PART I

Happy New Year 

So here we are, the year 2005, and I am happy to report that the overall state of Chicago sports is looking pretty good more or less, hockey not included.[1] The Bears have certainly had a disappointing season (how bad is this offense?) but there were some exciting games that showed real promise on defense. Plus, Rex missed basically the whole year, and the first guy we had behind him was Jonathan Quinn. The Bulls may come into the year with a 9-17 mark, but a five-game win streak helped propel them to an 8-7 December. They still have a long way to go, but they’re a young, athletic, exciting team that could surprise some people. As for the Cubs, 89 wins and third place in the division was a real disappointing 2004, which just shows how high the expectations are on the North Side. Even with the mess that is our current outfield, this team is set up beautifully right now, and I fully expect us to be in the World Series in October. The White Sox had another down year in ’04, considering they’ve had the best team on paper in the AL Central for the past four years, so we’ll see how they’re looking. I’m not nearly as high on their prospects as I am for the Cubs, but that’s just me. My best friend Luke is diehard Sox, and talking to him you’d get the impression that Jon Garland is the second coming of Jack McDowell. So you never know. The Sox’ll be an interesting club to watch in ’05, having gotten rid of Mags and Carlos Lee, but I don’t see them passing Minnesota.

And then there’s U of I hoops, currently undefeated and No. 1 in the nation. Three weeks ago on December 1^st, the Illini (No.3 ESPN/No. 5 AP at the time) welcomed the top-ranked Wake Forest Demon Decons to Assembly Hall by sprinting out to a 54-33 halftime lead and shutting down the best team in the land by a final of 91-73. The last six minutes or so of that game consisted pretty much of the “Orange Krush” Illini fans going absolutely loco with the “We’re No. 1” and “Overrated” chants. Just crazy. College sports aren’t huge around here—there’s no dominant program, like Duke Basketball or Miami Football—but there’s a tremendous amount of support for our local schools (U of I, Northwestern, DePaul, Northern and Southern most notably) and a hot collegiate club will always get fans excited.

So that’s the rundown for 2005. This is a city in transition, full of teams filled with promise, anxious to deliver. What kind of year will it be? To quote Chris Berman: THAT’S why we play the games.

January 1, 2oo5

As college football continues to strive towards a system that produces one true national champion (yeah right), even the grand tradition of the Rose Bowl has been subverted. In 2002, the game abandoned its traditional Big Ten-Pac 10 matchup when it hosted Miami and Nebraska for the national championship…on January 3^rd. In January of ’03, the game featured Pac-10 champ Washington State against at-large team Oklahoma. We got lucky last year with Michigan-USC, but today it’s back to the modern sports world with a Michigan-Texas game. Still, the Rose Bowl is the Rose Bowl, and it’s a game that I do not miss.

When it came time to decide where to watch, there was only one choice: my buddy Sven Stafford’s house. It’s not even a question. The Staffords are what I refer to as a “sports family.” This is not simply a family that enjoys watching sports. That would be my family. No, the classic sports family can be spotted by a few major characteristics, all of which are held by the Staffords.

1.     The family has at least one team that it is absolutely, through the roof, diehard in love with. For Bill, Ingrid, Sven, and Will, that team is Michigan football. They love the Red Wings, the White Sox, the Tigers, the Lions, and Northwestern football, but their one over-the-top balls-out passion is Michigan football.

2.     Each family member must carry his or her own weight as a sports fan. The weak link in most families is the mother, but Ingrid knows as much as anyone of the four. And she’s got her own fandom going on. She’s the biggest Tiger fan in the family, and speaks with much energy and exuberance of the days of Al Kaline, Jim Bunning, Denny McLain, and Mickey Lolich. A few years ago, I called her from school to tell her that a game from the ’68 World Series was on ESPN Classic. If you’re a mom getting sports-related “what’s on TV” phone calls from your son’s friends, you know you’re a real fan.

3.     Finally, there’s the sports family’s home. The sports family’s home is often the site of large gatherings of sports fans for important games. It’s not just that they’re holding the gathering, but rather that as a fan with respect, you want to watch certain games at certain places, and Sven’s house for Michigan games is that place.

