I don't really like football, but I do have a favorite team - the Bears. We lived in the Chicago area until I was in 4th grade, and my dad grew up there too. Its kind of an inborn love of the Bears that transcends the actual football part of it.
When we lived in Chicago, we lived in a town that housed some of the Bears including my favorite football player ever, Walter Payton. I was pretty young at the time, but one time Walter, his wife and son were at the park across the street from our house at the same time as my friend and I. We kept an eye on his son while he and his wife walked around the park alone. How exciting! At the time I didn't even know how exciting it was. Maybe he wasn't a football legend at that time, I don't know.
After Chicago, we moved to Racine, Wisconsin which is not terribly far from the Illinois border. Thus, even though Wisconsin as a whole is heavily Packer-centric, Racine was a little bit split. There was a huge rivalry between the Bears and the Packers in town. There was a Packer bar and a Bears bar that were near each other and they always had wierd bets going when the two teams played one another where the bar of the winning team got to paint the door of the bar of the losing team in their team's colors.
In 1986, the Bears went to the Super Bowl. It was a very exciting time for everyone when we were given 'The Super Bowl Shuffle'. The Bears played the New England Patriots and won. So very exciting!
We moved to New Hampshire when I was a senior in high school, and my dad started watching the Patriots. Now he sort of watches both. This year was looking to be a very exciting year for our family because the Pats and the Bears both could potentially go to the Super Bowl. Who would we root for? I would stick with the Bears, for sure. But I bet my dad would root for the Pats.
Anyhow, of course the two playoff games were yesterday. We didn't watch them because, again, I don't really care enough about actual football to watch anything but the Super Bowl. I saw that the Bears had won, so I was excited. We watched the beginning of the Pats game, and it looked as if they were running away with it too. We checked in again during the 3rd quarter sometime and it was still looking good for the Pats. Then we went to bed at 9:00 because we're the exhausted parents of a new baby. I assumed we were looking at Super Bowl XX - revisited!! Except Ditka-less.
My mom called at 10:15 and woke us up. She thought we had been up watching the game because I had called their house and left a message about it while the game was on. She said 'Can you believe that?' and I thought they had won. But NO! They lost! The hell? How did they choke like that? It seemed to not even be in question that the Pats were going to win. I don't know what happened.
Oh well. At least we know who to root for now.
6 comments:
I caught the end of the game, actually. And I never watch football! It was a great game! Back and forth the whole third and fourth quarters, TD, TD, TD, TD... then the Pats were trying to come back to win it with a hard drive in the last minute, and the Colts got an interception!! Crazy game. I was bummed, though, cause if I'm going to root for anyone, in general it will be a Boston/NE team.
As you may expect I was bummed when the Pat's lost. Although Matt was way more bummed, so much so that I had to say "it's only a game!". Quite honestly, at the beginning of the season I would have been totally happy to have made it this far.
I will confess I was sorta rooting for the Saints only because of the whole New Orleans thing, and a small grudge from the '86 Super Bowl.
But, I will be rooting for the Bears in the Super Bowl this time because no one wants to see a whiner like Peyton Manning win. Boo.
I love football in general so despite never losing hope that the Redskins will someday resume winning superbowls...I have been forced year after year to find alternative teams to support. Being so close to Baltimore, I had to root against the Colts (since you're not a huge football fan I'll assume you don't already know that that Colts snuck out of Baltimore several years back leaving the town's sports fans devastated) So I'm not too happy that they won, but it was SUCH a great game!!! As for the Superbowl...I'll be rooting for "DA Bears"
Well, I didn't know that Baltimore's team went to Indy, but I DID know that CLEVELAND'S team went to Baltimore to take their place! I was in college then. We had the worst mayor ever then, but the one thing I remember him actually working for was to try to keep the Browns in town. You would have thought there was nothing else going on in Cleveland at the time. Anyhow, obviously: he failed, and thus the B'more Ravens were born. And didn't they go to (and maybe win? I don't remember) the Super Bowl shortly thereafter? I think they did. Say thank you to Clevo.
Thanks for mentioning the Super Bowl Shuffle...I totally remember that tune. Might even have it lying around on some old cassette somewhere.
But I must go against the trend on this page and give a big GO COLTS!
OK Lisa, I'll take the bait and ring in as the Racine-ite here. First of all, that Bears bar by the zoo is long gone - I think the zoo bought it or something. Plus, this "split" in allegiance in town you speak of isn't truly the case and you know it! It's a Packer town, and I know that most of those folks will be rooting very hard for the Colts, me included, even if I don't live there anymore. I'm glad I've only learned of this troubling news about you now!
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