Monday Mike: A full weekend, it definitely was

I've got a skull-full of weekend to empty out, so here goes:

Friday was the men's basketball game between Gardner-Webb and Iowa. I Skipped it. I mean, come on. Friday night and Gardner-Webb basketball? I don't think so.

I did watch the Iowa State-Colorado game in Sioux Falls that started at 4. The Cyclones are an entertaining, talented team. But when you hear people call them Final Four-contenders as so many do, what does that mean?

Don't get bogged down in what may or may not happen in a single-elimination 68-team tournament that starts four months from now. If your team is good, enjoy the four-month ride.

Who could focus on basketball Friday

or much else, really, with what happened in Paris?

Nine years ago, my wife and I went to France for the first time. Our first night was in Paris, and our first meal was at a restaurant a couple blocks from our hotel. We sat there for what was at least a half-hour with the waiter in our section ignoring us, and I was starting to seethe. So it's true, I thought. They don't like Americans. They are rude. And so forth.

Then I learned you have to signal the waiter when you're ready to order, at least in that particular establishment. Once we did, we ended up spending three delightful hours there, on a beautiful Friday night in the world's most-beautiful city.

In fact, before the night was over that waiter bought us beers. Needless to say, that left a favorable impression that remains after all this time.

The rudest person on the entire trip turned out to be a security guard at New York's Kennedy Airport on way back home.

We'll go back to Paris. We'd go back tomorrow if we could.

Speaking of which, I'm an Aaron Rodgers fan

. That isn't easy to say as someone who has spent a lot of time teasing Green Bay Packers fans.

But I became a Rodgers guy after hearing him on national talk shows a couple times. He's smart as can be, and he has a world view that doesn't have him as the world and everything else as what orbits around it.

My appreciation for Rodgers only got stronger Sunday when he said this about some half-wit in the Lambeau Field crowd who shouted a slur against Muslims during a moment of silence for the people murdered in Paris Friday by ISIS jackals.

'I must admit, I was very disappointed with whoever the fan was that made a comment that was very inappropriate during the moment of silence,' Rodgers said.

'It's that kind of prejudicial ideology that puts us in the position we are today as a world.'

That isn't the kind of statement that will play well in every corner of this country. It's the kind of statement most athletes would avoid making, even if they were articulate enough to make them.

You're OK, Rodgers.

And yes, that fan was just one dope and not a spokesman for Packers fans or Wisconsin people.

Saturday, as everyone in Iowa knows,

was the wrestling-football doubleheader that gave Kinnick Stadium a total attendance of over 112,872 fans.

What struck me more than the two events was the tailgating that went on between them. I don't get to tailgate. My game day is a work day, and that's not a complaint. It beats work-work, and I know it.

But I'm always a stranger in a strange land when it comes to the outside-stadium environment. On this day, I got to spend time at a couple of friends' tailgates between the two events, and oh my gosh. The time it takes, the money it costs, the trouble people go to, and the creativity it takes to tailgate the way they want … impressive. And a bit mind-boggling.

There are years of friendships and traditions involved. There is community. And I always come back to what I think when I see adults wearing football jerseys of any kind.

Most people want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

On Sunday afternoon,

I took what is called a busman's holiday.

There is a new pro sports team in Cedar Rapids, a Major Arena Soccer League team called the Cedar Rapids Rampage.

After getting my Sunday Gazette work done and enjoying the end of the Packers' loss to the Detroit Lions, of all things, I went to the Rampage's game at the U.S. Cellular Center against something called the Waza Flo.

In Googling 'Waza Flo,' I learned it's Japanese for 'good technique.' OK.

Waza Flo has been a franchise since 2008. It formerly was the Detroit Waza Flo. Then it moved to Flint, Mich.

Anyway, the crowd of 2,721 was young. Lots of youth soccer players. Lots of young parents. I sat near a young woman and her son of maybe 8, who wore a soccer jersey and stood up the whole game as he intently watched the game.

It was a very well-behaved crowd, not a beer-and-beer-again gathering. I believe the Rampage have a ready-made niche of their own in Cedar Rapids. Now they need to do the hard work, which is grow it and keep it interested.

That said, I was thoroughly entertained by the game. The skills on display were great fun to watch, the players played hard and with enthusiasm, and they really let their personalities come across.

Rampage goalkeeper Joey Kapinos was in-your-face intense, man.

When an official got hit in the side of his head by a ball, he quickly signaled he was fine. But players from both teams still congregated around him to make sure themselves, and then playfully kidded him once they were assured he was good to go.

And who didn't enjoy seeing Elmo Neto, a 32-year-old Brazilian, leap into the crowd after his third goal of the game and dart up 12 or 15 rows to celebrate with his new fans.

Waza Flo took a 4-0 lead, but the Rampage battled back and took a 5-4 lead. It was 5-5 with 57 seconds left in the fourth quarter when Waza Flo's Thiago Goncalves took an inadvertent knee to the back and was down on the turf for about a half-hour before EMTs got him onto a cart and took him to a nearby hospital.

It was an apparent tailbone injury. One of the Waza Flo players told me there was a fracture. Soccer players aren't always floppers.

Play resumed, and Waza Flo's Leonardo de Oliveira scored with 12 seconds remaining for the game-winner. His team celebrated as if the serious injury of a little earlier hadn't happened.

And the fans left the arena and went home, some of them blowing $6 horns they had purchased before the game.

Now another week starts.