I haven’t really been a sports “fan” for decades, but I will be watching the Super Bowl tonight. The reasons for my lack of fanaticism are for another time, though you might guess some of them if you’ve been following the NFL’s decision to prioritize left-wing politics in their halftime entertainment.
Nevertheless, I will be chowing down on chili, chips and guacamole, and whatever other dessert wizardry my wife and daughters have cooked—or, rather, baked—up for the occasion as I watch some of the best athletes in the world playing a game that I played competitively through my senior year in high school—and still love to play and watch.
Yes, the halftime entertainment is ridiculous, but many of us have been tuning out the halftime show for its inappropriate content for a while. It’s a good time to refill the chili, smoke a cigar, start the desserts, or just talk to each other. If we really need singers and dancers in between halves, this year we can tune in to the non-woke and (we hope) wholesome All-American Halftime Show put on by Turning Point USA.
The reasons for me to watch are numerous. It is still an event that functions to unite the country. People do talk about the game and the commercials in the following week. The athleticism on display is startling. And, unlike some of our other sports, the championship is determined by a game and not a series. We can put aside one night and not five or seven nights.
The most compelling reason for watching, however, is tradition. The Super Bowl has been around for a long time and has provided many memories, both of the purely sporting kind and, more importantly, the personal kind. For me, three stand out in blazing glory.
The 1986 Monsters of the Midway
This year is the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Bears victory over the New England Patriots. Growing up in northern Indiana, my friends and I were all Bears fans. The Colts, who had left Baltimore in the middle of the night in March 1984 to relocate to Indianapolis, were no closer to us than the Bears and had yet to gain any allegiance. Especially since that ’85-’86 Bears team was legendary.
Running back Walter Payton churned out the yardage on the ground. The talented but slightly insane quarterback Jim McMahon threw to Willie Gault. And the defense was extraordinary. Defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan’s famous 46 defense (yes, that’s real, in case “Coach” Walz asks) allowed only 12.4 points per game.
Future Hall of Famers Mike Singletary, Richard Dent, and Steve McMichael made sure the other teams were in fear constantly. Their teammate William “Refrigerator” Perry added to the fearsomeness but also the entertainment: Hall of Fame head coach Mike Ditka put the 335-pound defensive lineman in at fullback when the offense was on the goal line. He became the heaviest man to score a touchdown in Super Bowl history.
A classmate and neighbor invited us to his Super Bowl party that year. He had a ping pong table and a pinball machine. We played, danced, and sang along to the team’s viral music video, the Super Bowl Shuffle. Then we shouted at the television and celebrated the team’s Super Bowl victory over the New England Patriots.
As a sixth-grader, there was nothing better than this victory. That the legendary crew who finished 18-1 and drew comparisons to the 1972 Miami Dolphins didn’t produce the dynasty we all expected (and the Patriots, of all teams, eventually did) provided some good lessons to go along with the memories.
A Super Bowl in the Mother Country
The next memorable Super Bowl was nine years later in 1995. Though I wasn’t a serious fan of either the San Diego Chargers or the San Francisco 49ers, their game came to me as a bit of home. I had just arrived in the damp, rainy, dreary, and dark of England for a study abroad program at Oxford University. Having arrived in the country only a few days before, I was jet-lagged, disoriented, and somewhat uncomfortable, not knowing a soul in the United Kingdom or my program.
Given that most of us were 19- or 20-year-olds and had bodies still operating on American time, the game’s local start at 11:21 PM was no barrier to enjoying it. I crowded into a room with my fellow students and got to experience the comfort of an American tradition while meeting the people I would live with for the next three months. Since the 49ers mopped up the Chargers, there was no need to watch the whole thing, so I didn’t stay up too late either.
The Super Bowl of Destiny
Third in chronology, but not in my heart, is the 1998 Super Bowl. Like 1995, I was new in a town. This time, it was the Big Apple. I had just moved to the Bronx for graduate study in theology at Fordham University perhaps a week before—again without knowing anyone. By Super Bowl Sunday, I had only met a couple of fellow students. After Mass in the morning, however, I was introduced to a few more. They invited me to take part in a tradition among Fordham graduate students: the Faith vs. Reason Bowl.
This event featured graduate students in theology versus graduate students in philosophy. I’m sure there were students from other disciplines there, but the bulk of the players were from these departments. It was from this group that I took many friends—and one who would be much more.
Though the first young woman I met, a philosophy graduate student, walking over to the athletic fields was very beautiful, I soon found out she was dating a theology student whom I had just met. I would soon meet another, however.
Though Saint Thomas Aquinas demonstrated persuasively why theology, and not philosophy, is the highest science, the team representing theology did not represent that truth on the gridiron. A dashing young priest named Fr. Anthony, who had played baseball and run track during his undergraduate career, quarterbacked the philosophers that day. Between his running and passing to a bevy of former high school athletes, the theologians were crushed.
The silver lining, however, was that in my attempt to sack Fr. Anthony, I kept having to get around a pretty brunette playing on the philosophy offensive line. She was a roommate of the girl I’d met first. She had heart.
After the game, we all cleaned up and then headed to a bigger apartment. Unlike the Bears victory of my childhood (46-10) or the 49ers victory a few years before (49-26), this was a competitive match. The Denver Broncos won 31-24.
And I had won a great many friends, many of whom I still talk to regularly 28 years later, including the fleet of foot Fr. Anthony.
That girl on the philosophy offensive line? The following year, Cathy and I started dating. We married in 2001 and had seven children, two of whom have played football themselves.
We’ll be watching the game this year with four of them. As we cheer the game and eat the chili, we’ll remember many Super Bowls, including one in which I met a girl with heart who would later take mine.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
Super Bowls l, ll, and lll are still my favorites.
Even for diehard NFL fans, yesterday’s five field goals and a cloud of dust was quite the snoozefest.
I haven’t watched an NFL game since players kneeled for the flag and the league did nothing. I’ll watch the TP USA show this year though.
The NFL has become too woke, too political, allowing kneeling during the National Anthem, forcing players to take the clot shot, playing two national anthems, and now allowing America hating performers to degrade American culture with symbolism and values incongruent with Biblical teachings.
We can all enjoy the food without supporting the borderline demonic NFL!
I no longer watch football, it has become to political and socialist! Once the owners allowed the players to kneel for the National Anthem they can keep the game!!
You have a right to do what you want to some degree. Most jobs have rules and boundaries to which employees abide.
Sadly, the NFL lacks respect for America and many who watch football–thus you are allowed to kneel. The kneeling thing is passe and, frankly my dear, most Americans have found it to be annoying and misplaced at the very least. Go kneel on your own turf.