Bittersweet Symphony

They ran out of the tunnel and were immediately swallowed by a sea of black and yellow. I remember watching it in my apartment with my roommates and thinking about what a trap it was. Ironically, the year we finally made it to the Superbowl, it was held in Detroit, only a couple hours from Pittsburgh. We were basically playing in the Steelers' backyard.

Any Seattle sports fan knows how frustrating the next few hours were. An offense that sputtered when it mattered most. Questionable calls from the refs. Jerome Bettis running around like he was in his prime again. 

That was five years ago, but it still hurts. The Hawks haven't come all that close to that same success since, and over the past couple years they've flirted with rock bottom. Even after they brought in a new coach this year who sought to rebuild the program from the ground up, I wasn't all that optimistic. They were still a losing team, making the playoffs by default, and it was more of a joke than anything else. In fact, many people in Seattle, and we're not just talking about the Starbucks-slurping hipsters here, said they would rather have Seattle lose out of the playoffs than be in it as the first 7-9 team to compete in them. I don't know if I agreed with that, but I at least had to think about it for a minute.

Everything changed after the kickoff on Saturday. And even that was horrible, a shank that fell out of bounds and put the Saints in nice field position to begin dissecting our defense. But as I watched that game, the 12th Man in me was ressurected. It didn't matter if we were the worst team in playoff history, the laughing stock of the sports world. What mattered was the moment- and in that moment, we were toe to toe with the world champs, taking our shots and swinging right back. And we weren't just jabbing. We were throwing haymakers.

Long bombs on third and short. Trickery in the red zone. Gutsy blitzes that paid off. A defense that would bend but not break, refusing to give up the big plays that Drew Brees could usually complete with ease against us. An aging QB who decided that if this was going to be his last game, he would go down with guns blazing. And then The Earthquake.

I still feared that the Saints would stop us in the fourth quarter and get the ball back with enough time to put together a game winning-drive. When we handed it to Marshawn on second down, we were just trying to run down the clock. It was designed to get 4 or 5 yards max. He hit the pile hard like he usually does, staying up and keeping his legs moving. Engulfed in the Saints defense, no one could have predicted what would happen next. Somehow, he broke free.

Bursting into the secondary, he already had a taste of the endzone. Beast Mode was in Feast Mode. He shook a tackle and then met an unfortunate defender who tried to hit him high. With his left arm, Marshawn threw him- literally threw him- five yards. It was just Tracy Porter he was throwing to the turf, but it felt like he was throwing off so much more than that. Years of frustration and pain, losing, and heartbreak met his arm in that explosion. GET OFF ME! The impact of that stiff arm was so great that it looked like it even sent Marshawn backwards a little. But he kept running. Broke a couple more tackles and danced into the endzone for what was absolutely one of the most phenomenal plays I've ever seen in any sport.

Forget Beast Mode. Marshawn was Super Mario, and he had just gotten the star. Nobody was going to stop him.

Everyone already knows this, but the crowd at Qwest went so nuts during that play that it registered as seismic activity in Seattle. Not enough to send another tsunami out this way, but enough to show just how much we can care about our teams if the spark is there.

Saturday, January 8th could just be a flash in the pan of a disappointing season overall. But that game alone woke up the fan in me. It gave me a sense of pride that I haven't been able to feel for way too long.

Sometimes the phrase anything can happen is a cliche that people use to give them false hope. Most of the time it doesn't. So thank God for football. Thank God for sports. Because it rang truer than ever during this game. Anything did happen, and who knows, maybe it will happen again.

If it does, remember to drop, cover, and hold.

Crossroads

Once we sat on a hill of sand overlooking the desert. The sun was setting below an endless ocean of Saharan dunes and a slight breeze rolled in. I grabbed a handful of sand and let it slowly trickle through my fingers like an hour glass. It was so fine that as it left my hand, the wind took it and it virtually dissolved into thin air. What's next? I wondered.

Four years later, we sat in a Mexican restaurant in downtown Seattle, taking in the Christmas decorations and reminiscing with cold beers and chips and salsa. It was the first time we had been united since each taking off on our different endeavors in different corners of the world after graduation. As we laughed and joked, I realized that so much had changed and yet so much was still the same. And now, much like we had shared that moment in the Sahara, we now shared something else: we had each reached a crossroad in our lives. What's next? we wondered.

It would be a lie if I told you only a few easy decisions lie ahead. My mind is in a whirlwind right now. Though we didn't show it while sipping Dos Equis and reliving our college days, I think all of us were going through it. But as I left the restaurant and headed to my car, I reached a crosswalk. I waited in the cold as the cars sped by, looking for an opportunity to get to the other side. It was then that I realized it was pointless to focus on the cars that had already passed through the interesection, and I turned my head towards those that were still approaching.

I keep seeing that sand, slipping through my hands like an hour glass and disappearing into the wind. Fortunately, I still have the same people by my side who were there with me that evening on the hill in the desert. And so many others.

"While the world is breathtaking, we find the most overwhelming beauty of all within each other."