Fair Weather Fan Checking In

When I was in high school my posse would meet in a park after church on Sunday and play touch football. This provided tons of muddy, hysterical fun. But otherwise, I think football is a horrible, grinding, violent sport and I never watch in the regular season (more of a baseball gal). We do go to a Superbowl party every year, for the food and the half-time show, which is honestly most of the reason anyone goes to a Superbowl party.

But Seahawks are in a championship game today. If they win they will go to the Superbowl for the first time ever. The energy in town is palpable and I have been sucked in.

Back in 1979, I was a senior in college and the Sonics went to the NBA championship. I loved basketball back then, back when it was still relatively pure and a team was still a team, not a collection of egos to be managed. Lenny Wilkins was the Sonics coach and he was handsome and cool. Good times. In the final championship game my friend Johnny and I were on the phone all night talking about the plays and barely daring to voice what was abundantly clear, that our team was going to win the championship. (Side note: I don't remember why we weren't watching the game together. I also don't know why I didn't throw off the idiot boyfriend I had at the time to be Johnny's girlfriend instead. He was much cooler, much smarter and he was the one who introduced me to both Bruce Springsteen and The Clash. We can be so stupid when we are young).

The Sonics did win and it was a big, psychic high in the Emerald City. I don't understand a lick about group psychology or why it is that thousands of people who have nothing to do with it plug all sorts of energy into something like a championship win. It's not like we're all going to get millions of dollars, bottles of champagne, a ring or a trip to Disneyland. It won't change a thing in our lives, a line of our resumes or help us lose that last pesky 5#. Nor, it is worth noting, will a championship win bring an end to war and poverty or stop the spread of AIDS. And yet, though we won't gain a thing from it we all suddenly care, The Spouse and me included. The Twelfth Man has swelled in size over these last weeks and if the fans have anything to say about it, those other 11 guys are going to the Super Bowl.