The Worst Time of the Year

I absolutely hate this time of year.  From the Super Bowl until the start of the Big East Tournament, it's cold and there's nothing going on in sports.  Regular season NBA, regular season hockey, and regular season college basketball.  Those are the sports with the worst regular seasons.  I like all of these sports, but more than half the teams in the NBA and NHL make the playoffs.  College basketball is a little more complicated.  If you're in a small conference, all that matters is winning your conference tournament (with some exceptions like Gonzaga who can get in even if they lose in their conference tournament).  If you're in a big conference, you have to either win your conference tournament or be good enough to get one of the thirty something at large spots in the tournament (if you can't do that, you're just not good).  And today I realized that since tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, I can't eat meat for two of the next three days (the worst three-day stretch of the year).

If you know me from my days at camp and my Alvernian articles, you know that I've been influenced by Bill Simmons in my writing.  But this post is actually influenced by his podcast.  In particular, his Half Baked Ideas podcasts with Kevin Wildes.  His Leap Year Day bit was my favorite moment in BS Report history.  I just loved that idea.  Anyway, Joe House said, "There's no such thing as too many holidays in February."  In another Half Baked Ideas podcast, Kevin Wildes proposed celebrating more eves, like we celebrate Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.  I've been celebrating Thanksgiving Eve for years, and I've had some great Easter Eves with John and Darryl.  So naturally, I loved this idea also.

Also, the day after the Super Bowl needs to be a holiday.  Some folks have suggested playing the Super Bowl on a Saturday.  I'm opposed to that.  I like the tradition of Super Bowl Sunday.  We just need to have a federal holiday the day after the Super Bowl.  The suggestion has been made to push the Super Bowl back two weeks and have it the day before Washington's Birthday.  I'd be fine with that.  Part of the idea was play two more regular season games and then have the Super Bowl two weeks later.  They're not going to 18 games any time soon.  Of course, they could just push back the start of the season.

But here's my solution:  We make Lincoln's Birthday a federal holiday that is celebrated on the second Monday in February.  The NFL season starts at the same time, but each team gets two byes (one of which would come the week before playing on Thursday night).  That pushes the Super Bowl back one week, which would make it the day before Lincoln's Birthday.

And why shouldn't Lincoln's Birthday be a federal holiday?  The man was our greatest president ever.  He saved the Union and freed the slaves.  Besides being our greatest president, you can make the case that he's the greatest American ever.  I took a little survey today on who people thought was the greatest American ever.  My friend/fellow history major John and a few other people said Lincoln.  He's actually not my answer (more on that in a future post), but I agree that a very good case can be made for Lincoln.  If you made a top ten list, there are several politicians that you might consider, but the only politician that you could possibly put ahead of Lincoln is George Washington.  So your choices for greatest American ever are Lincoln, Washington, or somebody who's not a politician.  My brother Sean brought up the names Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk (although he leaned towards Washington).  Not bad suggestions.  When I asked my friend/fellow history major Darryl a few months ago, he said Martin Luther King Jr.  I don't have a problem with that suggestion, and as you've probably noticed over the past 27 years, we do have a federal holiday in his honor.  Check out the list of federal holidays.  I'm not anti-Columbus and he is certainly very historically significant, but I think Lincoln deserves a holiday more than he does.  And while I like not going to work on New Year's Day, I'm not sure why it's a holiday (we put up a new calendar, big deal).  You're telling me Lincoln doesn't deserve a federal holiday?  Let's make it happen.

So to summarize:
1.  We honor somebody who is well-deserving of a holiday.
2.  We get an extra holiday in February.
3.  We celebrate Lincoln's Birthday Eve with the Super Bowl.
4.  The NFL season starts at the same time, but we get an extra week of regular season football.
5.  The Super Bowl comes a week later, which reduces that awful time between the Super Bowl and the start of the Big East Tournament (soon to be the ACC Tournament that I care about, although I might still go to the Catholic 7 tournament occasionally if it replaces the Big East at Madison Square Garden) by one week.
6.  We don't have to work the day after the Super Bowl.

Happy Birthday Abraham Lincoln!  Sorry my brother called you racist (yes, this actually happened and if you know my brothers, I'm pretty sure you can guess which one it was).