On Da Bandwagon (fuck it)

I’ve never been a bandwagon jumper with sports teams, having always pretty much stuck to my guns since birth: The Iowa Hawkeyes for anything college, the Oakland Raiders in the NFL and St. Louis Cardinals for pro baseball.

Over the years, of course, my concern over the success of the Raiders and Cardinals has waned, as I pay much less attention to sports as I did when I was 12 (except for the Hawks, though — I’m still an insecure pubescent goon when it comes to them.) The Cardinals are solid (still alive in the playoffs, I think) but I don’t give two turds about baseball anymore. I used to worship the Raiders as a child, but these days they’re arguably one of the worst franchises in professional sports and show little signs of building upon that reputation.

So I’m in Chicago now and I start to notice this nifty little undefeated Bears team they got — the one that plays nasty defense like the fabled ’85 squad did, the one that’s finally found a way to put points on the board — and I’m thinking to myself that perhaps it’s time to make a change.

And you know what? Fuck it — I don’t feel the least bit guilty. There’s a lot to like about these guys. Coach Lovie Smith seems like a reasonable guy. The stout defense, and practically the entire team for that matter (filled with only a couple recognizable stars) perfectly personifies the blue-collar, 'it ain't all about me' spirit of this town. Quarterback Rex Grossman (finally healthy after four years) looks like he has more fun out there throwing the ball around than an eight-year-old at a Pop Warner game.

This is my kind of team.

I didn’t have tickets or anything, of course (they’re hard enough to get when they suck), and I’d slept through the pregame tailgating with a massive hangover, but I figured I’d go down the Soldier Field as Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills was ending to get a glimpse of what the hoopla of this 4-0 start was all about.

Basically every preconceived notion I had of what being around a Bears game would be like came to fruition. There were fat men in Brian Urlacher and Walter Payton jerseys raving about Da Bears in their South Side accents, and there were fat women in jerseys raving right with them. The scent of spilled beer and steaming brats was omnipresent. The entire crowd (with the exception of the scant Bills fans, who by the looks on their faces have already pretty much given up on this season) was in the state of bliss that only an intense football fan can be in when his/her team is off to an impressive 5-0 start and is quite3 possibly the team to beat on the way to the Super Bowl.

There was a moment which I stood up on the cub of the sidewalk to take in a glance of the panoramic view: the McCormick Place parking lot filled with tailgaters directly in front of me, Soldier Field’s Roman-like stone façade beyond it, a tranquil, sky blue Lake Michigan to my right, the bustling traffic of Lake Shore Drive to my left and the breathtaking Sears Tower-dominated skyline overlooking it all like a proud parent.

I felt the entire city was looking down on at me during that moment, smiling, patting me on the shoulder and saying, “This is why you moved here, Jeremy. Welcome.”

As I was heading back up north to catch the train a young guy (who appeared lethally intoxicated) looked over at me from across the street and pumped his fists in the air triumphantly. I pumped mine back as he began jogging across the street towards me keeping his right hand up in high five mode.

“I ain’t gonna leave ya hanging, buddy,” he hollered as he weaved in and out of traffic.

“Fucking five-and oh, man! Fucking five-and-oh!” He declared as our hands met in mid-air.

“We’re going all the way this year,” I reply, subconsciously referring to them as we.

At that moment my Bears fandom had taken on tangible form. I grinned.