This Sunday is the Super Bowl, and I couldn’t be more jazzed about it. Although I’m deadly normal in every other possible way, no one can talk with me for two minutes without getting the impression that I’m a lunatic extreme Colts fanatic. In conversations, it may seem that I merely search for excuses to segue into football, but in fact everything that happens in life is analogous to something I’ve seen in a Colts game. Now whenever I get caught up in the debate about the president’s decision to send more troops to Iraq, I point out how it is like the time when the Colts’ great quarterback, Peyton Manning, in the closing moments of the second half of a game against the New Orleans Saints in 2001, faked spiking the ball, pretending to kill the clock, and instead held onto the ball and ran around the end for a touchdown. Unfortunately, the fake was so effective that the referee, too, was fooled and whistled the play dead prematurely. Despite the outcome, that was a great moment of pure acting, and it was a lot of fun, too. The analogy is perfect, and it often leads to much longer discussions about the greatness and general lovability of my Indianapolis Colts.
Until I married, everything at my house was Colts-related. My wife, though, never caught on. For instance, I can’t get her to paint her face blue on Sundays. At one time, a horseshoe clock graced the wall. Player figurines and bobble-head dolls cluttered the mantel. The living room carpet was a miniature of the RCA Dome playing field. In those days, before my marriage, crossing from the front door to the dining room was like running back a kickoff, and I kept a miniature football handy in order to celebrate in the end zone—you know, whenever I desperately needed a small victory. These days my shrine is relegated to the basement den, and all that survives upstairs is an autographed photo of Coach Tony Dungy—if you don’t count my Colts slippers and the Colts-theme pajamas my wife lets me wear on the nights before game days.
Oh, and then there’s our quick, voracious little dog. He’s a big fan, too. His name is Cato June, and he has contributed to the Colts’ success by way of a certain magical property associated with his head. I call it his “lucky head.” At any tense moment in a game, such as near the end of the most recent AFC championship battle with the New England Patriots, I rub our dog’s head and that causes good fortune to emanate from it. Often it’s just powerful enough to get a long pass into the hands of Marvin Harrison or to provide traction for Joseph Addai’s final burst of effort at the goal line. You know Cato June is going to be sitting beside me Sunday afternoon getting his head rubbed. Only for this purpose would I remove the little Colts helmet he normally wears. We sport matching home jerseys emblazoned with Peyton’s number 18.
That reminds me of the topic I had really planned to address today, namely, the ridiculous narratives that the sports commentators and writers conspired to invent to suggest that Peyton Manning is some sort of basket case, incapable of winning “the big game.” Two weeks ago, they were prepared to add another chapter of incriminations and must have been disappointed when Peyton orchestrated a masterful comeback against the Patriots and demonstrated that Patriot quarterback Tom Brady wasn’t divinely ordained to beat the Colts and diminish Peyton’s greatness.
The Bears-Colts game is a dream match-up for Michiana. We really can’t lose. And if you don’t like football, the halftime performer will be the artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince. The king, though, will be Peyton Manning, and if my dog is ready for this game—and I think he is—the Bears don’t stand a chance.