Gratitude comes in spoonfuls large and small, all nourishing us in body and soul.

We see and acknowledge some things. We’re blind to too many others. Sometimes, a day of thanks on the calendar jogs our memory.

So on this particular lap, I’ll tally up some spoonfuls … sports and otherwise:

Thanks to Mark Neville and his group for keeping the Holiday Bowl on its cleats, even as it bounced from the old Murph to Petco Park and Snapdragon Stadium.

The bowl weathered the financial fallout of UCLA’s last-minute COVID retreat in 2021, leaving the city of San Diego and North Carolina State fans who crossed three time zones high and frustratingly dry.

Then they hatched the Rady Children’s Invitational basketball tournament with quality, high-major teams in a place starved for more top-tier sports. …

Thanks to the angels on Earth at Kaiser Permanente who are trying to keep me on my cleats as my marathon bout with bladder cancer continues. I get asked for updates almost daily, so I’ll use a football analogy: I won the first quarter, lost the second quarter and we’ve made halftime adjustments.

Along the way, you learn about the humbling goodness in people during times when our faith in such things has been shaken. …

Thanks, while I’m at it, to a group of friends in my neighborhood of Kensington named — with tongue buried firmly in cheek — The Mafia. We come from different backgrounds with different views. Good luck finding a finer collection of humanity, though.

One works in radio. One served in the Coast Guard. One is a patent attorney. One is in the trash business. One is at a hospital. One is an IT wizard. One manages a bar. And on and on.

It certainly makes our fantasy football league interesting. I’m the only unbeaten team, by the way. …

Thanks to San Diego’s own, Xander Schauffele. He’s done nothing but make the city and San Diego State proud, swinging a golf club with skill and class.

Remembering one’s roots matters. …

Thanks for the smile-inducing animal videos and general kindness online. Not everything in the social media-verse has to be vitriolic, trolling, manipulative trash. …

Thanks to those who volunteer around the holidays (and beyond), putting others before self. We’re assaulted with things going “viral” online. It would be great if more of the kind acts caught on like the videos about self-absorbed semi-celebrities. …

Thanks to San Diego State basketball coach Brian Dutcher and Steve Fisher before him. They built something in which the city can take pride, the money-soaked NFL be damned.

Sturdy timber, that program. Even among the crazy and uncertain times in college sports, it grows more impressive by the day. …

Thanks for DVRs. We can fast forward through all the commercials with the Kelce brothers and Gronk. Who says technology doesn’t make our lives better? …

Thanks to green bean casserole, on the Mount Rushmore list of divisive Thanksgiving offerings. Sure, cranberry sauce from a can deserves the sideways glances it gets. Green bean casserole is a staple.

Give the beans their due. …

Thanks to Padres rookie Jackson Merrill. San Diego’s baseball base needed a jolt. He provided it. For a franchise chided for not developing enough homegrown talent, Merrill delivered.

He also should have been the National League Rookie of the Year. …

Thanks to all the coaches who invest time and heart to guide the kids in the community. It matters. …

Thanks to heavens that the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson nonsense is over. There was more drama, by far, in the national spelling bee. There is more drama, come to think about it, in most lunch-location decisions.

They keep cashing checks, so supply and delusional demand win again. …

Thanks to my friends and family from tiny Redfield and Dexter, Iowa. There are decades of miles on those tires. They’re there when needed, at a moment’s notice.

No way to put a value on that. …

Thanks to college football for finally putting together a playoff system that gives the little guys a shot. It’s still lopsided and leans toward the power conferences, but there’s a doorway.

That’s refreshing. Plus, it should be a blast. …

Thanks to the players who stay at a college for more than the time it takes to try on a uniform. Rewarding athletes and sharing the financial pie is long overdue, but important things have been lost in the money-counting haze.

Stick-to-itivness. Commitment. Building a team. Loyalty. …

Thanks to a day of thanks. It does not have to be a single day on a calendar.

Originally Published: November 27, 2024 at 5:00 PM PST