41

It's amazing what grabs our attention as a little child and how we think of things at a young age. As a little boy I grew up a Minnesota Vikings football fan. That's kind of strange since I live nowhere near Minnesota, being an Ohio boy and all. What is even funnier is I rarely got to see the Vikings play. You have to remember back in those days there were only three television networks (yes folks, Fox wasn't even around then) and Sundays only had two football games on TV. The CBS network here in CBUS is channel 10 and they carried the NFL later NFC games. The NBC station is channel 4 who carried AFL then AFC games. That's the way it was for many years.

Being in Ohio we saw a lot of Cleveland Browns games which is why they are likely the team I'd call my second favorite, but, somehow the Vikings grabbed hold of me. I think it must have been the purple uniforms with the horn on the helmet and a little quarterback named Fran Tarkenton that would run around for his life trying to throw a pass. In the early days I remember them playing the Packers and usually losing. The Vikings weren't very good back in the day.

But the one player that for some reason stood out to me and became my favorite was a running back named Dave Osborn. He was my football hero. He wore number 41 which is why it has always been my favorite number. As a young lad, I thought he was the greatest running back in the league.

This is where you look fondly back on your memories and Google squashes them with a heaping dose of reality. A few months ago I googled (I guess it's a verb now) Dave Osborn of the Minnesota Vikings. To my utter astonishment and amazement I learned his stats tended to classify him as nothing more than a very average running back, although he lasted twelve seasons in the NFL which is a remarkable accomplishment especially back in those days. My boyhood hero never once rushed for a thousand yards in a single season.

It's amazing looking back at our childhood through adult eyes and experiences and seeing the world how it truly was. I guess sometimes it's better to just have memories and not worry about how the world turned when you were a little boy on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter watching football.

41 is still my favorite number...screw you Google.