We Are the Champions

In Superbowl XI, 1986, Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, Harry Carson, Mark Bavaro and other Giant greats led our team out of the darkness of twenty five years of “lousy football” to its first Super Bowl win. At the end of the game I saw in the stands across the Pasadena field a young man holding up a sign that said, “Dad, this one’s for you.”

Those five words sum up what it means to be in the Giants family. A Giants fan is part of a long and hallowed tradition handed down from grandfather to father, to son, to grandchildren. It’s the love and loyalty for a team that’s passed down the generations like a precious heirloom. It’s the kind of spiritual connection created when a sports franchise has its roots deep in the soul and guts of its city. The franchise is part of its psyche, as gritty as its streets, as beautiful as its skyline. Giants fans don’t just announce the birth of a son or daughter, they call it the arrival of a new Giants fan. Dad, this one’s for you.

I suppose the same continuum exists among fans of the original franchises — the Packers, Steelers, Browns, Lions, Bills and Redskins, to name a few. But as economic changes and population shifts damaged some of those cities, I would imagine that critical family links in nurturing their team legacies might have been interrupted and short circuited as well. I don’t know! I just know that New York is still there and our link is as strong as ever. The Mara family has seen to that.

Giants fans carry the genes of those original fans. It’s a characteristic of storied franchises such as ours. The youngest of us seem to feel the aches and disappointments experienced by our fathers and grandfathers even though they may not even have been alive for Alan Ameche, Joe Pisarcik, Flipper Anderson or the coach-who-shall-never-be-named. These moments are the archtypes of our legacy, part of our collective unconscious. It’s why moving such a franchise is so destructive. Not only does it take away a beloved team, it rips out a chunk of the city’s spirit. It mutates the DNA of the the city and its people. Its wound never heals. The pain of the Brooklyn Dodgers stands as testimony to this.

The Colts of Baltimore were such a tradition, a team as hopelessly beloved by its fans as the Giants are of ours. But their owner left in the middle of the night, like rats scurrying to the next feed bin, and the team was gone upon first light of day. Giants fans will be forever grateful that the family Mara, and now Tisch, never thought to inflict this mortal wound upon their team’s fans and city. Thanks in no small part to their decency and sense of loyalty, the Giants tradition will continue uninterrupted.

A part of that tradition was a man we knew as Bob In Annapolis.

Bob In Annapolis

Since 1995, I’ve been a member of a fantastic, privately run Giants website called BigBlueInteractive. Started and maintained through the years by Eric K., BBI has been the source of great friendship and camaraderie among Giant fans throughout the world, a place to connect and stay up to date with our team. I joined with the handle, Montreal Man, which I’ve kept even though I moved back to the States and now live in Durham. Thanks to BBI, I’ve met many Giants fans.

BBI was especially comforting when I found myself that year in Montreal, where I worked until 2003. While there, I saw that the Giants had moved their training camp to Albany, a mere three hour drive from Montreal. With my six year old son, Mario, in tow, I went to camp and met Eric and a number of other posters whom I only knew through their handles — David B., Old Timer, Lunatic Fringe, Bama Bish, Mike in Raleigh, Ben in the Adirondacks, D in Lakeville, Oliver, Slefrak, CathyL, and BBI camp reporter, Marty In Albany. That first year also brought Alaistair in England, Tony in Ninerland and regular, WalterB, from Paris. Yes, they came from that far.

We started a tradition of gathering the second week of each camp and each year more “regulars” joined the group — Larry In Pennsylvania, Atar, CCV & RockyThompson, Gary From the East End and many others. We have grown to twenty to forty (and more) compatriots who congregate to watch our team practice, see the draft picks, worry about injuries, argue about the players, the offense, the defense, the management, the coaches, everything Giants. We joke, kibbitz , eat dinner and drink beer.

Between camps many of us meet at home games to tailgate, watch our Giants and meet new fans like tailgate cooking veterans Mike M and his brother as well as the brothers, fathers, uncles, sisters and girlfriends of everyone mentioned in this piece. There’s that generational tradition again.

Among the original “regulars” and also a tailgater was Bob In Annapolis. As a Giants fan, Bob goes way back, part of that Giants’ tradition that lives on and on. He and his wife Linda were often gracious enough to let me crash at their home when I drove to a game from Durham to the Meadowlands and back. Bob and I sometimes drove to games together form Annapolis. More often we just met at the Meadowlands tailgate.

When we talk about Bob, we say lovable, friendly, witty, easygoing and so many other positive things. But they’re just words. The feelings are what counted and when Bob was with us it felt good. We were happy that he was there. I can’t think of a better thing to say about a person. We were always glad to see him with us.

But this year, in mid-season, Bob died. All of us who knew him were heartbroken and mourned his passing. Ironically, our sadness increased with the joy we felt as the Giants got closer to the Super Bowl. Each win was bittersweet and seemed to compound our sense of loss. Our team’s success was as much poignant as it was jubilant and after each seemingly improbable victory we all thought if only Bob could see this.

