|
The first Colts game I remember watching just happens to be the one still known as “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”
Three days after Christmas in 1958, the Colts came from behind to beat the mighty New York Giants 23-17 in the first sudden-death overtime game.
Like the rest of America, I became hooked on professional football.
Those were the Baltimore Colts, and they offered plenty to fuel a boy’s imagination. Legendary quarterback Johnny Unitas and his graceful receiver, Raymond Berry, shone brightest. Speedy Lenny Moore ran and caught passes like today’s Reggie Bush. L.G. “Long Gone” Dupre still ranks on the top 10 list of best nicknames.
In a half-century of fandom since then, only a few championship games rival the big one in my book.
In 1963, I cheered as the Chicago Bears used a stout defense to defeat the hated Giants. The Bears lived up to their nickname, Monsters of the Midway, even though they played in Wrigley Field — several miles from the famous Midway Plaisance in what today is President Obama’s south-side neighborhood.
That game remains special because it marked the first and only time I gained admission to the dimly lit, mysterious bar room of Kendallville’s Elks Lodge.
Dad’s connections allowed him to secretly open the bar on a Sunday afternoon to watch the game on a black-and-white TV. He and his friends surreptitiously swigged beer from long-necked brown bottles with labels such as Falstaff and Carling Black Label, now long forgotten — at least by Americans.
By the time I grew old enough to enter the Elks bar legally, the graceful Elks Temple in downtown Kendallville had been leveled like a quarterback meeting Dwight Freeney.
Flash forward five more years in football history, and I found myself rooting against the Colts. Early 1969 swept in as a time to fight The Establishment, and the Colts had come to represent everything conservative and corporate about the haughty National Football League. Brash Joe Willie Namath was leading the underdog New York Jets and the upstart American Football League into battle, boldly guaranteeing victory.
Namath delivered, and pro football would never be the same. I watched in a room full of stunned Colts fans, taking every opportunity to rub it in.
College football took center stage for me over the next decade, as Joe Montana led Notre Dame to a national championship. My loyalties followed him into the pros, but his four Super Bowl wins just merge into a fuzzy montage of highlights.
Though Montana showed a flair for dramatics in Super Bowls, nothing stands out like his desperate pass in 1981 that led to “The Catch” by Dwight Clark, sending the 49’ers to their first Super Sunday.
In the midst of Montana’s heroics in the ’80s, the Bears turned in one unforgettable championship season. They clobbered the Patriots in the most lopsided Super Bowl to that point, but anyone who stuck around to watch the whole game saw a memorable touchdown plunge by massive defensive tackle William “The Refrigerator” Perry.
Like Namath, the Bears pushed the envelope with a freewheeling image and their own rap song, “Super Bowl Shuffle.”
For the next two decades, Super Bowl parties stand out above the games in my memory bank.
In the ’90s, I stopped laughing at the Indianapolis Colts and started cheering for teams led by Jim Harbaugh and Peyton Manning. They won plenty of games, but couldn’t reach the big stage until three years ago, against my former-favorite and still No. 2 Bears.
Manning couldn’t be more different from the fu-manchu-wearing Namath or shades-clad Super Bears QB Jim McMahon, but he provided a new kind of serious, cerebral football hero. Brains finally triumphed over brawn when the Colts won the Super Bowl in 2007.
So now, I’m back where I started, cheering for a precision-passing quarterback and acrobatic receivers with horseshoes on their helmets in the biggest game of all.
After half a century, the first championship game I ever watched still stands as the finest. Maybe tonight, with two high-octane offenses ready to burn rubber, will top it and become the new Greatest Game.
DAVE KURTZ is the editor of The Star. He may be reached at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
.
|