Not that it’s not a great place to watch a game independent of their fandom. Sven’s parents moved into a penthouse apartment in Evanston when we were in college. They put up a flat screen TV with surround sound and all that other cool stuff, surrounded by a curving sectional couch that stretches from here to Wisconsin. Don’t get me wrong: we would’ve all been going to the Staffords’ for the Rose Bowl even if they still lived in the house that Sven and Will grew up in. That was a classic house, and the site of many sports-related gatherings. But let’s face it: this is one tremendous set-up.

We woke up at Ric’s house this morning as we have the since the 2000/2001 New Year, as Ric’s parents go out of town every year and are kind enough to leave us the house. It used to be quite the raucous affair, but this year was toned down just a bit; the same levels of drunken silliness, though with significantly less vomiting. (Our vomiting peaked when we were around 22. That’s usually the case.) Actually, this was a bit of an odd year, as my girlfriend Meghan was waitressing at her bar in Evanston, meaning that I took a cab from Ric’s to the bar in order to be with her At The Stroke.

Donuts in the morning, as we all gather on the couch to watch the footage of the night before. This is a cleansing act; we have a group understanding that whatever is on the tape is in the past, and that’s the end of it. Later on, we arrive at Sven’s about a half an hour before kick off, and as soon as we enter the Stafford household, our New Year’s recovery is complete and the stage is set; a classic fan atmosphere. A big plate of shrimp is the center piece, surrounded by all of the essentials of chips, pop, and beer, and since we’re at the Staffords we are treated to a diverse ensemble of beers, most notably Labatt Blue, Killians, Goose Island, Leinenkugal, Hacker Pschorr, Jever, Sam Adams, and Moosehead. But most importantly, there’s a big group of people, all brought together to watch sports. There’s nothing better.

Bill is in full fan-mode when we get upstairs, decked out in a blue Michigan sweatshirt and swigging a Leinenkugel. He’s one of my all-time favorite people to watch sports with because he is all out. He once described Michigan Stadium as the greatest place to watch a football game, calling it beautiful due to its “100,000 screaming, educated fans.” I remember one time in 2001 when I went over to Sven’s to watch Game 7 between the Red Wings and the Avs. That was classic. Bill was in rare form that day. The Wings scored like eight goals in the first period, and each one was accompanied by a Bill Stafford-verbal assault on Avs goaltender Patrick Roy. “Take that you French-Canadian ass!” After the third goal, the cable went out for no more than twenty seconds, leaving Bill screaming out in anger: “Somebody better lose their job over this. And I don’t care if he has kids!” It was a good time.

“Hey Jack, how’s it going?”

“Bill, what’s happening?”

“So Jack, how many Ohio State freshmen does it take to change a light bulb?”

“I don’t know. How many?”

“None. That’s a sophomore course.”

We shuffle around and get ourselves situated, saying hello to the other guests, many of whom we are vaguely familiar simply from past Stafford gatherings. I make the rounds, and then spot Sven’s brother Will, who is wearing a Santa-style Bears hat.

“Wiiiiiill.”

“Jaaaaaack.”

“Nice hat, man.”

“Yeah,” he says, taking it off his head and looking at it sadly. “I wanted the Sox, or Michigan, or the Wings, or Northwestern, but I couldn’t find any so I went with the Bears.”

“Looks good. Listen, do you think I could borrow that? Meg and I are going to the Green Bay game tomorrow, and I don’t want to wear this,” I say, motioning to my green Minnesota North Stars hat that I’ve been wearing since August.”

“Oh definitely. Love to have you represent in it.” He hands me the hat, and then thinks for a second. “Yeah…I was going to ask you. Where’s the Bears hat?”

I am a hat man. I began wearing hats in second or third grade, though at the time it was rather sporadic: I always wore a hat, even though I didn’t have my One Hat. I’ve owned one Cubs hat in my life, and it met a tragic end at the Noyes El platform when, on my way to my first ever Cubs game with my family, it blew off my head and onto the tracks. That was it for Cubs hats. I rocked a few different Bulls hats in the early ’90s, but my first Jack M. Silverstein staple hat was my fitted Northwestern hat that I got for my birthday in sixth grade. I wore that hat for 361 straight days, from November 6^th, 1993 (the day I turned 12) to November 12^th, 1994, the day of my Bar-Mitzvah. One of my Bar-Mitzvah gifts was a new Bears hat, and I put that on immediately and wore it the rest of the day with my suit. (I remember feeling like an NFL draftee, all dressed up in my suit and tie and then proudly topping it off with my new Bears hat…pushing in and down on the brim all night, trying to get it perfrect…) I wore that Bears hat every day until my birthday in 1995, when, in my rocking-non-Chicago-sports-apparel phase, I got a fitted North Carolina Tar Heels hat, which was, somehow, stolen off my head in the hallways of Wilmette Junior High in eighth grade. After the back-to-back glory of NU/Bears from November of ’93 to November of ’95, I went into a bit of a rut, bouncing around for a while during a confused high school period in which my hats overlapped. My notables, in chronological order:

