It is very difficult to admit what I am about to say, but I was rooting for the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. On the surface, this might not seem like that big of a deal, but really, it is. I was born in New York and lived there until my family moved down to South Florida as I was going into middle school, regardless, my allegiance to New York sports was unfazed. While I wasn't a huge football fan growing up, the New York Giants were still my team, and even more so, I grew up a diehard New York Yankees fan. This fandom created a severe distaste for anything related to the New England sports scene. My earliest sports memories were of baseball, and I grew to despise the fried chicken eating, beer drinking, Zimmer-tossing, beantown Red Sox. Everything about them was wrong and I learned to love to hate them. As I got older, and my interest in other sports grew, that same sense of hate carried over to the Patriots. There was always something about the unconquered confidence that Tom Brady and his troops brought to the field that rubbed me the wrong way. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hateful person, but this is sports and anything goes.
So after all this you're probably left wondering, why in the world were you rooting for the Patriots in the Super Bowl?!
The answer to this question is actually pretty simple, more than a football fan, more than a baseball fan, more than a New York sports fan, I am above all else, a sports fan. Over the past few weeks I caught myself thinking about the sheer dominance of the New England Patriots, maybe I am being overly dramatic but it seems that the word dynasty doesn't do them enough justice. Tom Brady and Bill Belichick have won five Super Bowl rings together; there are very few star athletes who win that many championships with one head coach. It’s near impossible to ever count the Patriots out and they tend to have a flair for the dramatic.
As I've grown up and (slightly) matured about the way I approach sports, I have come to the realization that quality games and sports memories carry more value than the pure fandom of a particular team or region. As the big game approached, I started to think that I was going to do something I had never ever done, actively root for a New England sports team. So, last Sunday I sat down with my brother, pizza and wings in hand and watched as the game got started. I was rooting for the Patriots, not because I am a fan of the team, but because I am a fan of good sports, and there is no denying that watching the continuation of a dynasty is pretty damn cool.
