For Once, I’ll Believe It Before I See it
It’s the night before the big game, in Minneapolis. Usually I am a bundle of nerves, but today not so much. I am staying at the Cowboys hotel and their fans are littering the lobby like…litter. Lacquered, leather-jacketed, frosted tips and French manicured— and even the women look phony baloney.
The intensity of a rabid fan base is scary and can help a team build momentum in a big game. But Cowboys fans on the road? Yeah, not so much. They can barely stand to walk three blocks from the hotel, huddled in the lobby like grinning dopes with epically terrible haircuts and cellphones that play Toby Keith songs.
A few weeks ago, after that Bears debacle, I fetched my cross from the closet and began dragging it around the apartment during one of my more pitiable diatribes, about how my teams always choke in the clutch and how that made me a loser.
GG told me to zip it. She says that I project negative energy and that my fear of the Vikings screwing up is projecting failure upon the team, sometimes causing it to mess up. Not me alone, but the sum total of all of the team’s fans—hundreds of thousands of people just as negative as me. It’s an interesting point.
I have been filled with fear and dread before and during Vikings game for my entire life. Unless I am seeing them live and in the Metrodome, I do not enjoy any part of the games other than an occasional successful outcome.
The book “Fever Pitch” by Nick Hornby could have been written about my own childhood; everything down to the cover image, of a small boy, standing at a sporting event with clenched fists. Wiki the plot. I’m too lazy to synopsize.
I have to give GG credit where it’s due; usually her contribution to sports commentary is repeatedly saying how ugly and cheesy Derek Jeter is. And she’s all mine.
This time just feels different. To begin with I am here with my friend Mikey, who has seen his (and yours too) share of sports failures. His dedication is nearly heroic. I came from NY to Minneapolis. He came from the UK. For the second time in five weeks.
We’ve been drinking and eating steak and I am like, fuck the fear. I am planning on having fun tomorrow, regardless of whether we win or lose. The crazy thing is, I actually believe that we’ll win.
I’m calm and I’m confident. For once. I have never said that aloud before—because I considered it a jinx. But I’m done carrying superstitions around, too. (So GG if you’re reading this, you don’t need to wear the Helga horns at yoga.)
Home and playing in the most chaotic, cacophonous sports venue in the US, a place so loud that it breeds a kind of insanity, the Vikings just have to go out and do their part, play within themselves and play like men and make the Cowboys feel every bit of contact. That is what I have always implored them to do. My new rallying cry? Just win, baby. Do that and I promise not to fear the worst.
One win and everything changes, right in front of my eyes. I believe it will.
Believe it or not.
