Stuart: The roots of Super Bowl rooting

Columns

Discussion

February 4, 2013

Stuart: The roots of Super Bowl rooting

Don Stuart Rushville Republican The Rushville Republican Mon Feb 04, 2013, 10:44 AM EST

RUSHVILLE — My family has some strong opinions about the Super Bowl, which they’re expressing loudly day after day.

No. 5 son (age 11): “The whole world will be ravin’ about the Ravens!”

No. 3 son (17): “Ravens, shmavens! San Francisco will be packin’ for Disney World!”

No. 4 son (15) is still making up his mind.

My wife: “Will you all puh-LEEZ stop arguing about this game over dinner every single night!”

Why these rooting preferences? Well, No. 5 likes the Ravens because ... I’m not really sure why. I believe they were one of a group of teams he decided to like when he was 5 or 6 years old because “they have cool helmets!”

No. 3 son hates the Ravens because he’s a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and the Ravens are a bitter division rival of Pitt. (Incidentally, he loves the Steelers because they won a championship when he was at an impressionable age, and another one since, enabling him to live a happy, well-adjusted childhood while his extended family of Buffalo Bills fans becomes more embittered with each passing year.)

As for No. 4, after an extensive and exhaustive analysis of personnel and game plans, he’s still struggling to choose a favorite, although he’s admitted to me he can’t really go wrong, because, no matter who wins, one of his brothers will be bummed!

Me, I’m still making up my mind: potato chips and a creamy ranch dip, or tortilla chips with a spicy salsa? As for which team to root for, consider this. I could root for the Ravens if only because the 49ers quarterback, Colin Kapernick, had enough baseball skill to be drafted by my beloved Chicago Cubs, and he rejected them!

I could root for the 49ers if only because the first documented visit to the San Francisco Bay by Europeans was a party of exploration led by a guy named “Don.” Don Gaspar de Portola. My wife knows a lot of Spanish language and cultural things, and keeps trying to tell me that “Don” wasn’t part of his name, but when I mentioned that he happened upon San Francisco Bay by accident, having marched past his intended objective of Monterey Bay because he failed to consult his GPS, she said, well, that does sound like a “Don” that she knows.

I could root for Baltimore because my No. 2 son’s girlfriend grew up on the Maryland shore, and has many passionate Ravens fan in her family. She herself may mostly be interested in the Super Bowl for the TV commercials, but still, it’s a rooting thread to hold onto, however slim.

I could root for the 49ers if only because their mascot, a sort of scruffy, gold miner-ish looking fella named Sourdough Sam, has a bio that made me chuckle: His home town is “Dem Thar Hills,” and one of his hobbies is, and I quote, “cheerleaders.” (The bio also lists Sourdough Sam’s “favorite appearance”; the answer is “Anything with cheerleaders.”)

I could root for the Ravens because many of my phenomenal victories in Fantasy Football this past season were due to the exploits of their star running back, Ray Rice, or their reliable wide receiver Anquan Boldin. On the other hand, I didn’t make it to my league’s championship game because I didn’t start Ravens tight end Dennis Pitta. He scored 29 points while sitting on my bench, leaving me tied with my brother-in-law, who won the game on a technicality (he correctly answered a tie-breaking trivia question: “If ‘Don’ precedes a Spanish guy’s name, is it actually part of his name?”) Anyway, Pitta Spitta, I say.

I could root for the Ravens because they’re the only team named for a bird to ever win a Super Bowl (they did it in Super Bowl XXXV; the Falcons, Cardinals, Eagles, and Seahawks are a combined 0-5). Then again, the 49ers are the only team named for a number to ever win a Super Bowl. Of course, they’re the ONLY team in the NFL named for a number, but still.

I could root for the Ravens if only because their defensive back Bernard Pollard, the only player on either team from my beloved Purdue Boilermakers, is nicknamed “Chocolate Therapy.”

Which is what I better reward my wife with after we argue about the game over dinner tonight.

Contact: TakefiveT5@yahoo.com

Text Only

Columns

Ward: Hanging out the laundry
I remember my mother, grandmother and even up to my wife hanging the wash out on the line. The Amish still do and I now as then wonder just how things managed to get dry during the winter or rain storms?

May 21, 2013
Barada: 50 years ago and counting
My, does time fly! On June 22 next month, the Rushville High School Class of 1963 will celebrate its 50th anniversary. To be honest, 1963 doesn’t sound all that long ago, until one considers that, when we graduated in June 1963, the Class of 1913 was celebrating its 50th anniversary! Now, 1913 seemed like a long time ago when I was just 17 years old. The year 1913 was four years before the United States entered World War One.

May 21, 2013
Stuart: From zippy to zapped in Old San Juan
My family’s spring break vacation didn’t last nearly as long as it’s taking me to tell you about it in these columns. If it had, our cruise would be going into its fifth week. That would be, I don’t know, like sailing with Christopher Columbus in 1492. Imagine the weight his crews put on at their shipboard buffets; no wonder those boats traveled slow!

May 18, 2013
Ward: My early years
There are a lot of things from my youth that I treasure and would not be unhappy to have them back again. Don’t laugh, but BB Bats are one thing I loved as a child. They were a taffy like substance stuck on a stick.

May 16, 2013
Barada: Local library should be a county facility
A noble effort is underway to renovate and expand the Rushville Public Library. It will not be an easy task. What will help, in my opinion, will be finally making the public library a county library.

May 14, 2013
Stuart: Snorkeling fun, in and out of the water
As I continue to relive my spring break vacation in these pages (we’re only a couple of days into it so far - this could last well into the autumn!), I’ll reveal the biggest shock my kids received on our Carnival Cruise. It was 7:30 on a sunny Tuesday morning, when I woke them and said we’d arrived in Charlotte

May 11, 2013
Ziemke: Back home again in Batesville
Following the hustle and bustle of Indianapolis, I must say that it has been nice to be home this past week. Session is an exciting process to be a part of, but for now, I am just going to enjoy the fact that I can be at my restaurant more often to talk to the folks I represent at the Statehouse.

May 10, 2013
Wolfsie: Bird calls
One afternoon in 2011, my friend Eric spent a couple of hours over lunch explaining Twitter to me and I thought I understood it all, but as you’ll see from my first few tweets, I wasn’t very confident:

May 9, 2013
Mauzy: Weddings paint a larger picture of life
The marriage of my oldest daughter was this past weekend. With great fortune, weather remained wonderful for the outside venue. More than a stroke of good luck concerning the weather, the calm and positive energies of everyone in attendance would have overcome any adversity.

May 8, 2013
Messer: Have we learned the lessons of 9/11?
September 11 was a devastating wake up call for every American. The events of that terrible day taught us that we are at war with violent Islamist extremists. If we let them, these jihadists are committed to exploiting our generosity and legal protections to further their murderous mania. The 9/11 Commission which investigated that tragedy concluded warning signs were everywhere, noting that “the system was blinking red.”

May 8, 2013
More Columns Headlines

Columns

Search Results

Discussion

Stuart: The roots of Super Bowl rooting

Site Map

Contact Us