1. Post-UNC…Fall ’96—A navy blue little league hat that read “RH,” which stands for Round Hill, a town in Virginia where my mom’s good friend lives
2. Spring ’97-Winter ’97—A white NU hat signed by Gary Barnett (retired by me in 1998 when Barnett jumped ship for Colorado, just after signing, like, a mondo 12-year deal)
3. Winter ’97-Spring ’98—A navy blue Nike Kangol-style hat
4. Spring ’98—A red Nike Tiger Woods swoosh hat (killed when I dropped some super-greasy fried chicken on it while out to dinner with my folks, MJ, and Nana and Papa)
5. Summer ’98-Spring 2000—A navy blue Old Navy baseball cap

This was a bad time for me, hat-wise. The back-to-back NU/Bears period led me into an ill-advised one-year-and-done mindset, with me retiring both way too early. Then the UNC hat got swiped, and I bounced around for a while, and somehow that led me to wearing a non-sports hat for almost two years. So it was at the start of the summer of 2000 when I decided that I needed a new hat for college, and I settled on a fitted Bears hat, which I wore from the Summer of 2000 through the Summer of 2004. That streak ended at camp last summer, when I mentioned to my friend Dan Lichtenstein that I loved his green Minnesota North Stars hat, and being that he is one of the most thoughtful and generous people I know, he gave me the hat, no questions asked. Moved by his kindness, I gave my Bears hat to a camper of mine who had taken to taking it off my head and wearing it around throughout the summer. I love my North Stars hat—our camp is called North Star, and this hat is a constant reminder of camp and of my friendship with Dan—but it does leave me without a constant Bears representative, which is always a problem but is particularly noticeable in times of Bears-need, such as a Bears-Packers game at Soldier Field. While I do have a winter Bears stocking hat—I bought it the day before attending the Bears-Eagles playoff game in January of 2002—the Bears Santa hat seemed like too cool an option to pass up.

I throw the hat on to try it out, and it fits great and is awfully cuddly, and then Meg takes it off my head and puts it on hers, and everyone at Sven’s settles in to watch the Rose Bowl. While last year’s game was a disappointment, both in terms of Michigan’s performance and in the overall excitement, today’s game was awesome. The game featured big play after big play, with Mighigan wideout Braylon Edwards (10 catches, 118 yards, 3 touchdowns) and Texas quarterback Vince Young (193 yards rushing on 21 carries and 5 total touchdowns, four of them on the ground) leading the way. Michigan took a 31-21 lead into the fourth quarter, but Young took over for the Longhorns, running for scores of 10 and 23 yards, the latter giving Texas a 35-34 lead. After a Michigan field goal put the Wolverines up two, Texas took it back down the field and set up for a 37-yard field goal with two seconds remaining on the clock.

As is the case before most big end-of-game kicks, Michigan used both of its remaining time outs to “ice” the Texas kicker, who stood on the field waiting for his chance knowing full well that with only two seconds remaining, his kick would be the final play of the game. While we waited for five or six minutes—my friends and I, the Staffords and their friends, the kicker, both teams, both sidelines, all of the fans in Pasadena, and all the people watching on TV—the game paused at 37-35 Michigan, I began to wonder about the significance of a single kick. For 59 minutes and 58 seconds, the game had been a brilliant match of strength, speed, and teamwork, highlighting all of the best elements of sport, and both teams felt good about their chances. A 37-yard field goal is no chip shot, but it’s also a kick that most kickers expect to make. Everyone felt good about how their team had played, and because of the medium field goal length, anyone with a vested interest in either Michigan or Texas had to feel good about their team’s chances to win. Yet within minutes the ball would be in the air, and the location of that kick would determine the moods of well over 100,000 people. All the good that took place before that kick would become instantly meaningless for half of the people interested in the game, but for a little while it felt as if both teams had won. Isn’t that what counts? I mean, isn’t that what really, really, really counts? Sure, some scores you’re bound to remember. 46-10 is one that always stands out in my mind. But overall, do final scores really matter that much? Should they determine how you feel about your team and the games they play? Should we really care as much as we do about winning and losing?

