Dave Lefchak's opinion on the world of sports
February 9, 2002

At about 8:00 last Sunday evening, my beloved Philadelphia Eagles broke my heart again. They had just ended a tremendous, memorable season in heartbreaking fashion, losing in the NFC Championship Game to the seemingly unstoppable St. Louis Rams juggernaut. Obviously, I experienced a tremendous emotional letdown following the defeat. Now, don’t get me wrong – I was certainly not bitter about the loss to the Rams, just incredibly disappointed that the season was over. Then, one of my friends casually asked me if I would still be watching the Super Bowl now that the Eagles were eliminated. It didn’t register at first, but then I suddenly realized – I really didn’t want to watch the Super Bowl.

You see, before last Sunday, the Super Bowl was always something I looked forward to watching on television every year. In fact, I haven't missed a single Super Bowl game for the past thirteen years. I can tell you exactly where I was and who I was with for each of the thirteen games. Some of my greatest football memories come from the Super Bowls I have watched, including such great athletes as Joe Montana and John Elway. I normally love the plethora of creative commercials, the week of hype and trash talk, the ridiculously long and overdone pregame show – all combining to create the overall spectacle of the Super Bowl event.

But this year, I wasn’t sure if I could force myself to watch any of it. My personal allegiances had become greater than my love for the game or the atmosphere itself. I had no real investment in the event anymore, so why should I even bother to watch it? These were just my initial, gut reactions to the pain I felt from the Eagles’ loss to the Rams on Sunday. When you follow a team as closely as I have followed the Eagles over the years, a loss of this magnitude tends to leave an unpleasant aftertaste that lingers for quite a while.

The following Monday and Tuesday, I wandered around being generally depressed and melancholy in everything that I did. It also didn’t help that no matter where I went, there were constant reminders of the events of the past weekend. Unfortunately for me, most of these reminders came in the person of excessively jubilant New England Patriots fans, who had their heads so far up in the clouds that it was virtually impossible to bring them down to my level so that they could attempt to heap a massive dose of pity upon me. Eventually, it got to the point where I honestly believed that the best course of action would involve locking myself alone in my room on Sunday so that I would not have to put up with the Super Bowl game or anything remotely related to the entire spectacle.

Then, sometime on Tuesday night, my roommate Jeff declared that our apartment was going to be the location of a tremendous Super Bowl Sunday extravaganza. When I heard this, my instincts immediately took over. All of a sudden, I began to feel really excited about the game again. In all my feelings of depression surrounding the Eagles loss, I found that I had ignored one important fact: the Super Bowl is still an unofficial national holiday for all of us. The Super Bowl remains the only true championship game in American sports, since the outcome of the season is decided in one game rather than a series of contests. The Super Bowl serves as a foundation for an annual ritual where so many different groups of people gather together just to watch a football game. Diehard football fans, women who watch simply to see the commercials, little kids who idolize the athletes on the field – all of these groups are represented at Super Bowl parties around the country. There is a sense of community on Super Bowl Sunday that, in my opinion, is unparalleled in any other facet of sports or life itself. I couldn’t believe that I was willing to just throw the whole experience away because of the outcome of the previous week’s games.

So, my mood quickly changed, and I was now eager to participate in the festivities. I began by inviting dozens of people to our party, hoping that the sense of community among my friends would overwhelm any negative thoughts I had towards the game. Other preparations quickly began to materialize: my other roommate, Matt, was assembling the necessary ingredients to prepare his “world-famous” chili for the guests of the party. Friendly wagers were being placed among my friends regarding the outcome of the game. Final touches were being made to our poor excuse for an entertainment center in the living room so that we could experience the big game in stereo surround sound. These next few days of Super Bowl week definitely helped me to get back into the swing of things. As the day of the game grew steadily closer, the sense of community began to rise to the forefront of my mind, and my excitement level began to rise accordingly.

Finally, the big day arrived – it was Super Bowl Sunday. The aroma of the “world famous” chili was the first thing I smelled when I woke up in the morning. We began to set up the seating during the afternoon. People started arriving at the apartment about an hour before kickoff for the party, bearing various gifts of junk food, tablecloths, paper products, and most importantly, beer. I originally felt that I was going to need some of it just incase some of my hostile feelings resurfaced, or if I ever needed to lash out at yet another highly jubilant Patriots fan still unwilling to give a sad Eagles fan just an ounce of pity.

However, as the game progressed, I found out that I actually was able to focus quite well on the contest at hand. When Ty Law intercepted Kurt Warner’s lame duck pass, everyone in the apartment went absolutely nuts. When the Patriots took an eleven point lead into the locker room at halftime, the excitement level was incredibly high. When the Rams mounted their comeback in the final minutes, the tension was incredibly thick. And when Adam Vinatieri’s kick provided as an unpredictable an ending as had ever been seen before in sports history, everyone in the apartment rejoiced. The camaraderie among my friends combined with the excitement of the game enabled me to enjoy the experience much more than I ever thought I could have.

Originally, when the Eagles lost to the Rams, it cast a dark cloud over Super Bowl Sunday for me. It would have been really great to see the Eagles finally get back to the Super Bowl after 22 years. However, there was a silver lining to this dark cloud. If I wasn’t able to cast aside the pain of the personal loss I suffered the week before, I would not have been able to fully appreciate and enjoy the community atmosphere I experienced on Sunday. I realized that I had always taken the Super Bowl experience for granted without really thinking about why it really matters so much in the grand scheme of things. Now, I have a greater understanding for just how special Super Bowl Sunday really is.

And now that I know all of this – maybe the Eagles can actually win one for me next year to make the experience just a little bit better.