The Super Bowl muffle

By Scott T. Holland
Associate Editor

January 24, 2007 11:25 am

— Hey, did you hear the Bears are in the Super Bowl?
The only practical way you haven’t heard yet is if you’ve just woken from a minimum four-day coma and this happens to be your first contact with the outside world, in which case I’m very flattered.
Now that we’re all up to speed, I’m sure you’re assuming that as a native of the Chicago suburbs and general sports fan, I must be on cloud nine right about now, basking in the glow of a championship season and counting down the days to the big game in Miami. In reality, my excitement is somewhere between when I learned “ALF” would be available on DVD and the day I got my college acceptance letter.
It’s not that I’m not excited about the Bears, it’s just that I don’t have the energy to live and die with more than one sports team. And when I say live and die, we’re not too far from reality. When the Cubs honked games six and seven of the 2003 National League Championship Series, I was almost physically ill.
If the Cubs continue to be sort of good but not good enough for the next 50 years — and really, who would be surprised? — I fully expect my death certificate to include a sentence like: “Cardiac arrest related to shortstop missing the cutoff man allowing winning run to score from first base on a sacrifice bunt gone horribly, horribly wrong.”
I want the Bears to win. Pressed to name a favorite NFL team, I would always pick Chicago (although I used to always play as Tampa Bay during dorm room sessions of “Madden 64” with my roommate). But having a favorite team and having a deep, abiding passion are two very different things.
When I was younger, this was much simpler. I had more time to dedicate to my sports obsessions, flowing seamlessly from baseball season to football with basketball thrown in for good measure. I could follow my high school football squad, the University of Michigan and the Bears with little to no effort since their games rarely overlapped.
I could glue myself to the TV each April, May and June to watch the Bulls capture NBA titles seemingly at will. I spent two weeks each summer glued to Wimbledon. I made the Olympics the center of my daily routine.
I even tried watching a few World Cup games one year, until I learned that even at its highest level soccer makes for awful TV.
Maybe this was helped by the fact that, with the notable exceptions of 1984 and 1989, the Cubs were absolutely awful during all the years I lived at home. Meanwhile, the Bears and Bulls were very good and worthy of attention. When they fell off the map in the late 1990s (also right about the time our dorm rooms got cable and high-speed Internet access), my one true sports love was still there, working hard on a century of losing.
Fast-forward to this weekend. The Bears are playing for the NFC title, and I’m more interested in what’s going on at the Cubs Convention. I watched the Bears game. I enjoyed it. I thought the midfield trophy presentation was especially moving. But it was a far cry from the euphoria of the Cubs clinching the National League Central on the second-to-last day of the season in 2003.
This Sunday, there was no dancing around the living room, no calls from family members checking to see how excited I was, no firing up the VCR to catch every moment for posterity. If they win the Super Bowl, I’ll be happy. If they lose, I won’t sink into a dark corner and debate calling in sick to work the next day.
Of course, this is all perfectly fine with my wife. Set aside her distaste for football, she simply doesn’t enjoy being around me when I’m letting the outcome of a game affect my behavior and demeanor for hours on end. As a mature adult, I think she’s being perfectly reasonable. As a Cubs fan, I think she just doesn’t get it.
When my high school’s football team played for the Illinois state title in 2003 and won it in 2004, I got into those games. When the University of Illinois fell just short of winning the NCAA basketball title in 2005, I was bummed for about 10 minutes. But that’s it.
You all can count down the days to the Super Bowl. I’ll be there watching, cheering and caring. But when the game is over, no matter who wins, I’ll be focused on something far more important to me: Pitchers and catchers report to spring training on Feb. 14.
Scott T. Holland’s column appears every Wednesday in the Clinton Herald. His e-mail address is scottholland@clintonherald.com.

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