Importance can become trivial

One of our shortcomings as flawed human beings is our inability to look beyond the moment and/or the immediate future. What seems so important today or next week often gets forgotten when time and circumstances reveal the bigger picture.
   This is especially true when it comes to politics and sports. That’s not to say that there aren’t moments in both pursuits that end up as part of history.
   But in this all-about-now world, we can’t always tell what moments are memorable and which ones aren’t.
   Today’s big political controversy may be the tiniest footnote as time goes on. And yet something relatively obscure may turn out to be a big moment when perspective is finished.
   Same goes for sports. Announcers like to hail touchdowns or home runs as a big deal. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they’re not.
   I was reminded of the bigger picture when Woody Kupper of the Permian Basin Fair & Expo board dropped off a copy of a September 1992 column I wrote about the fair. The purpose was to kid me about using the word “cacophony” in the article. (Hey, it’s a good word that doesn’t get a lot of use. That’s the last time I employed it until today’s column.)
   But that’s not the point. Next to the 1992 column was a story about then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards defending Railroad Commissioner Lena Guerrero, whom she had appointed to become the first Hispanic woman to hold a statewide office. Alas, Guerrero had falsified a couple of claims in her official resume (including the fact she had a bachelor’s degree) and eventually had to resign her post. It was scandalous at the time, but the uproar quickly faded. Now, both Richards and Guerrero are dead and the buzz is barely a whisper in posterity.
   As for sports, I remember covering a Texas Tech-Arkansas football game eons ago when the Razorbacks benched their senior quarterback for an upstart. I wrote about poor old Joe Ferguson losing his job and how awful it was that he finished his college career in such disgrace.
   Of course, Ferguson was so traumatized that he only managed to forge a long and distinguished career as an NFL quarterback. Haven’t heard much from Ferguson lately, but the kid who replaced him that day is still around. Houston Nutt eventually became the Arkansas head coach and then moved over to the University of Mississippi where he had another chance to torment Texas Tech in last season’s Cotton Bowl.
   You never know what’s going to come out of a moment that you think is frozen in time. Sometimes the event is historic, but often it is quickly forgotten.
   Speaking of forgotten, I also wrote a column after a Coaches All-America game in Lubbock in which I lamented the fate of one of the television announcers. That man had a great college career, but was off to a slow start in the pros. At that instant, he was almost a forgotten man. His name was O.J. Simpson.
   So don’t make too much of any given moment. Time will let you know whether it was news or merely snooze.