Super Reflections
This past week was the 58th Annual Super Bowl. This means the game and I are about the same age. I could try to contrast the progression of my life with that of the Super Bowl but that does not interest me. The Super Bowl has found an inverse order of importance as I grow in years.
Growing up in the seventies as a Minnesota Vikings fan was the best, and the worst. They dominated the league until they arrived at the Super Bowl, then they lost. Detailed player information is easily available today however I know much less about each player than I did when I cared so much about Sunday afternoons. In the seventies, this same information was carried by a narrow stream, mostly from the Jim Adelson show. However I drank so deeply of this stream that my cumulative knowledge of the Vikings was much greater than today. I just cared more back then.
I was spared the first Viking loss at a Super Bowl by my youth as I was five. Their second Super Bowl loss was to the Miami Dolphins. I really liked the Dolphins fullback Larry Csonka because of his running style and he looked like my brother-in-law, Mike. This softened the blow. The 1975 loss to Pittsburgh hurt but I kept telling myself that the Bicentennial celebration was coming up in 1976 and I was an American and therefore I was still a winner, even if the Vikings were not. The loss to Oakland in 1977 made me feel like the world was upside down. Good did not always win and Oakland’s “might makes right” philosophy worked in this fallen world.
Post 1977, I couldn’t care less about the Super Bowl. I relived the old losses by pretending I was playing the game, sometimes by myself.
Throwing the ball to myself and making the touchdown that made the Vikings a winner was my mission. In retrospect, I think this was one of the stages of grief, maybe bargaining? I turned to my own efforts as a football player after that, it was more fun than watching and I had some control of the final outcome.
The reaction to this year’s Super Bowl has left me embarrassed for others. The relationship between one of the Kansas City players and a very popular singer has been used by many people to illustrate a point or substantiate an opinion. A parasitic relationship between someone with an ax to grind and the most popular celebrity of the month seems an inhumane way for humans to use humans. I also hear that this relationship is news because it is part of an industry which is “big business.” Many bad habits are justified by saying that they are simply part of “doing business.” It comes down to a worship of money which is simply “bad business.” Let’s all take a big sip of maturity juice and let these young people enjoy each other and pay attention to our own relationships. That would be truly super.
