Mike DiMauro: Finding that lonely piece of real estate above the fray

Dec. 29—Most of us are too busy now to dissect the moment when we're involved in it. Too many headaches, challenges and details to ponder. But anyone who chooses to practice self-awareness faces an enduring, if not existential, question amid the daily turbulence:

How do we live better, do better and be better?

Maybe this is the time of year such questions are more timely, what with the new year soon to arrive and the noble quest to elevate, thrive and prosper blinking on the radar. It's here we turn to Einstein's old line about coincidence being God's way of remaining anonymous.

Indeed, you can certainly dismiss the timing of the recent video showing a demented fan of the Las Vegas Raiders berating a young man rooting for the Patriots as coincidental. I say it came purposefully and right on time, just as 2022 ends the promise of 2023 flutters.

Jerry Edmond, the mild mannered Pats' fan, showed us a better way in that video. He chose to acknowledge the noise around him without succumbing to it, occupying that lonely piece of real estate above the fray. Imagine the exciting ways we could live better, be better and do better with Edmond's levels of restraint and composure.

If you haven't seen the video, just type "lunatic Raiders fan" into your favorite search engine. The viral video shows an unglued Raiders' fan — a woman wearing a Derek Carr jersey — mercilessly hounding Edmond, who was wearing a Tom Brady jersey, after the wild final play of the Raiders' victory over the Pats two weeks ago in Las Vegas.

A failed lateral resulted in an improbable Raiders' victory.

A man in a Raiders' John Matuszak jersey began to grab the woman and tried to restrain her. Edmond remained stoic, as if waiting for a bus (or in this case the loony bin), while the woman actually bumped him. Later, she took her sweatshirt and waved it about a foot from Edmond's face, before she went nose to nose with him like Earl Weaver to an umpire.

Edmond never reacted in any way that hinted at a loss of control or violence.

Observation: I pray that if I am ever that angry about anything — let alone at the idea of some guy doing something as egregious as rooting for his football team — I hope God takes me on the spot. But that said, I'm trying to take some inspiration from Edmond's demeanor.

The anger is all around us. Every day. What an amazing man to show us light for the way.

Edmond's fingerprints are all over this column. Because I'd planned the tone to be far nastier about what is to follow. But there's a better way.

I got enraged a few weeks back at the Human Comments Section (HCS) in the wake of a short story we ran on theday.com. Our daily and Sunday editions were recognized as "distinguished newspapers" at the recent New England Newspaper & Press Association's fall conference.

NENPA also recognized Peter Huoppi, The Day's Multimedia Director, with its prestigious Publick Occurrences award for his work on the documentary, "Those People," which tells the story of how the New London Talent Show helped bring the community together following the 2010 murder of Matthew Chew.

Let me just say that in my 30 years here, I've watched colleagues go to the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and Wall St. Journal. Peter is the most talented person I've seen walk through these doors. By 10 miles. He's the genius behind GameDay. He's also the first one here and the last one out.

I was proud to read that "Those People," a project I helped with peripherally, was called "a thoughtful response to a horrendous, possibly race-based murder that provides different options to change attitudes. Great idea with interesting interviews."

The first two comments in the HCS belonged to two women who are regular posters, but who have vastly different political ideologies. One is to the left of Karl Marx; the other to the right of Archie Bunker.

Karl's comment: "How did this happen with The Day's sloppy, unformatted online version that makes it difficult to find anything?"

Archie's comment: "Too biased. No accolades here."

And I was furious.

They're so immersed in their agendas they couldn't bring themselves to say anything nice. Even about a guy whose documentary helped heal a community.

Hence, I had big plans for this column to reach a perfect 100 on the anger-o-meter. But then I thought of Jerry Edmond.

I came to realize that agendas have become mating calls for extremists on both ends of the continuum. Rather than getting angry, I simply point out that extremists and their festering agendas have more in common with each other than they could ever fathom.

I mean, I look at a story of a newspaper's success in a struggling industry and accolades for one of its talented employees and think, "good job!" Others have agendas that simply won't allow it. Acknowledge and accept. Thank you Jerry Edmond.

This will be a daily struggle for me. Sometimes, columnists must take a cannonball into the middle of the fray, not stay above it. Even if that's the case, my mission for 2023 is to identify the surrounding anger with a more Jerry Edmond-like mien. He gave us quite a gift to end 2022.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro