Super Bowl

I'm not exactly known for my knowledge and enthusiasm in the sports world. But both my knowledge and my enthusiasm have made tremendous strides over these last few years. We all know that the Super Bowl was last night. Well, this year I barely kept track of anything going on in the football world. In general, I usually want Buffalo and Indianapolis and hate Miami and Dallas. So I knew Buffalo was no good and was sad when Indy just barely missed the Big Game. So this week I did some reading in the newspapers about Pittsburg and Seattle. Before I knew anything, I decided I wanted Seattle for the simple fact that I like Seattle and don't like Pittsburg. In sports, the actual city the team plays for really does matter to me. Well, after gaining some basic ideas about the teams, I decided more and more that I wanted Seattle to win.

So yesterday, while Joy was sick all day, I watched ESPN. I watched Martha Stewart create some football chili stuff in a Seahawks uniform and saw Condoleeza Rice predict the Steelers to win. I learned about the quarterbacks, about The View, about all sorts of things. By time the evening came around, I was fairly invested in the game. One of the high schoolers in my youth group group (yes, I purposely wrote "group" twice) had a bunch of us over and I watched the entire game with intense and heartbreaking devotion.

Now we all know who won the Super Bowl. We all know that The Seahawks were bad and the Steelers just managed to not be quite as bad. And this is the problem with me and sports. I don't consider myself a very aggressive, temperish kinda guy. And I'm ok with that. But whenever I seem to get into a game, that new side of me comes out, and I'm never really sure why. I have no personal investment in any of these teams and before the week of, didn't even really know what was going on. Yet after putting myself into it, cheering, getting involved, then it matters and afterwards there was a sense of grief as I drove home. My friend Drew recently said to me, "I know you have been getting more into sports these last few years, but let me warn you not to get too into it. It's far too depressing. You're better off as a casual observer." I think he's right. I can honestly say that I am mildly depressed today. I can't imagine the sadness if I'd actually been following a team all season and actually knew what was really going on. But with that said, there is another part of me that really enjoys this whole side of life as well. And also, when we broke up into small groups this morning in class, we all just talked about the Super Bowl, and you know what, I was totally fitting in. I am so cool.

Now football is over for another seasonl. Now I'm on to baseball. Let's go Cubbies!