Difficult things take a long time, impossible things a little longer.

Hyperdictionary.com defines fan as an enthusiastic devotee of sports.

Full disclosure, part one: I'm a season ticket holder of the Buffalo Bills. Have been for 7 seasons now. Each year, we receive a renewal notice in the mail, and each year, our payment is made and we get our tickets in the mail. Each year, we sit in the heat, or the snow, and watch the games. So I would state pretty certainly you could consider us fans.

Second part of full disclosure: The Bills have been bad for a long time now. It's been since 1999 that they were in the playoffs. Management of the team has taken it in a direction that can only be considered faltering at best. Drafts have been weak, player development has been lacking, and the product on the field has been a mere shadow. . . with the occasional glimpse at what could be. There have been bright spots; no doubt. Unfortunately, those bright spots are few and far between.

I can say this as a fan. I can say this as someone who invests time, money and effort in being a fan. I am not, nor will I ever be, one of the fans who finds their day lacking if they aren't castigating the team for everything. I am certainly no optimist. But I am also not a fair weather fan. I find it difficult, for lack of a better word, to listen to the doomsayers on the radio who call in because they need let everyone know they hate this, or so and so sucks. I find it just as difficult conversely, to listen to glossed over discussions of what is and isn't right and wrong with the team.

Enthusiastic devotee of sports. I wonder if most of the people I hear criticizing the Bills or the Sabres or whatever team on a daily basis could be considered enthusiastic devotees of sports. Most are certainly enthusiastic, if yelling and screaming like little children can be defined as such. But I find myself questioning truly how devoted most of these people are to these teams.

So am I right, and the fans who scream obscenities at the team at the Ralph on Sundays wrong?

How I would love to say yes. But I can't. I can't be someone who goes to the game only to talk about how much I hate the team, hate the product, hate the experience. But those people are at the game too, so they're putting in the time, money and effort, just as I am, albeit with more color perhaps. So, based on the definition, the person who screams how much Trent sucks, or how the line can't block, or how the secondary can't cover, is just as much of a fan I am, someone who hopes year after year that things WILL in fact turnaround for the best. I know we're bad. I'm not stupid. I consider myself to be rather educated when it comes to sports, perhaps more than some and obviously less than others. The main difference between myself and that fan, is my hope comes in the form of not only continuing to buy the tickets, and the gear, but in a sort of faith that the management isn't stupid either. I know that seems to be an oxymoron based on the way the last 10 seasons have ended. I even know that sounds rather idealistic even. Who am I to NOT criticize something I have a vested interest in? Isn't that what we as fans do?

There is no waiting list for season tickets. In fact, tickets sales were down this season as compared to last for the Bills. Are we Buffalo sports fans so jaded, so cold, that we find we can do nothing more than belabor the same points year after year? Would we rather not have the teams here? Would our heartache be lessened by the absence of the teams we claim to love so much, or would it be greater knowing we're no longer special?

I have said this before, and I will again reiterate this point. We, in Buffalo, are lucky. We have a football team, which only 30 other cities can state. We have a hockey team. We even have a baseball team. We have a lacrosse team. We are a small market who literally adore our sports. People of Buffalo, and Buffalo fans, I do not ask you to not have an opinion. I do not ask you not to be disappointed and tired by the poor performances. I do not ask that you stop singing the Mr. Softie song on the WGR whiner line, even though we have the best goalie in the league. And as much as it honestly pains me to say this, I do not, and will not ask you to stop yelling at Captain Checkdown, or Marshawn Inch.

All I ask is that you continue to believe. Don't give up the fight.

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

For several hundred NFL athletes, tonight may be the last night of a dream.

A dream they had when they were kids. Something started as a wish on a star on a clear night.

One they held tightly to their chests during first cuts in high school, and through two-a-days in the dog days of summer.

A dream which became more tangible as they went to college and stepped onto a stage bigger than any other they had been on.

A prayer to a power mightier than any other, or a whispered 'Please.' A bowed head on draft day with a finger pointed to the sky.