As soon as the ball leaves the kicker’s foot, everyone knows it’s good, and there’s a gurgling of shock and disappointment at Sven’s as the Texas team mobs their kicker. Longhorns 38, Wolverines 37.  “Geez o’Pete!” Bill exclaims in frustration, slamming the remote down on the couch. “Goddamn Longorns.”

Slowly, the crowd at Sven’s disperses. People stand up, shaking their heads in disbelief, thank Bill and Ingrid for the invite and go on their separate ways. It’s been a fun day, a good time had by all, until, of course, that kick. Man, does it hurt to lose.

Earliest Memory

Somewhere in the fall of 1984 lies my first sports memory.

“Who do we like?” I asked my dad while staring at the screen.

“The guys in the dark shirts,” my dad answered.

“Oh…Who are they?”

“The Bears.”

“Oh…Who’s that guy?”

“That’s Walter Payton.”

“Oh…Who are those other guys?”

“Those are the Lions.”

“Oh…What’s that guy doing?”

“He’s catching a pass.”

“Oh…what’s he doing now?”

“He’s dancing, because he just scored a touchdown.”

“Oh…”

“A touchdown is when someone runs with the ball into the endzone.”

“Oh…”

“That big rectangle.”

“OOOOOOhhhhhhh.”

“What else do you want to know?”

Although I’ve watched every Super Bowl that I’ve been alive for—even, I’m told, the ones I don’t remember—my earliest sports memory, I think, is watching the Bears at my dad’s good friend’s house in the city. I remember sitting on the couch next to my dad and Danny Lorber and asking them questions about everything that happened. Little kids ask questions about everything they see because they are curious about the unknown, which is the natural thing to be when you don’t know stuff.

Of course, that kind of stuff just goes for young fans. Older people who are watching their first football games have different questions. Older people ask questions with some kind of non-sports related logic in mind, which makes explaining sports to them sort of aggravating.[2]

“That guy has already been tackled right?”

“Yeah.”

“So he’s down now, right? He can’t run anymore?”

“Yup.”

“So why do the other defenders jump onto the pile?”

“Because if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be a pile.”

“Well that’s dumb.”

Then they usually pause, think a little bit more, watch a little bit more, and then come up with another question. Usually something like…

“Why does the guy with the ball run right into all of the defenders like that?”

“That’s where his blockers are.”

“But that’s where the other team is. Why doesn’t he just run around that way to where no one is?”

“Because that’s not the play.”

“Well, why don’t they change the play?”

“Because they just don’t.”

“That’s dumb too. Let’s watch something else.”

A lot of older people ask questions like that, but if you’re with someone who wants to learn and is accepting of the Way Things Are, explaining sports can be an enjoyable challenge. Especially football, with all the formations, positions, and situations. In January of 2000 at my Super Bowl XXXIV party, I spent the duration of the game explaining football to my friend Heather. She was legitimately interested in learning the game, and I gotta tell you, it was one of the best times I ever had watching sports.

January 2, 2oo5 

Is there anything better than going to a Bears-Packers game? Man it’s exciting. Meghan and I went to Soldier Field today to watch (insert John Facenda voiceover here) the Chicago Bears take on the Green Bay Packers. For my birthday in November, my parents got me two tickets to the Bears-Colts game, and as my guest I took Meghan to what was her first ever trip to Soldier Field. My folks gave me the tickets on the morning of my birthday, about twelve hours after Meghan had given me her birthday present: two tickets to today’s game. She sure knows how to pick ‘em.

