First Person: I'm over it
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I sat in my icy, yellow seat for a good 15 minutes after the game had ended. Couldn't bear to watch the Patriots get the championship trophy, but worse, couldn't bring myself to leave this wonderful and tortured place. That I won't return until August seems inconceivable.
I was the last to leave, along with some other dude in section 510 wearing a tattered No. 95 Greg Lloyd jersey. A perfect stranger, we hugged (a manly hug) and agreed over raw larynxes that we'd cheered our guts out, and aggravated our Terrible Towel-waving elbows -- the fandom equivalent of a Hines Ward effort.
Sunday 10:39 p.m. Anger: Why does this always happen to my teams? I was 2 when the Steelers last won a Super Bowl. Francisco Cabrera is seared into my brain and since then baseball has been bastardized via money and the drugs that turned skinny Barry Bonds into the Michelin Man. JoePa's Nittany Lions didn't catch my eye until high school and they stink now. I have truly fond recollections of the Penguins Stanley Cup runs, but I mean c'mon -- it's hockey, and that sport is going the way of typewriters and landline phones.
Should I become a front runner? Would it be easier to switch allegiance like Don King after a fight? Wait until the night before the Super Bowl and then pick my team? Become a Yankees fan? Vote Republican? Apply to Michigan for grad school in the fall for football, then transfer to Duke in time for hoops season?
Furthermore, am I the problem? Is it my tortured existence as a Pittsburgher? I read stories with annoying frequency about the exodus of folks from places like ours, the old economy towns long on character and bad weather but short on prolific job growth. Maybe I should uproot to some faceless, soulless Atlanta subdivision, work for Coca-Cola and annually adopt whatever NBA team Shaq is playing for that year.
Sunday, 11:51 p.m. Bargaining: All I really wanted was one Super Bowl victory. Just one. Not two. Not a dynasty. I'm not that greedy. Just one to enjoy with my friends and family while I'm still young. I had already decided that if we won, I would savor it like the finest of cognacs, remember it forever as a truly treasured memory, and then get on with my life.
First Published January 29, 2005 12:00 am
