THE SONIC BOOMER
When I was a teenager, as part of the high school band, I went to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and played at halftime for the Green Bay Packers. It was so long ago that Vince Lombardi was the coach and Bart Starr was the quarterback. I remember looking at Bart and thinking, “Wow. This guy is old.” (He had to be all of 30.) But I would never say anything like that out loud because, well, I was in Wisconsin and these were the Green Bay Packers.
What you need to understand about the Packers is that they are the only team in the NFL owned by the fans. I’ve mentioned that before, but it’s important. Everyone holding a seat in that stadium has a vested interest in the game. They aren’t fair-weather friends. When I first went to a game elsewhere and the home team lost, people were shedding their jerseys as they walked into the parking lot, not wanting it to be known that they had cheered for the losing team. I was shocked! Were they fans or weren’t they?
Also, Wisconsin is cold — very, very cold. Especially during the season when football is played. So you need a lot of “anti-freeze” to sit up in those wind-whipped stands, and maybe a steaming bratwurst and some nice warm cheese curds to hold onto. So we do it. We do it for our team.
That said, and undying loyalty aside, I don’t watch a lot of sports on TV. I want Green Bay to win, but I have faith that they’ll do it with or without me monitoring the game. Aaron Rodgers has my back. I’ll pop my head in, when my husband is watching, just to make sure Aaron doesn’t need me, and then I’ll pop out. I’m a busy person.
If Green Bay isn’t playing, Mark will watch the Kansas City Chiefs. I didn’t even know Kansas City had a team until we went to Missouri to help out with the grandkids. But now we had to adopt them — the team, not the kids — and I’m sort of proud of them.
The Chiefs quarterback is Patrick Mahomes. He’s not old. He’s 24 and one of the youngest quarterbacks in the league. His face is so young-looking that, when his team does something good, he looks like a kid who has just opened a birthday present. He’s happy. I like it. So, if the Packers aren’t playing, I’ll back the Chiefs.
Here’s the thing: depending on how things go in the coming days, the Chiefs could be up against the Packers in the Super Bowl, exactly as they were in the very first Super Bowl ever played. I expect that sports writers are already working on columns and sportscasters are already working on backstories related to this fact. And there’s an insurance company commercial that features both Rodgers and Mahomes, so having those two quarterbacks face off in the Super Bowl would be particularly good for both that insurance company and for the advertising company that sold them on the idea. In short, there’s a lot riding on a Chiefs/Packers match-up. So, if that happens, which team would I root for?
I think you know. (And please pass the cheese curds.)