When I got the tickets in the beginning of November, I was absolutely confident that this game would be determining a playoff spot for the Bears, and possibly the division championship. Two weeks later, my faith seemed to be paying off, as the Bears won three in a row to move their record to 4-5, a game behind both Green Bay and Minnesota. Unfortunately, things did not work out our way. After the win streak, Meg and I watched Manning, James, and the Colts steamroll Krenzel and co. 41-10 followed by a Thanksgiving loss to Dallas. Then a surprise win over the Vikes with New Q Chad Hutchinson at the helm, and now we’re rolling, and then two big fat L’s in a row against Jacksonville and Houston, and now we’re not, and by the time the Bears were busy getting whored out of the Week 16 game against Detroit on one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen,[3] my confidence in the mission was severely shaken. On top of all that, Green Bay came into today’s game having already clinched the division and the NFC’s third seed, so they sat Favre midway through the second quarter. (Which, by the way, was plenty of time for him to throw for 196 yards and two scores. Bastard.) So there wasn’t the extra level of excitement that I thought there would be, but who cares? It’s Bears-Packers, and as they always say, “You can throw out the record books when these two teams get together.”

When going to a Bears game—or any game for that matter—the diehard’s first order of business is deciding what to wear. It’s very important to represent yourself well at the park, and along with supporting the team vocally, you also want to support them visually. Fans who attend games regularly have enough team apparel to properly cover themselves at the game, and many have a game-day jersey. For me, my jersey is a point of personal conflict right now, because it is former Bear and current Minnesota Viking wide receiver Marcus Robinson.

Choosing a favorite ballplayer for any sport is not a science. It is not determined by touchdowns or home runs, but rather by personal attraction. I read somewhere that choosing a favorite player is just like falling in love: you can’t always explain why he’s your favorite, you just know he is. I was a short, slow, fairly unathletic white kid growing up, so all of my favorite players have been guys who I related to in some way, mostly underdog type players who play hard and get by on intelligence. My all-time favorite Bear was a wide receiver named Tom Waddle. He only played with the team for six years, he never made the Pro Bowl, and his career numbers are not overwhelming. But he looked more like me than any other guy on the field—comparatively short and slow, and white—and he played the position that I liked the most, and he played tough and played hurt, and he played for the Bears. What’s not to love? Most importantly, he was the first football player who I ever watched who made me think, “Hey, I could do that.”[4]

Anyways, I never got a Waddle jersey for some reason,[5] and when I finally decided that I really did need a jersey, I went with Marcus Robinson. He’d had a breakout season the year before in 1999, and was becoming pretty popular in Chicago. But I became a fan after “discovering” him in 1998 when he was playing in NFL Europe for the Rhein Fire. Robinson was not like Waddle as far as athletic ability: he could jump out of the stadium and run with the best of them. Believe me, I had no delusions that I would ever be the kind of athlete that he is. But I felt a connection; I liked the way he played, he was an underdog guy, and he played for the Bears. So when I decided to ask my folks for a jersey, I asked for his. Problem was, Robinson was injury prone, and by the end of 2002 he had fallen out of favor with the Bears’ coaching staff. In 2003 he signed a one-year deal with Baltimore, and then hooked up this season with the hated Minnesota Vikings. I still like the guy, but now my game-day jersey is of a guy who doesn’t have a strong legacy with the Bears and who is now playing for a division rival. It’s not a bad legacy—he never really fell out of favor with Bear fans—so it’s not the worst thing in the world. Whenever I see people at games with SALAAM 31 or CONWAY 80 on their backs, I always feel a little bit better by comparison. But that’s how it goes with free agency. Jerseys are gambles. The same thing happened to Luke when he bought a Chris Singleton White Sox jersey—Singleton was his favorite player, and also wore Luke’s favorite number, 12, and then watched as Singleton was shipped to the O’s a year later. Luke can’t really wear that jersey to Comiskey anymore, and he spends a lot of time trying to figure out how he can get SINGLETON unstitched and somehow replaced with HARRIS. That’s why I have decided to only buy jerseys of guys whose legacy with the team is secured, which is why I am now the proud of owner of the jersey of one of my favorite announcers and one of my dad’s favorite ballplayers: Ron Santo.

Walking to the gate, the first thing I notice is the high concentration of green and yellow. Packers fans. Always a frightening sight, particularly at high levels. But it’s also nice to see, due to the unstated understanding between us and them. Sure we hate each other, but it’s love-hate—or at the very least, hate-love-hate. We’re fans built in the same mold. Being a Bears fan wouldn’t be as much fun without the Packers, and I’m sure it’s the same way for them: the rivalry makes us special. Of course, the sight of a small child in Packers gear always sickens me, but that’s to be expected. I really can’t stand the Packers, and they can’t stand us, which is how it should be. But sometimes there are players who transcend that hatred, and for me, that player is Brett Favre.