A hug from a parent when the phone call finally came.

You made it.

You're in the NFL.

Tonight may possibly be the shortest night of their lives. Dawn brings a realization that the years they've devoted to their dream, may not be enough to keep it alive. And I'd bet to others, it comes as a surprise. The call from the coach to bring your playbook to the stadium can only mean one thing. Some will get picked up by other teams needing players to fill roster spots left open by injuries. And others will go gently into that good night.

It's the end of a lifestyle. The end of being a teammate. The end of being part of something bigger than yourself. Football defined them. They went from being just another football player, to a someone who made it to the big game. The hometown hero maybe. A part of history, whether it be good or bad. Some don't get over losing that part of their identity. A piece of them has been irrevocably lost, never to return again.

Others take their fame and use it for good. They take a negative, and turn it into a positive. A move into charity work, or a new career. They go back to school and become again something more. They have more time to spend with friends and family and while they miss the days when they were playing, they don't miss the long days, the losses, and the pain.

C.S. Lewis said you are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. To all those players who find themselves facing a life which might not include football after tomorrow, I wish for you the wisdom to realize as one dream ends, so many more are just waiting to begin. Good luck to you all.

Selfless vs. Selfish

I was going to write an article about Matt Leinart's whining about not being appreciated by his team today.

And then I was going to write about Plaxico's bid for work release being shot down. (pun intended)

And then I read about Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope. I realized today would be a good day to write about someone doing something for other people instead of complaining about something going wrong in their lives.

I had heard about Terry Fox several years ago while dealing with my father's battle with cancer. It's ironic really, you don't really realize how much you learn about something until you're staring directly at it. Having to deal with something like cancer on a daily basis really makes you stop and try to learn everything you can about it, in the hopes that knowledge really is power. Terry Fox believed awareness and money would help out cancer research. So, in 1980, after losing his right leg to osteosarcoma, he started to run across Canada with a goal of raising a million dollars.

You read that right. He wanted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. With one leg. In order to reach the most populated areas, he ran along the Canada/US border, running the equivalent of a marathon's distance daily. Once he began, he changed his goal to reflect the population of Canada; he wanted to raise $1 for each person who lived in Canada at the time, a total of 24,000,000 people. That's a mind boggling thought now, let alone 30 years ago. It's also stunning to think Terry was 22 years old when he decided to begin the run.

At age 22, what were you doing? Going out with your friends? Just graduated from college maybe? Hitting the clubs and drinking? All of the above probably. I know I was. It's difficult to imagine living life as an amputee, and being considered disabled by the world you live in. It's even more incredible to realize this young man, wanted to do more than just walk through life with the hand he'd been dealt. He realized people saw him as less than what they were. He refused to be considered disabled. Terry Fox ran for 143 days. He ran 3,339 miles. And he stopped only when he could no longer breathe well enough to keep running. It was on September 1, 1980, Terry Fox was taken to a hospital and told the cancer that took his leg had spread to his lungs.

There was no happy ending for Terry Fox. Despite wanting to finish the run, he was unable to overcome the physical effects of the cancer treatments, eventually passing away in June of 1981. By the time he was no longer able to run, he had singlehandedly raised $1.7 million. In the coming days, a national telethon was held, bringing the total amount raised to over $10 million. A year later, over $23 million had been raised.

Since his death, cancer awareness is unfortunately all too common. More people are affected by the disease now than ever before, and a feat like Terry Fox's has slipped out of the daily consciousness. But each year, there is a memorial road race in Terry's name, whose sole goal is to raise awareness and funds for cancer research. To date, over $500 million has been raised in Terry Fox's name.

$500 million for cancer research. All from a 22 year old kid with an amputated leg who wanted to let people know what cancer really looked like. What cancer really did to a person. And what a person could do despite it.

Terry Fox was an amazing athlete and an incredibly selfless person. And on the day he couldn't run any further, I write this to salute him.