Those of us who are romantics believed that Bob was watching and guiding the team from above. True or not, the thought eased somewhat the pain of his absence. With each playoff win, wins that defied all odds, the media, even ourselves, we who knew Bob wanted him to be there watching from on high.

A few BBI’ers did something about it, though. They wanted to be sure Bob made it to the big game and brought some of his ashes to Arizona and sprinkled them on the field at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

You saw the game. It was in the fourth quarter that our defensive heroics took control and Eli engineered two drives for touchdowns, the second drive featuring the extraordinary, miraculous Eli-to-Tyree play that kept the chains moving. As someone who is romantically inclined, is there any doubt as to what unseen force was operating when the quarter began? Not for me. It was Bob.

When the estimable Paulie Walnuts, (the handle of a West Coast BBI’er) learned about the ashes he wrote:

“It made sense now. That fourth quarter was a throwback quarter, one worthy of the Conerly/Huff/Tittle Giants of Bob’s youth and the Simms/LT/Banks/Carson Giants of his later years.

The sprirt of ‘56 and ‘86 seemed to suddenly grip that team. The defense played with a zeal and power we’ve attributed to our teams from another era, as did the offense. On both sides of the ball the Giants played throwback football in that 4th quarter, football we thought was gone for good, but we believe it was Bob in Annapolis, representing all those old time fans who are gone but not forgotten, that made it happen.”

Indeed, Paulie. A throwback quarter, a team reaching back into its history to resurrect a slice of how they played the game, just as we fans reached back into our own history to bring back long gone fathers, dads, sons, wives, uncles, brothers and sisters into the present to join them in savoring the sweetness of victory. This one’s for all of you.

Berrylish2, the handle of the young lady who spread the ashes, with help from HopeJ and other stalwart BBI’ers and Giants fans, Ed in FWB and Dean P, puts it like this:

    During the game my mind was on it at all times. When? When? 
Before? Halftime? When? When?  Also How?
         At the end of the third quarter, I knew it was time. I left my seat
and arranged it just so it could  be done and inconspicuously. Uncannily
enough, my seat at the stadium was VERY similar, to Bob’s  seats at
Giants stadium. Same corner, same tier, same yard line, same view. 
         Except this time, it was in AZ, it was the Superbowl, and I, no, 
WE, were surrounded by families of the team. 
             I told him… “Help them out Bob, you and Wellington and Mr.
Tisch and all the other Giants fans with you, help them out”
         Every now and then I looked at the dwindling remains and said,
“come on Bob…let’s go”.  Then it came to every offensive play on that
last drive….”Let’s get it in the end zone, let’s do it.”

We all know the rest. And it didn’t go unnoticed. John Mara, in a post game interview, said he thought he saw someone spreading ashes on the field. Yep, you saw it, John. The people who loved Bob, the fans of that long tradition of Giants supporters, were the ones who did it. The ashes were a sign of life, not death.

As a post script to this story,after the game, I went to a supermarket. A woman there saw me in my Giants gear and gave me a joyous hug. She asked how long I had been a fan. “Since 1958,” I replied. She asked if I remembered Troy Archer. Indeed I did. He was an excellent defensive end whose life and career was cut short in an auto accident after only three years with the team. He was a fan favorite and many of us thought he would become a fixture in the Giants D-line.

She then took out a few pictures of her and Troy as young adults and had dated him. She told me she held those pictures through the whole game. If there was a moment for tears, that was it, and they came.

On the BigBlueInteractive website after the game so many posters talked about “tears.” They were unabashedly crying about the win. For young fans and old, weeping was a release for all the bad years, bad games, bad drafts, bad picks, bad coaches, bad officiating, bad bounces and bad luck we’ve experienced over the years, a release from those decades-old hurts and a joyful pride in the accomplishment of the team we love. Plaxico cried, too.

So, besides the legitimately historic win that this was, setting aside the remarkable achievement this Giants team accomplished, this SuperBowl holds a special place in our hearts. And as we remember Super Bowl XLII and Bob, we must take a moment to remember Giant fans in Iraq, Ronnie and JOrthman and others serving our country, Bob’s wife Linda, his colleague and friend, Big Blue ‘56, HopeJ, Eric, BigBlue26, Jlukes, Brian, Chopper, Berrylish, Bill2, Schnitzie, RNargi, Ed in FWB, Raze, Gary From the East End, Joey in VA,TTB, very close friend, Steve in Maryland, Larry in Pennsylvania, T-Bone, Manh George, Ray in Arlington, Old Timer, Lunatic, Carpoon, Anak, JohnG, Britt in Va, DC Pollaro, Gidefor, Sal in Yonkers, Beez, young Ryan, and so many others I’ve left out — join me in saying, “Bob, this one’s for you.”

Postscript: Incidentally, Bob was born in 1942.