As a kid, my mom often went to Wrigley Field with her father to watch the Cubs. During one game against the Milwaukee Braves, Hank Aaron came for his first at-bat, and my grandfather stood and applauded. My mom, understandably, was confused, and asked him why he would cheer for a guy on the other team.

“There are some people,” he said, “who you cheer for no matter what team they’re on.”

When I think of that story, I think of Brett Favre.

And it’s not that I’m rooting for the guy to win. I’ve not reached that point, nor do I think that I ever will. But if I said that I was ever rooting against Favre, I would be lying. I love watching him play, I love what he represents, and I’m impressed by the fact that I can say this about a guy who plays for my most bitter of rivals. Brett Favre is one guy who if I ever have the chance, I’ll have to shake his hand.

After the Packer fans, the next thing I notice is Soldier Field itself. I always love seeing a stadium in person, and when I was growing up Soldier Field was always the Chicago park that impressed me the most. Wrigley was great fun and really lovable, New Comiskey was cold but surprisingly friendly once you became familiar with it, (I never went to a game at Old Comiskey), and the Chicago Stadium was an imposing force where the greatest basketball team in the world played. But Soldier Field was always different. It stood out architecturally because of the great stone columns, and it stood out as a symbol of all that I love about sports in this city. Bulls games are packed with business men, and Cubs games are overrun by Wrigley tourists, but Soldier Field is filled with fans. Real fans. There’s nothing cute about cold weather; there are no cutsy college chicks in their tight Bears t-shirts who drink all day while yelping about the players’ butts, and there’s no appeal in trying to impress a client by offering him a chance to freeze his balls off. The solidarity felt at all Bears games at all times, regardless of the score or the opponent, is an experience unlike any other in the city. From the tailgating in the parking lots to the walk up to the stadium, people who are strangers from Monday to Saturday become brethren coated in navy and orange, beer cans in hand and support in their hearts. We sneer at opposing fans, exchange high fives, and start cheers of “Let’s go Bears!” and “Green Bay sucks!” It’s a beautiful scene.

As for Soldier Field itself, there is an obvious difference from how it looked when I was a kid. You may notice that there is a large spacecraft-looking thing sitting on top of the columns. The park was renovated during the 2002 season, (the Bears played their home games at the University of Illinois), and I won’t be the first person to tell you that it looks bizarre from the outside. But today was my third trip to New Soldier Field, and I gotta tell you: it’s great on the inside. There’s a Bears museum on the west side of the field, the sound system and the Jumbotrons are great, and all of the sight lines are terrific. There’s really not a bad seat in the house. Yes, it’s got a different feel to it than Soldier Field had, but it’s a really great park and all things considered, they did a great job. Driving by on Lake Shore Drive always makes me shudder a bit—what in the hell is that UFO doing on top of our beloved stadium?—but it’s kind of like if your kid went out and got some kind of hideous tattoo stretching up from his back, twisting around his neck, and then ending on his cheeks. Everytime you see it, you shake your head and shudder, but then you move on, because after all, he’s still your kid.

The game is a bust. The Bears go up 7-0 on their first drive, and then proceed to allow 28 unanswered from the Packers. Chad Hutchinson gets beat up all day as the Bears’ o-line allows a robust nine sacks, and the Pack runs away with a 31-14 win. It’s sickening to watch this team play some times. But still, I’m happy. Yes, each sack allowed and each pass thrown short of the first down marker on third and long makes me cringe with anger and embarrassment, but every time I get too upset, I just remind myself that I am at Soldier Field watching the Bears, watching my team play, surrounded by thousands and thousands of people who feel the same as I do, and I feel better. It’s one of the great joys of life. And to top it off, I was with Meghan, a person who was getting her first real taste of Bears-Packers. Apart from a win, and good offensive play calling, and fewer injuries and better pass protection, there’s really not much more you can ask for.

******

The season is over. That’s all we get. 16 games, a total of 48 hours TV time, sixteen hours on the field. That’s it. Wait till next year.

Cynics will tell you that this was another lousy Bears season. 5-11, a midseason three game win streak bookended by a 1-5 start and a 1-6 finish. 32^nd in points scored, 32^nd in yards gained. Four quarterbacks, the best one—Rex—injured, with Chad Hutchinson leading the team in yards (903), completion percentage (57.1), touchdowns (4), and QB rating (73.6). Doo-fair.

