There’s Always Next Year

Seattle Seahawks Bow Tie o’ the Day was not enough to move my team past the Green Bay Packers yesterday. Their season is done. I was sure my new Seahawks bow tie earrings would be magic enough to guarantee a win, but I guess I was wrong. Clearly, my wintry cape’s snowflakes didn’t help either.

The only thing weirder than sports fans thinking what they wear will help their team win is why we like our chosen teams in the first place. When I was 12, I chose the Seahawks to be my team when they came into the league in 1976. Why? Because they were there. On Sundays after church, everybody else in the family cheered for their chosen teams, so I figured I needed one. I wanted to back a team nobody else had their mitts on yet.

I’m a fan of the underdog, and as the new NFL team in 1976, Seattle was the underdog of all underdogs. The Seahawks seemed like my kind of team. They were doomed to be losers. I knew my team would lose, and lose, and lose. I prepared for it. I prepared for all the razzing I knew I would endure with my team for years. Every NFL Sunday I got full to the gills with cheers and wins for the Denver Broncos, the Dallas Cowboys, and the stoopid Green Bay Packers, while my Seahawks sucked. But me and my Seahawks won a Super Bowl in 2013, and although that ain’t gonna happen this year, it very well could come to pass next year. Hope springs annually with the coming of the NFL season.

FYI. I’ve visited lots o’ places, but I have never even been to Seattle.