Canzano: Sometimes the sports world is for the birds

“There’s something about working with your hands, isn’t there?”

The sports world never stops spinning. (Photo: Tim Healy)

I received a call on Thursday from University of Oregon women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves. He was making the drive from Eugene to Black Butte. We spent a few minutes talking about a fun project he’s working on.

“It’s kind of like a birdhouse,” he said.

Except it’s not exactly a birdhouse. It also functions as a bird feeder. Graves has a home on a golf course. He finds a lot of lost golf balls on his daily walks along the course. His new project isn’t for the birds. It’s for golfers. He’s planning to fill the contraption with lost golf balls and a sign.

It will read: “If you lose one — take one… if you find one — leave one.”

I write a sports column. I host a daily three-hour radio show. I work hard at it. But at the end of my work day, I sometimes look back and wonder whether I have anything tangible to show for it. The work feels important, but fleeting.

Words on a screen?

Thoughts floating into the ether?

Sometimes, when I’m driving about, I’ll see a crew painting a house or re-roofing a house. I’m envious. At the end of my work day, I’m not walking away from a finished project. Like a teacher, or coach, or grocery-store clerk, I can’t pile the kids into the car, drive past my work site, and declare, “Look at that, kids. I did that.”

Before Graves hung up on Thursday, he said: “There’s something about working with your hands, isn’t there?”

One day, he’s going to look out his back window and see that birdhouse golf ball contraption and know that he spent a Memorial Day weekend working on the thing. He’ll have something lasting to show for his sweat, and for a college basketball coach who lives season to season, there has to be something gratifying about that.

Louis Nizer, the author, lawyer, and soapbox speaker, noted that the differences between a laborer, a craftsman, and an artist weren’t much at all. It essentially amounted to how much of a person’s heart and brain went into a project.

A laborer utilizes his hands.

A craftsman involves hands and brain.

An artist uses his hands, brain, and heart.

We lived on an acre when I was growing up. My father, who worked in real estate after a professional baseball career, used to change out of his work clothes and disappear into the backyard sometimes after he got home.

He’d dig a post hole, or fix a PVC sprinkler system, or prune a tree before dinner. As a kid, I wondered where my father found the energy after a long day at the office, spent dealing with clients, contracts, and rising interest rates. I understand now. Getting his hands dirty energized and grounded him.

It’s like Carl Jung wrote, “Hands can solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with.”

Graves went 20-12 last season with his basketball team. The Ducks’ first season in the Big Ten ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a loss to No. 2-seed Duke. The season was over. The portal was already open. It’s a relentless cycle. I wonder about the burn rate for college coaches across all sports. I doubt we’ll see an abundance of college football and basketball coaches with 20 or 30-year runs anymore. This era is rife with the kind of never-ending complexity that drives a person to a backyard birdhouse project.

Think about Graves’ counterpart at Oregon State — Scott Rueck. He’s been to a Final Four and three Elite Eights. The guy can flat-out coach. His entire roster disintegrated after the Pac-12 broke up. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in college sports. Rueck didn’t run for the hills. He rolled up his sleeves, rebuilt the roster, won the WCC championship, and made the NCAA Tournament last season.

That performance blew me away. Partly because it required a psychological lift that I’d never seen before. I wondered how many high-level coaches would have had their spirit broken by the attrition and bolted.

It was a high-wire act in high winds, and Rueck kept his balance. I asked him late in the season if he ever doubted he could pull it off. Rueck told me: “There were lots of reasons to doubt lots of things.” I found out later that he wrote two words on the blackboard in the team locker room in the early part of the season.

It read: “Keep Going.”

Ain’t it the truth?

I received a note this week from a reader named Jon, who is a senior citizen. He’s on disability and was struggling to pay for his annual subscription. He reads religiously, and the column helps keep him connected to the outside world. Unfortunately, he said, he couldn’t afford it and needed to cancel.

I called him and told him I’d comped him. He profusely thanked me. But I cut him off and told him that it was I who felt fortunate. Fellow readers who donate subscriptions make it possible. If you’d like to do it, have at it.

When we got off the call, I started thinking about how great this is on some days. I don’t get to drive past this column at the end of the work day. But I read the comment section, and I receive hundreds of emails every week from readers. And hearing from Jon meant a lot, even as he was telling me he needed to cancel.

We’re in a conversation.

It’s not the same as building a birdhouse.

But it’s close some days.

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