But to me, this season feels like hope. Most definitely. As a sports fan, you want The Vision; what will my team look like when they are winning a championship? How will this group develop into a title team? Who needs to be replaced? Will (YOUNG, PROMISING ATHLETE) become the next (OLDER, PROMISE-FULFILLED ATHLETE) or will he become the next (BIG STINKIN’ BUM OF A BUST)? Our offense still needs quite a bit of work, and when Rex went down we lost a big opportunity, because two years into his career he has played only six games. It’s hard to figure this league out when you’re focusing on rehab.

But the defense is coming along. Obviously Urlacher and Mike Brown are studs. The key will be the rest of the guys. On the D-line, Alex Brown had a huge game against the Giants with four sacks, a forced fumble and a batted ball. He had two sacks and one forced fumble over the other fifteen games. That Giants game will probably get him a new contract, but I still don’t know how good he is. Same can be said for Michael Haynes, though he seems like he’ll be the odd man out since they’re paying Ogunleye a slew of loot. I’ll be curious to see how the D-ends shake out. The tackles are stronger. The rooks Tommie Harris and Tank Johnson were supposed to be the stud duo, but the surprise was 2003 fourth-round draft pick Ian Scott, who beat out Johnson and Alfonso Boone for the other starting tackle spot. Tommie Harris looks like a champ; I dig him a lot.

Over in the middle of the field, the linebacking corps is beginning to gel. Urlacher had a terrific year…apart from the fact that he only played six games. Whoops. But Briggs is turning into a helluva player; he’s close to making me forget about Rosy and Warrick Holdman. And though Hunter Hillenmeyer is no Colvin or Holdman, he’s starting to solidify the other spot, and certainly pulling away from Joe Odom and anyone else. Our best 11 this year was probably our nickel with Hillenmeyer on the sideline, but I get the feeling that he’s going to find a way to stick around. This Urlacher injury hurt us, but it may have paid off by giving Briggs more attention and Hillenmeyer more p.t.

As for the secondary, there’s a lot of promise here. Mike Brown had a rough break when he tore his ACL against Green Bay in Week 2; the defense was limited with him out, but like the Urlacher injury, Brown going down gave our young secondary some more experience and plenty opportunity to shake out the lineup. Unfortunately, part of that young secondary was second-year corner Peanut Tillman, who missed eight games with an injury…his most recent interception is still the one that made him famous: the Randy Moss endzone pick in the Week 15 win over Minnesota a year ago. Peanut’s absence gave rookie Nathan Vasher a lot of time, and he played very well, turning into a helluva ball-hawk playmaker. This dude was always in the right spot. He excelled in the nickel, but I still have lots of questions about him going out on an island.

So Peanut appears to be our number one corner, and Vasher is a nice addition, but is he a starter? And what about our man Jerry Azumah, the Pro Bowl return man who beat out R.W. McQuarters last season? And speaking of R-Dub, where does he fit in? This guy was playing safety this season in order to accommodate the suddenly swollen group of corners and the light crew of safeties…and he was brutal. He’s not a safety, and he’s got less promise than Peanut and Vasher, and he’s always seemed to have an ego, so I’m not sure how he’d do in the nickel. R.W. will probably be out next season, not needed when Mike Brown gets back and Nut gets a full year. As for the other safety spot, Michael Green is a nice option, though I could go for some more speed and strength at the position.

As for the offense…well, they’re too much of a mess to get into right now, but the D is coming along, and damn do we like our defense. Now is the dead time, waiting for the next chance to watch my team play. It’s a long wait from January to September. But I do feel as if things are coming around, and thank goodness for that.

January 5, 2oo5

It’s Wednesday, and I’m watching the Northwestern-Indiana basketball game, when my dad comes in. It’s a commercial.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What are you watching?”

“NU-IU.”

“Oh. What’s the score?”

“We’re up eight at the half.”

“Who’s we?”

“Northwestern.”

How does one become a fan of a particular team? Certainly geography has a lot to do with it, but it’s not the only factor. You can live your whole life in Chicago, but if your parents grew up in Michigan, you’re likely to be a fan of Michigan teams. For me, my fandom begins with my parents. Both of my parents grew up in the Chicagoland area—my dad on the North Side and my mom in Glencoe—and they raised me to be a Chicago fan. This is because their parents raised them to be Chicago fans, and so it goes.

