Jay Resha’s Westword Sports: Steve and the Ritual

“Now this coffee’s getting cold, and I’ve read through your letter so many damn times…I know where I’ve got to go, and I should have known better, than to WASTE SO MUCH TIME / Seasons they fly, stealing, they never will say why they’ve come and gone….” (Vaughn / St. James / Arbeeny / Kennedy 1990)
 
I had no intention of writing about my own Westwood High School football days for a second column in a row. Ours may be a forum for all things Westwood sports, but there is only one thing bigger than sports, and that thing is life.
 
And there are times in life, like ships in the night, when suddenly a large iceberg appears before you. With no time to change course, you hit it. Or in this case, it hits you.
 
Last Sunday evening, the week school started, I was struck by an iceberg of a text from an old friend. She told me that Steve McGovern had passed away earlier in the day, suddenly and shockingly, at the age of 50.
 
Stephen. Westwood High School Class of 1993. Husband, father, coach, beer league hockey player. Varsity letterman for our Super Bowl-winning 1992 Wolverines team. Lover of Metallica. Master of Science.
 
And he was my friend.
 
We were buddies as little kids, before paths diverged a bit. We were buddies in college and beyond, before paths diverged a bit. We never completely lost touch. In fact, we texted as recently as this spring, teasing each other about hitting the half-century mark.
 
But we were never, ever as bonded as we were in our Westwood High days. And as Jesse and I know, memories made in that time of life can get somehow seared in differently, permanently.
 
Our friendship burgeoned in football practice and on the sidelines. We were two guys who were definitely not going to be stars – no, we would have to work hard to earn the little playing time we got, small cogs in the juggernaut that was Westwood High football in the early 1990’s.
 
At some point as underclassmen, we just started hanging out more. We listened to music; went to the gym (with George, who you may remember from our last column); became regulars at the Norwood bowling alley; listened to music; ate at Bergson’s; talked about girls and sometimes talked TO them; lived and breathed Westwood football together.
 
Did I mention we listened to music?
 
By the time we were upperclassmen on varsity, our shared love of rock and roll was the heartbeat of our friendship. As seniors, we were put in charge of making the locker room mixtapes (playlists on cassettes, look it up, kids). There was a practice tape, a pregame tape and a separate postgame tape – which we could only play if we won.
 
The blossoming really occurred the year before that, when we were juniors. Over the course of that fall, we developed our own ritual: every week, on the night before our games, we would sit in my room and listen to music. It began as a couple of hours hanging out with each other and the new Guns n’ Roses album, but it grew into an organized and immutable event – he would bring over all his cassettes and CD’s, and I would have mine at the ready, and *nerd alert* I kept a notebook, writing what was played and even adding some commentary.
 
Anyway, I’m not talking about bobbing our heads or singing and dancing or enjoying the beats. I’m talking about COMMUNICATING with each other through the music and lyrics of the songs. We hardly spoke at all for hours on end. He played a tune, then I played a tune. And back. And forth. Occasionally two in a row – a “double shot” which had to be requested but was always granted. Sometimes it was obvious what one of us was trying to say to the other. Sometimes one of us would just tell the other to shaddup. If it had a guitar in it or could be found on a Dr. Demento album, it was likely played at one of these rituals.
 
He knew all the music in my collection, and I knew his. Our catalogue was fairly large for the analog world, yet we would spend money from our jobs on new albums, and we would ask for more at birthday or holiday gift time, because there was always another song that we just had to play at the next ritual.
 
We concluded the proceedings the same way every time. It would be late, and there might be a knowing glance exchanged, and he would play “Free Bird” – that would signal me to play the closers. Those final five did not change and were played in the same order every time, ending with the haunting “The Show Must Go On,” from Queen’s last album before the death of Freddie Mercury. Yes, Mercury died in 1991…yes, during that junior year, just as the rituals were becoming…the rituals. Coincidence? I think not. Morbid? Guilty as sin. And this was BEFORE my mom got sick.
 
Most teenagers think they will live forever. We were different, in that we were quite sure that we would not. All gallows’ humor was acceptable to and encouraged by us. I mean, if someone told me and Steve to stop and smell the roses back then, we would reply that attending a funeral service does typically fulfill both requirements.
 
Listen…I will want people to joke and laugh and remember me when I’m gone, not just sit around and cry. Steve would have said the same thing. But it’s easier said than done, especially when someone is taken before their time. Way before their time.
 
So sadness outweighs all those jokes right now. And it’s not about me anyway:
 
My thoughts, my prayers, and my deepest sympathies are with Steve’s wife, his two daughters, and all his family. His girls are teenagers, and no one deserves to lose a parent so young – take it from me. While I hadn’t seen him in several years, we texted frequently about getting together someday soon.
 
Welcome to the second half of life, folks. Sometimes someday never comes.
 
When I was rereading our texts from last spring, I tried to laugh a bit, remembering all the times during rituals (or later, texts) when I would wax philosophical and be sappy and emotional over the passage of time. Steve would always just tell me to shaddup, though we both knew he felt the same way.
 
We tried to keep it going after high school, managing a handful of rituals each year during college. But of course it tapered off. The last one was in 1998 or so, but the memories are frozen in time, and whenever I hear any of those closing songs over the years, I’ve taken a ride down memory lane. Steve was and will be forever there, reminding me for good measure that we indeed played that postgame tape after Every. Single. Game.
 
September. The calendar turns, and the show must actually go on. In the weeks to come I’ll be writing to you about Westwood football in the present tense again. I’ll clamber up those stairs and take my place at the window and speak into that microphone again. At some point I’ll play a song during a timeout and I’ll be reminded of the 1992 team. I’ll think about my teammate and friend who is no longer with us. Maybe I’ll have a little catch in my throat, and I’ll have to swallow hard a couple of times. Maybe no one will notice.
 
But a voice from the past will surely be in my other ear.
 
And it will tell me to just shaddup.
 
Rest in peace, beloved Steve. The ritual is dead. Long live the ritual.
 
Questions, comments, mistakes caught? Any and all feedback is welcomed, no matter the season! You can reach me at jayresha@comcast.net any time!