Football Season Is Short, But This Post Is Not

This post's topic.

"Touchdown!" is literally the only word Charlotte knows. And really, would this be a blog post without a photo of her?

I’ve never been much of a football person. Growing up, I associated football with empty popcorn bowls and the smell of stale beer emanating from wherever my dad was watching (swearing at) the game.

Fun fact: My high school alma mater, home of the Liberty Patriots, opened its doors the year Seattle got the Seahawks. Our original school colors were red, white, and blue (appropriate enough for the Patriots), but there was such immediate love for the Seahawks that my school changed its school colors to blue, green, and silver to emulate Seattle’s team. (As legend has it, anyway. I don’t feel like fact-checking.) So I have always associated blue and green with Liberty/Seahawks, which = HOME. Of course, to be honest, in high school I was the blue-and-green clad girl who got too cold by half-time to further fake any understanding about this freakishly complex, testosterone-laden sport. So I’d leave.

At Oxy in L.A., I went to the occasional game, which was improved by the fact that alcohol was now involved. But really? We were a D-3 school. Next, at grad school at the University of Virginia, football was an actual THING. I mean, the mighty Cavaliers were ranked and everything. But me? Why, I was the nerdy English literature grad student, hanging out with the we’re-too-smart-for-such-lowly-things-as-football crowd.

As I left academia and entered the real world, Seattle started inching its way forward in the playoffs. Yes, this is when I joined the bandwagon. Don’t judge me. I am not a fair-weather fan! Here I was, having just moved to Northern Virginia where the only person I knew in the world was my dear Chris, and suddenly…..a SEATTLE GAME WAS PLAYING ON MY SMALL TV IN MY SMALL APARTMENT FROM ALL THE WAY ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY! I mean, my parents were at that game!

Suddenly, I was awash with Seattle pride. I became instantly and totally invested in the game. Seattle won, and soon after won the next game to take them to the Super Bowl.

At the time, I was working as an editor at an association filled to the brim with die-hard, idiotic Steelers (or, as I call them, “Stealers”) fans. And of course, Pittsburgh-in-DC folk fancy themselves world travelers who have moved a million miles away from home to live in DC. However, it’s the very proximity (yes, proximity) of DC to Pittsburgh that causes Steeler folk to infest DC, Maryland, and Virginia like a stink bug invasion.

But I digress. Super Bowl Sunday 2006 finally arrived. The game was played in Detroit, and unfortunately Detroit is a mere hop, skip, and a jump away for a Pittsburgh coal-mining cart, so about 80% of the stadium was filled with Pennsylvanians.

The rest of the tale is still too raw for many of us to re-live, so I’ll just say that a bad call by a referee, even after a challenge, took away a fairly won touchdown, stealing away 7 points and loads of momentum. Since then, the referee even made a formal apology to Seattle for being such a dream-stealer (or, better, a dream Steeler). So Pittsburgh stole the Super Bowl, and I had to go to work the next day amidst Pittsburgh fans who had the nerve to gloat about their “win” to me.

No recounting of the facts could stymie their false pride. They stared at me with blank faces. What stolen touchdown? How soon they forgot. Well, I never forgot, and neither has Seattle.

Since then, I have stood by my home team, following them as best I could, what with the East Coast refusing to play West Coast games and all. This led to much bar-hopping as we tried to find Seattle games. And there would always be some lone dude with his Seahawks jersey, politely sipping his beer while around him Giants fans yelled drunkenly, Bears fans swore like sailors, and Pittsburgh fans continued to believe the lie that they legitimately won the 2006 Super Bowl. I’m not a terribly sociable person, but I could rarely resist such beckoning Seattle camaraderie. “Are you from Seattle?” I’d ask. The person would perk up, nod, and say they more specifically where they were from: Everett, Kirkland, Puyallup, or sometimes just plain old Seattle. I’d say I grew up in Issaquah, and they’d know the town, and for just one second I’d feel like I wasn’t the only person from the Northwest in DC.

Anyway, after the birth of Charlotte, Chris and I did what any good parent would do. Rather than sneak Charlotte into bar areas (see? good parenting), this year we decided to invest in NFL Ticket so we could watch any game at home.

It was a fabulously wise investment. Our bar tab savings alone paid for it. I loved watching all the games, the pageantry, the Seattle skyline during the home games. I love that Qwest Field is the loudest stadium in the NFL. I love that Seattle sticks by its team, no matter what. You know why they stick by their teams? Seattle people are nice. They walk too slowly, can’t drive, and take “casual wear” to a frighteningly too-casual level, but THEY ARE NICE.

Which leads me to my next topic: booing. Now, with NFL Ticket, I also watched every single San Francisco game. And unless SF is playing Seattle, I genuinely pull for the Niners. I stayed up until almost 1:00 a.m. on a Monday night when they went into overtime against New Orleans. A couple weeks later, when SF was in the process of losing its fourth straight loss, making for a 0–4 season, I happened to have three Bay Area people in my living room with very pained looks on their faces. Granted, QB Alex Smith was falling apart, but what happened? The entire San Francisco crowd started booing him and chanting that they wanted his back-up. And Meghan, Bryan, and Chris tried to tell me that it was okay to boo your own team. It’s for Smith’s own good, they told me.

Filled with righteous indignation, I insisted Seattle fans would never boo. The San Franciscans all shrugged. (Then Smith made three perfect back-to-back plays, and I pointed out that they all owed Smith an apology. They refused, arguing the booing help refocus him.)

Then, one week later during the Seattle game, Chicago started booing its own team—presumably its entire offensive line. Why? Just because they couldn’t penetrate our (then) awesome defense? Or outfox the blitzes? Come on. I asked my Chicago-bred friend Molly if this was true—would Chicago “fans” boo their own team? “Hell yes,” she said. “If you don’t deliver, we’ll f*cking boo your ass right off the field.” (I told you Chicago fans are potty-mouthed.) “I mean, we’ll sit in 2-degree weather for you, but don’t f*cking screw up.”

Well, the season got increasingly crappy, but as you probably know (if I’ve managed to keep your attention this long), the Seahawks made NFL history when they were the first team with a losing record to win a playoff game. It was one of the greatest games I have ever witnessed. Holding their own against Super Bowl defending champions, the New Orleans Saints, Seattle established itself as the greatest fan base EVER when the “12th-Man Quake”—that is, the Seattle fans, actually caused an earthquake that registered on the Richter scale when Marshawn Lynch ran for an incredible 67-yard touchdown. (You can see the run—from several angles—here. Watch it. Seriously, watch it. I’ll wait.)

Despite beating the Saints, the Seahawks playoff journey ended in cold, potty-mouthed Chicago. Green Bay (eh, why not?) and Pittsburgh (OH FOR THE LOVE OF…) dueled for the Super Bowl title, and oh how I wanted Green Bay to win. After an excruciating second half, the cheese state pulled it off and beat those union twerps. (Chris has pointed out that I get very not-nice when it comes to the Steelers. Don’t take it personally, ye who have mined coal, hammered steel, joined a union, or have worn black and gold while not deliberately dressed up as a bumble bee.)

Anyhoo, Green Bay WON, and I was so ecstatic that I wanted to don a cheese hat and spray cheese whiz in a great dairy-filled celebration. I now heart Wisconsin, despite it being the ugliest state I have ever driven through. No, it is a flyover-only state no more. I love Wisconsin and I LOVE GREEN BAY.

But not as much as I love Seattle.