But not all parts of our fandom are the same. I was born in 1981, three years before Michael Jordan came to town, so when I was growing up the hottest consistent team in Chicago was the Bulls. I was, and am, a huge Bulls fan, and while my parents also loved the Bulls, their interest in them was growing just as mine was. Growing up, my parents were exposed to a different sports landscape than I was, as the Bulls were not a team until 1966 when they turned 16. While basketball did have short lived stints in Chicago with the Stags, Zephyrs, and Packers,[6] the popular sports in Chicago were always football, baseball, and hockey. My dad’s dad David took my dad and my uncle Eddie to see the Cubs, Bears, and Blackhawks, though my uncle was much bigger into hockey than my dad was. In fact, the first time that I ever sat down to watch a hockey game was with Eddie, who was over watching me and my brother. The Hawks did go to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1992, and as a Chicago fan I got swept up into the fun of that team. I knew the big players—Roenick, Chelios, Larmer, Belfour—but even with the Cup appearance I was never huge into hockey. If I’m a fan of any NHL team, it’s the Hawks, but I don’t gauge my fandom by what the Blackhawks are doing.

As for my mom’s family, they were huge into the Bears and Cubs. There were no boys growing up in my mom’s house—just her and her older sister—but my grandfather still raised them to be Chicago fans. Like my grandfather David, my mom’s dad Mort—who we always called Papa—educated my mom by taking her to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs and the Bears. There obviously wasn’t as much sports on television as there is now, so game attendance was very important and quite influential on sports fandom.

I was handed the Bears and the Cubs, and my family’s Chicago ties gave me the Bulls and the Blackhawks, but what about college sports? My parents don’t have strong sports-related ties to their alma maters, so the school that I began rooting for as a young pup was Northwestern. I liked the Illini as well—and later grew to root for any Illinois school, most notably DePaul, NIU, and SIU—but due to proximity Northwestern was my team. Dyche Stadium was five minutes away from my house, and so we all went to plenty of NU games. We loved watching the team play, no matter how bad they were, and I remember also being really excited about going to games to see players from the other schools, guys who seemed to exist only on ESPN, guys like Tyrone Wheatley, Desmond Howard, and Ki-Jana Carter. There was also the added bonus of the stadium’s “flexible” ticket policies, namely allowing multiple kids in on one ticket—sometimes one ticket stub, borrowed from somebody leaving the blowout early—or even just opening the gates in the third or fourth quarter for games with low attendance. On days when we didn’t go to the stadium and just played football at the park across the street from my house, we could hear the bare bones details of the game from the p.a. announcer over the loudspeaker. (“That scoring play for the Wildcats caps off a 7 play, 82 yard drive. And at the end of the first half, the score is Ohio State 42, Northwestern 7.”)

Northwestern Football was my team. It was our team. The Bulls and the Bears and the Cubs and the Sox and the Hawks may have been the big tickets in town, but when you went to their games as a kid, it felt like you were being transported into a different world, a world only known from a television set. When you went to Dyche Stadium, it was like going to your own backyard. The park was left open during the week, and my friends and I would often go and play football on the turf.[7] After games, we would run onto the field to high five the players, regular schmoes who played football for the worst team in the Big Ten (and maybe the country) but who were heroes to all of us. We knew our way around the bowels of the stadium, and when the players were giving their jerseys to the laundry, we’d be there to shake their hand and tell them that they’d get ‘em next time. And every so often, when the team did come through with a big win, myself, my friends, and the other kids of Evanston would celebrate like we’d won the Rose Bowl.

When it came time for me to go to college, I chose Indiana University. I loved their newspaper, I liked that it was only four hours away from home, and I liked that it was a big school. I chose to attend Indiana University for four years, but I grew up with Northwestern. When it came time for NU and IU to hook up in football in the fall of 2000, I went home for the game and rolled into the stadium in purple, and I did the same the following year when Northwestern came to Bloomington. Most kids go off to college and immediately become fans of their schools—my brother is a diehard Kansas Jayhawks fan for that very reason—but that never happened for me. It would have felt like a betrayal. I did, however, end up taking to IU, and while I refer to IU as “we” nowadays, my Northwestern “we” always takes precedence.