Kansas, Eleven and One, and a Quiet Thanksgiving
Cleveland State70
Kansas27
- Game
- 2033 Week 12
- Site
- Home
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 11-1
Vikings 70, Kansas 27, at home. Eleven and one.
Forty-three points of daylight against Kansas, in a game that felt like our guys were working something out of their system. The last time Kansas came to Cleveland, in 2024, Coach Dolan’s first year, we won by twenty-one, and I thought that was a big deal. This year we won by forty-three and nobody was surprised. That’s what ten seasons of Coach Dolan does to a city.
Eleven and one. We finish third in the Big 12, eight and one, behind Ohio and the RedHawks, who are both still undefeated. There’s no Big 12 title game for us this year. We’ll wait for the committee and see.
Thanksgiving was at our house, and it was a little quieter this year. Rose ran around the dining room with Gerald the bear. Eli brought a pie. Kate and Sam brought the chairs, all four of them: the T, the R and the two oak ones. Ken and Teresa came, and Ken had his little notebook, and during grace I saw him put his hand on his coat pocket where it lives.
Donna made a salad from Big Stan’s list. She called it “The Mickey, Home Edition.” It had two pierogi on the side. I didn’t argue. It’s Thanksgiving.
Four pierogi.
A forty-three-point home win over Kansas to finish the regular season eleven and one, eight and one in the Big 12, third in the league. Ohio and Miami (OH) play for the conference title. The Vikings will learn their playoff fate from the committee.
Thanksgiving. It was quieter this year. Mickey ate a salad with two pierogi on the side and didn’t complain once, which I’d like recorded as the first time in nineteen years Mickey has eaten a vegetable without commentary. Sam had made a shelf for the four chairs, so they hang on the wall between holidays. He’d left room on the shelf. I didn’t ask.
My mother called during dessert. She put my father on. He said, “Happy Thanksgiving, Kenny.” Clearly. Like it was 1995. Then he said, “Who’s carving?” I said, “Mickey’s carving, Dad.” He said, “Is that the loud one?” I said yes. He said, “Tell him I said happy Thanksgiving.” I told Mickey. Mickey had to step outside.
Notebook, this week: “Happy Thanksgiving, Kenny. Who’s carving. Is that the loud one.” It’s the longest entry in a month.
Back and forth
Your dad called me “the loud one.”
He knows you. In whatever way he knows things now, he knows you.
I had to go outside.
I saw. I went out after you. We stood on the porch for a while. Neither of us said anything. It was fine.
Eleven and one and a long wait for the committee, a Thanksgiving salad with two pierogi on the side, and a father in Sarasota who remembered the loud one.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.