The first NFL game I remember was seeing Marino getting sodomized by the Jags in the divisional round in '99. Since then, being a Dolphins fan has been nothing but pain. The thing is, for some reason I’m totally okay with the Dolphins underperforming. Even this season, which is late playoff run or bust, I’m completely understanding of all our failures. As long as the Fins even smell like they’re on the right track, I’m ecstatic.
Within the same general time frame, one of the first college games I remember is the University of Miami destroying Nebraska in the National Championship. The Canes were dominant. Everybody was going to the NFL. These days I have no patience for the Canes. My standards are so much higher. It doesn’t make sense to view these two teams through such a different lens.
Is it just me, or do you guys also benchmark against your early memories? Trying to figure out why I didn’t love the Dolphins any less during their one win season, but a 5 loss Canes gives me heartburn.
I was 6, 8 and 9 when the Elway Broncos lost three Super Bowls. My whole childhood was spent obsessed with football and obsessed with the dream that one day we would win the Super Bowl.
I was 17 and 18 when the Elway Broncos went back to back. It was an experience that in many ways summed up closure on my childhood. As a kid I would live, breathe and sleep the Denver Broncos and dream desperately that the Broncos would win a Super Bowl like it was the most important thing that could ever happen in my life. John Elway was my ultimate life role model and summed up the epitome of an American hero. By the age of 18, there were more things in my life - college, girls, career plans, desires to travel and work abroad which meant I would see a world outside America and football.
But it was a wonderful way to get closure on that footballing childhood to see the Broncos win those rings, and it was also poignant to see Elway depart at the same time as my childhood. I was going to have to find new heroes in life beyond my quarterback.
My childhood watching the Broncos taught me a few parallels that have stayed with me in life. I had a major crush on a girl from about the age of 13 to 16, we were pretty good friends but I was way too socially awkward to say anything. Then I remember her starting to date this other dude, her first boyfriend, when I was 16.
Almost around exactly the same time, the Broncos had that haunting defeat to the Jags in the playoffs where the Broncos had looked set for a Super Bowl run and lost the divisional round. It was awful for Broncos fans because we thought Elway isn’t going to be around forever and that could be the closing of our window. And it also struck me with this girl - we were likely going off to college at 18. I was probably never going to see her again after that. There was a ‘window’ and if I got a shot again I had to take it.
Well, she dated this guy for about a year and then they had a break up, and I had to make my move, and yeah, she started going out with me. This was the year the Broncos won their first ring. It was like a lesson in life about taking your chances and recognizing the finite windows of opportunity in life. We were still dating when the Broncos won the second Super Bowl, but then we went to college in different places, and when we tried to do it long distance it faded away, just like the Broncos faded away without Elway.
But I was much better placed to deal with life and opportunities after that. And also that Broncos childhood has given me a strong belief in life that it might take you a long time to achieve something and you might have a lot of moments where you get close and just miss out, and others where you seem to be regressing alarmingly backwards. But if you make sure your fundamentals are right, the way you apply yourself to something, and the way you never quit in adversity like Elway didn’t, you have a shot at being rewarded in the end.
So for me, whatever the Broncos do or don’t do, that footballing childhood following the Broncos was an amazing experience and something for which I am eternally grateful.