My father, William W. Cannon, died on June 22, 2002, over 21 years ago. This is the talk that I gave at his funeral:
Dad and I shared a love of sports.
When I was growing up, New Year’s Day was sacred. Dad and I would watch four to six football games, from early morning into the night, while we ate a healthy dose of shrimp, crab legs, chips and dip, and other New Year’s staples.
Dad took me to a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Salt Lake Bees and he and I went to many Utah Stars basketball games. He coached my little league baseball team and regularly attended my football and basketball games.
We loved the University of Utah basketball games and had season tickets each year. I started attending games with him at the Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse and, when the Special Events Center opened, we got season tickets on the second row, right in front of the cheerleaders. At the games, my buttoned-down Dad would transform into a maniac: yelling or booing at the refs and screaming the Utes on to victory. Together with Dad, I loved to sing the Utah fight song: “A Utah man sir, a Utah man am I, a Utah man sir, I will be till I die, aye, aye.”
Dad had season tickets to the University of Utah football games and I regularly attended with him, but my favorite game occurred on November 9, 1968. I was traveling with Dad back to Kentucky to pick up Mike from his mission. We stopped in South Bend, Indiana and Dad took me to the Notre Dame/Pittsburgh football game. I was a huge Notre Dame fan: I watched every game on t.v. and knew all of the players’ names. In fact, I still have the ticket stubs, the program, and newspaper articles about the game. We saw Joe Thiesmann start his first collegiate game as a quarterback. The next day, at my request, we stopped for lunch at a Holiday Inn in Seymour, Indiana. Only my Dad understood the significance of this to me. You’ve go to understand that Jim Seymour was my favorite player on Notre Dame’s team.
When I went to BYU and learned to love BYU football, Dad also became a BYU football fan. After I got married, we traveled to San Diego for several Holiday Bowls. We also greeted the Cougars after their Holiday Bowl victory over Michigan for the national championship as they got off their charter plane in Salt Lake in freezing weather at 2:00 a.m. Mom even came along for that one.
In recent years, Dad and I often talked by telephone after a big victory, or a close loss, by either Utah or BYU, and discussed the highlights. But best of all, several years ago, as a coup de grace, we fulfilled a dream we had discussed over numerous shrimp cocktails and crab legs every New Years Day since I was a young boy: we attended a Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, watching Ohio State narrowly beat Arizona State.
Dad, if you have any clout up there, I’d love to see you pull some strings and get BYU into a BCS bowl game. I’ll be watching. I love you.
When I was growing up, New Year’s Day was sacred. Dad and I would watch four to six football games, from early morning into the night, while we ate a healthy dose of shrimp, crab legs, chips and dip, and other New Year’s staples.
Dad took me to a baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Salt Lake Bees and he and I went to many Utah Stars basketball games. He coached my little league baseball team and regularly attended my football and basketball games.
We loved the University of Utah basketball games and had season tickets each year. I started attending games with him at the Einar Nielsen Fieldhouse and, when the Special Events Center opened, we got season tickets on the second row, right in front of the cheerleaders. At the games, my buttoned-down Dad would transform into a maniac: yelling or booing at the refs and screaming the Utes on to victory. Together with Dad, I loved to sing the Utah fight song: “A Utah man sir, a Utah man am I, a Utah man sir, I will be till I die, aye, aye.”
Dad had season tickets to the University of Utah football games and I regularly attended with him, but my favorite game occurred on November 9, 1968. I was traveling with Dad back to Kentucky to pick up Mike from his mission. We stopped in South Bend, Indiana and Dad took me to the Notre Dame/Pittsburgh football game. I was a huge Notre Dame fan: I watched every game on t.v. and knew all of the players’ names. In fact, I still have the ticket stubs, the program, and newspaper articles about the game. We saw Joe Thiesmann start his first collegiate game as a quarterback. The next day, at my request, we stopped for lunch at a Holiday Inn in Seymour, Indiana. Only my Dad understood the significance of this to me. You’ve go to understand that Jim Seymour was my favorite player on Notre Dame’s team.
When I went to BYU and learned to love BYU football, Dad also became a BYU football fan. After I got married, we traveled to San Diego for several Holiday Bowls. We also greeted the Cougars after their Holiday Bowl victory over Michigan for the national championship as they got off their charter plane in Salt Lake in freezing weather at 2:00 a.m. Mom even came along for that one.
In recent years, Dad and I often talked by telephone after a big victory, or a close loss, by either Utah or BYU, and discussed the highlights. But best of all, several years ago, as a coup de grace, we fulfilled a dream we had discussed over numerous shrimp cocktails and crab legs every New Years Day since I was a young boy: we attended a Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, watching Ohio State narrowly beat Arizona State.
Dad, if you have any clout up there, I’d love to see you pull some strings and get BYU into a BCS bowl game. I’ll be watching. I love you.
The best part--you singing the Utah fight song with a room loaded with Very Important People. A memorable moment.
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