Alas, the TD Club is dead

I waited a year to make sure the body was cold, that there wouldn't be a resurrection, a last gasp, a farewell tour.

Alas, it appears the Palmetto Touchdown Club is dead.

After more than 35 years of toasting, hosting and roasting players and national sports figures, the mostly male club that met bi-weekly during football season has faded quietly into Lowcountry lore.

The reason, lack of interest, I'm afraid. Things just aren't the same in this old world as they were when a group of local sports enthusiasts organized the club in 1971.

Back then, it was a good excuse for a boys' night out. A chance to get out of the house during the week, get together with your buddies, drink a few beers, talk football, swap stories, honor local high school players and raise a little money to help send a cheerleader to college.

In its heyday, it was a big deal. College coaches from around the South would line up to speak to the group that often numbered in the hundreds. Every year there was a Jamboree with names like Larry Csonka, Paul Hornung or Kenny Stabler headlining the event.

It was always a rollicking good time, filled with jokes and jabs and hi-jinks galore. It was, in a few words, the way it was and is no more.

Noble novelties

Gone are the Friday Night Fights and the Saturday Game of the Week and the rarity of a college football game broadcast live from your favorite stadium.

Even Monday Night Football, once a special occasion, has melted into the morass that is the ever-widening world of sports.

Now a fan can sit, remote in hand, and see all there is to see, and more, without paying dues, bowing for the invocation, playing silly raffle games, or listening to speakers who don't know how to speak.

We are, in fact, numbed by the sheer numbers, the programming possibilities.

With sports bars on every other corner and big-screen TVs in every room, we're literally immersed in entertainment, saturated with stardom.

The every-now-and-then exception has become an endless blur of repetition, to the point of oblivion for these noble novelties of the past.

Good intentions

For better or worse, some other ritualistic relics are experiencing similar declines. The Lions, the Elks, the Moose and other organizations of our fathers' generation are fading fast. Even today's service groups, like Rotary, Sertoma and Kiwanis, are showing their age, graying around the edges.

These groups of good intentions rode the wave of the Greatest Generation and the resulting Baby Boom but have slowly, but surely, lost their appeal.

In today's Internet-cable-satellite dish universe, every night is sports night with no shortage of games to watch and people to talk about them.

Chat rooms and talk shows fill every silent void and leave no stone unturned when it comes to analysis, opinions and promos for the next night's game.

The 24/7 news cycle has replaced our imagination and wonder about what might be or might have been when it comes to sports.

Alas, an era is over, the Touchdown Club is dead.

Reach Ken Burger at kburger@postandcourier.com or (843) 937-5598.