February 1, 2015: Super Bowl 49, the biggest football game of the year. It was 10 years ago, but I can remember it like it was yesterday. My beloved Seattle Seahawks were taking on the New England Patriots, and while they were down by 4 points with only 27 seconds left, I had every reason for optimism.
After a remarkable last-minute drive, Seattle had the ball at the one-yard line. All they had to do to clinch the sport’s ultimate prize was move the ball forward by less than a foot.
But as Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson stepped back to throw, I watched in horror as the ball flew straight into the hands of Patriots defender Malcolm Butler, giving New England the ball, and in the process, losing Seattle the Super Bowl.
That moment has since been christened “the craziest ending in NFL history,” the “worst Super Bowl play of all-time” and something that — by Seattle head coach Pete Carroll’s own admission — the team would “never get over.”
I didn’t have time to process any of that. All I could do was cry.
Even if you give me some grace for only being 10 years old, I know it might seem ridiculous to cry because of football. After all, it’s just a game. Why do I care so much? As the late sportswriter Chris Wesseling put it: “How do you reconcile the essential meaninglessness of sports? How do you reconcile watching young men bang into each other and try to advance an inflated pigskin against marked territory?”
For me, this is a damning question. If something that I’ve sunk thousands of hours into can be dismissed, it directly confronts my own identity. Because, attempting to look at it objectively, sport is meaningless. Playing a game is not a human need. My life will continue the same whether I watch football or not.
Yet, distilling the human experience down to black-and-white definitions of what is considered important is a cold way to view life. Being a fan of anything isn’t about being rational — it’s knowing that your passion might not be rational, and caring anyway.
What first connected me to football wasn’t the teams playing, or the result on the field. Instead, it was a mere curiosity. Wandering into my dad’s room, I could see the passion and intensity with which he cared about the game. Despite my ignorance to even the basic rules of the sport, it made me cheer alongside him. The Seahawks lost that day — but for the first time, I was a fan.
Over time, I grew to understand why my Dad was gripped by the simple vision of the gridiron. I became attached to the names and faces that graced my television everyday, learning more about who each person was and why they were worthy of my cheers.
I learned it was both terrifying and intoxicating to put my heart behind a team, being completely in the dark as to whether they will win or lose. I was captivated by these people and their stories — even though their successes and failures didn’t directly impact me, I still cared.
Looking back at how I became a fan, can I make some logical, well-constructed argument about why it became meaningful? The truth is, I can’t — because the value I find in watching sport doesn’t come from something that can be analyzed.
It lies in those quieter moments. The tension-laden silence between me and my dad as a game sneaks towards the fourth quarter. The spark of conversation with a stranger in the elevator over the jersey I wore. The joyous, jumping-up-and-down hug with a friend after a win. The comforting remarks and kind words after a tough loss.
I know that it doesn’t always make sense. I’ve heard the mocking shouts in the middle school hallways about how often a Seahawks jersey was my outfit of choice. I’ve heard those who have commented to my girlfriend that they are so glad they aren’t dating someone who’s that into sports.
The Seahawks are a valuable part of who I am. If people want to question that part of my identity, they can go ahead and do so. But I will stand firm in my fandom, defying anyone who may think the extent to which I take this seriously is ridiculous. They aren’t privy to the quiet moments that built my loud passion. They haven’t seen the moments I have spent alone, when sport was all I had.
Over the last nine years since I first became a fan, I had watched almost every game with my Dad. We’d stand up together, hands clasped and sweat forming as the game hung in the balance. We complained about the same five commercials that would be aired on loop and celebrated together after a win. It was a special three hours that I looked forward to every week. Even when we didn’t talk much, it was easy to bond over the team that we loved.
When I moved from Calgary to Vancouver three years ago, I was forced to adapt to a lot of change. But as I settled into my new life, all I could think of was how much lonelier game days had become.
Yet, as I turned my monitor on and heard the Monday Night Football theme start to play, even in my isolation, I could still fall into the one thing that felt familiar. No matter the outcome, no matter my surroundings, this was my team — and even if everything changed around me, I would always have the Seahawks.
The Seahawks, however, were also in uncharted territory. Having jettisoned Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner, the faces of the franchise since they were drafted 10 years earlier, Seattle was expected to be one of the worst teams in the league.
So, I sat back and watched. I held back my emotions as I watched Wilson, my childhood hero, come out in the jersey of the opposing team. I tempered my expectations, knowing that this might be the start of a long, uncomfortable year.
But then, the unthinkable happened. The Seahawks started winning. Barely hanging on to a one-point lead, all of Seattle could only hold their breath as the Broncos lined up for a game-winning field goal.
They missed. Despite everything, the Seahawks had won.
I couldn’t quite believe what I had just seen. Even if I couldn’t find the words to describe why, I felt that that basement dorm room grow a little bit brighter that night.
After all, if my team could overcome the odds and succeed when it didn’t seem possible, why couldn’t I?
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