Finneran: Gronk!

Friday, November 21, 2014

Tom Finneran, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

Rob Gronkowski

GRONK. What a word. What a sound. What a name.

And what a football player. This guy is awesome. I’m hardly an NFL junkie---fall weekends are just too nice to waste watching beer and Cialis commercials---but this guy is really fun. His name and his playing style remind me of some kind of super-tank, just busting through everything in its way. When his football career is over he should rent himself out as a road-grader.

He’s big, strong, fast, talented, and out of his mind. Certifiably crazy is my man Gronk. I actually feel a great deal of sympathy for the corner backs and safeties who have to tackle him. They’re all tremendous athletes in their own right, in the prime of life and in peak condition, yet watching them trying to stop Gronk is like watching a kayak ram a battleship. It’s no contest.

Like any competitor Gronk can smell weakness and fear and he does his best to instill lots of fear whenever he can. Watch him on his receptions early in the game when he turns upfield and starts to look for defenders. He actually seeks them out so that he can punish and sting them as early as possible. It’s called intimidation and he intimidates indelibly. The safeties’ fears grow all game long and their tackling resembles that of a matador desperately seeking avoidance.

Also in the category of fun to watch is Belichick whenever he’s watching Gronk celebrate. Coach Bill knows that Gronk is manic. His endzone spikes are the stuff of legend and his sideline dances have his teammates doubled over in laughter. Belichick tries to hide his amusement but he’s a middle-aged guy watching a big crazy kid having lots of fun. So even Belichick laughs when Gronk breaks out.

Oh the glories of youth---the speed, the strength, the stamina, and the irrepressible energy. I have no doubt that Gronk has pulled some epic all-nighters and showed up for practice really hurting. It’s in his DNA. I also have no doubt that he puts in a hard practice, pushing his body and paying the price for the previous night’s party. Work hard, play hard. Come game day he’s ferocious. And fun.

His touchdown catch and run against the Colts last week was both awesome and amazingly routine. It was awesome the way he swatted two separate tacklers away. It was awesome the way he hurdled and vaulted into the endzone in anticipation of a fast-closing defender. And it was amazingly routine because we’ve seen such Gronk highlight performances many times before. I think he’s the best tight end in football and should he play for several years I think he’ll go down as one of the best of all time.

Wise men of course remind us that the letters NFL stands for “not for long”. Injuries plague every player and every team. It is a brutal sport, just short of war. The average “career” is somewhere around four years as big strong bodies regularly break down. A.E. Housman’s poem “To An Athlete Dying Young” might have been written with the NFL in mind.

Gronk’s had two serious injuries already in his short pro career and of course he was off most scouts’ radar screens due to some serious injuries in college. He’s officially a member of the Curtis Martin underground, made up of great football players whose college injuries kept them on the sidelines, undiscovered and unknown except to the football cognoscenti.

Given the mayhem he brings with him, all we can do is enjoy the show for as long as it lasts. He’s Gronk, our Wild Child, and he’s having lots of fun.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.