For those of you who follow the Arizona Cardinals, you may say that the fact they are going to the Super Bowl is no shocker. They've worked hard, they had a good season, they deserve it, it's their time, yadda yadda yadda. Personally, I have enjoyed mocking my hometown team's losing record for many years now.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they usually only play on Sundays, or the fact that my husband has always been a die hard Dallas Cowboys fan (picture this: his bedroom growing up had the Cowboys star painted on the wall), or the fact that my dad was never really interested in NFL football, or maybe just the fact that they were always losing, but I just never got into the Cardinals. I could not grasp those die hard, face painting, jersey wearing, tailgating fans of NFL football. I love baseball, enjoy the Suns, don't mind going to a Coyotes game, and I'd watch ASU football any old time, but I scoffed at the use of taxpayer money to build the Cardinals a state of the art stadium. (I mean, the Cardinals? Come on.)
But then, something weird happened. First, I like the respect that the stadium brings to the West side. And then, yesterday, I was checking the score online before church, and even turned on the radio in the car. I forgot something at home and so I went home during Sunday School, and when I got back to church, I didn't want to leave the radio because I was dying to know the end of the game. I was actually happy for the Cardinals. I wanted them to win. I cared about the outcome. That's the real shocker here.
Call me a fair weather fan if you will. I don't care. I just say that I didn't waste all those years paying attention and being disappointed by a losing team. I read a fan quote in the paper last week that summed it up well: "A lot of people have been trying to find a reason to love this team for a long time." So I'll root for the Cardinals in the Super Bowl with my typically low expectations, because they finally gave me a reason, and whether my love will continue past this season is yet to be seen. I make no promises.
