For the bulk of my 21 years, I have been an avowed underdog supporter. Just a brief survey of the New York area teams I grew up watching will prove my point: I follow the Mets, Jets, Islanders and Nets. Apparently, I was cursed with a streak of bad luck in my formative sports-watching years.
I have no idea what triggered my love for perennial losers. Perhaps it was some sort of heaven-sent karma preparing me to deal with adversity on my high school football team, which won a total of five games in the three years. Maybe, while growing up the youngest in a gang of about 15 area kids in a six-year age range, I was emotionally and physically scarred into identifying with the constantly beaten.
Likely, however, the reason behind my bets on the Washington Nationals to finally beat the Harlem Globetrotters is and always has been the same exact reason why I, and so many others, love sports in general. The best moment in sports is the fluke?the extra inning pinch hit homerun by a relief pitcher, the backup quarterback who steps in to throw 400 yards, the backup center who hits the game-winning three pointer, even, dare I say it, the dribbling ground ball rolling between the first baseman’s legs. If sports were always predicable, there’d be no reason to watch. Thus, it is only natural for a sports fanatic like myself to pull for the underdog, if only to restore some excitement in the game.
This year, however, I’m changing my tune. Let’s go Rams.
I just want to know what it feels like to root for a team that will obviously win, then watch them win. I’ve never had that happen before, and I guess I’m thinking it might be kind of cool. The Rams are the perfect team for this experiment. I have no gripe with St. Louis as a city, except that it was the birthplace of rapper Nelly, and I have no prior distaste for the Rams as a team. I feel like the Rams, as a franchise, are innocuous enough that I can support them without the stigma of rooting for one of the “evil” dominant teams, like the 49ers of the ‘80s, the Bulls of the ‘90s, the Yankees of the ‘00s or, God forbid, Duke.
So, three or four seconds into the Super Bowl, when the Rams score their first touchdown, I’ll be celebrating. I imagine I’ll continue celebrating throughout the evening, and maybe I’ll truly get an idea of what it must have felt like to root for the Reds in the ‘70s or the Celtics in the ‘80s.
Therefore for this Super Bowl at least, my glass is raised to the Rams: May they score first, score fast and score often. Bombs away, Kurt Warner.
