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The whole ideology behind fandom is that it is completely illogical. Imagine the amount of effort you spend rooting for something you have no control for, the amount of time rewinding the tape during twilight hours observing little, meaningless idiosyncrasies, pretending it will actually help the team do better next time, the dedication to draw up one idea after another that you think will match up well to success, only for real life to come over and rip everything into shreds.
And for me personally, I would want to make the Wolf Grey Russell Wilson jersey mean more than just another oversize shirt, that this website I probably dedicated a large chunk of my life to to be beneficial for my well-being. Alas, this isn't how life works.
But we still continue to believe. Year after year we blindly hold on to the faith that somehow, some way our team will make it. It has to happen sometime right? That's the point of following a sports team - to reach that the tiny dot of light shinning at the end of narrow tunnel?
Well, we finally made it out after tonight.
At approximately 10PM EST, the Seattle Seahawks won their first Super Bowl Title. My Seattle Seahawks. The team I spent the past decade cheering on for. How many people get to say that in their lifetime? How many people get to see the things that I saw? Russell Wilson throw darts to Doug Baldwin and Jermaine Kearse for touchdowns. Percy Harvin striking like a lightning bolt. Kam Chancellor playing out of his mind. Malcolm Smith. Earl Thomas. And then they brought the freaking Lombardi out and Paul Allen is hoisting it up like he just discovered Microsoft. There it was in all its metallic glory. Disbelief. Euphoria. Joy. Tears.
People used to complain how no one ever gave Seattle respect. Like we're just voices nagging out of the dark from South Alaska. Like we didn't belong. Isn't it cute being they have this group called the 12th man and they retired a number solely based on their fans? I think everyone can hear us now.
Of course, we weren't the only underdogs in this either. There's no denying the fact that this journey came from remarkable circumstances. Our head coach failed with two premier franchises and probably had little chance for a third. Our quarterback didn't even get a second look past the measurables. Our cornerback was misunderstood. Our running back got kicked out of Buffalo. Everywhere you look, every person in this team was told more than once that they can't, that it was impossible, and tonight they proved that they could.
God, we needed this. No, we deserved this. The Mariners wasting the careers of Ichiro, Edgar, Griffey and Felix in their prime. The sheer stupidity and ignorance of Bill Bavasi. Not even reaching, reaching the championship game with the most wins in MLB history. Becoming the first #1 seed to lose out of the NBA playoffs. Getting the 2nd pick and drafting Durant before Clay Bennett moved the franchise to Oklahoma City, of all places, and uprooting our entire history there. Vinny Testevarde, getting reamed by the Rams three straight times in 2004, Bill Leavy and Super Bowl XL, 2008... and then everything else that you already know. For the past thirty years everybody thought Seattle sports was dead and probably gone forever. I certainly believed that once.
And then the 2013 Seahawks came along, and they kept winning, and winning, and somehow ended up on the platform of MetLife Stadium in February, blue and green confetti dancing in the sky, players and coaches hugging it out. We just won the Super Bowl, and that stays with you forever.
You can't take that away. While the celebrations will die down and the moment will pass in due time, this moment - this memory - this fleeting emotion will be forever immortalized in the stuff of legends, and legends never die. Never forget this, Field Gulls. This is your victory.
