out, 
after a few weeks, but he didn’t 
stop me. He saw how much I 
cared.

And he saw how much I cared 

about playing sports too, so he 
did what he could to support 
me. When the middle school 
basketball team needed a coach, 
I begged him once more, “Dad, 
please, I can’t play unless you’re 
there.” I cared, and he watched 
the way I pouted. He coached us 
that season.

When I ran cross country in 

high school, he helped pay for 
all six pairs of shoes because 
I researched them for hours. 
Eventually, he’d take the 
stopwatch with Mom and call out 
times when I asked.

Really, though, no one cared 

like I did until I walked into the 
Daily in January of my freshman 

year. There, I 
found people as 
crazy as me.

I called 

Mom and Dad 
in January, “I 
know what I 
want to do. I 
want to write 
sports.”

I wrote 

as much as I 
could, called 

Mom and Dad again, begging 
them to read my stories “just this 
time.” Sometimes, they did read. 
Sometimes they just listened.

They sat silent when I told 

them about trekking back from 
Sault Ste. Marie in the middle of 
a blizzard with Laurila driving. 
They laughed as I told them 
about singing Mulan in the 
middle of Iowa to keep Jeremy 
awake. And they cheered when 
I told them that the great people 
at Sporting News wanted the 

kid who cared so much for an 
internship.

I called to tell them when I 

met Dan and Alejandro, who 
also moved close to the TV. We 
all groaned when Trey Burke’s 
block was called a foul, and we all 
argued about what we thought 
was wrong with Michigan 
football (but this column is 
already long enough). We moved 
in with David, we drank (a lot of) 
cheap beer and we all cared.

Imagine if I hadn’t started 

believing that day that someone 
had to care? How lucky was I 
to have a place where I had met 
my best friends, to find people 
who found the joy in watching 
a step-back 3-pointer save 
the day or 40-yard heave fall 
into Roy Roundtree’s hands. I 
became passionate about beating 
(destroying) The State News, 
about fighting in a game of chair 
monkey with Max and Max or 
breaking a light with Alejandro.

And so at the Daily, watching 

sports and telling stories — 
like Andrew Copp’s or Drake 
Johnson’s, athletes, students who 
cared enough about what they 
did and who they were to share 
— were ways for me to speak to 
Dad. He cared for me as I cared 
for the 50 members of the sports 
section.

Eventually, Dad even learned 

how to use the iPad to read my 
stories — he had never even 
turned on a computer before that.

A year ago, during a hockey 

game, I sat in the press box when 
the police officer came over 
calling my name (I should have 
stopped stealing Cokes). She 
announced that my father had 
come up, said he needed to see 
me. It was the first time he had 
come to a game at which I was 
working.

I left my seat, watching the 

other reporters snicker and stare. 
I found him laughing with an 

usher.

“Pretty neat setup you get up 

here,” my dad said. “What’d did 
you have to eat? And look at all 
these TVs. Did you see me down 
there at all?” He walked around 
and lingered in the middle of that 
2-1 game, smiling the entire time.

I stayed in that moment briefly 

— long enough to realize that 
Dad had always cared. And that 
someone — the Daily, Dad and 
I — always would.

Garno could have written 1,200 

more words about his mother and 

sister, both of whom have shown 

more love and support than he 

could have asked. He thanks you, 

the reader, for caring enough to 

follow along. He’ll be covering 

the Chicago Cubs and White 

Sox for MLB.com this summer, 

where he’s bound to run into 

Alejandro once more. Garno can 

be reached at ggarno@umich.

edu or on Twitter: @G_Garno.

COURTESY OF THE GARNO FAMILY

Greg Garno and his dad bonded over baseball when Greg was younger.

“I know what 
I want to do. I 
want to write 

sports.”

GREG
GARNO