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It is with a heavy heart that I write this tribute to my late friend, AJ.
Life can be fickle. All you can do sometimes is take things day by day and find joy in the moments that you get to spend with people who impact your life in meaningful ways. Those moments, no matter how simple or how complicated, are important. They leave a lasting imprint on you and eventually become the only thing you can cling to, in order to keep someone in your memory. People come in and out of our lives, and there is often an underlying assumption that when they leave, we will see them next time. It’s as inevitable as the start of the next
Minnesota Vikings season, until it isn’t.
This past week, I lost someone in my life who was very important to me. We had fallen out of touch for the past few years, but we spent many days and nights, months and years, laughing and creating lasting moments. We bonded over many commonalities and interests, all of them special in their own way. Among those things that we bonded over was our love of football.
After college, a couple of buddies and I moved to Omaha, Nebraska, to make our name as a punk band. I was frontman/lead guitar (yeah, you heard that right), ZB was our killer rhythm guitarist, JC jammed on his bass, and our late friend AJ was the animal on drums. We shared some incredible band practices and put on some badass performances. We all lived together in our rental house just off of Blondo Street. We were just kids, out of school, with full freedom to make our own way in our lives. That is where we started a journey together, and also where we began our bond over the sport that we love.
A Journey to Remember
Now, AJ wasn’t a Vikings fan. Actually, he didn’t have a team for a long time. I think he decided pretty quickly that he didn’t want to be a Vikings fan after we watched a playoff game together for the first time. If you don’t know Omaha, there is actually a surprising contingent of Vikings faithful in the area. However, the only true loyalty to a football team in Nebraska is to the Huskers. In fact, I am pretty sure nobody in the room watching the game, except me was a Vikings fan on that frigid day in January of 2016.
Aside from Bud Grant coming out like the iron man that he was, it was actually kind of a boring game. Don’t get me wrong, it was cool seeing the Vikings play in a smashmouth, low-scoring, absolutely chilling January game outdoors. Then Walsh and his stupid fat head lined up the game-winning kick, that my 2-year-old could have made, and absolutely botched it. The season was over, and the most important people in my life, at the time, were there to witness it with me. Seeing the error in my ways, AJ forged his own destiny. He chose his own team to root for that, he likely assumed, could never do to him what the Vikings did to me. So naturally, the next season he cheered for his new favorite team and
Super Bowl participants: the
Atlanta Falcons.
By the time week 1 rolled around, the punk band dreams had fizzled out and we all moved out of our house. Honestly, I don’t much remember that season for the Vikings. I am trying to think about it off the top of my head and I feel like there was little that was memorable about it. I definitely don’t remember how the Falcons made it to the Super Bowl, but alas. I hosted a Super Bowl party that year at my house with a group of mostly coworkers that I got to know during my first couple of years in Omaha. It was actually a really fun time for everyone, for most of the night, except for the one dude wearing a Falcons hat.
I mean, it was going great! The Falcons were kicking the crap out of Tom Brady and the Patriots, aka the Empire. It was 28-3, and AJ had to be ecstatic. You likely wouldn’t know just by looking at him, because that’s just how he was. He was just always friendly and cool as a cucumber. Maybe he did have a sense of what was about to happen, though. After all, he saw, during the previous season, what happens sometimes when you think you’ve got it in the bag, just for the bottom of the bag to fall out and your glass jar of Alfredo sauce to shatter on the pavement.
It was one of those nights.
If I remember correctly, we watched the entire final drive of the game from the yard, peering in at the TV through a bay window. After the Falcons lost, I knew there wasn’t much I could say to him. No combination of words could help pull him out of that feeling of despair that we, as Vikings fans, are all too familiar with. The only thing that I could muster was “I know. It’s OK. I know...” Fast forward a couple of years, with all of us doing our own thing, when we attempted to recreate the magic of our first experiences together in the world’s biggest small town. Shortly after we moved into our new house on 90th Street, we had a house-warming party. We had some very competitive beer pong matches, one in particular that created a chain of events that ended with wine being splattered all over our wall. AJ was in the middle of commotion with a spray bottle and a towel trying to clean the spill, which had a slight resemblance to the Virgin Mary, with minimal success.
The first season in that house was the one that ended right before the world stood still. Week one of that 2019 season was Minnesota vs. Atlanta. Of course, we had to make the trip to the Cities to cheer on our respective favorite teams. AJ had never been to an NFL game, and this was my 5th. I wanted to show him a good time, so we naturally went up a day early and met up with my brothers at Valley Fair. We got there a little later in the day after our 6-hour drive, so we made the most of our time with a couple of fast passes. I was happy to introduce him to my childhood favorites, the Wild Thing and Power Tower.
We had a blast and ended with a night on the town in Minneapolis. My oldest brother, Kollin, was smart and turned in early to get up to get to US Bank Stadium the next day. AJ and I were not so smart. We decided to stay out, close down the bars, and get on a tram that did not lead us to our hotel. It was very stupid and incredibly dangerous, but we just wandered in unknown parts of Minneapolis until we finally had an UBER take us back to our hotel. The next morning, we struggled to make our way to US Bank Stadium, and when we arrived were met with a downpouring of rain. We made it into the stadium just in time to watch Matt Ryan get sacked on the first play of the game.
It pretty much went that way for four quarters. It was a great day for the Vikings and a sloppy day for the Falcons. Heck, Atlanta didn’t even score until the 4th quarter. Nonetheless, AJ hung in there and soaked in his first in-person NFL action. After the game, we were walking around the stadium for fun and got stopped by a local news station to do an interview. It was so random and awesome!
That January, the Vikings
marched into the Superdome and broke every Saints fans’ heart. It didn’t take much for AJ to root for the Vikings that day, since he probably hated the Saints more than I did, and boy, do I hate the Saints! It feels like ages ago. That was an exciting game, though. It looked like we had it in the bag after Hunter caused that Drew Brees fumble late in the 4th quarter, but it was a Vikings playoff game after all. It was AJ, ZB, and me for that one. We did not spend a whole lot of time sitting during that game, especially during overtime. That Vikings fan energy can be infectious, and both of my best buds were jumping up and down and cheering in disbelief after Thielen’s and Rudolph’s catches on that magical final drive. They were right there with me, helping me cheer on my favorite team, because that’s what friends do.
We watched many games together after that, even though a lot of the time we were each watching our favorite teams on separate TVs. Prime time games for either team were shown on the big screen in the living room. That’s what we did for a while. We lived the bachelor life and enjoyed our shared experiences together. However, it wasn’t forever.
Moving On
At some point, our lives diverged, and we both went in our own direction. We went from sharing a living space to being multiple states apart. I always imagined that circumstances would occur where our paths would cross again. It’s funny (and I don’t know if this is true for everyone) that whenever you go on a trip, you seem to almost always run into someone you know. I thought it would be something like that. An unexpected meeting of two old friends. Unfortunately, the universe had different plans. I will always remember AJ as someone who would hang out with you and just chit chat. We didn’t need to have an agenda to do anything, and we could talk about nothing. We laughed together, had existential crises together, and supported each other. Sure, it wasn’t always perfect, but that is because we would challenge each other to be better. We weren’t afraid to be candid with each other and that could cause tension, but our underlying friendship always withstood.
I know this may sound weird, but I think he has visited me a couple of times since he passed. Or it could be that my reminiscing of the good times we had together brings backs the feelings that remind me of him. Either way, I know that he will always be a part of me. As much as a platonic friend can, AJ holds a special place in my heart. Deep down, he was a loving person who was always there for his friends. We shared all of those fun football memories together. I took him home from the hospital after he fractured his tibia and fibula at a punk show that we attended together. He came and picked me up off of some random sidewalk after I biffed it on my mountain bike and broke my collarbone. He drove me to my surgery and picked up snacks for me afterward. We helped each other move multiple times. We were in a freaking punk band together! He was always there when I needed him, and I tried to provide the same for him. He was one of my good friends and I will always think of him while watching football, especially when we whoop the Falcons during our home opener this season. AJ had a somewhat dark and twisted comedic mind, so he was not afraid of some smack talk or gallows humor. He was truly a one-of-a-kind soul, and the world is a little less bright now that he’s gone.
So, I will leave you with a few words of reflection. Life is short, and football itself is not truly important in the grand scheme of things. What is important is the memories that we create and the relationships we build, including while cheering on our favorite team. Even if we have differences, we can always find a way to uplift each other. 32 years old is too young for someone to be gone from this world. So, as I forge ahead, I will always keep a piece of AJ with me. I will still crack sarcastic jokes for him and curse him for leaving us so soon, knowing that he is somewhere laughing at me in the way that I remember him laughing. I will remember the good times and bad times that we had together. I will never forget you, buddy. Rest in peace, my friend.
Until next time.
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